Hope is the sweet butterfly
of peace Whose wings restart My heart
when it falters.
—Sue
Hope is in short supply these days. We look around and don’t necessarily see a lot to be hopeful about. But the truth is, each of us carries within our hearts the seeds of enduring hope. Like anything worth cultivating—happiness, success, peace of mind, a loving family—hope requires conscious effort and committed action to be able to grow deep roots in our heart and soul. Even the most resilient seeds fail to sprout when buried in the harsh soil of pain and fear. But I’ve found that with love, intention, and a little help, we all have the ability to create a fertile field within us where hope can grow, flourish, and eventually spread outward to inspire and uplift others. Happiness, serenity, and circumstances can help bolster our feelings of hope, but they don’t create them. We do. I can just hear some of you murmuring, “Bummer.”
I know, because I fell into a self-dug pit of hopelessness when first contemplating writing this book. Nagging internal voices filled me with doubt: “What a huge and important subject. What can I possibly say that would help?” “No matter what I write, it will be a mere drop in the bucket...”
Stymied, I began consciously courting hope by practicing many of the ideas, attitudes, and activities I planned to incorporate into the book if and when I ever managed to start writing it! To get myself started, each morning I would look in the mirror and assure myself, “You can do this. You don’t have to go it alone. Relax and let whatever needs to be said come through.” I also devised a simple ritual to do before sitting down at the computer. I invited my angels and muses to be with me, and asked for my little self to get out of the way so that my higher Self—or God’s energy—could flow through me to be of service. Thankfully, hope eventually took root, and inspiration and excitement began to replace fear and lack of confidence. One of the greatest boosts I received came from a well-known Gandhi quote I “accidentally” found:
“Almost anything you do seems insignificant. It is very important that you do it. You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
And that’s it, in a nutshell, isn’t it? We need to create, within ourselves, the changes for which we yearn.
If we want a world filled with hope and kindness, a world lopsided toward love, we need to cultivate and nurture those qualities within ourselves.
Excerpted from How to Stay Upbeat in a Beat Down World by Sue Patton Thoele. Available on Amazon.
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