“Hope is not a strategy,” my son-in-law tells me. Perhaps it isn’t but hope can be an important mindset for healing. What is hope and why is it important? I could easily to slip into the abyss defined by all of the negative news and headlines that surround us. I could lose hope or choose it. One of the gifts of working with horses therapeutically are the moments of hope that bubble up unexpectedly when working in the moment with a client.
Some days I just need those threads of hope to believe in what’s possible. Hope is a mindset. I think hope is the belief that something good remains possible, even when the outcome is uncertain. It doesn’t mean ignoring difficulty or pretending everything will work out. Hope can be the small willingness to keep going, to imagine a different future, or to take one next step.
Hope matters because it can help us keep going through uncertainty and difficulty. It gives us a reason to imagine that things might change—and can help us take steps toward that possibility.
Hope can also:
- Support resilience by helping us recover and adapt after setbacks.
- Give direction by helping us identify what we care about and what we want to work toward.
- Encourage action by turning “maybe things can improve” into one practical next step.
- Strengthen connection when hope is shared, offered, or nurtured with others.
Hope doesn’t guarantee a particular outcome, and it doesn’t replace practical help. Sometimes it simply means believing that this moment is not the whole story.
Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” is a favourite poem. It makes hope feel like a small, living presence within us: it sings through difficult times, asking for nothing in return. Here is Dickinson’s poem:
Hope is the thing with feathers.
That perches on the soul.
And sings the tune without the words.
And never stops at all.
And sweetest in the gale is heard.
And some must be the storm.
That could abash the little bird.
That kept so many worm.
I’ve heard it in the chilliest land.
And on the strongest sea.
Yet, Never…in extremity.
It asked a crumb of me.
What are your thoughts on hope?
