How to Bring Back Hope — Maryl Petreccia

This year, there is a lot to worry about. 2020 has brought a lot of chaos. We are dealing with so much information, misinformation, and madness, that it can feel as if our whole human civilization is unraveling. The emotional collective is more than just sadness. We feel frustrated and completely constrained with no idea what it’s going to take to deal, let alone progress and find some normalcy again.

Remember this — human beings are one of the most agile and adaptable species on the planet. How did we overcome those things that challenged our ways of life and forced us to shift? It’s simple. We are resilient, we are creative, we are artistic, we figure our way through those circumstances that have other species crumble.

Come back down to the daily experience, here are a few practices I turn to to center and ground myself in my personal power that I’d love you to try.

• Put yourself into the affirmative. Explore your gifts and passions with someone you love. We aren’t gathering as groups right now, but you can “meet up” with someone you love and tell each other what really matters to you, what good you see in the world, and what you think you could actually contribute to make things better. Remind each other what you see in the other. Then tell each other about the gifts you see-the things that the other person is uniquely good at doing.
• Cry, lament, scream if you must. Let it out! Why do we insist that people bottle up their emotions? Crying is an important and healthy outlet for the negative energy generated by trauma, sadness, and loss. It’s natural, it feels good, and it’s good for you.
• It’s OK to embrace the unknown, to give up that compulsion to control everything. Wait! Hear me out! Let yourself feel what you are feeling, but we can, should, and must also remain intentional, responsible, and joyful while recognizing we don’t have control and that’s not necessarily bad!
• Let the children be the teachers. Listen to kids talk about what they care about. Kids reside predominantly in the present moment, rather than worrying about the past or future. By listening to them we can relearn what it means to just accept and be. Do what feels natural, dance around, sing, whatever you feel like. Enjoy what you are doing right now. Be silly and laugh more.
• Learn from nature. Like kids, wild creatures don’t live in hope and they also live in the present. We can learn a lot about living a good life from them. Learn to be present in your own way-meditation, exercise, walks in the woods, whatever works for you.
• Reach out to those who you know may be feeling overwhelmed. We can challenge the taboo in our culture that we must not admit to, or talk about situations that take us to our edges, and have us feel completely stopped. Joy does not come from pushing away our real feelings. Sit with those feelings. They eventually pass.
• Dream. Use this supreme gift that only human beings have! Exercise your imagination and see what you can create! When you give space to your creative side, it can manifest amazing power. Your dreams are clues to your gifts to the world.

Above all, trust humanity and be good to yourself. Ease off. Give the world grace. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. The more you keep your head space open to seeing new pathways as they emerge, the faster you will feel things begin to shift. The future isn’t here yet. It never is. Yet, it’s ours to craft, to generate, to imagine and cause. When you are present, the only thing to control is the conversations in your head. If you do that, the rest will unfold.

P.S. I’m kicking off my exciting new course: The JumpStart Program. The course preview can be exclusively viewed on October 10th at 12pm PST via the Powered by Purpose Online Seminar. Get your tickets today!

Originally published at https://marylpetreccia.com on September 30, 2020.