In this solo episode I talk about the cycles of grief and hope, and how the feeling of hope, and a gratitude practice, can help us get through the tough times. Parenting a child with a disability can be a rollercoaster - one day you're up, the world looks beautiful, and the next day something happens with your child, and you're down in the dumps yet again.  It's a stressful, exhausting process that's harmful t our bodies and our minds. So how can we balance this out to protect ourselves and enjoy the life we are living? 

Let's talk about hope - a settling in of a feeling of accepting what is and believing that there is a light on the horizon - that it won’t be like this forever.

I found this quote that really resonated with me: “Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.” – Thich Nhat Hanh, who was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist.

I provide some strategies to live a life of hope. Prayer:  whatever your belief system, prayer moves our focus up and away from the earthly details to give us a wider perspective and helps us not feel alone but to feel supported. For those who pray - giving up your burden - even hypothetically - to a higher power - can be uplifting and freeing.

Physical exercise: walking, moving your body, focusing on the physical can lighten your mood and fill you with positive endorphins. For me - yoga does wonders. Focusing on breath work, centering my soul, fills me with positivity. 

A gratitude practice: a daily ritual of noting things to be grateful for. How do you begin? Some people have gratitude journals where they write down a number of things at the beginning or end of the day. If you have a morning ritual, or evening ritual, can you make it part of that/ and pick a number - 3 things to be grateful for? 1? 5? It's up to you. Research shows that this is a beneficial practice for our minds as well as our bodies.

Laura Will, who I interviewed on Episode 13, https://www.buzzsprout.com/1909282/11264891 wrote a blog on this topic - Cultivating Flexible Hope: A look at the emotional cycles in chronic illness. Find it here: https://knowrare.com/blog-v2/cultivating-flexible-hope

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