Category Archives: trust

The Other Side of Hope

Hope.  Hopelessness.  Two sides of the same coin?

I’ve been thinking about hope recently, inspired by a book I just finished reading entitled Lessons For The Living:  Stories of Forgiveness, Gratitude and Courage at the End of Life by Stan Goldberg.  Stan is a cancer survivor and volunteers in a hospice.  He brings what he has learned from these experiences into the book.

Here’s an excerpt from his chapter entitled “The Dilemma of Hope.”

Poof!  Not only did hope disappear, but as I looked back on who I became during the intervening time between the onset of hope and learning that my dream wasn’t going to be fulfilled, it wasn’t pleasant realizing that I had allowed hope to let the new me slip away.  People often contrast hope with hopelessness, as if the former is always positive and the latter always negative.  It’s a false dichotomy based on a simplistic understanding of the role of hope.  For Joyce [a hospice patient], hope prevented her from living in the present and appreciating the marvelous things she had accomplished.  For me, hope transformed the scientist and humanist in me into someone who put all faith on the throw of the dice.  Worse, for eighteen months it robbed me of being more genuine with the people I loved.

The absence of hope isn’t a negative state.  The disappearance of hope put me squarely into the present…I no longer invest energy in hoping that the cancer will remain under control — I’m too busy living.

Past, present, future.  We need all of them.  Sometimes looking at the past enables us to reframe it so that we can live in the present.  So that those hooks of past experiences don’t weigh us down, rather they inspire us to go forth in our lives. And sometimes those memories from the past bring us great joy in the present as we remember a fun adventure or a now past loved.  And yet we can’t live in those past stories, we live here.  Now.  In the present moment.

Hope takes us, me, to the future. I want hope.  I want hope that things can be different.  It is part of what inspires me.  I help people connect with their own answers in the belief that they can achieve something different for their next moment. That’s hope.  Maybe it is even beyond, more, deeper than hope.

At the same time I don’t want hope to take me out of connecting with this moment – of seeing what is in front of me right here, right now.  Of being with what is.

I can also feel an edge to hope – the edge that says I want something different and yet I have to consider it might not happen.  If I know it will happen, then it is knowing, belief – beyond hope.

I’m reflecting on hope in the context of a good friend of mine who is living with a lot of pain right now.  I so hope for him to be pain free. There it is – that edge of hope that says maybe he’ll never be pain free.  In the present moment I find myself having to let in his pain and that’s uncomfortable for me.  It hurts to see someone I care about in pain.  Having hope seems easier.  It takes me out of having to fully accept his reality in this moment.  It enables me to side step the depth of my own emotions.

So if I don’t have hope, is it hopeless?  No.  Hopeless feels dark and I don’t feel dark.  There is a deeper knowing here that regardless of what tomorrow brings, I’ll be okay.  He’ll be okay.  It may not be pretty, but it will be okay.  It will be what that moment of life brings.

So perhaps the other side of hope, as Stan suggests is presence.  And perhaps it is belief, knowing.  Surrendering to what is.

 

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2011, 2012

Change of Address

I’m a controller.  In other words I like control and I try to control my life.  I understand and appreciate that this is not always the best strategy for life.  I have over the years tried to let go, be gentle with my need for control.

I get that it is grounded in fear – worries that my needs won’t be met if I’m not in control.   And what if I actually do trust somebody and they let me down?  If I control it, by doing it myself for example, then I don’t have to worry about that trust or depending on someone thing.

Recently I find I’m asking myself, in a very loving, kind playful voice, “So how’s that control life thing working for you Catherine?”  For as much as I try to control the situation (probably more truthfully stated as try to control the people in the situation) life – the Universe – has a way of reminding me I am so not in control.

Here’s my latest example.  I have to laugh, because if I don’t, I might cry!

Due to one circumstance or another I found myself moving around quite a bit.  Part of it involved a forced move due the condo I was renting being sold.  Part of it involved deciding to go to a retreat centre for 5 weeks and book-ending the retreat with a road trip.  And I knew once I returned from the trip, I’d be getting yet another new address because returning meant I’d be looking for a new place to live.

“I know,” I thought, “I’ll get one of those mailboxes in place like a UPS store.  I’ll pick a convenient location so that way if I move, I can still easily get to it.  And if I travel they can mail whatever arrives into the box to me.  It will be great to use as my business address anyway.  So perfect!  Implement that and then no more change of address requests required.  Maybe ever!”  With this logic I did a little happy dance and have proceeded to move most, if not all, of my mail to the address of my new mailbox.  I was proud of myself!  I had found a solution  – a way to control how things might unfold in the future in my life.

Went to said mailbox today and what did I find?  A notice.  “What did the notice say?” you might be asking.  It was a notice to inform me that the store that is the keeper of my mailbox is MOVING!  And could I inform whomever I needed to of my CHANGE OF ADDRESS!!

I re-read the notice hoping it was a joke – that perhaps I had read something incorrectly.  Nope.  I could get really frustrated with this if I wanted to.  I have put in a lot of effort worrying about change of addresses in the last while.  I had practiced sound judgement to find a solution!  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  This didn’t factor in my scenario of life.

In the end I’m laughing, thinking about the Serenity Prayer, asking myself “So how’s the controlling life thing working for you Catherine?”

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr

 

Perhaps at this point I could simply acknowledge that I don’t know what my life is going to look like a year from now.  I don’t even know what it is going to look like tomorrow. I can have some idea, but I can’t know it all.  I certainly can’t control it all.

So I might as well accept that I’ll be filing “Change of Address requests” for the rest of my life.  When, how, under what circumstances, no idea!

 

 

 

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2011, 2012