tenacious, defiant hope

Trying to find hope in the middle of painful chaos is like believing in unicorns. You desperately want to believe in something that is beautiful, majestic and lovely that can instantaneously make you feel calm and supported and magically healed. But alas. Unicorns aren’t real and there are times when hoping can feel delusional, crazy and foolish.

Sometimes bravery is hoping for a glimmer of good when the worst is suffocating you. In that moment hoping may seem like the craziest, most delusional thing to do, but you do it so you don’t emotionally die for a moment. You desperately hold on to hope because you need to believe in the light at the end of the crap filled tunnel. You need to. Otherwise you feel you might collapse under the weight of the extraordinary disappointment and heartache that life in this extremely difficult moment is right now.

There is a knowing it won’t always be this way. That eventually it will get better. That is the hope you hold on to. The deep down in the gut sense of knowing it won’t stay this way. Not forever. Maybe longer than you’d like, but not forever, right?

So you hope. You hope hoping makes you feel better. It doesn’t sometimes, because hoping for an outcome that doesn’t happen makes continuing to hope a challenge. That’s when you feel foolish. But the negative can’t win. The positive must prevail. Pollyanna positivity lightens the soul in that moment. Perhaps it’s only the moment, but at least you’re retraining your thought patterns. 

It’s retraining your brain’s thought patterns on what to hope for that is essential. Belief in a desired outcome (sure, still do), but also being open to hoping you learn something valuable while hoping even if the outcome is unexpected.

Hoping to grow no matter the experience is never delusional, crazy or wasted hope. Pollyanna always learned something new, didn’t she?