Cultivating Hope in the New Year
By Charity Hagains MA, LPC-S
New Years is typically filled with a sense of new beginnings and hope for the future.
Goal setting, resolutions, and black-eyed peas for luck typically fill our day as we find a renewed sense of motivation. This year that has been tough. Hope has been in short supply, and when hoping becomes difficult, coping becomes difficult.
Hope is a cornerstone of our ability to cope with difficult times. We may be in the struggle now, but hope reminds us that this pain is temporary and that happiness will return. Hope took a beating in 2020. Grasping at optimism, we looked forward to a moment when our world would be normal again. First it was a few weeks, then by May, summer for sure, then maybe the holidays. Everywhere we turned, our hope was met with disappointment. Normal got further and further away. We began to find it difficult to hope for better days.
New Years might not have felt like a bursting moment of new beginnings, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find our hope in other ways. It doesn’t mean that we can’t cope with our current situation. It doesn’t mean we can’t still believe in our fresh start.
First things first, let's find us some hope.
2021 Rule #1: Don’t look back. A new year is about looking forward, not backward. That is so important this year. If we spend our energy searching for “normal,”reminiscing about the way our world used to look, and feel we are staring in a rearview mirror, we won’t find our hope back there.
Rule #2: Stay in your space, not others. It’s so so tempting to open Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram and peer into the lives of others - the very curated and staged lives of others. Then, we look around at our own life and wonder “what the hell is wrong with me?” Well for starters, you don’t have a camera crew hanging around to stage your life so that it’s “camera ready.” Take a social media break (hell, take a media break...it’s stressful), and focus on your life, your space, and you...without the outside influence of influencers. Hope is not abundant on the internet.
Rule #3: Keep it small. Finding gratitude in the smallest of moments is without a doubt the fastest and most reliable way to cultivate hope. That cup of coffee, the rare giggle from your teen, the satisfaction of finishing a new book or completing a task with ease, and the long calming breath you take at the end of your day. Wonderful things are happening to us every day, and we usually overlook them because we are either staring in the rear view mirror, our phone screen, or the pile of laundry that isn’t going to fold itself. Don’t look for the moments that are difficult or ones we are dreading. Look at this single moment. Even right now. Be grateful for the time you had to read this and focus on how to nurture yourself. It’s a glorious gift to take that time for your betterment.
Rule #4: Once you find it, don’t let it go. This is where boundaries play a huge part. Once we find our hope through gratitude, focus, and cultivating our future our way, it’s easy for other things to creep in and snag it back from us. Maybe it’s the people around you who haven’t found their hope. Maybe they are putting off the most negative vibes imaginable and you are having a hard time staying in your joy. Maybe it’s a world event (we have had so many hard things happen in our world in such a compact time span), and you feel yourself slip into fear, anger and sadness, making hope feel further from your mind. When you notice that you are being pulled back into the struggle see that as an opportunity to refocus and find perspective. Have boundaries with that which might seek to steal your joy - a thought, an event, a news story, or someone’s energy. Place that feeling of hopefulness at the top of your priority list, and keep it there. This helps make everything else seem less important than your joy, and that’s okay. You have full permission to feel happy and joyful even in the struggle.
None of us know what’s up next for 2021. We humans love knowing what to expect so most of us are working to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation, and that’s okay. Remember that you were made to be joyful. Keep letting yourself feel those moments of gratitude, happiness, and peace. One moment will grow into two and so on. The more you acknowledge each moment, the quicker they will grow. It isn’t easy work by any means, but it's so valuable to start the work. And there's no better time to start than at the start of a new year, even one as uncertain as 2021.
