A CONSCIOUS LIVING PRACTICE FOR TODAY – OCTOBER 24

year of living copyLife is short…Be swift to love!
— Henri Amiel

ABANDONING HOPE

If you give up hope, you will likely find your life is infinitely richer. Here’s why: When you live in hope, it’s usually because you’re avoiding reality. If you hope your partner will stop drinking, aren’t you really afraid he or she won’t? Aren’t you really afraid to take decisive action to change the situation? If you keep hoping the drinking will stop, you get to avoid the truly hard work of actually handling the situation effectively. Hope becomes a drug or soporific to get you through the pain a little longer. Like all drugs, it comes with side effects. One of the main side effects is that you become a little numb, a little less alive. Hoping a situation will change keeps you at a distance from your true feelings—sadness, anger, fear. Each of these feelings is best appreciated up close. Feel them deeply, and they will cease to bother you. Hope they’ll go away, and they’ll bother you all day.

A CONSCIOUS LIVING PRACTICE FOR TODAY – OCTOBER 24

Take ten seconds right now to notice what hope feels like to you. Savor the quality of hope. Notice how you might use it to avoid feeling deeper emotions that would be better approached directly. Notice if you use hope to block sadness, fear, or anger in particular.

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