How to Remain Hopeful in A Hopeless Landscape
I’d be lying if I said the reason I haven’t posted in here is simply because I’ve been sick - but the truth is that it’s a combination of illness meets fascism, meets constant news cycles that make you slow blink because you can’t believe the shit you are hearing, meets never-ending winter, meets overuse of tech. The last few months have felt HARD - Hopeless, Atrocious, Real fuckin’ bad, and Dismal. It’s been hard to show up. It’s been hard to care. It’s been hard to run a business that thrives on driving change and keeping spirits up. But there are a few things that have helped me to hang onto hope and I want to share those with you today, in the event that you might be feeling the effects of this HARD season.
Finding Something I Can Control/Create Consistency
Ever since moving to Calgary, I’ve fallen out of step with my morning routine. First I told myself it was simply “too cold” to go for a walk outside and before I knew it, 4 months had passed without my morning walk. Sure, I’d go for walks with the husband occasionally, but it was like pulling teeth and the crazy part is, where we live has so much beautiful walking space! So, I’ve kick started my morning routine again: walk, coffee, journal, read, substantial breakfast. Having a consistent routine gives me something to look forward to that I can control which makes my brain feel confident. When I show up to meet myself in the morning, it reminds me that taking care of me is important (especially in this political climate). This way I start my days off with a full cup and go to bed knowing that I have something to look forward to. The next thing I am looking at implementing will be my nighttime routine - with a consistent bed time, put the phone away time, and reading time.
2. Nature, Nature, Nature
With my cold turned bronchitis I forced myself to breathe fresh air, sitting on the deck even when it was cold. I kept looking forward to the moment I could sit outside and feel the sun on my skin and sure enough, this week brought the sun! Listening to the birds, watching the squirrels, hearing the wind in the trees, and smelling the fresh earth and air immediately calms my nervous system and allows me to feel good. Even when it was cold, I made a point to buy plants & flowers to indulge in nature and before I could sit outside, I started seed planting and just getting my hands in the dirt, and watching their little heads poke out above the soil reminded me of the cycle of growth and the importance of time, patience, consistency, and nurture. Science has proven time and time again that getting back to nature helps us regulate our nervous systems and drop our cortisol levels. Now that spring is on it’s way, I’m already feeling the life come back into my body.
3. Connecting with My Closest Humans
Whether through ZOOM, flying my bestie to visit me, or making time for Korean chicken with my pals when I was visiting back home, I’ve made a huge intention to connect with people in real life. It helps me get over my social anxiety that has developed in the last decade or so and helps me be able to talk openly and honestly with those that care for me unconditionally. Having people who you can be your truest self with, without fear of judgment or humiliation, is imperative to healing the human heart. Spending time doing nothing, laughing until your belly hurts, and playing/making memories with our people is incredibly important to our resilience and ability to show up despite the horrors. Also, connecting with my nieces and nephews remind me why I do what I do and how I want to do - what kind of world do I want to leave for my precious babies? By seeing them, understanding their hardships/concerns it reinvigorates me to fight harder. Attending protests, making signs, doing crafts, and talking about different social issues with the nuance and complexity that they require reminds me that the online sphere is purposefully driven to cause polarization, fear, and frustration. Just as much as I say the people online who think/say certain things would never do that in real life, I have to realize that I am the same as well. I try to imagine if the people that trigger my stress response were with me in person, what would I say? What would I do? and would I actually do those things? Or would I try to have compassion? Empathy? Ask more questions? Etc. Being with people in real life changes your brain for the better - even if you don’t like them.
4. Reading & Writing Poetry / Consuming Real Life Art
One of the things that feels hopeless is the loss of art & creativity for the sake of performance and convenience. Even I’ve noticed that my posts on instagram take on the form of what I’ve been taught will get more eyes on my content that creating content that might be a little unhinged. But, and this is one of the things that that stopped me from posting as often the last few weeks, it feels hollow. I know it will get liked and shared and have hearts littering the comment section - but does it feel like mine? Like what I truly want to say and how I want to say it? So, I started reading again (I got a library card!! WEEEE!) and poetry and short form prose are helping me to remember how we can connect to people with what we truly want to say even if it doesn’t fit into the narrow system of “what works”. It all comes down to what outcome do I want and right now?? I am craving REAL. With AI taking off and seeing variations of the same goddamn thing (hello, doll formations of people) I am BOOOOOORED and I want to connect with people on what’s real, what’s below the surface and one way to do this is through consuming REAL art and creating REAL art - even BAD art.
5. Teaching
Teaching gives me hope in the best way possible. First, because I have to research my topics of choice and then I think about how my experience aligns with the research. This helps me see my life in a way that makes sense of hard things and makes connections with the hard stuff that’s currently going on. Being able to connect with students like in my past writing workshop last month or my current 6 Ways to Embrace Yourself in Photos has brought so much life back to me. I love watching my AHAs! give them AHAs! in their own lives. When I taught for Women in Nuclear earlier this month I was able to take the frustration I felt about the research around women in male dominated industries to uncover some really cool information that allowed me to deliver a talk full of hope and action instead of hopelessness and despair. Teaching, like writing, gives me so much purpose and I get so excited to share the wealth of knowledge I’ve amassed. In that same vein, being a perpetual student also gives me life because these two things flow into each other: I learn about something that I want to teach and as I teach it I get questions from the students which encourage me to learn about something else or I notice trends in the information I’m teaching and the responses the students have and that sets me on another literary expedition. This constant cycle of learning and teaching and learning and teaching gives me the most hope.
6. Gratitude/Glimmers
Noticing glimmers and practicing gratitude for what I have in the now immensely reminds me that all I have is now. Whether it’s marveling at the way the light dapples through the trees onto my wall, the way my flour dough rises for my bread, or the beautiful smile I always get from the man who works at the restaurant where I get my weekly Korean hotdog. It reminds me that the world is beautiful while it is HARD. There is so much simple beauty around me at all times and the more I stop to marvel at it, the more I am reminded that what I’m constantly seeing online is not necessarily the truth - it skews the data to believe that everything is doomed and while yes, there is action to be taken there, people still fall in love, the birds still sing, my cat still acts a fools with catnip, my husband still rubs my back, the wind rustles the leaves, the rainbow light from the bevelled window on my door shines across my cheek, the moon glows brightly, friends still check in, people still gather to laugh and cry at movies, babies in onesies are so cutie, the crocuses pop up through the brown grass, the clouds collect and move across the bright blue sky, the thrift Gods still smile upon me, honey from the farmer’s market is unparalleled, my mom tucking me into a Granny quilt while I am sick still feels tender & loving, and picking herbs from my own garden to use in the bread that I just made makes my heart warm. Our brains are hardwired for negativity and survival, so we must be intentional about feeding it the good stuff.
