The Blessings of Hopelessness

Hope is like wishful thinking. Hoping a situation will change is one way of avoiding reality, and of distancing ourselves from our true feelings. It’s a way of stepping aside from taking full responsibility and agency in a situation. Hoping can leave us feeling a little bit numb, and a little bit less alive, less fully present. Hope can even become like an addiction - it keeps us hanging on, avoiding the pain a little longer, and hoping we won’t actually have to do the really hard work of truly meeting a situation, and our deepest feelings.

Sometimes we get what we hoped for, and we feel some relief. But we won’t feel the full-bodied satisfaction in life that we can access when we let go of hope. Here is a dictionary definition of hope: to cherish a desire with anticipation : to want something to happen or be true.

This wanting, this anticipation, is often accompanied by some amount of anxiety. Without hope, what do we have? In my experience, two empowering alternatives to hoping our way through life are self-responsibility, and faith. With self-responsibility, we learn to face life more directly, at face-value, and work with what we have right in the moment. We are no longer hoping and wishing for things to change or get better in some unknown future timeline - instead, we accept things the way they are right now, engage actively with what is, and even love what is, just because it IS!

When we do the inner work to clarify our desires, and to hone our skills for living by design rather than by default, we no longer feel the need to rely on the hope-drug. We gradually learn to accept responsibility for the outcome of our thoughts and actions, or at least for our response to the outcome. And we can live in the present-tense, rather than waiting and hoping for some kind of future to unfold.

I experience faith as a deep form of trust. To me, faith is driven by an inner wisdom that knows that in the bigger picture all is well, and life is always unfolding as it needs to. Faith reminds me that I can let go of control, let go of leaning on hope, and trust that I can handle reality as it shows up right in front of me. With inner clarity, courage, and a willingness to take right action, I can release attachment to the outcome. And when I am unable to see clearly? Faith assures me that I am okay, and I simply need to keep listening.

The trap of hope is that it disempowers by letting us off the hook, and when our hopes are dashed we may succumb to apathy. Apathy is dangerous because it sucks out our life-force, and blocks us from our true emotions which would guide us back to our vibrant, empowered Self.

There is certainly lots of hope in the air as we approach the results of the election to show us who will be the next president of the United Sates! And this is understandable. There appears to be a lot at stake, and the outcome feels to be beyond our control, other than to dutifully cast our one vote. What might become available to you, if you simply let go of hope in this situation? How might you harness and direct your energy differently? Would you become an activist on the campaign trail for your favorite candidate? Would you cultivate faith, and choose to trust that the outcome will be what it needs to be, for reasons you may not yet have access to see? Something else? By letting go of hoping for a particular outcome, you can free up energy for the now moment.

Hoping relates to longing, and longing is a sort of mushy, irresponsible, draining kind of energy. The blessing of hopelessness is that it frees us to simply deal with reality directly, and in the moment - bringing our whole self right into the moment at hand. When we are truly present (instead of lost in the vague and distracting quagmire of hoping), our energy is pure, clear, vibrant, and focused.

Without hope, we just have NOW. What are you feeling right now? What is most compelling right now? What is needed right now? What is beautiful in this moment? What is there to feel, to see, and to know in this moment?

I famously have a busy, planning and problem-solving mind. It is another form of distraction from meeting the present moment as it is. I have given up the hope of taming this quick mind - I have given up hope that it is even possible. And in giving up this hope, I have been letting go of judging myself for having this busy mind, and this has freed me to realize that I am not this busy mind. The consciousness that is my true Self can be present in the moment even when my mind is jabbering on with unrelated thoughts, and as long as I don’t fall into the trap of engaging with it when it isn’t needed, it can’t drain my energy.

Is there something that you could let go of hoping for, and free yourself to meet reality more fully, as it truly is right now in this moment?