Is Hope and Fear Controlling Your Life?

4 steps to help you calm hope and fear and live with more equanimity

How much time do you spend bouncing back and forth between hope and fear?

• Hope you’ll get the job. Fear you won’t.
• Hope you’ll get the house. Fear you won’t.
• Hope he/she/they will like you. Fear they won’t.
• Hope things will change. Fear they won’t.
• Hope you’ll find the perfect _________ (fill-in the blank). Fear you won’t.

And all the other tiny and gigantic hopes and fears that permeate each day.

Hope and fear stir up so much angst, anxiety, and unease, don’t they?

Our fears rarely come to pass. Yet we waste so much time on them, feeling miserable all the while.

If they do occur, we just have to deal with them, don’t we? The hours wasted in rumination — repetitively going over a problem without resolution — will never build your inner strength and confidence.

During the lava eruption a few years ago on the Big Island, I checked the Hawaii Tracker Facebook page every day for the latest news. Eventually, I realized doing so stirred up so much hope and fear.

Whatever the team reported one day, for example, that a treasured recreational spot would be gone by morning, could completely turn around the next day. Because lava is unpredictable. And for the most part, life is too.

So, what’s the point of all the hope and fear?

Don’t We Need Hope?

Psychologists believe that hope is a positive cognitive state connected with one’s ability to set goals and achieve them. However, they also recognize the potential pitfalls of false or unrealistic hope.

You might wonder: Don’t we need hope to keep us going in troubled times?

If you have cancer, for example, you want to believe you can heal during treatment rather than submerge yourself in depression and despair. Because the mind does affect the body.

But there may come a point when you have to accept your illness as incurable. In that context, false hope only leads to despair rather than acceptance and peace.

Hope revolves around the expectation or desire for a certain thing to happen. But if you cling too strongly to a particular outcome, you’re likely to suffer if it doesn’t manifest.

You need to ask: In this situation, is hope helping me or hurting me?

If hope gives you fuel to make good things happen, keep it around in realistic portions. But if hope has you desperately clinging to the impossible, ditch it as fast as you can.

From a spiritual perspective, hope is always about the future.

Hope takes you away from the present moment. When you’re overly enmeshed in hope, you can miss your life as it happens right now. Hope can block spiritual accomplishment, which depends on being in the moment, accepting what is, and letting go expectations and desires.

4 Simple Steps to Calm Hope and Fear

I was on a roller coaster of hope and fear during the three long months of the lava eruption. At one point, I realized I needed to bring it to a stop.

The Dalai Lama says:

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

I find his words a potent reminder to let go of worry, one facet of fear.

But for many of us, it’s not that simple. Anxiety, fear, and worry can be powerful adversaries.

Your genetics may make you prone to anxiety. Traumatic circumstances may have piled one on another, depleting your resilience and making you feel you can barely go on. Worry may grip you in the dark of the night, when you’re most vulnerable.

If you feel overpowered by hope and fear, please be kind and gentle with yourself. Never judge yourself. You’re doing the best you can.

But decide to work to diminish hope and fear if you want to live with more equanimity. It’s okay to start with tiny steps. Here are some steps that help me reduce hope and fear, and all the emotions that surround them.

1. Realize that hope and fear are the real enemies

Hope and fear are enemies in a sense because they bring you suffering.

Don’t accept hope and fear as an inevitable part of life. You may not be able to remove them entirely, but you can surely learn how to calm them down.

2. Notice whenever hope or fear arises in your mind and heart

The act of noticing itself begins to reshape your brain.

Try not to feed hope and fear with reinforcing thoughts. Just observe the emotional messages, unhelpful thoughts, and the sensations that hope and fear create in your body.

Through observation, emotions often calm down on their own.

3. Counteract Your Fears

Identify one of your fears, write out the associated emotional message, and counteract it with three positive messages from your cognitive brain.

Here’s an example:

• Emotional Message: I can’t survive on my own.
• Cognitive Brain Messages: I’m actually doing great on all levels, taking care of practical matters and connecting with others. We do need others, and others want to help and support me. I’m not entirely alone.

Keep a journal or notebook where you counteract your fears on a regular basis. Use this exercise often if you want to retrain your brain and weaken these enemies.

4. Increase your self-care

Hope and fear can exhaust you. Counterbalance their effect with added self-care: naps, warm baths, walks in nature, acupuncture or massage, or whatever nourishes you.

Final Thoughts

Are hope and fear helping or harming you? Observe yourself for a single day and see how often you fall into hope and fear. Notice if these states of mind bring calm or stir up more uncomfortable emotions.

I know you can’t suddenly let go of excessive hope and fear, and live solely in the present moment.

But if you follow the steps above, you can gradually shrink hope and fear so they become a smaller part of your life. And if they feel too big for you to conquer on your own, reach out for professional help.

Sign up for my bi-monthly Wild Arisings e-letter.

You might also like: