When was the last time you felt you have lost your way? Maybe you lost your job, got divorced or you or your loved one was critically ill. How well are you able to bounce back and get on with life? Most time people tend to attribute hope as just another fluffy, positive emotion only present for a short period of time. Then disappearing only to appear again after a while, staying for another short period and then disappearing, creating a cycle. More often than not, people only realize the importance of hope after encountering or being knocked down with any of the many tragedies of life. How hopeful are you? Have you ever considered or thought about the impact of hope and how it affects your life, work, family or health?
We all want to be happy, we all want to have hope for a happy future, but what does being happy really mean? How can one develop a more realistic understanding of hope? A hope that is capable of sustaining happiness in the face of everyday stress, difficulties, disappointment and challenges. According to the sage Dalai Lama “hope sustains happiness”. If hope is to sustain happiness, then hope must be built on understanding and acceptance of the idea of the state of impermanence life. There is an old long Africa saying that goes “no condition is permanent”.
Phone Therapy can help you find your hope and happiness again.
You may ask what exactly impermanence means and how can an understanding and acceptance of impermanence bring about hope and happiness. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “impermanence” means not lasting forever: not permanent. Therefore, it can be deduced that impermanence here is referring to the fact that plans, feelings, thoughts, emotions, and all of life for that matter is subject to continuous changes – a state of flux.
It is an open secret that the only constant and permanent thing in the world is change. Now this should not be a cause of anxiety and worry but rather of hope. Once we learn to find hope in the fact that change will always happen then we can learn to always go with the flow and as such make our plans flexible so as to accommodate for the ever-constant change. This can be a very difficult process especially as individuals are wired to always want to be in control and on top of every situation in their life. But once we realize and accept the concept of change, we have hope and happiness which gives our mind a state of peace. Embracing the concept of impermanence not only helps us find hope in the present moment, but also in making plans for the future to bring happiness to our life.
Hope and happiness is also sometimes referred to as emotional well-being and can mean different things to different people. There is no one definition of hope and happiness that everyone agrees with.
Phone Therapy can help you find your hope and happiness again.
But in general term, hope and happiness is about
- Being content and always having a positive disposition towards life
- Recognizing, accepting, communicating, understanding, acknowledging the broad range of feelings including love, sadness, joy, pain and anger
- Being resilient and able to adapt with challenges and setback and to bounce back from disappointment
Every human on earth face challenges and difficulties and go through the phase in life where life itself proves to be tough and rough. Disappointment, loss, and change are a part of life. It is normal and a healthy response to these setbacks to be sad, depressed, and stressed. But with hope and happiness you have the ability to experience all these emotions and still be able to develop coping mechanism to adjust to the reality of life. This allows you to heal.
Hope and happiness brings about emotional well-being, which is also very connected and can be attributed to social wellness. People who are able and capable to fully develop emotional wellness are better able to build and maintain long lasting and fulfilling relationships.
Did you know that there is a science of hope? This is a major question that Dr. Shane Lopez in his book “Making Hope Happen” asks you to consider. In his book he outlined why hope matters and how it is essential to happiness. He was of the opinion that there are three elements of hope:
- Having goals – seeking out where you want to be and how to get there, taking responsibility and feeling empowered to shape your life daily and identifying and seeking various towards achieving your goals. This he opined is the perfect recipe for a happy life. Working towards meaningful life goals is one of the most effective strategies always utilized by happy people. In a study conducted, hope proved to be a very strong predictor of satisfaction and fulfillments in life, leading Dr. Shane hope is a symptom of happiness.
- There is also the growing evidence that hope – being positively disposed about a better future and acting in the best way to sustain that positive emotion – is the foundation for a happy life.
- There is the view that hope should be a focus of positive psychology. It is a hope that is built on the foundational understanding of the reality of impermanence, the necessity of leaving in the moment free of worries and anxiety. It is this hope that sustains happiness.
How hopeful you are in life has a positive disposition towards your work and life. It also directly affects how well you age, how better you are able to take care of your health and how productive you can prove to be at work. Being hopeful about a better future builds your resilience and gives you the necessary life hack to be able to handle stress, pressure, change and adversity. Tell yourself the future is good and bright for you; do not adopt the strategy of telling yourself things will be bad because that is a recipe for sadness and depression. Tell yourself life will be great, seek out ways to achieve your goals and be flexible in your plans because most times things do not goal according to how we plan, but that does not mean we should succumb to depression. Go with the flow, never forget life is a state of impermanence and remember you always have the choice to be happy.
If you need help in finding your hope and happiness, we are just a click away. Online counseling is affordable and available anywhere, anytime. Please, enter our gates to a brighter tomorrow at www.gateway2counseling.com
Phone Therapy can help you find your hope and happiness again.