Hope and Resilience
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
(Emily Dickinson)
Recently I’ve seen a number of social media posts in which people speak of being tired of being resilient. I’m not about to take away from the weariness and fatigue that so many people are experiencing. It’s real.
But I grieve a world without resilience.
Resilience is about so much more than living through hard days and circumstances. Resilience is about living well every day, in the good and the difficult. It may be demonstrated when we are living through challenges, but it is built into our daily lives.
I have been a student of resilience for decades. I try to practice it in my everyday life. I can tell you all about the theory and research. I can tell you how resilience is developed through our relationships and connections, our experiences of joy and sorrow, our physical, emotional, social, cultural, and vocational skills, and our beliefs and values.
But central in all of this is hope.
Research tells us that those who demonstrate resilience have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives, and at the core of this is hope.
Hope can be hard to place. It is a belief that life can be good, or better. It is an expectation grounded in trust. It is the “confidence… for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1). It sounds a lot like faith.
Faith can be scary for some folks. Some attach it to religion and religion doesn’t always feel safe to some folks. I believe that to have hope is a spiritual endeavor. It’s more than a feeling, and it’s more than a cognitive process. It is genuinely believing in what is possible and what is yet to be. It is believing that I have a future and a hope.
Hope looks different for each of us, yet without hope it’s hard to get up in the morning. If my life doesn’t matter - if I don’t have a sense of meaning and purpose and value - what’s the point?
That’s why hope is a key indicator of resilience. When we are weary. When we are overwhelmed. When we feel anxious and depressed. When we feel alone. That’s when we need hope the most.
Hope doesn’t spring from the pain. Hope carries us through the pain.
Hope springs from the practices and experiences that we have built up through a lifetime.
When we practice gratitude, we are reminded of the good things that we have seen.
When we experience kindness, we are reminded of our worth.
When we share a meal with friends, we are reminded of the beauty of genuine connection.
When we try new things, we are reminded that we can try, even if it doesn’t always go the way we thought.
When we look into the face of a child, we are reminded to be curious.
When we give someone a hug, we are reminded of what it is to be loved.
Small acts accumulate and build our resilience. Resilience becomes that cushion of sweetness into which we can fall and rest. When we are ready, we can use that cushion to help us rise and take another step.
We take that next step because we believe that it is possible; because we believe that it is worth it; because we have learned that even if this step isn’t the best, there will be opportunity for another.
