What Hope Means and Why Hope is Important? How Hope works and 7 Ideas to Build Hope

Welcome to Hawthorn Counselling! I know, I think I hear what you might be saying, “But didn't you already launch your blog with a couple of previous posts?” Well – not officially.

So, welcome to the official online launch of Hawthorn Counselling Ltd! We thought we would give a more general introduction to the practice and our mission: to help you build hope, through support and care, one encounter at a time. What does this mean to us and to others who have written, sung and researched about hope?

We talk about feeling hopeful or hopeless a lot! Poems have been written, theories generated and art created. Different cultures and faiths define it in different ways and the degree of hopelessness is one way that counsellors check in to find out just how low someone might be feeling. Krafft et al. (2023) said:

"Hope seems to be an existential need in every life situation (Bloch, 1959; Marcel, 1951). Without hope we are unable to live in dignity and much less to experience a fulfilling life (Beck et al., 1990; McGeer, 2004). To hope is an existential feature of what it is to be human (Webb, 2007). Many authors have recognized hope as a fundamental condition for human flourishing (Callina et al., 2018; McCormick, 2017; Snow, 2019; Stitzlein, 2019). Hope is crucial in times of crises and in situations full of uncertainty and anxiety (Scioli & Biller, 2009). Hope appears to be an existential, universal, multifaceted yet simultaneously, to a certain degree, a mysterious and elusive phenomenon not easily studied in a scientific and systematic way” (p. 2)[1].

But do we really know what it means or how to rebuild it when it is low? Here are 7 ideas that we find useful when thinking about hope and the Hawthorn Counselling mission.

Hope is not a Trait, it is a State

Think that being a hopeful person is linked to someone’s personality and that if you have not ever or do not typically feel like a hopeful person you are resigned to it? Being hopeful is a muscle that you can strengthen. Snyder (1994) researched hope extensively and came up with the idea that we can build hope. He said, ““hope is rather hopeless for those who assume it totally lacks a realistic basis. But suppose hope is tied to something realistic. As Samuel Coleridge, in his Work Without Hope, put it, “Hope without an object cannot live.”5 This simple idea—anchoring hope to a concrete goal—provided a starting point in my model of hope.” (p 20).[2]

Snyder underlined the importance of something called ‘waypower.” He said, “hope is the sum of the mental willpower and waypower that you have for your goals” (p. 22).[3] Waypower is made up of our ability to identify one or many routes to our goal/s. If we think about hope this way we can see that we can learn how to get places much like we can learn how to read a map and overcome things that stand in our way. Snyder said that in our memories we often already have examples of this stored away that we can apply to new situations. Also, waypower is about breaking things down into smaller steps. It is also about using your imagination. Imagination is not fantasy. What you see can happen. Try this – imagine you in the future having a achieved a goal that you believe right now is in reach no matter how small. Now, work backwards to vision a timeline to achieving it in timeslots that feel right to you (e.g. each year, each month, each week). Journal about each annual, monthly or daily milestone and what happens at each one. What did you learn about waypower from this experiment?

Hope is not Limited to One Part of your Life

Krafft et al. (2023) came up with something called the Hope Barometer that they have used to measure hope in different countries (https://www.thehopeproject.nl/en/the-hope-barometer-2/). The Barometer presents about hope as related to multiple aspects, such as: hopeful thinking, emotional hope, moral/values-based hope, social hope (related to social connections, using connections to build hope and having hope for relationships and community), economic expectations, institutional hope and spiritual hope.[1]

The idea is that it is not as simple to think I am either hopeful or hopeless. If you are feeling hopeful, what aspect above are you feeling hopeful about? The same goes for hopelessness. Perhaps you think are feeling hopeless but you discover that the hopelessness is not related to all the aspects named. Perhaps your levels of hope in each one are different, some higher or lower than others. Perhaps how you are able to maintain hope in one area can be applied to another in which your level of hope is lower. Or, perhaps understanding it this way creates a sense that change is possible and brighter days may come?

To increase emotional hope, think about a time in which you had a goal that you achieved (big or small). Think about how you got there and how you felt about the outcome. Identify a symbol of hope that matches this story, identify the energetic feeling in your body related to it -where it sits and the tone or texture of it. Now, when you feel hopeless, try to return to this hopeful state by recalling the image and the body sensations. Or go to a physical place that feels hopeful or symbolizes hope for you.

We cannot have Hope without Fear or Challenge

The Irish poet John O’Donohue said in a poem that described that time before we move towards a new beginning or change, 

"For a long time it has watched your desire/ Feeling the emptiness growing inside you/ Noticing how you willed yourself on, / Still unable to leave what you had outgrown. /It watched you play with the seduction of safety /And the gray promises that sameness whispered, /Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent, /Wondered would you always live like this. /Then the delight, when your courage kindled, /And out you stepped onto new ground.. learn to find ease in risk;/ Soon you will be home in a new rhythm, /For your soul senses the world that awaits you (For a New Beginning, John O'Donohue).

Gaining hope means movement towards something you want and may mean moving away from what feels safe. The “seduction of safety” and staying in that zone can also mean that hope cannot grow. Thus it is hard to build hope without the accompaniment of fear – it is a natural part of the process. Perhaps this results in the question often asked, which is why is hope dangerous? Because we have to have courage to take action to build it and we may have to come up with alternative ways than we had hoped to travel to our destination.

The Global Brain Health Institute wrote about how hope affects the brain, “Experiencing hope dampens the anxiety circuits in the brain, and when you feel less anxious, your brain function improves..the flip side of hope is fear and sometimes fear and despair are easier to fall into than hope” (https://www.gbhi.org/news-publications/what-hope-and-why-do-we-need-it#:~:text=Experiencing%20hope%20dampens%20the%20anxiety,to%20fall%20into%20than%20hope).

What if we were to reframe fear as hope? If you practiced substituting hope/hopeful for fear/scared in thoughts - what happens?

Hope Grows from Connection

Krafft et al. (2023) found that countries that were more collectivistic had higher rates of hope.[5] Collectivistic cultures prize the group over the individual and see that well-being comes from group harmony and shared values. At Hawthorn Counselling we think that hope grows from connections with others. Hopeful connections can include: having a mentor/role model that helps you build hope; having close friends to whom you can go when you are feeling low, or having something that connects you into something that is bigger than yourself such as faith or spirituality. It can also come from connection to a landscape that is beautiful or connecting to your values through community service.

Hope and Self-Compassion are Linked

We find the seeds of hope when we have struggled and found a way through it. The idea is not to judge or try to avoid the struggle and to bear compassionate witness to it. The poet David Whyte said, “one of the elemental dynamics of self-compassion is to understand our deep reluctance to be left to ourselves” (https://onbeing.org/programs/david-whyte-seeking-language-large-enough/). When we understand that everyone finds it hard to be left to ourselves - because when we sit with ourselves we are open to loss, longing, hope, fear and a whole host of emotions – perhaps we can turn towards it because this is where we slow down enough to come into contact with what we want.  Whyte said, “Will you actually have the conversation, given that is so? Will you become a full citizen of vulnerability, loss, and disappearance, which you have no choice about?”

Part of what can help when it gets hard to sit with the struggle is counselling because counsellors can be with you, bear witness and help you feel safe to sit with whatever comes up. You may have gone many years experiencing self-judgement. Counselling can be like an emotional gym where you come and practice strengthening the muscle of self-compassion over time. You cannot have hope without action but perhaps one of the actions is to access some help. Connect with us for a free 15-minute consultation to see how it feels to let us help you be with yourself in a non-judgemental and compassionate way: https://hawthorncounselling.ca/appointment-request

Early Learning Impacts on our Ability to build Hope

Hope psychologist Snyder (1994) said that, “your childhood shaped the level of hope you have as an adult. Kid hope begets grownup hope” (p. 51).[2] Wanting to build hope in your kids or your inner child? Help your child to create lots of different goals in their lives, not just one or two and to be flexible in them. These can be big or small, from choosing more than one friendship to cultivate or to have a top three list of goals, rather than just one. Suggest that while we can always move towards a certain goal, at some stage in the future kids may need to move towards a different goal so that they are not so fixed on one goal and tie their self-worth to achieving it. Help them to break goals down into smaller bites to celebrate along the way. At Hawthorn Counselling we can help you explore how you can help your kids build hope, or to offer some kindness to your earlier self who perhaps did not have kid hope.

Hope is about Action

Hope is about doing and having goals. The French dramatist and novelist Romain Rolland said, “même sans espoir, la lutte est encore un espoir,” which means “even without hope, the fight itself is still hope.” At Hawthorn Counselling we think this means that hope is in the actions we take and is where hope grows - to come to counselling, to have the courage to confront our deepest fears, to try new ways of thinking, doing and being in the world. Hope can also be in the actions that groups of people take to connect with each other and build a more hopeful world.

To build hope try not to focus on one major goal. Generate lots of goals, small or big and go goal shopping (Snyder, 1994). Do this across all different spheres of life (relationship, family, work , health). Want to free up your imagination? Try saying to yourself, “There’s no way I could…” and then finish the sentence with a goal that is seemingly absurd, e.g. “There is no way I could balance a horse on top of a tin of beans.” Then, say, “why not?” Repeat this process for a few goals and then return to creating goals for yourself. What feels different about doing this exercise once you have done this activity? [2]

What’s your definition of hope? Want to connect to build hope together? Connect for a free 15 minute consultation to see if it feels like a hopeful encounter: https://hawthorncounselling.ca/appointment-request

We will leave you with a reminder from John O’Donohue that we think sums up all of the elements this blog post has discussed – compassion, slowing down to encounter what you want and fear as part of the struggle.

References

1. Krafft, Andreas & Guse, Tharina & Slezackova, Alena. (2023). Hope Across Cultures - Lessons from the International Hope Barometer. 10.1007/978-3-031-24412-4.

2. Snyder, C. R. (1994). The Psychology of hope: You can get there from here. New York: Free Press.