Structure of Hope: Entering 2025
I hope this finds you entering this new calendar year feeling the fire in your soul!
And, if you are not (I can think of many reasons why), I have a short podcast for you that may support a connection with your inherent spark. It certainly helped stoke my connection with mine.
On the Capricorn New Moon, my partner, Dan, shared with me the episode, "Uncertainty Looms as Trump's Inauguration Day Approaches" from The New Abnormal podcast.
Btw, we are still in the New Moon Phase until Friday morning 1/4/25. This is a fantastic time to be seeding energies, ideas, experiences we want to nourish, grow, deepen and expand!
The podcast episode features a conversation with Stanford professor, Jamil Zaki, author of Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness.
I want to share several excerpts with you:
"Hope is not optimism.
Optimism is the belief that the future will turn out well.
Hope is an acceptance of uncertainty.
We don't know the future.
We don't know what's going to happen.
In that uncertainty, there is still room for our actions to matter.
It's important to know that hope is not a rosy feeling, it's not a way to bury your head in the sand and avoid thinking about really difficult things that are happening.
Instead, it's a pragmatic feeling of possibility that we use to push and struggle and scratch for what we want, even and especially, during the hardest times." (Dr. Zaki)
In the conversation, Dr. Zaki is asked what he thinks is the best reaction to the weaponization of hopelessness. Without hesitation he answers, "RESISTANCE."
He says, "The totalitarian state, what they want is not for you to believe in them, they want you to believe in nothing. A population that doesn't believe in itself, citizenry that doesn't believe in each other, and people who lose their sense of value and lose that compass for what they want as a society, are easier to control..."
Lastly, at about 13/14 mins into the episode, Dr. Zaki lays out the STRUCTURE OF HOPE (so aligned with the seeding energy of the Capricorn New Moon!):
Hope entails 3 pieces.
1. A goal that you have for the future. You have no idea if that goal will be accomplished or not, but it's something you'd like to happen, and you think it might be within reach.
2. Will power. The desire to move towards that goal.
3. What psychologists call 'Waypower' - a sense that there's a path that you can see between where you are and where you'd like to be.
Dr. Zaki elaborates on the above and so much more, so I hope you'll tune into the pod! My intention in sharing the excerpts is that they might be impactful and meaningful nuggets for you to digest in this moment, on this New Year's Day.
May we RESIST and together work to cultivate HOPE, even and especially, in the most uncertain of times.
Please feel free to read more in my New Moon, New Year Newsletter!