Why I Choose Hope

I am willing to bet you have some things in your life you are hoping for. Perhaps you are hoping for a new job, or that a loved one makes better choices, or that something in your life is going to be different soon. Perhaps you have lost hope in a circumstance in your life, and that particular situation is dark and void. I have talked to many people, both professionally and personally, that have lost hope in a person, relationship or situation. But what exactly is hope? Websters Dictionary defines hope as a verb, meaning "to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true".

What?

Another definition is "expectation of fulfillment or success".

Huh?

I like that Websters identifies hope as a verb, but I don't believe these definitions to be an adequate explanation of the concept of hope. It's as if the definitions imply that hope is some kind of emotion or feeling, or maybe something we are at the whim of. I like to think that hope is a practice, something you choose to do. I'd offer that hope is a cognitive skillset, rather than a feeling. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of emotions we can experience when we engage in these kinds of practices (like gratitude, patience, etc.), but these concepts are not merely an emotional state.

Let's think about it this way; depression is one of the most common mental health issues people face. The latest research in America points to a staggering 18% of adults currently having or have received treatment for depression. In the United States, 28.5% of people will have had a diagnosis of depression in their lifetime. One of the DSM 5 criteria of a major depressive episode is hopelessness. In fact, there is discussion in the field that people suffering from depression may be overmedicated, and that therapy addressing coping skills and mindset in addition to medication is paramount in recovery from depression. Other research suggests you are less likely to develop depression if you have a sense of meaning and purpose in your life. A sense of meaning and purpose comes from believing you can impact your circumstances, and helps cultivate ways to achieve the life you want to live. In other words, fostering hope might actually protect you from depression!

There has to be some sense of agency when we talk about hope. Having hope must come from a place where we can visualize a path forward, or an alternative route if no path forward exists. C. R. Snyder's work on developing his Hope Theory identifies agency and pathways as essential mental processes for cultivating hope in your life. Agency is the mental process of believing you can impact or change your circumstances. Therefore, hope may be defined as "the mental process of seeing future goals as being possible, a belief that you can influence those future goals, and the constant search for ways to achieve these goals despite unseen or unanticipated obstacles and challenges". Hope shouldn't be magical or whimsical. Hope is action. Hope should inspire change, creativity and cognitive flexibility.

I’d like to offer a couple of thoughts and observations about hope, and how to engage in its practice.

Hope is not the same thing as wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is just simply saying something like “everything is going to be alright”. Clearly, there is nothing wrong with this kind of thinking, but I’d ask you to take this train of thought to the next level, in order to build a robust sense of hope. What is it like to instead say, “I am not sure how this is going to end, but I know that there are things that I can do about it”? Does that inspire a sense of hope when you compare the two lines of thinking? If so, I want to point out that hope is much more than just a feeling, it is an intentional practice and has to be a shift in your mindset. Once again, agency (I can do something about this) and looking for a pathway forward (what are my options, what are other routes, what haven't I tried yet) are essential mental processes in developing hope. Wishful thinking can sometimes accidentally move us into a space of feeling helpless, which also happens to be a symptom of depression. Wishful thinking doesn't necessarily inspire a call to action, while hope allows space to find solutions or alternative pathways to our goals. Wishful thinking without action may very well be an avoidant behavior and useless.

The alternative is a hardened heart. Having hope feels vulnerable. When I think about the kind of person I want to be, I want to be a person with an empathic, compassionate heart. A hardened heart isn’t necessarily a bad thing; I understand why people build up their defenses, because no one likes to be hurt. Having walls up protects us from being hurt, but may also come at a price; it can potentially siphon us away from an intimate relationship with our loved ones. Having hope can feel difficult because you may be vulnerable to pain, but not having hope also comes with its own challenges. It is empowering to be able to decide for yourself the kind of person you want to be. Having goals, striving toward the characteristics and traits you want to exhibit in your life can bring a sense of autonomy and agency that definitely makes life sweeter. Personally, I would rather risk being hurt by being vulnerable in exchange for being cognitively flexible, maintaining a positive mentality, fostering hope and therefore being supportive and available for the people in my life that I love. A hardened heart often looks away, while a softened heart often looks toward. A hardened heart can lead to rigid ways of thinking, and rigid ways of thinking keep us stuck. A hardened heart may cause us unnecessary suffering and can even cultivate a negative outlook and mentality in life. Focusing on practicing hope can help lift a mood, can bring wellness to our emotional and mental states, and also brings me to my last point...

Having hope may be good for the body. Having hope is associated with many physiological benefits, but I need to be careful here, as having hope and cultivating optimism hasn't been shown in the literature to cause these effects. People who are hopeful are associated with better cardiovascular health, lower levels of chronic stress, better immune system functioning and a greater pain tolerance. Once again, practicing hope requires us to find agency in our life, and to acknowledge that there are other potential solutions or alternative ways of dealing with a difficult circumstance. As a counselor, I am in the business of helping people retrain their brain and I often provide education about neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity simply means that your brain has the ability to change, grow, and reorganize its physical structure and connections throughout your lifetime. We originally thought the brain matures, or stops growing, around the age of 25-35, but our brain allows us to continue to learn and grow in our mental processes as we age. Having hope can reignite creative or exploratory thinking. A person's brain without hope may say "there is no other solution", while the person's brain with hope may ask "what haven't I tried yet?" Neuroplasticity occurs when we continue to rehearse or repeat the type of hopeful thinking we want to engage in, and the brain literally gets rewired. The more you focus on the agency you actually have in your life, the more you focus on trying to find other pathways to a goal, the more the neural channels in your brain strengthen and connect and makes it easier for you to think with hope. This process leads to a more naturalized type of thinking and becomes 'second nature' for you!

My intention for blogging on hope was to improve your understanding of this vital mental practice, to improve your sense of agency and ultimately, impact our community for the better. Our culture seems to be increasing in hostility toward one another, hopelessness and negativity about our circumstances, and I believe we need more optimistic and hopeful individuals in our lives.