Hanging onto Hope: Actionable Practices for the New Year - Letters From Esther Live

one I'm very glad to be back here with you today and we are going to talk about hope a perennial philosophical and psychological concept just about every religion or school of thought has explored the subject of hope so I would say that contemplating hope for me is an annual year-end ritual I probably am not the only one here that experiences quite a bit of anxiety at this transition time and so for me to actively study hope every December has become a way not only of managing my own fears or my anxieties with what this new year is going to bring but it actually has also become a way of getting excited about it I don't know if you know because I speak so much about eroticism and desire and all these beautiful things but I'm actually rather prone to catastrophic thinking and um I am very good at just imagining all the bad things that could happen or the very awareness that things could at any minute go completely awry so for me and I think for many people who are prone to this kind of catastrophic perspective engaging in Hope is a way of instantaneously feeling a little bit better but of course even when I am hopeful I can still find myself waiting for the other shoe to drop and I can go back and forth you know from I hope that things will go well and that the results that the doctor will be good and all the tests will come out clear and then flip to the other side but what if the results are all bad or I hope that the the I won't be fighting with my family during the holidays and then flip to the other side but what if we do fight and this time we can't get through it or I hope that the trains will be running smoothly and I'll make it to my next appointment on time or at least on time enough because I'm actually chronically late but then I flip and it becomes you know what if I can't even get out of the house and I could won't be making the train at all let alone that something would be wrong with the train itself so how many of you can relate to me as you're listening here you know this kind of Crisis and anxiety cycle and there are so many ways that we can help ourselves through these repetitive thought patterns you know but today I want to focus on one primary one and that is Hope one word such a loaded Rich complicated word and I don't want to be too abstract about it so I'm gonna Define hope at least some definition that we can work with and I'm going to tell you some of what some ideas that thinkers in the field of Hope have shared with me that I think have been very useful and hopefully to you too hopefully and I will also tell you how to engage with hope yourself but before we delve deep into the topic of Hope let's just do a little bit of housekeeping this is Letters From Estero perel live this is my monthly Workshop series that helps you reflect and act and develop greater confidence and relational intelligence in all your relationships the series happens monthly on YouTube and on Facebook live and if you want more letters from Esther just visit esterpareil.com blog and I invite you to join every month here on YouTube with me and on Facebook to discuss the newsletter so I write you read then we come together and we discuss it so we have an opportunity to engage in a conversation about these things and you don't have to do this all alone and before we start I would like for you to think about who could you reach out at this moment wherever you are on the globe that you can invite and say you need hope you know I want to give you hope join me in this little workshop just reach out to them right now and as always take notes you know have a notebook dedicated to the workshops write things down because everything can be so fleeting at this moment that when it comes to really honing into deeper thoughts and especially as you're going about developing greater relational intelligence if you like what you learned today just go ahead subscribe to the YouTube channel like it and subscribe then we are connected forever okay let's go back to Hope and um consider a little bit what are some of the definitions so some of the thoughts is probably a better way of saying it that have accompanied the thinkers you know I look at Jane Goodall's work and uh she basically has this beautiful line hope is a survival skill that enables us to keep going in a face of adversity a survival skill that enables us to cope in the face of adversity one thought this is not which is true and which is not these are a multitude of very crisp thoughts about Hope psychotherapists and grief expert my colleague Julia Samuel had a beautiful language she says hope is a feeling but it is also a plan feeling and a plan maimonides a prominent Jewish philosopher has a fantastic line about hope hope is the belief in the plausibility of the possible as opposed to the necessity of the probable I'm going to read this again it's the belief in the plausibility of the possible you're hanging there with one string you're about to revolve everything scientific and gravity says you're not gonna make it but you suddenly master that belief that strength that hopefulness that if you pull yourself up one more time you will actually reach the possible as opposed to the probable the probability is that you will fall the possible is that you want the probable is that climate change is really on a bad track the possible is the belief that you can do something about it so the plausibility of the possible the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust Survivor Victor Frankel always recognized the connection between hope and how it is tied to meaning and meaning as I see it is not only what keeps us going and what gives us a reason to wake up in the morning but how we can help that sense of meaning that is intrinsically connected to hope so what is hope you know I love language as you know I speak quite a few of them and one of the things that I really like is to look at words where the meaning changes the word is the same but the meaning kind of evolves in the course of history so hope is one of those words you know today very often when we talk about hope we emphasize a want or a wish but the ancient definition of Hope was much closer to the word trust and if you consult the scriptures you will find that hope is a part of faith and the aspect of faith that focuses specifically on the future I find that quite fascinating so when I go down the road of wishing and wanting it drives me straight into an anxious place what if I don't get what I want what if what I wish for doesn't come true which is why I really like this ancient definition of Hope as trust and faith faith and trust you know trust very important for me as a subject in my work you know having worked so much on the subject of betrayal and breaches inside relationships and faith not so much a concept that I work with but certainly one that I am personally interested in so people so often ask me about trust you know how do you rebuild trust after betrayal When Hope has made a fool out of you and for these people typically hope has become very dangerous hope is almost synonymous with naivete with you know blindness with denial actually it can feel much safer to maintain a negative outlook to wrap ourselves into a protective armor so that we are forever prepared if I anticipate what will go wrong I'll see it coming if I see it coming I won't get hurt it's a very tight logic and this is where the work of researcher Rachel botsman who works a lot on the topic of trust comes in you know this Paradox that she continuously explores can we trust without risk and can we risk without trust take a minute faith you know when it comes to the faith piece of this I probably should say that you know the traditional concept of faith is not very big in my life but I'm not less quite interested in all types of faith what I have often been more drawn to including in my own religion in Judaism is the focus on action and behavior almost above the idea of faith and it is summarized in a very beautiful expression called we will do and then we will feel or we will do and from the doing will come the understanding the experience the intention the meaning the focus is on the behavior and on the doing rather than I first need to want I first need to have an intention and then when I will finally know why I want to do it then I will go ahead and do it it's completely the opposite it's the behavior will shape the experience and this too is hope you know through this notion of action that is connected to Faith and trust and intention that will become quite clear and as an aside you know I just want to share a response that I got to the newsletter somebody I do not know so Theodora if you are here I just want to thank you because it really made me think and it was in response to NASA venishma which is written in the recent newsletter what really got me thinking she says is I'm a psychologist working in the realm of digital wellness and healthy technology use and this saying got me thinking about how we are less and less comfortable intolerant of this concept it from doing comes understanding meaning experience the increasingly predictive nature of the technology she continues that we make use you know that that we use is making it so that very little is left to chance spontaneity or the unknown we don't have to LEAP into the unknown because the app will decide where we land given the hips and heaps of data on our digital behaviors we're already shared with it can you blame it in all seriousness though the reality of the situation is that dating apps tell us are perfect match Amazon will tell us what we need to shop for next Spotify will tell us the song we want to hear next and Google Maps will tell us the places we should visit next you would think that this would perhaps ease the worry of the anxious this is the the clinch here by removing the question of an uncertain future and I often see people clutch their devices for that very reason but this trojan horse is actually unleashing something far worse than the fear of not knowing and that is the inability to act freely upon this world and see the ripples of our own actions how else do we know that we're alive this kind of deadening doesn't affect this kind of deadening effect doesn't move particularly quickly but I think that it is already amongst us and it is what keeps me up at night and I think that is such an amazing analysis of the newsletter and clearly she can relate to um another about you know how would I say this I let me put it this way I can relate to you Theodora because I too have nightly ruminations so when she describes hope and the interaction with the unknown with the spontaneous I am thinking about eroticism those very experiences that cultivate aliveness so if any of you want to explore the connection between hope and eroticism more to just go to my website we have a whole focus on Section about eroticism and we'll drop the link in the chat right now all right so we've had trust Faith now let's talk about action so back to nasiva nishma for a moment through the doing comes the feeling the feeling doesn't necessarily proceed to doing it's in the behavior that we enact as a response what we will be feeling and there's a French saying actually that's kind of sums it up very simply it says the appetite comes while eating sometimes you're not hungry or you don't have much appetite before but once the taste buds get activated when you are actually in the doing of eating then comes the appetite you know I promised you that I would move away from the abstract into the actionable okay eating quite concrete so in preparation for the workshop today I reached out to a number of colleagues and people I whose books I have read to get some real life examples and concrete steps that you can all take I also asked our community on social media what gives you hope beautiful question I want to ask to all of you what gives you hope and what do you do actively to cultivate hope so I'm inviting you to start answering in the chat box but I'm also going to tell you some of the things that people wrote to us my children a lot of people said my children give me hope looking at my past and seeing how far I've come perspective around change around moving into a more fulfilling life that there's always something to be grateful for being with people who share my value gives me hope social connection the next one is very important knowing that nothing lasts forever when I see genuine acts of kindness among children especially when nobody's watching them or they don't know that somebody's watching them my future dreams that I had a breath before my last breath activists people who make hard choices the ability to forgive human generosity reincarnation therapy focusing only on things that are within my control and taking action as often as possible those are some of the answers now I want to read some of yours my creative work being surprised Kiara finding Beauty in simpleton Christy my dreams turn us Daniel sunsets The Quiet Moments Marta Leone seeing how difficult it was you jumped you jumped I lost you uh courage of others like the woman and the people being in nature seeing you know the kindness of others yes Sylvia yeah yeah Andy tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning belief in myself hell being grounded inside my body yes yes yes honesty love of God Anna yeah achieving important goalsini yes using mindfulness knowing how everything worked out yep yep yep eternal life yeah Benjamin Dare To Dream yeah great great my lovers Embrace absolutely presence my family dinner parties yup than at doing good deeds yeah yeah very much what I was saying before about the helping right and so if I ask you now what are the things that you do actively to cultivate hope you may have mixed the two of them already together but I'm gonna read you a list of answers that we got on social for that because there's a Nuance you know what gives you hope and what do you actively do to cultivate hope it positions you very differently in relation to Hope itself being grateful for all the things happening in the present talking to friends I try to remember things I thought hopeless in the past but then turned out to be fine in the end very good looking at all the good things and that people I already have drinking water finding sources of creativity and optimism one of you said that just now too finding solution finders and reducing bad news to pray and look for small beautiful things knowing that everything changes and change is the only constant a very powerful Eastern thought trying to see the positives in a bad situation taking small step committing to and reflecting on my therapy so you see the interesting thing in the in the things people do even in the action it's often a shift in perspective or a calibration of expectation it's not big steps it's a small step it's looking backwards and seeing what has been what is different from what we expected from how we thought about things and how they have changed and so it's it's this very important experience of the mind of our experience and our thinking around something that is part of this activity fight for what I want gen yes shift in perspective Clear Connection remembering the unknowns in my past Anna Rebecca slowing down Lee visualize my future yes the ability to project oneself to anticipate Tandy being on purpose yeah yep Jenny what I do I deliberately treat others as if they might have waken in the same position beautiful yes um three things I'm grateful for in the evening Anna yeah Danny your website yep uh more than positive thinking Michelle listening to music watching how others hope yeah letters to myself Maria benjoy yeah do now yeah yeah making a wish boards yep learning something new Sarah beautiful okay smiling to strangers yes rather than thinking of them as you know as a Potential Threat all the time so these are really great and as I'm gonna continue now with some of the suggestions of the other thinkers and experts in the field start putting your questions make them really a question not a paragraph with a question mark you know but start getting your questions ready for the Q a let's go because so many of these answers are already in line with what I want to highlight of a number of things so Kaplan is a colleague of mine in London who actually focuses on humor her book is called Almost happy and what she talks about is active hope needs memory of having survived you see this is very much what many of you talked about I look and I see how things are much better than I imagined or how much they have changed from when they were really dire it's a can-do attitude with self-belief in one's resources including one's experiences to overcome adversity to have survived risks because be careful not to go totally delusional here but I really like this uh I like all the ones I picked for them for that matter my own husband Jack Soul who writes about Collective trauma and Collective resilience talks about it as tapping into the collective resources The ancestral heritage the communal rituals the religious practices the shared physical spaces like the neighborhoods where we look to each other's stories of survival to find diverse coping strategies so this is Hope in the aftermath of trauma War displacement Etc stress researcher Elisa Apple emphasizes the importance of inner hope with the following recommendations you wake up and ask yourself what is Meaningful to me today and the second question what can I do in some small way that supports and fulfills my deepest values so it's also a question of Integrity of consolidation that is connected with hope hopefulness about life and about humanity is fostered when we feel a strong sense of purpose our North Star very close to Victor Frankel right you'll see the overlap is that when you have so many different thinkers who each basically reinforce pieces of the other you get a sense that there's not a hundred ways to think about hope it actually is very reassuring that there's a consensus about some of the essential pieces of hopefulness Elisa also emphasizes as many other colleagues did the connection between hope and action because action absorbs anxiety and it diminishes our sense of helplessness and for those of you who are hopeless about climate change consider the model of activist Joanna may see that has sustained activists actually for decades one set your intention to engage in what you want to change and through connection with others do the work you most care about remind yourself that while you can't control the outcome this is the important piece here we can have a meaningful impact to those around us and Beyond in our lifetime so let me see some of the questions that you have um taking can I have how can we move away from the idea that hope is naive and protecting okay so this is such an important question that I'm gonna tell you the next thing I had put down because it is another idea of Elisa Apple that is directly related to your question which I know you're not the only one that has that question no you know and this is this the hope sits as a Long View it is a balanced View and the balance is one where you cultivate daily Joy social connection purpose all the while you maintain the dialectic of accepting and acknowledging loss pain and disappointment of the world in which we are living and what I like so much about this is that hope sits on top of a keen awareness of the trials and tribulations of life it's not if you hope that you forget all the bad things that can happen hope knows that happens and despite it it makes you want to continue fight and stay alive and see the the next day and hope potentially as my mother used to say when she was in the camps that she will see her family one more time and for years she maintained that hopefulness in the middle of very very dire circumstances so the Hope was a protection but it wasn't a disappearing of the reality in which she was living yes let's hear the next one can hope be toxic when it's delusional sometimes wish you know um hope no I think that sometimes there is a sense that the people are can be in hopeful despite you know in lieu of that it it becomes tenacious but sometimes it's absolutely necessary so I'm not sure that I know what is the toxicity you're talking about because there are many different kinds of toxicity and the word is often overused and not well defined so if you want to precise it make it more precise for me then I can give you a more precise answer I don't know if you mean between people to the person themselves you you know make it a little more specific yeah next one Melanie how can you help cultivate continuous hope in Children and Youth with exactly what we just talked about you ask them to wake when they wake up what is it that you want to emphasize today that is important to you you know the presence of the sky the flowers that are growing in the spring the seasonal changes you know who do you want to help today what is one thing you would like to do that is going to make you feel that you did something nice for someone else couldn't be the homeless person on the street can be a kid in your classroom give them specific things and you tell them when we do these kinds of things it makes us feel better about ourselves and about the world small little things you know giving a bite of something to somebody else they can choose but you basically that's for when they are very young when they get a little older and it's about you know the world we're living in it's the same thing you know you you you you validate the awareness about war refugees protests in Iran climate crisis Mental Health crisis you just you don't discuss that and then you say as we are aware of that you know how do we cultivate meaning how do we do for others how do we do for the planet in such a way that we feel relevant and not no matter what I do it doesn't mean a thing but you the buy-in is really the understanding that it is action that counters helplessness that it is eroticism acts that make you feel alive that become the antidote to deadness flatness destruction meaninglessness Etc yeah toxic as in detrimental to our own well-being if it's if it's if it's of that interestingly if something is held tenaciously as in I can do this because nothing's gonna happen to me that isn't hope or this person is going to come back after we have clearly been told ten times they are not coming back that isn't hope that is um rigidity that is stuckness that is a tenacious idea that tries to defy reality because the experience of acceptance of reality makes us feel like we're gonna crash um so I think that you will find it better to understand when something is not helpful or generative meaning it creates something rather than it depletes you is because you're actually still naming it when it already needs to be named something else it is no longer in the realm of Hope how do you cultivate hope for love when you've only experienced heartbreak oh that is a beautiful question how do you continue to believe that love will come again with different people in different forms at the moment when you have felt rejected broken shattered for a while you don't for a while that is what heartbreak means is the accept is this sudden realization that you don't have it and you don't believe that it will happen again when you start to believe it happens again you're coming out of heartbreak that is one of the ways you know that you are stepping out is you begin to notice the people who are looking at you you're not just looking inward at the person who didn't want you or the various people that may not have wanted you the next thing is that you have to surround yourself with friends who also love you it's not just romantic love where people love you and family who believe in you who believe in your self-worth who seek you out who want your company so one of the ways that you cultivate that hopefulness in in the aftermath of heartbreak is by being surrounded by people who don't see yourself the way that you see yourself meaning they hold you up they prop you up with a different view of you they believe in you in moments when you don't it's extremely important to not think that this is something one does alone you need people who value you you your opinion what you're about how you know your your presence amongst them that is what counters the sense of rejection and dejection that you may have felt and that too slowly brings back the hope about love can happen again how do you retain hope in a situation where you have no action available see that's a great question Amanda but I don't know the specifics here right so the sense is there's nothing I can do right there's nothing I can do I don't know if we will ever be reunited because my partner my boyfriend can't come back into the country or I can't go visit them or you know what is it that is preventing me from taking action and as you know everything that was said was about taking actions about the things that you can control if you're trying to do things that are beyond your means your mirror Your Capacity your possibility then you're not in the realm of Hope see the the the all the things that people do you know to fight adversity to experience survival all these actions are clearly measured it's the small things I can do so if I can't go visit you maybe I can write a letter to you maybe I can talk to you on a screen maybe there's other ways that I can stay connected I'm just completely inventing an example here but you know I can't go see my ailing parent no I I I may not be able to see them again in person the last time but I can send us me singing to them you know a little recording a message something that connects us so action of the actionable meaning the things that you actually can do in small steps and that maintain the hope but not the hope is not always tied to the big thing I.E the outcome right that's the same thing we said around climate too I won't change the climate crisis by doing things but I can do little things in between and other people will bend on that and all of this may lead to an outcome but my action personally is not directly connected to the outcome the same thing is true in the small and personal Realm how can we stay hopeful when facing unknown or incurable illnesses if the illness is incurable you say yourself how a person wants to die tells a lot about how they want to live and so you remain you don't remain hopeful that they suddenly will be cured you remain hopeful that they will have a quality of life till the end that they will be surrounded by loved ones till the end that they will remain with a sense of dignity till the end and that hopefully you'll get a few more days than you had been told by the scientists you know it's that it's you don't hope isn't going to create cure but hope will surround the person who is ill with all the love and the respect and the rituals that make the incurable illness more tolerable and if you want to know more about that specifically go to the website of Endwell which is a whole organization that deals with end of life and hope is a very big part of the conversation too um yes how can we have hope if you know that the only way you'll be happy and free will cause sadness to your family that is a very important question because it's a question about differentiation right is how much do I have the right to do something that I feel is right for me and makes me happy if it's going to disappoint or even more than disappoint those my family in particular you know it can be how can I make the choice to go study something else to go live in another country to marry a different person or live with a different person or to leave a person that my family had chosen for me Etc so this notion of living with certainty that what I'm doing is what I'm Gonna Stand By and accepting that it will come with guilt over hurting people that I care about deeply and in this instance it's the ability to hold the inherent contradiction what is good for me is not for the people around me and I'm gonna have to live with having done something that was good for me and disappointing to others or I'm going to decide to not do what is good for me because not disappointing them is more important to me that is a possibility too and I will accept that that was the choice now that is not often a western choice that is a choice that exists in many other parts of the world where you don't do what's right for you if it doesn't fit the people that surround you your individual happiness doesn't exist on its own so it's not just how can I have hope it's how do I negotiate between these two different values the value of doing something for me and the value of being loyal to my family that is what you are negotiating here and how do you maintain that the reason when I hear the question about how do I hold hope here it's about how do I keep hope about this that there will be an answer that I will find some answer I can live with the other thing is find someone in your family who can be an interlocutor for you who in your family can be a link between in this dilemma between what you want and what the family wants for you there's often an ally in the family system could be it an aunt an uncle a brother a sister that moved away already find an ally it's a very important thing systemically and strategically yes how can you bring hope to others I would finish the question right how do you bring hope to others who don't have it who don't want it who reject it we don't believe in it you know who towards you Etc I mean I suppose it's a um you know I remember it's interesting that do you ask me this question I'm gonna tell you about a moment that always stayed with me I was a young therapist and uh I had a patient who was suicidal and was addicted and couldn't care less about destroying his whole life or it's not that he didn't care it's that he just was totally disconnected from it and I knew he had he found no reason for himself to live so I asked him to bring a number of his closest friends to a session with him and we were him and four of his closest friends where each of them talked about why they needed him to stay alive why he mattered to them so much what it would do to them if he would decide to take his life and this was a person who had no hope for himself but other people gave him a reason not to be hopeful but to stay alive because it nourished their hope so this kind of transaction is extremely important you tell other people that they matter to you that you that when you see them not well it actually affects you deeply you say let's go for a walk you hold them by the hand you tell them not to what do you want because sometimes when people are hopeless they have no idea what they want you say let's go let's go take you know take a drive you know go to a movie go to a concert listen to music you know smell the flowers you you you basically bring them into their senses and then from their senses into their feelings and maybe after that into their thoughts but you don't have a conversation about hope you just do little gestures that are soothing that are calming that allow me to look up and to see that there's a sky above my head and that it changed colors rather than be so completely retracted inside myself it's those little things that are gestures of Hope rather than conversations about hope all right there's so many of you everyone for it yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes there's so many of you I won't be able to answer many many more but remember hope sits on top of the Keen awareness and the trials and tribulations of life it doesn't replace it you know I spent many many years asking my parents who where in prolonged lockdown you know what gave you hope what gave you hope and it was this notion that it will be better I will see you again my family I will see you again my mother kept repeating my dad what gave me hope is that I could help those who were weaker than me and I felt stronger and I felt like I still had something to give so these two axes that we have come back the whole time today remain very very Central so I want to thank you all for joining me it's always a treat to meet you here on YouTube I hope you'll join me next month for letters from Esther live follow along sign up to my newsletter if you haven't already at a stairparel.com Blog and follow me at a step rail official on social media thanks to all give me your comments stay in touch see you soon

Channel: Esther Perel

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Length: 41min 17sec (2477 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022