Supporting Hope
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Please Note: Although the following was originally written for people living with cancer, the ideas can apply to anyone with a serious or chronic illness. If you are the friend or caregiver for such a person, these may help you see how you can reinforce hope for your loved one.
Seek out cancer survivors
Learn how others have survived cancer or have lived fully despite their disease. The circumstances of these people's lives, as well as their type and stage of cancer, may not be the same as yours, but when your own resolve falters, your can take hope and strength from knowing what they did in their struggle against cancer. See Cancer Survivors as part of your search.
Develop rituals of hope
There are many ways in which you draw strength and hope from the ordinary events of life by turning them into "rituals of hope." For example, if you usually go to the library every two weeks, you could make your trip a "ritual." Now when you go, select a book about something you would like to do or some place you want to visit when you recover your strength following treatment. As you leave the library, say to yourself something like, "I will become strong again. I can make future plans." You can also create special rituals that are designed to draw upon the healing strength that comes from connection with others. For examples of such rituals, there is an excellent book, Rituals of Healing: Using Imagery for Health and Wellness by Jeanne Achterberg, Barbara Dossey and Leslie Kolkmeier.
Explore the meaning and purpose of your life
To the extent that hope resides in large part by recognizing the place you fit within the scheme of things, you can better discover the meaning of your life by looking at the whole of it. There are several ways you can do this:
- Write the story of your life in a journal. You are writing for your own purpose and need not worry that it sound good.
- Draw pictures of your life, allowing symbols and ideas to come naturally without criticizing your artistic ability. Only you need to see them.
- Tell your story to others. Discuss what life means to you, the purpose for which you have lived and intend to live in the future. Find someone who will really listen, who is interested in what you say.
Focus on a healing image as often as you can
The images we hold in our mind's eye have great power to enhance or hinder our progress toward a goal. You don't need to practice imagery and meditation on a regular basis, although that appears to be helpful for many people, but to learn how healing images reinforce hope, we suggest you read Exercising the Right Side of Your Brain, Part One of Images and Symbols: The Glue of Habit, the Lubricant of Change.
Use symbols and pictures to reinforce hope
An unopened flower in a small bud vase can remind you of hope. A picture of a solitary tree growing on a windswept hillside can illustrate courage and strength. Wherever you are, look around and see what can remind you of hope, courage and strength. You might even make a project of collecting hope symbols.
Use hopeful language
You can begin by not calling yourself a "cancer victim" but a "cancer survivor." Victims are powerless to act and hope requires action. Of course, it may be difficult to see yourself as a "survivor," but claiming that definition at any stage of your disease is "reality": we all survive until we die. Also, you can refer to cancer as a "life-challenging" rather than a "life-threatening" disease. While cancer is definitely a serious illness, you may notice that you react differently to these terms. The former opens the possibility of response, while the latter encourages a position of victimhood.
Make plans
Plan a chemo-is-over or radiation-is-over party. Make plans for next week, next month, next year, five years from now. People without hope don't make plans.
Get yourself a cheering section and share your hope with others
Surround yourself with supportive friends and see as little as possible of those who are so overwhelmed by their own fear of cancer that they are unable or unwilling to support your goals. It is better to have a few friends who are always there for you than to constantly brace yourself against those who are negative in word and action. And with these friends, let them know you need their encouragement and reinforcement of hope.
Create a box or basket of hope, life and love
You might ask a friend to get a large box and help you decorate it with pictures of supportive family and friends and then place in it items that reinforce hope, such as poems, brochures of places you want to visit and stories of long-term survivors. A beautiful basket can also work well.
© Copyright 1995, Revised 2002, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT |
