SATURDAY—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOPE-ING AND HOPE-FULL

“The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

Author Barbara Kingsolver

There is a difference between wishing and hoping. Hope without faith is empty—it is simply wishing. Hope filled with faith is active. It spurs us on to do something.

We can wish all we like that things will change or be different, but wishing does nothing. It places all the power externally. We wish someone would come along and fix things so everything would be fine, but we do nothing to contribute! We do not take an active role.

I think many people say, “I’m hoping this situation is going to improve” without actually engaging in the whole process. It’s just a word they use to describe the feeling of, “I have given up and am resigned to what will happen.” (This is often accompanied by a sigh!) These people may still be living in fear, but just saying they are hopeful! They are really wishing things were different without being willing to be involved actively or consciously.

Our work is to hold hope and faith. To be in hope, to step into hope, to put hope into our hearts for the alchemical process, requires us to take action. We must hold onto faith, move, do something to see the world differently or change the way we react. We must be conscious of what sort of expectation we have—one of hope or one of dread?

When we really are full of hope, we are filled with light and actually feel lighter. We vibrate at a different rate and are actually different beings. Our hearts are different; we are conscious of the decision to operate from hope; we have done something to make that possible.

My husband, Ken, had an interesting experience with hope and our friend Mary. She assessed him and told me the things she had found, which I was to share with Ken. They were not necessarily easy things to hear, and I was being led by fear when I worried about his reaction. But when I did tell him, using hope and courage as my companions, he said he was filled with hope and light deep inside.

When Ken heard what Mary had found, he felt, at last, that someone had really identified what had been core issues for him. I believe Mary is inspired in her work, and Ken sensed her spiritual connection to God and to us, and he felt that what she spoke was truth for him. That gave him hope.

Ken has since been able to find that same sensation and fill himself with it, rather than disappointment or another fear-based emotion. And he can choose a very different way of approaching the world now, especially when he catches himself having negative thoughts. Both of us still fall back into our old fear-based habits at times—but now we can recognize them, breathe, and choose to become hopeful and expect good things to come.

See if you can feel the difference between actively making your heart full of hope as opposed to just passively hope-ing or wishing for things to be transformed.

“Practice hope. As hopefulness becomes a habit, you can achieve a permanently happy spirit.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993)

Hope comes with knowing, and choosing to remember, that the spiritual worlds will help when you need it. Go on—you can do it!

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