Developing a Perpetual Practice of Hope

Well you gotta have soap to wash your sins away

You gotta have hope it’s the price you gotta pay

You gotta give love or your love will walk away

And you gotta stay loose it’s the only way to stay

Harry Nilsson, from Down

As I continue to move through my present, pieces of the future are falling into place. Though I know I cannot count on a set outcome because each present moment is a new reality. I now have a place where I will be able to put my possessions in about a month as I exchange my present living space for another. Just this feeling of having a landing space, makes the leap feel more like a new start instead of catching myself from a fall. There are pros and cons to the new space, those that I know about now and those that will become known to me through experience, and there is a tremendous amount of work and planning still to do, but the target is in place so I can pull the bow, lock my arrow into place and have a something substantial to aim at. A little semblance of control, that may be illusory, provides hope and a feeling that I can move out of disequilibrium into balance.

I have taken the time to make myself stronger and put into place practices and systems to monitor my mental and physical state after immense destabilizing events. The space where I am now living gave me time to do this, now I am free to step out into a new space because of the work I have done to plant my roots in my own life and consciousness so I can carry it anywhere I go and feel centered, or if I don’t feel centered I have the capacity to work on it anywhere I am. It is far from a perfect system which is why signing a lease on a new apartment gives me a feeling of hope, as well as little feelings of dread that occur with any commitment. I have strategies to deal with those negative feelings so that I can keep my mind clear to take the steps that will keep my life steady so that I can move into whatever comes next with a calm hopefulness and not waste my energy floundering in the muck of despair and panic.