My word for 2021 is shift. Like everyone I know, I’ve learned a lot, since this time last year. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that change and uncertainty just are. Since I’m not in control of much more than which yoga pants, Zoom-appropriate top, and slippers I’ll wear each day, I needed to figure out how I could deal with all the change and uncertainty. That’s where shifting comes in.
For me, shifts involve acceptance and adjustment. I know I don’t have much control, but I have unlimited choices. I can shift.
Some of my recent shifts have been pretty significant. Some have been tiny. Some haven’t happened, yet. And I’m sure I’ll make a lot of shifts I can’t even imagine.
I took this picture in the late ‘90s, when Tom and I were on our way to Hope, Alaska. This was our first visit there. It wasn’t super-easy to find, but worth the trip. We shifted off the Seward Highway at mile marker 56.3 and drove 17 miles, til the road dead-ended at Hope. Yep, it was a worthwhile shift.
Wouldn’t it be great if finding hope was as easy as following directions on a map? Lately, I’ve been having a hard time finding it. Don’t worry, I know it’s still out there, probably at the end of a dead-end road, but it’s out there.
So, this is a group participation post. How do YOU find hope, or shift toward it? Thanks, in advance.
Lisa’s Cheap Therapy blog 
Funny you asked this today. I’m reading one of by Anne Lamont’s books about hope. I’ll share a quote that I read this AM that really resonated with me. Since it’s printed on the back cover, it seems it did with the publisher, too. “Love has bridged the high-rises of despair we were about to fall between. Love has been a penlight in the blackest, bleakest nights. Love has been a wild animal, a poultice, a dinghy, a coat. Love is why we have hope”. AL
For me, that’s so true. My hope is rooted in the relationships I have have with the people I love and the places that bring me joy. Observing the interactions among my beloved family members, hiking to the top of a mountain, sitting by the ocean, watching and listening to the birds in my backyard while enjoying my first cup of coffee are all things that bolster my hope.
Hope is my lifeline. It’s the very thing that keeps me going. It’s the difference between living and merely existing. I can’t imagine living a life without hope.
Thanks, Susan. Gotta love Anne Lamott’s gift for weaving the right words around so many wrong circumstances. Thanks too, for sharing your beautiful words and ways of finding and shifting toward the lifeline of hope. I can’t imagine living my life without it either.💜
Ive been trying to find more hope lately, like you know I know its out there I just need to shift to find it. Ive been trying to find hope in that uncertainty and unknown. The universe is expansive and even though the bad happens, there’s always something unknown waiting and I have to hope its good. Like susan, what is there without hope.