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Month: February 2011

Day 8 – Making Hope a Priority!

What do you do, or what can you do, to contribute to others feeling hopeful?

“When I walk with you, I feel as if I have a flower in my buttonhole.”

-William Makepeace Thackeray

Take advantage of the ripple effect to grow hope!

Most of us have had an experience where someone impacts our mood negatively. It might be that someone cuts you off in traffic, or bumps in to you with their grocery cart and doesn’t acknowledge it, or it might be any seemingly small experience or interaction or negative thought that sends your mood in to a downward spiral. So, just think about the power we all hold and imagine the profound impact we can make, if we intentionally set out  to “plant seeds” and lift other’s spirits?

Whether it is a hopeful word or a positive attitude,  a warm smile or holding the door for someone, offering a cup of coffee or tea to a friend or guest having a bad day or dropping a quarter into someone’s meter when it’s about to expire, you have the ability to positively impact others and help grow hope exponentially.

We leave you with two small words that we hope we can ALL start to put into practice!

“Scatter Joy.” 

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day 7 – Making Hope a Priority!

Where do you feel most hopeful?

Is there a place, or type of place, that you find your spirits rise? Can you think of new places to go to see how you react and how you feel while you are there and after you leave?

Some people like going to a park, feeding the ducks and watching children laughing and running and playing. Some have (or find!) a religious or spiritual center that lifts them up. Some find that just being out and appreciating the beauty of nature in all of its beautiful forms, inspires them. Some people feel most hopeful while at home, alone, surrounded by their favorite books, art and personal treasures or collections. For some, the answer is being with other people, out in public or inspired by work and co-workers. Others find meditation or prayer takes them to the most high and hopeful places.

Where do you currently go, and what are some new places to try? Please take a moment to think on this and join the discussion!

“Great mother of big apples, it is a pretty world.”

-Kenneth Patcher

Day 6 – Making Hope a Priority!

Today we have a few questions for you:

Are there specific things you do to feel hopeful?

How often do you do them?

Can you think of new things to try?


Whether it’s getting exercise, playing guitar, sending a letter, planting a garden, or organizing your schedule or ipod playlists, what kinds of things increase your hope?

Another way of thinking about this is, what gives you energy? Real energy, not caffeine induced, but energy from within, and how can you do more things to add to your energy bucket?

Today we leave you with some words from a Procovery Note from page 90 of The Power of Procovery in Healing:

Find out what pulls rather than pushes you. Go where the positive energy is.

“Don’t worry about what the world wants from you, worry about what makes you come more alive.  Because what the world really needs are people who are more alive.”

-Lawrence LeShan

Day 5 – Making Hope a Priority!

Is there a time of day that you feel most hopeful?
 
Please take a moment to really think about this question – it can really make a positive impact on your life when you determine what time of day you might feel most hopeful and what thoughts, actions or interactions are creating this sense of hope. You can work toward creating more and more hope in your day, each day, starting from a moment in the morning when the sun is shining bright, or your afternoon walk after lunch, a conversation with a loved one or a hopeful quote on your daily calendar page.

Please take a moment to share and discuss and help us to create and expand this online community of HOPE!

“Hope never abandons you; you abandon it.”

-George Weinberg

Day 4 – Making Hope a Priority!

We hope you had a wonderful weekend and were able to take some time to think about all of the hope questions including what makes you feel hopeful!

We are back today with question #4 – Who gives you hope?


And please remember, if you do not, at this time, feel you have a personal relationship with anyone who gives you hope, you can select people you do not know. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, your favorite poet or author. List any one you can think of, who gives you hope, whether or not you personally know them!

We encourage you to take some time to reflect on this and really think about the answer, as our answers to these questions can often be an automatic response, but in reality, the answers often change over time and it can be important to really think about it.

We also encourage you to Click here and listen to a very powerful and inspiring response to this question from Procovery Circle Facilitator Stephanie Schmidt, in St. Louis MO.

Happy Tuesday everyone! See you tomorrow…

In Observance of Presidents Day…

Hello Everyone!

In observance of Presidents Day, we will be resuming our blog series Making Hope a Priority tomorrow (Tuesday), with our Day 4 blog! We encourage you to take a bit of extra time today to reflect on Question #3 – What makes you feel hopeful?

We hope you are all having a lovely Monday and will see you back here tomorrow.

Until then…

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

-Abraham Lincoln

Day 3 – Making Hope a Priority!

Question #3: What makes you feel hopeful?

Today we ask that you take a moment to click here and view our newest Procovery Snippet of Dr. LaVonna Blair Lewis, Clinical Associate Professor, USC School of Policy, Planning and Development, speaking about Procovery, the importance of igniting passion and sharing with others. We are hoping to ignite passion within this community of HOPE here with these blogs and we invite you to join us! We would love for you to participate, discuss, (respectfully) disagree, comment and share!

Today we leave you with a quote by Barbara Kingsolver – something we here at Procovery Institute really take to heart.

“Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.”

Day 2 – Making Hope a Priority!

Question #2: What detracts from your hope?

While it may seem like a not very hopeful question and some may discount spending any time focusing on a question like this, it IS an important one. While we agree that focusing on the energizing aspects of hope in our lives is highly pertinent, we need to know what takes that valuable hope from us so that we can learn to walk around it, so that we can learn to avoid it, and so that we can learn to understand it, and understand ourselves.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson* 

Chapter One

I walk down the street

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I fall in.

I am lost . . . I am helpless.

It isn’t my fault.

It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I am in this same place.

But, it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter Three

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in . . . it’s a habit . . . but,

My eyes are open.

I know where I am.

It is my fault.

Chapter Four

I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

Chapter Five

I walk down another street.

We are committing, as an experiment of sorts, to see whether we can build an important community here, so we really hope you will join us and discuss! Even if you hate hope right now… We welcome all respectful comments related to the discussion!

*Copyright 1993 Portia Nelson from the book “There’s a Hole in my Sidewalk”, Beyond Words Publishing, Hillsboro, Oregon. Used with (grateful) permission by Portia Nelson’s family and Beyond Words Publishing.

Day 1 – Making Hope a Priority!

Please take a moment (or an hour, or a day) to think deeply about question #1: What does hope mean to you?

Please reflect on, comment and join the discussion! The internet provides a powerful vehicle for us to connect, for us to lift each other up, for us to get outside and beyond of our own lives. We can explore what is possible, how we can be of service, find more joy, learn from each other, contribute and change, not only our lives, but our communities and the SYSTEM as well.

We hope to hear from you and we welcome (and desire!) differing opinions, including people who hate hope, right now. Let’s all get involved…Today!

We’ll be back tomorrow, but now we leave you with this quote by George Bernanos that reflects an interesting take on hope:

“Hope is a risk that must be run.”

Making Hope a Priority

Imagine if for the next month, or week, or even day, you embarked on a hope scavenger hunt. Imagine if every time you ate anything at all, you took a moment and thought about hope. Every time you got in to bed, you thought about hope. Each morning when you wake up, you take an extra moment and you think about hope…  Hope in the shower, hope while you are commuting, hope while drinking your coffee or during your morning run… hope, hope, hope. Imagine if you carried post-its with you so you could make note of things that come to mind, serving as a way of reminding you and of tracking your thoughts, feelings and observations about hope.

Imagine if you make a conscious effort to have at least one communication every day with someone who makes you feel hopeful. Imagine if you make it a point to eliminate or at least minimize communications with people who drain your hope.

Tomorrow we will begin posting one question per blog and we invite and encourage you to think about, discuss and comment in the hopes that we can all begin to understand what inspires hope within us and what can motivate us to take more hopeful actions on a daily basis. Remember, hope begets hope!