Contemplating hope 4

Three people, three stories: 

• A little boy had red marks on his arms from when his mum would put her lit cigarette against his skin to wake him up for school. 
• A woman had chronic pain and thought about ending her life. 
• A man in the hospice knew he was dying. 

Nonetheless, the little boy was cheerful, the woman learned to live productively despite the pain, and the man planted a tree even though he was going to die.

These are three real-life examples cited in research about, and into, hope*. It is a complex concept and a challenging practice, and it is a legitimate field of study, to wit the University of Alberta’s Hope Studies Central. In fact, the U of A in Edmonton is the world leader in hope studies. 

Dr. Denise Larsen became a psychologist because she did not understand how the little boy with the cigarette burns, who was in her inner city elementary school class, could possibly be so cheerful, Today, she directs Hope Studies Central at the U of A, which investigates “the role of hope within counselling psychology, education, and health contexts.”

The work includes a pilot project in an Edmonton school that is implementing the Strengths, Hopes and Resourcefulness Program (SHARP) that teaches students the so-called “soft” skills of critical thinking and resilience as the means to foster hope. The focus in a SHARP classroom is listening, self-awareness, community service and reflection. The youngsters are taught to identify the “hope suckers” in their lives, which cause stress and anxiety, and to be aware of “hopeful behaviours” or strategies, which improve their outlook and can make them feel better. 

The woman with the chronic illness and constant pain has learned, through counselling, how to incorporate hopeful activities into her life. She says, “I have a chronic illness. I will never get better…but hope has taught me to live in the moment…Physically it didn’t make any difference. But it gave me the coping skills to understand what was happening with the pain in my body. I can make it worse by doing or feeling certain things. I learned to start protecting myself with hope…Hope is energy in your body.” 

Dr. Wendy Duggleby held the U of A’s research chair in aging and quality of life. She describes hope as “the possibility of — not the expectation of — a better future.” Her research with hospice patients shows that an uncertain future makes hope difficult to grasp. Her approach is, therefore, to encourage them to view the future in smaller moments, in shorter chunks of time. The man in the hospice was encouraged to think of his future in that way and, as a result, he planted the tree. He became an active participant in the immediate future that he could picture and contribute to. 

A Google search for scholarly articles on hope research will bring up over five million hits in less than a nano second. So I am certainly no expert after my brief run down the research rabbit hole from whence I have recently surfaced. However, my burrowing has made clear to me that hope is not a passive practice; that it can be “a powerful tool for better mental health and a robust predictor of well-being”, and that a person can learn strategies to foster hope in their life. 

If the little boy with the cigarette burns was innately cheerful despite his dysfunctional family circumstances, I can only imagine what he might have been like with some compassionate guidance on cultivating hope in his life through some of these practical strategies. 

*All information in this post comes from the article “Seeking Hope” by Amie Filkow in the Spring 2020 issue of the University of Alberta’s New Trail alumni magazine.  

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A Post a Day in May No. 23 For the past two years, I have posted something to this blog every single day in May. This year, I hope to do it again.

Photo by Jose Antonio Morales on Unsplash