Is hope like a drug?
Hebrews 6:19 used to be one of my favorite verses.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
I always liked that image – hope as an anchor, weighing me down, keeping me steady, holding me firm despite the waves of circumstances tossing me about.
At one point, I did some intense Bible study to figure out exactly what the anchor of hope actually was. It’s not really clear in the scriptures there and I never heard a sermon that answered the question to my satisfaction. I think the assumption is that the “hope” is eternal life. Or maybe the hope is God’s unchanging nature, as referenced in the verses before. Or maybe it’s just the hope of “salvation,” or that there is holy purpose in our sufferings. More specifically, maybe it’s the hope that Jesus’ death purified us of our sins so that now we can have a clear conscious before God and live a worthy life.
Whatever the “hope” is, you have to admit it’s a compelling statement, one that appeals to our need and desire to feel grounded and secure deep inside ourselves.
Recently, though, the idea of hope has not been sitting well with me. We even recorded a podcast about it .
The thing is, hope is almost always about something we can’t control and something that is in the future. Hope is about expectation and desire for change. Hope, in that sense, is about rejecting the current situation and judging it as wrong, bad, unacceptable, and/or too difficult.
And hope definitely has its place. There are certainly moments where the pain of the present moment is too overwhelming and you simply cannot abide in it. You need an escape, you need a coping mechanism to get you through the challenge you’re facing. In those times, our minds construct a fantasy that manifests as “hope.” That feeling of hope might be necessary, it might be a survival instinct that enables you to survive the difficult times and sustains you until you are in a safer, healthier, stronger place. Like the way pain medicine takes the edge off so you can sleep, recover, or complete a task.
But, just like with pain meds, it seems that hope can become addictive. Intoxicating. The feeling of escape and possibility can become more intriguing and desirable than actually facing our circumstances. Typically, hope arises when we want to escape a difficult or painful circumstance. Instead of facing that circumstance and looking at it head-on, fully accepting it and seeing it for what it is, we dive into hope; we hide in a created fantasy where things could change and everything could go just as we want them to.
It’s not that hope is bad or wrong but, like with any other medication, there comes a time when maybe we need to consider cutting back, or reducing our intake. We can notice when we are stronger and healthier and older and more mature, and we no longer need our daily hit of fantasy in order to make it through our day. Is it possible that we could accept that our spouses may never change? That our employer might never recognize our contributions? That our kids might not behave the way we want them to or appreciate all we do for them? That our relationship with our parents might never improve? That our health might not get better? That we cannot change things about our past?
Many people hear these words, especially the word accept, and interpret them as giving up; that it means they just have to roll over and take whatever life has handed them without complaint. But, that’s not what I’m saying… In order for change – real change – to happen in our lives, there first has to be a complete, honest acceptance and acknowledgement of where you are. No more fantasies. No more imagining circumstances are different. It is the first of the 12 steps of recovery programs: admitting that you are powerless. It is recognizing how little control over anything we actually have. It doesn’t mean you don’t want change, that you don’t desire things to be different. But it does mean looking at them face-to-face and not hiding the truth from yourself anymore.
In other words, it’s very hard to escape your circumstances (or yourself) until you stop running, turn around, and look them in the eye.
And here’s the thing – you can’t do this until you’re really ready to do it. There is no forcing this, no lying to yourself about it. You can refuse pain medications to a certain point and then you have to give your body the rest it needs and take a pill. This is like that. You can try to do the brave thing and say you’re going to face that traumatizing situation in your past, or that you’re going to just make your marriage work, or that you’re going to push past the fear and ask for a raise, whatever. But, if you really truly need hope to get you through, just accept THAT and honor the fact that your life still needs time to heal.
But, for too many of us, we know that hope is losing it’s effectiveness. We can feel the urge to pile on more and more expectations in order for us to feel ok with where we are. We find ourselves justifying things more and more. We notice that it’s harder to fool ourselves and there can be a tug towards depression. We cling to hope as the lifeline out of a darker place we’re afraid to go into.
That darker place – what if this is all there is? What if this is as good as it gets? What if I never get what I want? What if this is what my life is like? What if my life is never what I want it to be or what I think I deserve?
What if nothing ever changes?
The challenge that spirituality presents and what Jesus, in his death, presented, is: If nothing ever changes, can you accept that?
One of the most amazing and strangely admired aspects of Jesus’ death is his utter acceptance of it. In John 18 & 19, Jesus never defends himself, never argues with Pilate or rallies his disciples to defend him. He faces the situation with absolute clarity. And he dies. He goes through incredible physical and mental pain, suffers intensely, goes to the darkest place, and then, he is resurrected with a new kind of body, kind of like a superhuman, with a new strength, and a new outlook on his life and purpose.
In evangelical christianity, all of the focus is on how Jesus’ death saved us from our sins, blah blah blah, and now I can go to Heaven. Sure, fine, whatever.
BUT WHAT DOES THE RESURRECTION MEAN FOR US TODAY, RIGHT NOW, WHEN HOPE IS A DRUG THAT I’M USING TO HELP ME ESCAPE THIS MOMENT OF SUFFERING?!?!
For me, what Jesus’s story shows is that there is no true relief until we accept what we’re facing and are willing to go to the darker places. It seems counter-intuitive to us. We have been trained to see depression and suffering and sadness and grief as a negative thing. In the west, we are told to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, smile, fake it til we make it, put on a happy face… we are taught that it’s not ok to have a bad day, that we have to hide our depression, or that we are a failure if we can’t just get over it. Instead of embracing the darker moments, we create additional suffering by trying desperately to avoid them. Could it be possible that if we fully entered into the suffering – yet didn’t identify ourselves as the victim of it – we could move through it more quickly than the usual approach of doing everything we can to avoid it?** Could it be that going through a time of depression or darkness is actually something to celebrate and honor and respect because it means you are facing your demons and doing the hard work of dissolving inner conflict and untangling your judgments and questions about who and what you are?
What if we viewed these darker, scary hellish places like the chrysallis of a caterpillar, or like the breaking of a seed in spring, or like the stark, bare branches of a tree in winter – knowing it’s all for a season, and that this metaphorical death is necessary to one’s health and growth?
Can you imagine a society like that?!?! Where instead of being bombarded by messages about how everything needs to change and you’re not good the way you are and life has to be different and we all need to be happy and grateful and smiling, we could see each other as courageous little caterpillars and cheer each other on as we enter the inevitable death-chamber of our own chrysallises to do the hard work of dissolving our most basic selves?
Religion used to teach this: Drink this cup in remembrance of me. Break this bread in remembrance of me. Remember that you can break and die daily, but you can trust that these deaths are actually the fuel and sustenance for spiritual renewal and maturity. In ALL OF IT, the death is a relinquishing of hope; a total acceptance of the moment; a surrendering of victimhood; a surrendering of self; an acknowledgement that we are not in control and our lives are not our own.
St. John of the Cross called it “the dark night of the soul” – a time where God seems distant, and there is no hope, and all seems lost… until one day, your soul is filled with unspeakable joy and you are re-united with God in a deeper, more precious way than ever before. AND, if you were experiencing a dark night of the soul, it was seen as a good thing, a sign of spiritual growth, an indication that God was drawing you deeper into itself.
And, going back to my original point about hope, this is where the paradox lies: You have to face the possibility of nothing ever changing, face the death and loss of all hope; in order to experience true peace, real power, and radical transformation.
I think we can all think of someone, or some event or experience, where it seems that all hope has been lost, and THEN, there is a surge of revival, a witnessing of fierce bravery and strength. The sudden understanding that no one is coming to save them forces people to reach inside of themselves and find reserves and energy they never knew they had. Even if the odds are not in their favor, or the circumstances are stacked against them, we see a new boldness and purity in their life. They can almost seem superhuman. It is another paradox that when you truly confront the reality that you might possibly lose everything, you realize you have nothing to lose.
We think that hope is the key to overcoming the difficult situations in our lives. We think that hope is what will bring about the desired change in us. And it may, temporarily. But, I’m leaning into this idea that real power and strength and transformation is experienced when I rip the band-aid off, release my grip on hope, enter into that dark place of utter acceptance, and face my life as it is.
I write more about this journey in my e-book Becoming the Bravest Woman you know, and share my recent experience with “sleazy hope” on our podcast.
**I’m not talking, here, about depression and anxiety situations that are due to chemical imbalances in the brain, etc, and require some form of therapy or medication to reach a better place. Modern medicine can do wonders for our mental health.
