Monday Mindset
Living on borrowed hope
Hello, friend.
Sitting in the sun, I can’t help but luxuriate for a moment in its warmth. We’ve been having unseasonably warm weather here in Minnesota, and that’s meant multiple walks with the dog, windows down, and lighter layers. Thank goodness for the respite, even if the weather’s bound to turn once more to colder days before springtime actually settles in.
While glimmers of hope are shining through, some days (and seasons) require more than a glimmer or two to steady our souls. When we cannot feel the hope we once did, all is not lost. This is when we can lean on the strength of those who are not in the thick of feeling beaten down by life (though, importantly, they have been through it before and have survived it).
When we cannot survive on our own stores of hope, we can get by through:
Living on borrowed hope
"But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
I don’t know what this month has felt like for you, but the culmination of weeks of overwhelming news and active occupation in our cities led me to a breaking point last week. It’s all so much. Although I’ve learned to lean into supports and community, I could feel the old pull to isolate in pain. But that old story feels like even greater suffering than the pain itself.
When I was in the depths of it last week, I knew I couldn’t hold it alone. I reached out for extra support from places I knew could see and hold me in it. These people don’t try to brush past the hard by painting it as a perspective issue, and they also give me tools and touchpoints to help me when I’m feeling flooded.
All of this is to illustrate what Gabor Mate wisely said, “Safety isn’t the absence of threat; it’s the presence of connection.”
Oftentimes, we don’t need to be fixed when we’re struggling. We simply need to be witnessed. There is a time and place for advice, but it’s not before our very real pain is acknowledged.
We need spaces that can hold the whole of us. As an enneagram seven (if you don’t know what that is, let’s just say someone who likes to move on from uncomfortable feelings in this instance), I like to keep moving. I don’t want to sit in my pain. And yet, the loss of my dad nine years ago brought me face-to-face with grief in a way I had never experienced before. I couldn’t pretend that things were okay. All of a sudden, the world changed—my world changed forever.
If you’ve experienced the loss of a close loved one, you know the pain doesn’t disappear with time. The ache might change shape and intensity, but the missing never leaves. The love doesn’t, either.
What does any of this have to do with borrowed hope?
Well, it is in the hardest moments of life—the ones that knock the breath from our lungs and turn our worlds upside-down—that we might not have any hope for the future. How could we when everything we’ve known has changed?
This doesn’t mean that we won’t get through it or that there isn’t goodness ahead. When in uncharted territory, we don’t know what to expect. We can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel because, quite frankly, the tunnel feels like a deep, dark pit.
It is precisely these times when we need to borrow a little hope from those who have walked through hard times and come out the other side. They know what it is to struggle, to cry themselves to sleep, or to question whether anything is worth the fight any longer.
And yet, they lived through it.
Life will throw us into the mixer sometimes (I’m sorry to say this includes every one of us), and it will leave us disoriented. Perhaps, it will leave us without hope of our own, too.
If you’re feeling low on hope, borrow some. One of the best ways I know to do this is through stories—whether personal, historical, or spiritual.
We have access to so much these days. A conversation with a trusted friend or mentor might be enough to pull us out. Other times, when they’re not available, or we need a little lift from someone who’s experienced the struggle we’re facing, we can find help for hope in communal spaces. Whether it’s an online forum where people offer resources that helped them, podcast interviews with people who have gone through what we’re struggling with, or books that tell stories of breakthroughs, there is borrowed hope available.
When things were really hard in those early grief days, I turned to friends who had lost a parent. It was like I was suddenly part of a club no one wants to join. But there was so much validation in the shared experience of grief.
We might be in the middle of massive change that’s uncomfortable, and in some cases scary, but we are not alone in it. Connection brings safety, and it can also lend us some hope when we’re running low on our own.
What connections, stories, or communities have offered you hope when you needed it?
If you find yourself struggling to find hope (this can be in a specific situation, or in general), reach out to someone. If reaching out doesn’t help, go looking for stories that can help you feel less alone in it. Borrow some hope, whatever that looks like for you.
And, if you need specific ideas (or simply want some witness), reach out. I’m just an email away, and I answer every one.
Sending grace, peace—and yes, a little bit of hope—from the trenches.
~Sara
Thanks Sara, that’s lovely. I’m current switching off to everything, burying my head in the sand, which is not ideal !