The Power Of Hope

"I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.  I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.  I hope I can make it across the border.  I hope I can see my friend and shake his hand.  I hope that the Pacific is as blue as it's been in my dreams.  I hope."... narrated by Red, at the conclusion of the movie, "The Shawshank Redemption"

"I hope."  Those are probably the two most powerful words we could ever speak.

I recently wrote a post about the destructiveness of worry on our current state of well-being (happiness).  One comment really took me by surprise, asking "what else is there to think of besides worry when we look off to the future, when we have problems?".  All I could think to reply was to try hope and optimism.  In this post I will examine the positive effects of hope and optimism in more detail, and give you a method on how to build it.

Throughout our life, we will all experience difficult circumstances or problems of one type or another.  That's a part of life's journey.  That's a part of how we learn, grow and survive. When we lack control over a situation, we can become particularly vulnerable to hopelessness.  Having the ability to bounce back from adversity is crucial to happiness and life satisfaction.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back and adapt to the demands of stressful situations.  It is believed to play an important role in our well-being and positively influence people's health and general functioning.  Resilient people have a sense of hope and optimism for the future.  When things go awry, the outlook we hold can make or break our persistence.  A positive and optimistic outlook gives us a sense that despite hardships, things will turn out fine and we will find a way to manage and cope with our struggles. 

When we are faced with difficult times, there is no doubt that negative emotions like fear, worry or anger will attempt to close down our minds and our hearts.  But accessing positive emotions like hope, pride, interest and love, literally open our minds and hearts.  We need that openness if we're going to face the challenges with clear eyes and come up with creative solutions that will allow us to come through the difficulty even stronger than before.

When we experience positive affect, we show a greater preference for a larger variety of actions and see and think of more possibilities and options to solve whatever problem we face.  People with positive affect are more likely to take action.  They are proactive.  And people who habitually experience positive emotion are more resilient over time and develop a greater sense of emotional well being. 

So how can we identify ourselves as a person who is currently optimistic and hopeful?  According to Martin Seligman, in his book "Authentic Happiness", whether or not we have hope depends on two dimensions taken together.  Finding permanent and universal causes of good events along with temporary and specific causes for misfortune is the art of hope; finding permanent and universal causes for misfortune and temporary and specific causes of good events is the practice of despair.  People who make permanent and universal explanations for good events as well as temporary and specific explanations for bad events, bounce back from troubles briskly and get on a roll easily when they succeed once.  People who make temporary and specific explanations for success, and permanent and universal explanations for setbacks, tend to collapse under pressure, both for a long time and across situations and rarely get on a roll.

If you find yourself on the pessimistic side, there is a well documented method for building optimism that consists of recognizing and then disputing pessimistic thoughts.  The key to disputing them is to treat them as if they were uttered by an external person, a rival whose mission in life was to make you miserable!  

Everyone already has the skills of disputing.  Once you recognize that you have a pessimistic thought that seems unwarranted, argue against it using the ABCDE model.  A stands for adversity, B for the beliefs you automatically have when it occurs, C for the usual consequences of the belief, D for your disputation of your routine belief and E for the energization that occurs when you dispute it successfully.  By effectively disputing the beliefs that follow an adversity, you can change your reaction from dejection and giving up to activity and good cheer.

Now you can try this in your daily life over the next week.  Don't search out adversity, but as it comes along, tune in carefully to your internal dialogue.  When you hear negative beliefs, dispute them.  Beat them to the ground, then record the ABCDE.

It's important to always be aware of your perspectives and beliefs about yourself, your circumstances, the world and your future, and realize that shifting your views can prompt that positive feedback loop you need to begin an upward spiral in positive emotion.

My video today is a scene from the movie Shawshank Redemption, where Andy and Red discuss hope...

So what became of Andy and Red?  Well, Andy always had hope and never lost it, and Red eventually became hopeful.  Together, they created the most satisfying ending to a movie that I have ever witnessed.

In my opinion, Shawshank Redemption was the best hope-inspiring movie ever made.  It's brilliant.  If you've never seen it, you must.

Never lose hope, my friends...

Cheers!
Linda