Yesterday on the Learn From People Who Lived It podcast, Mathew and Cortney touched on the idea of “Hope”. Cortney had mentioned preferring to use the word “trust” instead, as in “I trust (not hope) you are doing well” or “I trust (not hope) things will work out”. As I listened to the discussion, I understood why she made the distinction. There is a common misunderstanding of hope. It is the idea of “hope as a beggar”. This, to me, is a diminished version of hope. It is a hope that lacks confidence and feels entitled to very little. It asks rather than expects. It survives on the scraps of possibility rather than thriving on plans and expectations. This type of hope is what is left after years of disappointments, poor health, prolonged injustice, emotional neglect and withdrawal after trauma. Many of us have felt this way when adverse circumstances pile up but options to fix them are few or seem out of reach. For some, this has become a way of life. The important thing to see here is that even in a diminished state, there is still some measure of hope. The door was left opened on a crack and it is possible to open it back up again.
What is hope supposed to be? At its essence, it is the ability to imagine a future that is in a better state than the present. At the same time, you remain psychologically and spiritually engaged with the possibility of moving toward it even when the outcomes are uncertain. It is not optimism or wishful thinking. It is more structured than that. Psychologist C.R. Snyder, PhD defined hope as having two interacting components. The first is agency; the idea that you can move toward something with a sense of motivation, will and personal efficacy. The next is pathways; the idea that there are always ways to get there. You have the ability to imagine routes, alternatives and strategies. In this model, hope is an active process, not passive. You can desire without having hope and you can hope without being guaranteed certainty. On an emotional level, hope can coexist with fear, grief and doubt. It tolerates ambiguity. It does not require confidence, only belief in the possibility. In this sense, hope functions quietly as an emotional buffer against despair, preventing a psychological shutdown when certainty is unavailable. Hope can serve an existential role by answering the question, “Is it still worth staying engaged with life?” In this context, hope is less about being bound to a specific outcome and more about deriving meaning from the experience. For instance, you may lose hope in finding a cure for your cancer, but you may retain hope for spending meaningful time with family and leaving a legacy with the time you have left. This aspect of hope chooses participation over withdrawal even when suffering remains. From a social and relational view, hope is rarely solitary. It is shared and passed among people. An insecure child can borrow hope from a parent. A patient can borrow hope from a doctor. Members of a community often borrow hope from shared narratives and values. This type of relational hope can be a bolster when personal hope is depleted. “I’m not sure if I believe this yet, but you do and I trust you.” Hope can lift us up when we fall down morally. It keeps open the possibility of repair, accountability and growth. It keeps us from being defined by our worst moments. It also reminds us that suffering is never the final word. On a spiritual level, hope extends our view beyond the self and the immediate adversities. It includes trust in a reality that is larger than our individual experience. There is meaning that transcends the current circumstances. In light of the eternal, there is continuity beyond loss, failure or even death. Unlike psychological hope, Spiritual hope does not require clear pathways, can persist even when agency is surrendered and rests on faith and promise rather than evidence. Spiritual hope can remain intact even when human hope has collapsed and can be a profound resource during terminal illness, grief or moral injury. Let’s close this section out but describing a bit about what hope is not. It is not denial. It is not having certainty. It is not positivity at all costs. It is not passively waiting. True hope leaves space for grief, anger, realism and doubt to coexist without surrendering engagement.
So, how do we recover hope that has been injured? There are no quick answers here, but I think there is a process that can yield results over time. Many of you reading this will have experienced betrayal, abandonment or gaslighting at some point in your life which damages the interpersonal scaffolding needed for hope. Trauma can often collapse pathways making it feel like there is no way out. Depression can lower agency and make everything feel like it is not worth the bother. Anxiety may still allow some hope, but the future is often flooded with catastrophic predictions. Start looking for patterns. Where has hope been damaged? It is usually not everywhere all at once, so you can leverage your strong areas to give you the space to improve other areas. Working with a therapist here can be helpful for framing and getting an outside perspective. The process begins by creating a safe environment in which to work. It is important to reduce the overall threat environment so that the nervous system can settle down and agency can slowly return. This may include reducing (where possible) exposure to sources of humiliation, chaos or volatility. Develop practices that help to stabilize your nervous system. Sometimes taking a walk or laying down for a bit can help to give you the reset you need. Work on setting boundaries that hold. Make fewer promises to people, but be diligent about keeping the ones you make (and apologize quickly if you break a promise). The idea here is to create consistency and predictability wherever possible. Without these steps, exercising agency will feel reckless. The next step is restoring dignity by giving yourself permission to want good things in your life. That is not unreasonable or selfish. Many people get stuck here because they fear humiliation if they don’t end up getting the thing they had wanted. It is useful to separate the wanting from the outcome. Outcomes are often uncertain and rarely come with guarantees. It is OK to want an outcome even if it never happens – it is not a personal failure. This is the soil where dignity begins to grow. The next step is to regain confidence by setting small attainable goals. Your agency builds by making choices that stick, completing tasks with visible outcomes, having your “no” respected and not being punished for trying and failing. This is not a “daily affirmation” with flowery words. This is evidence of accomplishment built up in small ways over time, and it becomes empowering. Hope is not built on dreams, it is built on plans. Look for multiple paths to get to your desired outcome. Obviously, some will be more feasible than others, but relying on a single, fragile plan can have a large emotional cost if it does not work out. Having several ways to move forward lowers the threshold for action. It can be helpful to have a reliable witness along on your journey. This is a form of borrowed confidence. A close friend, coach or therapist can give you valuable feedback on your effort, risks, progress and repairs made. Hope can grow when effort is seen, and confidence grows when reality is mirrored back. They hold the memory of your growing competence even when you are not able to see it yet. Along the way, it is useful to reframe your ideas about failure. Learn to consider it as data and not as evidence of unworthiness. Each failure is an opportunity to learn something about the system. Stay engaged and resist the urge to retreat. Ask “what is next?” Remember that time horizons expand slowly. Damaged hope can only tolerate short time frames before becoming overwhelmed. As agency improves longer timelines are more possible. Have some patience here and let confidence grow naturally at its own pace. Making unrealistic long term plans too early can collapse hope. Finally, at the highest level, enduring hope is stabilized by meaning. This is an important shift from “Everything will just work out” to “What I do matters, even if the outcome is imperfect.” To summarize this into a single formula, damaged hope becomes robust hope when safety allows wanting, dignity allows trying, small successes restore agency, multiple pathways lower risk, and meaning steadies effort over time. Good luck on your own journey of hope.