Latest / Impact Ready / 142. Hope is the Light

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142. Hope is the Light · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hey everyone, hope you're having an awesome day today.
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  I came across this quote recently and it goes like this.
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  Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of
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  the darkness. And this was by Desmond Tutu.
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  Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of
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  the darkness. And it struck me because one of
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  the things I'm talking about a lot online with clients, with
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  patients, with my friends and my family is being able to find the
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  light, to find the light in challenging situations, in life,
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  in dark times, in heavy times, to be able to look out into the
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  world and see the light, find the light.
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  And this quote about hope is so pertinent because I'm actually a
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  huge advocate of hope with all the people that I work with, not
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  just feeling hope, but helping other people feel hope.
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  I think it is so damn important. And I love that quote because I
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  think that we all need a little help seeing the light in our
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  lives, especially in current times in the world where you
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  look at the news for even 10 seconds and all you see are
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  really heavy, negative, dark things going on.
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  Now, to be clear, I think we can all understand that the reason
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  we're bombarded with a lot of negative news is because that's
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  kind of what sells. And what we miss is that there's
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  so much good stuff going on in the world.
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  There's so much light. There's so many helpers.
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  And because people tend to talk about the negative stuff that
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  they've seen on the news. I've been talking to people
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  about this idea of hope a lot lately, and I've noticed
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  something. Sometimes when you talk about
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  hope, there's a little bit of pushback, and I understand why
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  culturally, hope is not very cool.
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  It's often seen as sticking your head in the sand.
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  It's seen as a kind of naivete. Cynicism and skepticism are much
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  more culturally cool, especially right now.
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  I've also heard people express that it feels hard to have hope
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  and almost inappropriate to be hopeful in a world that's filled
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  with suffering and injustice. And I understand all of that.
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  Trust me, I'm an Aquarius. The injustice of the world
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  weighs very heavy on Aquarian hearts.
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  So I am with you. When things are really heavy, I
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  understand that it could feel unrealistic or irresponsible to
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  be hopeful. Hope can feel very elusive in
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  dark times. I also know that like most
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  things, when taken to the extreme, the original behavior
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  can turn into something else. And in that way, hope can have
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  its pitfalls, too. If we cling too tightly to
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  certain outcomes or expectations, if we resist
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  change, if we fail to see reality, well, then, yeah,
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  that's not a healthy space to be in.
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  But that's not hope, team. That's grasping.
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  It's a much different energy with much different outcomes.
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  And while I can understand that side of things, I don't see hope
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  that way. I don't think that hope is about
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  denying reality or avoiding hardship.
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  I don't think of hope as a liability or a weakness.
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  I think hope is about holding space for possibility.
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  It's about resilience. It's about inner strength.
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  Some of the strongest, most grounded people I know are the
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  most hopeful people I know. I went to the Oregon College of
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  Oriental Medicine for Graduate School for acupuncture and
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  Chinese medicine. And a few years ago I gave the
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  commencement speech at their graduation.
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  And one of the things that I emphasized in the speech was how
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  important, how crucial it was to give patients hope when it comes
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  to their care. I said that it was our duty as
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  practitioners because without hope, we put our patients
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  outcomes at risk. And there's a reason for all of
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  this. There's research that indicates
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  that hope could enhance immune function.
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  It can make the body more resistant to infections and
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  diseases. Positive emotions, including
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  hope, help reduce our stress hormones that can otherwise
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  suppress our immune function and our immune responses.
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  Another less clinical, less scientific reason that I was
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  adamant about trying to instill hope in my patients is because I
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  noticed that when they were feeling hopeless, and they often
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  tell us that in the health intake, those patients wouldn't
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  get better as fast. It would take me 10 treatments
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  to resolve something when it would usually take me 4.
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  And all of this makes sense to me because when we lose hope,
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  things feel heavy. They feel dark, scary, and our
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  hearts close with those types of emotions.
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  And when the emotional heart is closed, we show less aliveness.
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  People need hope. They do better when they have
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  it. And I've seen this over and over
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  again, not just in my patients in the clinic, but in my own
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  personal life. I saw it recently with my
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  coaching client who tore his ACL, and he needed some hope to
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  be able to move past this identity crisis he was feeling
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  because he couldn't play basketball and he couldn't ride
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  his bike. For a year.
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  He was really mentally struggling until he found his
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  hope in the form of another friend who'd been through a
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  similar surgery. But once he did, everything
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  started to brighten up for him after that.
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  I saw it in my friend who's struggling with chronic pain and
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  he's having to use a cane to walk around our dinner
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  gatherings. I mean, hell, I saw it in myself
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  when I literally said to my oncologist a couple weeks ago, I
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  need a little hope here. We all need it.
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  And it's not just pertaining to health or injuries or illnesses.
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  We need hope in our marriages. We need hope with our finances.
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  We need hope in our careers, running teams, managing people,
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  growing our businesses. Why?
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  Why is it so important to feel hopeful in your body and in your
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  life? Well, let's think about this in
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  a different way. Can you imagine life in a world
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  where there was no hope? Think about it for just a little
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  bit. Living in a world where there
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  was no hope, people didn't feel it at all.
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  It would be devastating because nobody would be seeing
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  possibility or having faith in outcomes or themselves.
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  People wouldn't rise up and work for a better life or better
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  future or better existence because they wouldn't see the
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  point of it. There would be a lot less action
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  because people wouldn't feel motivated to work for their
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  dreams. Why would they?
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  There's no hope there. And we as humans would just feel
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  a lot heavier because in the face of a challenge, we'd have
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  nothing to help us see beyond the challenge and see a
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  different future, a better future.
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  It's a really scary situation to think about a world with 0 hope.
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  And that's why I don't listen to the naysayers.
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  I don't subscribe to the idea of not wanting to get my hopes up
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  because I don't want to live a life where there is no hope.
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  I see too many reasons to invest in hope as much as I can.
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  Because if I look at my life experiences, what I realized is
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  that hope is what helped me navigate the uncertainty in my
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  life and allowed me to take the risks that I needed to take and
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  see possibility when everything was so foggy.
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  It's given me strength. I've never felt like it was my
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  weakness to be hopeful, and I've had a lot of reasons to choose
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  despair. I could have gone that direction
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  so many times. But I want to believe in change.
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  I want to believe that something different is possible, even in
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  the dark moments. And that takes strength and
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  courage. Strength and courage, That
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  doesn't feel like weakness to me.
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  Hope is often what gets me into action.
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  I do things when I believe that I'm capable of creating
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  something better. And it's also forced me to
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  expand my perspective, see new opportunities and solutions in
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  different ways. It's made some of my heavier,
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  darker circumstances in life feel much more tolerable, much
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  lighter. And I don't know about you, but
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  I don't like to sit in the darkness.
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  And so I reach for hope in those moments.
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  Hope is the light. It's certainly not denial of
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  what is here. It doesn't mean that you're
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  ignoring reality. It just means that despite your
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  circumstances, you can believe that a different reality is
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  possible. Change is possible, healing is
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  possible, new beginnings are possible, and hope shows up in
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  all different forms. It might be the husband and the
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  wife who says I'm willing to go to counseling together.
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  I want to work things out. It might be someone saying I'm
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  going to help you with this problem that you're having.
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  It might be a trainer or a coach who's training someone out of an
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  injury. It might come in the form of
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  your faith, whatever your faith is.
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  I find that there's a lot of hope in nature.
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  The resilience and the wisdom and the calmness of nature and
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  even just being the one to say I'm hopeful.
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  That in and of itself inspires hope in the person listening.
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  You know, like most things in life, I think that I've had to
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  practice being hopeful. We talk a lot about questioning
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  our stories, the stories that we have in our head about life and
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  people and situations, questioning your negative
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  assumptions about things, changing your perspective, and
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  instead choosing to be hopeful. You know, that doesn't come
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  naturally all the time, but you can put in the reps just like
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  anything else. I mentioned earlier that I think
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  fear and negativity can close down the heart.
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  I've seen this in a lot of people and it scares me because
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  when the heart is closed, when it's kind of shut down, it's
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  much harder to reach people. But hope, Hope is one of those
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  things that can open the heart back up.
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  And when we can live life with an open heart, God, we just
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  experience so much more of what we want.
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  We can have a much more profound impact, impact on our inner
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  circle, on our community, our friends and our family, but also
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  impact on ourselves. Because when you are ready to
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  impact, when you are right there, that means by proxy your
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  life is up, leveling right along with you.
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  And that's what we all want. We want the ability to be the
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  creator of our own life, to be the designer, to be able to
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  reach those milestones that we set for ourselves and get to the
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  achievements, to have the relationships, to travel, to
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  create safety and security for ourselves, to feel peace and joy
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  and excitement and appreciation. Hope can be such a powerful
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  gateway to all of that. So my challenge to you this week
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  is simply to start putting in the reps see where you can
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  infuse a little bit more hope in your own life.
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  And then also see if you could be the hope for someone else.
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  It doesn't take much energy from you, but God, it gives so much
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  to other people. So that's all for today.
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  Thank you for being here, team. I so appreciate you.
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  If you want to stay in touch with me, you can sign up for my
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  newsletter. It's called the Impact Effect
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  and all you have to do is go to my website, stephsaffer.com and
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  you can sign up there. I so appreciate you being here
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  and listening to the show. Hope you have an awesome week
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  and thank you as always for being ready to impact.
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  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
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  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.