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viewsHope's Alluring Trap
By kimkelly, Thursday, March 18, 2010, 5 commentsI’ve always been a hopeful person; a regular “my glass is half full” kind of girl. And what could be wrong with that? Well, as it turns out, a lot! Hope can be very enticing, though for many it is hard to hold onto. Much like trying to hold water in our clasped hands, hope easily seeps through our tightly clenched fingers when things don’t go our way. Hope has the power to draw us into intricately detailed fantasies that give us reprieve from the gritty reality of life as we know it. For most single women, there is the hope of one day getting married and the ensuing planning of the perfect wedding that actively goes on in our minds. For women trying to conceive there is a hope deep within that they will soon be rewarded with a positive pregnancy test and the accompanying sweet fantasies of what life with a newborn will be like. I could go on and on. Hope can also operate like a secret elixir numbing us from the pain of our past. I can’t tell you how long it took me to finally give up hoping for a better past. I kept thinking if I analyzed it enough and experienced enough inner healing somehow it would magically transform into a good thing. Sounds a bit delusional doesn’t it?
The opposite of hope is despair and all of us have either visited the city of despair or known someone residing there…it’s not a pleasant place. If given the choice, wouldn’t we all rather be hopeful rather than despairing? I long held the deeply rooted belief that if I lost hope I would die a slow emotional death. I couldn’t bear to think that things might never change. About a year and a half ago I had a major revelation. I clearly saw that no matter how much hope I had my life was not going to change unless I chose to walk a different path. I realized I had been waiting, hoping for some cosmic shift to take place that would transform my life into the way I had dreamed it could be. I also realized that I had been afraid to actually pursue the life I was longing for because it meant an all encompassing leveling of my internal and external landscape. Hope is safe. I decided I didn’t want ‘safe’ anymore, I wanted something more, something genuine and exciting.
Here’s the other thing I came to understand, thanks to the writing of Pema Chodron, there is such beauty in staying present with whatever is going on in our lives. When we defer to hope we essentially take ourselves out of our present circumstances and instead focus on the future. And when we do that we miss all that we are supposed to be learning and stifle our personal evolution. It takes a lot of discipline to stay present, especially when things feel horrible. But when we make the choice to not run ahead in our minds and instead ask ourselves the question “what am I supposed to be learning from this?” we will begin experiencing growth and transformation in ways we never have before. When we practice presence we engage with our life rather than react to our life; we become the navigator rather than the passenger.
There was such freedom for me when I began operating in this new paradigm. My stress level was reduced to miniscule proportions when I saw, with stunning HD clarity, that I could neither change the past nor control the future. Not only that, I began to feel better both physically and emotionally; I felt happier and more at peace; I lost weight and started sleeping better; my frequent migraine headaches all but disappeared. The changes were shocking not just to me but to those around me. I have adopted a phrase that I learned from my closest friend: ‘it is what it is’. It serves as a gentle reminder to me, in any given moment, that what’s going on is neither bad nor good but rather as it is supposed to be in that moment. All we have is the present, and I don’t know about you but I want to engage with it and be fully alive in it. I want to learn and grow and transform and enjoy all that comes my way. I want to steer clear of the alluring trap that hope carefully sets and remain completely at home in that which is present.
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5 Comments
I was just reading Wayne
I was just reading Wayne Dwyer last night talking about how to stay in the present. And I realized I'm kind of always looking to what's next, what's next, what's next and stay in the future. That way I never really enjoy where I'm at. I'm going to write a blog about this tomorrow. Thanks for reiterating what I needed to hear.
ME TOO!!!!
Oh Steph- I just read your post after the post below... Me too! My friends pick on me- I am the PLANNER! The event planner, the trip planner (my fav), the bookclub planner, etc...Never thought how that takes me out of teh now! I don't think I even know how to be in NOW! My mind is always mulling or planning. Or sometimes regretting, or hoping. Anywhere but here... Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
LOVED IT!
A thought-provoking post! I have NEVER thought about hope in the way you presented...
"When we defer to hope we essentially take ourselves out of our present circumstances and instead focus on the future."
As an optimist, as well... I can relate to your feelings, but never, ever connected the dots to how that can be bad- how that takes us out of the present! You gave me an AH-HAH moment! I struggle so much with that "presense" thing. It is difficult for me to take classes, yoga, etc... Any recomendations, like CD's or something I can do myself. I would really like to learn more.
Thank you!
The most helpful resource for me was Pema Chodron. I first read "When Things Fall Apart" and then "The Places that Scare You" and found them to be revolutionary for my thinking and my emotional well being. Also, coming up with a "mantra" or two for when things are chaotic will also help. I mentioned my "it is what it is" mantra and also frequently use "it is as it is supposed to be" as a grounding mantra. A friend also suggested taking 5 minutes to do something grounding like stand outside in the grass and breathing deeply. In a sense it is a reigning in of our thoughts and emotions and finding a solid place in any given moment. It can be very hard work to stay in the present, especially for those of us who are planners and keep ourselves busy. But I'm finding that the more I practice it the more easily it happens. You've already taken the first step by recognizing your ah ha moment so be encouraged! Blessings!
Real life happens in the
Real life happens in the present moment!! Anything written by Pema Chodron, "When things fall apart", "The places that scare you", are very helpful. Also, Eckhart Tolle has a book called "The power of now"......life changing stuff!!!
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