“To have hope means acknowledging pain and defeat while imagining what else might be possible.”

Kerry Case, University of Utah – Sustainability News

“Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.”

Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power

Reflections

I’ve heard it said that much of happiness is hope. I agree with this sentiment. In my experience, hope and happiness go hand-in-hand. As hope fades, so too does happiness. In moments of hopelessness and despair, pain and defeat have blinded me to the world of possibility and hampered my ability to feel joy.

This makes sense from a biological point of view as pain, albeit it mental or physical, shuts down our brain’s imaginative capacity. Pain is a powerful force that hijacks our mental capacities in an effort to save us from potential threats to our wellbeing.

The problem is, much of the pain we experience does not threaten our survival. Much of our pain is psychological, stemming from emotional distress rather than physical injury. The brain can’t tell the difference between psychological and physical pain so it responds the only way it knows how, by initiating the stress response.

Though important in real life-threatening situations, our instinctual stress response doesn’t serve us well when dealing with psychological pain. The instruction manual for dealing with pain that comes hardwired in our DNA puts us into fight or flight mode, telling us to confront the threat with assertiveness and aggression or run away from the threat.

Neither of these options are useful strategies when trying to overcome psychological pain. Sources of psychological pain are infinite and unique to each of us. To overcome this type of pain requires an infinite number of solutions, which requires creativity; and creativity requires imagination.

To overcome psychological pain, then, we must acknowledge it for what it is (emotional distress) and appreciate the instinctual stress response that ensues, but we must not succumb to its power to overtake our creative capacities. We must use our unique volitional capacity (i.e., our ability to apply conscious top down pressure on our involuntary bottom up stress response) to override our instincts in these moments. In doing so, we keep our minds open to the world of possibilities which instills hope and promotes happiness.

And so begins the journey of becoming a better conductor of my own volition.