The holidays can be a hard time for many.
Some of us feel overwhelmed by the stress of travel, family gatherings, compounded by all the last 2 years have brought.
Some of us feel devastated by a loss of a loved one, unfulfilled desires and fear that the next year will bring more heartbreak.
A beautiful thing I love about the holidays is that they represent hope.
As one of my favorite Christmas Carols, “O Holy Night” encapsulates in their lyrics:
“A Thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”
Hope can be a beautiful thing.
It can be the light that keeps us going in dark times.
It can be an anchor in a storm.
It can also feel futile at times that things can be better than what we’ve experienced them to be.
In my work as a therapist, dating coach & business coach, I’ve found that hope is necessary as we work and wait for our desires.
Whatever you can do to cultivate hope, is necessary to your survival, your well-being, even your physical health.
Research tells us, that hope has been proven to decrease anxiety & depression (Kirby 2019) and can be taught as a resilience tool to prevent suicide, which has been at an all-time high during the pandemic (PLOS, 2020).
So, how do we cultivate hope in our lives?
Here are 3, research-backed steps that you can include TODAY to increase hope:
- Create a clear, achievable goal: i.e. Download a dating app & swipe for 10 minutes. Take 1 10 minute walk. Doing what you can to achieve a desirable outcome helps promote a sense of agency over your part, as you wait for God to do the rest.
- Fill your feed/ TV with positivity: PsychologistKelberer and his colleagues found that optimists tended to seek out positive images, such as that of happy people, and avoid images of people who seem depressed. Hopeful people spend less time on bad or threatening news.
- Be in community : Hope is hard to sustain in isolation. Research demonstrates that for people working to bring social change, particularly anti-poverty activists, relationships and community provided the reason for hope and ignited their conviction to keep fighting.
If you’re looking for a community to keep you hopeful during the holiday season, in your search for love, tap reply to this email. We’re here to help!
