Hope Is Not a Thing to Have—It’s a Skill to Practice
If you’re like me, or my patients, it’s been tough to remain hopeful in the face of ongoing terrible news, including the repeal of Roe v. Wade. We are flooded with horrifying stories of women and girls who are being denied healthcare, like a woman with an ectopic pregnancy who had lifesaving surgery delayed, or a child who was raped in Ohio having to travel out of state to access an abortion. Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would seek to ban abortion after 15 weeks across the country.
In this onslaught of collective trauma, who hasn’t been caught in a cycle of doom-scrolling?
You might be asking yourself, when the world feels dismal and change feels out of my hands, how can I remain hopeful? The answer starts with reframing our view of hope.
Learn hope as a skill
It turns out that hope is not a thing you have or don’t have. Hope is a skill to build and practice. This is great news, because it means we are not left waiting around for hope to turn up. Instead, we have agency over whether or not we feel hope.
When I was researching my book, Real Self-Care, I turned to a therapeutic framework called the Hope Modules that I learned as a psychiatry resident at George Washington University. This framework was originally developed by psychiatrists at GWU to help folks suffering from chronic medical conditions fight off feelings of demoralization. It can be applied to the collective trauma and attacks on human rights that Americans are feeling now.
There are four categories of skills people use to build hope: problem-solving, emotion regulation, turning to relationships, and activating core identity.
To put this into action, think back to the last time you felt hopeless. What helped you feel back in control of your attention and energy? Maybe it was going for a walk and listening to your favorite podcast (i.e., emotion regulation). Perhaps after your walk, you felt more grounded, and texted a friend who organizes get out the vote efforts (i.e., relationships, problem-solving). After that, maybe you felt empowered to send your mom friends an email, asking them to donate to a candidate whose platform you support (i.e., core identity, problem-solving).
Notice that the act of building hope requires that we take specific actions to manage our mindset. Instead of viewing ourselves as passive bystanders in the face of collective trauma, redefining hope as a personal tool is a powerful act of resistance.
Distinguish optimism from hope
When practicing hope, it’s important to separate it from optimism.
The optimist says the glass is full. The hopeful person says the glass has a small leak and I’m attempting to fix it.
It’s not that optimism is bad; it’s that if we are not careful, it can veer too close to toxic positivity—the tendency to brush aside difficult feelings or problems in service of rosy view of the world. You can think of toxic positivity and cynicism as two sides of the same coin: Neither results in taking committed, hopeful action.
If you find yourself steering toward toxic positivity (or cynicism), practice identifying it, and interjecting the language of hope. For example, when I’ve been doom-scrolling for too long, I say to myself, It will be a long, hard fight for women to reclaim the rights that have been lost and it’s true that I and scores of others have been activated to fight back because of these setbacks.
When we construct hope as a skill, we make room for the very real hardships that women and minorities in America face—whether it’s related to abortion and reproductive rights, racism, gun violence, or any number of atrocities that are plaguing the United States.
Name the connection between anger and hope
Recently a patient of mine said, “Everything is terrible, but, honestly, isn’t feeling angry just pointless? Me being ragey isn’t actually going to change anything.”
Women have been taught to either feel guilty for their anger or question the usefulness of their rage. But that’s not how feelings work: Feelings are not rational actors. And it turns out that anger is a powerful motivator for change, and dismissing your anger works against hope building.
The psychoanalytic term for taking a difficult feeling or thought (like blinding rage at the collapse of human rights in America) and channeling it into positive action is sublimation. This describes the woman who loses her husband to a texting-while-driving accident and goes on to volunteer at her kids’ school educating teens about texting while driving. It’s nearly impossible to think of a collective action movement that was not founded upon anger about injustice, tragedy, or trauma.
Thus, in building the skill of hope, we must stay close to our anger. To put this into action, think back to a time in your life when you were blinded by rage, perhaps related to an unfair act toward a friend or family member. Maybe you supported your friend or family member emotionally by helping them problem-solve or by offering a safe space for their vulnerability. While you might not have immediately identified anger as the inciting emotion for your compassion toward your friend, naming it is crucial. It reminds us that anger is a seed from hope can grow.
With every turn of the news cycle, it’s understandable to feel a renewed fury and disappointment with America’s assault on woman. By redefining hope as a skill that we can learn and practice, we reclaim agency and stand a fighting chance at holding our lawmakers and institutions accountable.
Pooja Lakshmin, MD, is a psychiatrist specializing in women’s mental health and author of the forthcoming book Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included) available from Penguin Life in March.
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