Hope

Hope is a main factor in keeping us living and moving along our journeying into the future. It is essential in our work with clients (we need to believe that change is possible, however small), but it is also important to generate hope in clients (so that they can find courage when discouraged and/ or believe that life can become better, or at least more bearable).

Helping other possibilities emerge

I like this acrostic that was presented in the Doing Justice and Respect workshop, conducted by St Lukes Innovative Resources, which I attended many years ago.

The link between change and hope

Hope is the thing that allows us to move forward into change, but noticing change also generates hope, meaning that, not only do they work together, but they fuel each other as well.

The future orientation of hope

Hope does not necessarily take the form of excessive confidence; rather, it involves the simple willingness to take the next step. Stanley Hauerwas

The main goal of counselling is to encourage hope back into people's lives -- hope that things will improve or, if not, that our clients  will find the strength and courage to keep moving through the present and along their life's journey.

For some hope may be about moving step by step towards major changes in their lives, but for others it may be about smaller gains.  For instance, those suffering physical pain  may hope that trying a new medication regime will make the pain more manageable. In either case it is hope that allows moving into the future.

Looking outward for signs of hope

Often hope is found by looking outside of ourselves, rather than having an inwardly self-analytical focus (although good processing of personal issues can sometimes generate hope). We may borrow signs of hope from nature, or from other people whom we deem to be good role models, or we may see hope in the world around us. The photos I have used in this post are all metaphors of hope.

A metaphor for hope

It occurred to me that knitting a pattern is a good metaphor for hope.

Knitting involves taking a tangled ball of wool (many clients relate to describing life confusion as tangled threads);

 moving on stitch by stitch (we can only live our lives step by step);

starting to see the beginning of a pattern (we may begin to see changes in our lives resulting from our efforts);

but continuing on to see the full pattern emerge (we need to persist and keep moving forward for new life patterns to emerge);

and then shaping the pattern to make something useful (once we have formed new patterns in our lives, they may need to be shaped to fit the other parts of our lives).

Remember that most voluntary clients present to us with the hope that spending time with us will somehow make a difference in their lives.