Holding hope
“It is always darkest just before the Day”
English theologian and historian Thomas Fuller (1650 approx)
As we draw ever nearer to the end of the year, it’s the perfect time for some reflection. For me it’s been a year with a great deal of change. And much as change is inevitable, it can also be pretty discombobulating (one of my favourite words). Given my recent circumstances, I have found myself at times feeling quite wobbly and having to keep faith that all shall be well and glorious. It’s made me wonder how we can best hold our nerves whilst navigating the choppy waters of our lives.
Life Crisis
An extreme and major wobble in terms of psychology is sometimes described as a life crisis. This is when we experience a loss of meaning in our lives. Despite the distress of being in this state, it does force us to reassess our life. It’s time for a reboot for our soul. A breakdown to breakthrough. To allow the personal crisis to change us. The crisis normally occurs as the gap between our inner and outer worlds gets wider and wider. And in the gap, the crisis emerges. We often use the term “the dark night of the soul” to describe this painful period. The first stage of the alchemical process of personal transformation called nigredo mirrors this dark space we enter in order to grow. Pain is the agent of change. As a comfort, we need to remember the darkest hour is before the dawn (as my opening quote describes). We need to hold faith that eventually the darkness will pass, replaced by the light.
The fantastic psychotherapist Julia Samuel wrote a whole book of client stories on crisis and change, and aptly named it “This too shall pass”. She explains that those who resist change and remain rigid in a crisis are more likely to suffer negatively. Change is inevitable, resisting it is futile and only causes us more harm.
Anxiety, change and freedom
When our worlds begin to wobble, we naturally feel out of control, and in response anxiety rules. I recently enjoyed a talk by existential therapist, Emmy van Deurzen who described anxiety as “the dizziness of freedom”. She explains that anxiety is experienced as we contemplate possibility and adventure. Anxiety resides in the gap between certainty and possibility. She concludes that we cannot have freedom without anxiety. I really appreciate this existential perspective as it provides comfort to the crisis we’re currently facing and where we’re heading to next in our lives.
So how can we best cultivate hope when a crisis hits?
Cultivating hope
As already referred to earlier Julia Samuel’s fantastic book “This too shall pass” recommends eight strategies (called pillars of strength) to cope with times of change. These include developing a relationship with ourselves through journaling for example, or being mindbody aware through exercise, or setting boundaries to protect our limits. These are excellent recommendations as to how to navigate change. As well as Julia’s advice, I would recommend the following to cope in a crisis and help us to “hold on” (as the fab Wilson Philips sings); they’ve certainly helped me in these recent wobbly times:
- Avoidance isn’t an option. You have to go through the choppy waters of the crisis. We need to accept where we are in our lives and acknowledge and experience all the emotions that come with it; the good, the bad and the ugly. To navigate around the storm, say through being in denial or using other defences, will only prolong the situation and the pain it causes.
- Wallowing isn’t your friend for the long-term. Staying in your pity bunker (oh woe is me) is not going to help you out of the crisis. By all means spend a bit of time moaning and groaning, get it all out of your system, and then put on your big adult pants and get going. A crisis is a time for existential courage, to locate our inner authority, otherwise the collapse continues. Faith and hope are both fire qualities, so they both require energy from us to manifest them.
- Perspective is key. If we operate from a place of fear, we’ll likely stay in stasis, the crisis will continue. But if we alter this perspective to a place of love, then we can begin to envision hope for the future. A crisis comes to shake us awake and help us change the script of our lives and our way of being.
- Reach out! This is so so important. Don’t try to go through this alone. Connect with friends/family who you know are good at support (avoid the flaky ones). It takes courage to say I’m not doing so well at present, but you’ll be so glad you did when you experience their love, empathy and support. Often our loved ones can easily see the hope when we can’t see it for ourselves. They see the light at the end of our tunnel. Knowing we have support around us can help ease our wobble and provide much needed scaffolding to keep us standing.
- Keep it simple. One of my favourite meditations I often listen to says, “when things are bad, don’t make them worse”. It’s so true. If you find yourself in a difficult place, don’t start adding to your load with more complication. Try to keep things as simple as possible. As most medication advise, this is not the time to operate heavy machinery and add more stress to your life.
- Be kind to yourself. Even if it’s a small gesture, like a long bath, a coffee in bed with a good book. A bit of self-love can only help not hinder.
- Get outside. I know we drone on and on about it, but getting some fresh air and escaping the four walls does really make a difference. Getting our body moving, maybe working up a sweat, releases those endorphins which will lift our mood, improve our perspective and allow hope to step forward.
- Get creative. Pick up a paint brush, a notebook or whatever floats your boat. Expressing ourselves creatively is always restorative and incredibly grounding. Our crisis no longer just lives in our head but is expressed in tangible form and we can experience it differently. On similar lines, surrounding ourselves with art or beauty can also help. Taking in an exhibition or visiting a national park can inspire our psyches beyond the immediate crisis.
- The darkest hour is before dawn. We need to remember that the dawn will come, this too shall pass. They might sound cliché, but they ring absolutely true. This won’t be forever. The only constant is change. Whatever we are experiencing, things will shift and move. Often the fog will clear, and we can see a way forward towards the light.
- Embrace the fertile void. Julia Samuel explained in one of her recent social media posts, the concept of the fertile void. This is the liminal space as we come to the end of one cycle before we start the next. This beautifully resonates with this time of year, the last few weeks remaining before we welcome in 2024. Julia describes this fertile void as a time of not knowing, a neutral zone of uncertainty, “a place of potential, of experimentation…wondering until a clear idea forms and a new plan emerges. It takes time.” If we can see our crisis as a fertile void and embrace all it has to offer, then hope resides in this liminal space along with all the potential richness of our future.
I hope my wonderings help if you ever find yourself feeling a tad ungrounded and need to find some much-needed hope. The late Desmond Tutu explained “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness,” Hope is so important to cultivate for our survival and growth. As the wonderful Ms Dickinson wrote “hope is the thing with feathers”.
Here’s to more hope for the coming year.
Hope – Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash
Compass Counselling 