The two greatest tools for getting yourself out of the dark…
Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash
Hopelessness is equivalent to being stranded in a boat, in the middle of the ocean, without a destination.
Without the destination, there is no plan on how to find land. Instead, you are stuck in this sea of water. How long can you last before you run out of supplies?
How long will it be, before you end up dying in the middle of this ocean? There is no reason to paddle fast because you have no idea where you are going or if paddling fast is even worth it. This; this is hopelessness.
But if you had hope that there would be land soon, your course would become driven. Your course becomes driven to find the land that is waiting for you, past all of the water and the waves. Hope will pull you through the hot, beating sun. Hope will give you the endurance to push through the hunger and the exhaustion. Hope will do all of this because the destination you are seeking is a magnet for you. It pulls you to paddle harder, and to move forward faster. The hope brings you to your destination. There is hope that you will survive; that you will live; and that you will arrive on land once again.
Now that we can see the power of hope, how do you plant the seeds of hope within yourself? When all seems lost and unsure, how do you even find seeds of hope? How could you even imagine that land would show up after being stuck on that boat?
HOW?
The answer is Yes.
There is no HOW. It is just yes.
Yes, to hope. Yes to finding the destination that only lies within your mind. Yes to the hope that you can live without the darkness and despair in your life. Yes, to the hope that you will no longer suffer nights filled with loneliness.
Once you are a yes for hope, seeds of hope will be planted within your mind. These seeds will grow into deeply rooted trees. Trees that keep your feet planted firmly. Trees that will have roots that root you down deep under the dirt. So that when the winds of struggle come, the wind will only be for your good; strengthening your roots and giving you the space to grow taller and flourish.
Let the wind and the storms be the elements that foster your growth instead of break your roots.
You see, darkness tricks us into thinking it has won. That means, depression, anxiety, fear, sadness, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, trauma, grief, all of these clouds that loom over our heads; trick us into thinking that we have lost. That we have lost our belief in who we are, and what we are supposed to do. The heaviness of these experiences taint our vision and suck out our hope. The more you lose hope, the louder these feelings get. The louder they get, the more we believe that they have won. The belief that we are too weak to fight against them and the feelings of despair and resignation can begin to fill us.
Yet, if we can stand back a bit, and see this only for the trick that it is, we regain the power of agency in our world. The light within us that is suffocated can inhale a breath again. And hope will return. As hope returns, the noise of these overwhelming feelings can leave; turning into background music and eventually silenced.
Hope is our weapon against this lie.
It is the piece that opens our eyes, awakens our hearts and ultimately saves our lives. For some, that is literal; for others it is only a metaphor. A metaphor that this hope will save them from a life of despair and loneliness. Instead, then allowing them to live the life where they are awake. Awake to the joy, awake to the love, awake to themselves.
For someone who has lost hope completely before, and then did regain hope once again; I will say that hope has saved my life. That tiny glimmer of light has kept me walking when everything inside of me wanted to stop fighting. It is the belief that things are not always as they seem. The belief that pain and breakdown are always a precursor to growth and breakthroughs is what has saved me time and time again.
It is my belief that we are not alone in these moments of darkness… That there are many around us who are also drowning in loneliness and depression. And when we choose to wake up, and then spread our light, their own experience of the pain and heaviness will lessen. We are all gifts to one another. If we can open our eyes and look out towards those around us; we will change; and the darkness will lift. If we can give value where value is needed; even when we don’t think we have much to give; many will be blessed.
I believe that life would taste and smell differently if we did this. Our days stuck inside our homes or our cubicles would be broken open. Light would be given and light would be received. No none would need to tell us to help s neighbor, or share a kind word with co-worker who appears to be struggling. Instead, value would shine forth from us. And light would create light. Love would create love. Hope would create hope.
How?
The answer I give to you is yes.
Be a yes.
A yes does not need a reason. A yes does not need proof. A yes, is a yes.
Be a yes for hope. Pray to God that He will bless you with hope. This is where I began. During those times of pain and darkness, I asked God to bless with me hope. I asked Him to send the hope down to wake up my true self. And as I did, I found myself being open to hope. I was a yes. And when I decided to be a yes, it was as if I had chosen to turn the faucet to “on”. I opened my heart, and my mind, and allowed God to pour His hope down on me. This hope washed away the fear, and the darkness. And when that happened, it was as if someone had changed the lenses on my glasses. Life appeared differently.
Hope shifts the way you view life.
C.S. Lewis says; “You can’t go back and change the beginning; but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
This is what hope does. It allows you to let go of the past and now hope and create a better future. You have the abililty to change the ending of your story. No one has their story concrete and finite. Yet this is how most of us live life. We believe our life will end up being _______ due to our current or past experiences. Hope changes our ending. We have the opportunity to seek out and create a new ending. Or even better, a new beginning to the life we are currently living.
Hope is the secret weapon that is often misjudged and forgotten about.
Socrates said; “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.”
If you want to change your life, if you want to escape the darkness that consumes your present situation, seek out Hope. Focus your energy on building new; creating the life that you want to live.
Allow the hope to direct you towards that land,just beyond the ocean in front of you. Cling to the hope and soon it will begin to show up as belief. And when you believe, your actions will bring forth new results, and new feelings.
Feelings of confidence and peace will replace the worry and fear. Darkness cannot exist within the presence of light. Therefore, the more hope, and belief you have, the lighter you will become. As the darkness slips away, the light becomes stronger.
What if we could view the low points in our lives differently? What if we could view them through a sharper lens, one that allows us to see the whole instead of the fragment?
Abraham Lincoln said; “ we can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
Could life really be altered just by how we view it? Could the hope for something better or brighter actually pull us from those low spots in our lives?
Michale Jordan was one of the most successful basketball players of all time. On NBA.com Jordan was described to “single handedly redefining the NBA superstar.”
And yet he lost more than 300 games, missed over 9000 shots at goal, and 26 times he was given the ball to take the winning shot and missed!!
He had plenty of proof to make him give up hope and disbelieve in himself and his talents. But instead he used those failures to push himself to succeed.
Look at Thomas Edison.
Edison attempted to make the light bulbs 10,000 times!! So in essence he failed 10,000 times before the light bulb was perfected. He had so many reasons to sit and wallow. He had every reason to give up and try something else. But he hung on to hope. Hope that he would figure it out, and accomplish the finished product of the light bulb. He believed he would be successful, even in times of failure and probably much frustration.
I know that many of us are not destined to become the next Michale Jordan or Thomas Edison. I also, know that the level of despair that comes from just normal life seems much more different that what these two examples experienced. And they most likely are, but the same common factor in their stories and in yours is that they had hope, and they believed. They believed in themselves and their purpose.
Which all begins with being a yes to hope.
Start here. Start small. Seek hope.
The more you seek hope, the more it will show up. And soon enough, belief will be following shortly behind. Strengthening your roots and building out your trunk.
You have greatness within you. You have light within you. The more you lean into hope and allow it to pour over you, the stronger you will be. The happier you will find yourself, and the destination that is waiting for you will pull you towards it.
Remember, light creates light. Love creates more love. And hope blasts out more hope.
Call To Action
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