Hope is always available. Rebeccah reminds us to turn hope on!

Rebeccah [00:02:45] I don’t think we can avoid hopelessness and to me, all hopelessness means is fear took over. And if and when we let fear win, there’s no victory. There’s no end in sight. There’s no light. There’s only dark. And then people get afraid to fail out loud in front of people, they don’t want to feel embarrassed, they don’t want to be vulnerable, they don’t want to have shame for going for their dreams and maybe being judged as arrogant or not worthy or whatever it might be. But the thing is, once again, without hope, there is no life and you’re alive, you’re here to live. And I think when we’re willing to face the moments of hopelessness and meet that energy and decide that we have within ourselves what it takes to beat it and to get back to hope so that we can get back to light and possibility, we’ve won.

Rebeccah [00:03:51] Whether you get the goal or get the money or the body or the relationship or whatever it is that you’re striving towards. What if that’s irrelevant? What if it’s just as simple as in any given moment, what’s winning? Hopelessness or hope? And if you’re afraid to commit to hope, if you’re afraid to hope, what do you have? You’ve abandoned yourself when you’ve abandoned the part of you that has access to Hope 24/7, and then I’m not talking about like a bullshit Pollyanna fantastical, idealistic version of hope. I’m not talking about like you’ve got your head in the clouds and you’re being naive. I’m talking about, I don’t care how hard it is. There’s hope, and if you can’t hope for anything else, hope for the energy to shif. That darkness to shift to light. You’ve got access to that. I was recently working with a client who was 12 years old with a core value of freedom. And this client and I were talking about, can you still be free if you lose a friend or if you get in trouble or have people mad at you? And at the time, this client thought, No, you can’t be free, basically, unless things are going well. And I think the same thing can happen to people when it comes to the conversation that we’re having today about hope. Can you only hope when things are going well, it’s easy, right? It’s easy to hope when things are going well. When you need hope the most is when things aren’t going well and when life isn’t going your way. So, what I ended up asking this young client in the session together on Zoom was, when I had cancer and was in bed and couldn’t walk and couldn’t hold my baby and had tubes coming out of my body, could I be free? Freedom is absolutely one of my core values. And this client said, no, you couldn’t be free in that situation, and the honest to goodness truth is I did get free in that situation and hope was something that almost became tangible. It’s ethereal. It’s not anything you can see or touch or grasp or have any evidence that it’s going to work. But what if it’s always there for me, delirious and sick and in a lot of pain and not able to move and stuck in bed? I had hope and it was right with me, and I somehow knew that as long as I stayed connected to hope, I had more life. And I also knew that it really wasn’t up to me how much longer I had to live. It wasn’t up to me to cure the cancer.

Rebeccah [00:06:57] What I had control over was the emotional strength and groundedness and connection to hope. And that was about it. The rest of it, I don’t think I caused cancer, I’m very clear I didn’t cure it. I did a lot to try to be as healthy and well and strong as I could be, but it wasn’t up to me. I was either going to live or I was going to die. And we’re all going to die and I’m going to die, and I just don’t know when. And again, I’m not suggesting that this is easy, but what if it is this simple? We’ve all just been through a global pandemic and our lives got dumped out. I don’t care who you are. You’ve been rattled. You’ve been impacted. And it’s been challenging at best. Over the course of the year, 2020 and 2021, it’s been hard and we’ve been challenged and it’s been in different ways, in different costumes for each of us. But we’ve all been confronted. Are we being the version of ourselves that we want to be? Is our life set up the way that we have always dreamed of? Are we fulfilled? Are we bored? Are we going through the motions? Are we giving up? Are we, you know, turning the volume up on being a better version of ourselves at this time? Or are we resigning into a state of hopelessness because it’s been so difficult? I mean, these are all questions that we’re living our day to day, whether we’re thinking about it or not, and we all have parts of our lives that are working, that we want to keep. And again, I don’t care who you are, we have parts of our lives that are ready to grow or that we’ve outgrown or that are just no longer serving us. And life isn’t going to give you the next level. You’re going to have to create it. And I don’t know how you do that without hope. And without hope it really does become a downward spiral of despair and darkness, and less and less and less light and life and connection, and we don’t have to go there. That’s my point today. Hopelessness doesn’t have to win. You don’t have to feel like you’ve run out of choice or options or ideas, just bring hope back to life. It’s like a muscle in you that just maybe hasn’t been exercised in a while, I mean, we were all born really free. If you think about it, we were all born without any preconceived notions about what was possible, what wasn’t possible, what is OK, what isn’t OK? I talk about this in the generational healing episode, Season 2 of the Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast. We’re born just being who we are. We say what we want to say. We eat what we want to eat. We choose the toys and friends and foods that feel good, that feel right, and then we start to question. We start to question, and we start to doubt.

Rebeccah [00:10:13] And I think that doubt really is the prerequisite to hopelessness that can take us out of a moment, a day or even a lifetime. And it doesn’t have to win. Hopelessness never, ever, ever has to win. And it’s OK if it has in a moment or in a season of your life. I mean, I’m not suggesting that when I was sick in bed and striving to experience freedom, even in the situation I was in, that there weren’t moments of hopelessness. I just almost used the hopelessness to give me more access to hope. Do you know what you’re living for? Do you know what—if you were brave enough to embrace and step into more hope—you would create, you would risk, you would put yourself out there for? That’s a great place to start, you know, and dreams aren’t going to make you feel better. Let me say that again, you dreaming and then making your dreams come true or not, that’s not going to actually make you feel better or different about yourself or about your life. It just gives you that bull’s eye that you can focus on. And hope is another bull’s eye that you can focus on, but I think it’s easier to hope when you know what your vision is for your life and during, you know, this time of change for the entire world, having a vision for our lives is more important than ever before. And if you don’t have a vision that is so important to you that it basically forces you to turn hope up, to turn hope on within yourself in spite of obstacles, in spite of other people’s opinions or judgments or just not getting you, what do you have? Again, it’s like a downward spiral, and it’s miserable. It’s miserable and it’s, you’re right, it is your right. To outwit, outsmart and outlast, just like in Survivor, hopelessness and what hasn’t worked about your life so far that has you doubting yourself or possibility, it’s just time to up your commitment game, and it starts with committing to hope. It starts with committing to hope that all right, this energy is going to shift. Like I said earlier, there is life beyond this moment and, you know, again, being sick. There was hopelessness, but there was also the constant, almost overwhelming awareness that I was still alive and if I was still alive, I could still hope. And if I was going to live and if the energy was going to shift and I was going to get better, and eventually if I was going to be able to walk again and get out of that bed and get back to life in some way, shape or form. What was I going to do? What I started doing was just fantasizing about when I’m well, what will I do? And I would literally think about it and talk about it like that. Like, present tense like it had happened before it happened. I wasn’t well, I didn’t look well, but I didn’t identify as sick or dying or give up hope, which gave me access to my imagination and to flirting with some possibilities. So, you know, I think another thing that really enables doubt and hopelessness is our focus staying on what we don’t want instead of us risking focusing on what we do want, whether it makes sense to us or other people or not. I mean, what if you would just focus on what you wanted? And what if you would let yourself have that? You don’t have to do anything yet. Just hope for it. Just imagine it, you don’t have to do anything, just start there, literally. It’s enough to flirt with possibility and to fantasize and to open your mind and broaden your own horizons. If you can imagine it, there’s something in you, as long as you’re still alive, they can create it.

Rebeccah [00:14:30] But it’s so normal and it’s so easy and we justify each other’s bullshit when we bitch and we do, right? We bitch about what’s not working or we put the focus of our energy on what we don’t want. And we talk to our coworkers about it and our friends and our family and our spouses about what we don’t want. Think about how much power we give, what we don’t want when we talk about it. And again, I’m not asking you to be idealistic and naive and pretend like what you don’t want isn’t an issue. Like, I didn’t want to have cancer active in my body and I did. I had to talk about that. But the focus can always be on where you want to go instead. Instead of the focus being on this wall that you can’t hurdle yet. I’m hoping you’re hearing some hope and some possibility in my words today in that, yes, the darkness is real. Yes, the fear is real. Yes, the hopelessness is real. Yes, the challenges, the obstacles, the difficulties, the heartbreaks. The results, the way they are. All that’s real and with hope you’re still more powerful than any of those circumstances. And so, I started to think about—sick in bed. What’s my life going to be like when I’m well? And I would cry when I needed to cry and I would scream when I needed to scream, you can ask my husband. It would just be in that bad feeling, the emotions, moving them through my body, being with the dark, being with the light, but hope… It was always here. And instead of what if I die, the conversation was more of a “What if I live, when I live, what would I do?” And again, there was nothing to do beyond that because I was just sitting there in bed in my spiritual fantasy land. But from there, once the vision got so clear, it was just using the hope to create a little more movement and a little more movement and a little more movement. And you’ve got that in you, too. You can be free no matter what you’re facing. You can have hope and hope on, no matter what’s happened and no matter what you’re facing. The question is, will you? And are you recruiting an army of support around you that is encouraging you to hope and win and grow and keep going? Or is the army of support around you… And I know this could be confronting. This isn’t an easy conversation, nor is it a fun conversation, necessarily, but it’s one that I think needs to be had. Are the people around you interested in your hope or in your hopelessness. And if the people around you are feeding into hopelessness with you, yes, it’s real, but it’s really going to kill your vibe, and it’s really going to kill your possibilities and ability to create from where you are, when you’re just surrounded by people that are encouraging the hopelessness and the doubt.

Rebeccah [00:17:52] And basically, yeah, I agree with you, you can’t. Yeah, I agree with you there’s no hope here. Yeah, I agree with you that it’s too hard or it’s too much or it’s not worth it. And the thing is, they’re probably more than likely saying all that to help protect you and to love you and to validate you and to have you feel like you’re not alone. But you’re the only one that knows what parts of your life are worth fighting for and which parts of your life are meant to lovingly be let go of because it no longer serves anymore. You know, there was a time where I didn’t drink green juice every day; I had to let that time of my life go. Green Juice is a daily ritual that I practice. And the cool thing is that when we’re talking about hope, it can be as big or as small as you want to start. This green juice example is, I think, a great one, because there’s a promise that I make to myself every single day that I will drink green juice. I drink it. I keep that promise. And I’ve just built more evidence that when I hope I can change a habit or my life in any capacity I can. I’m proving to myself that I can come through every day, drink green juice because I said I would, and I let go of the time in my life where I didn’t. And I had no evidence that I would want that or would be able to keep that promise to myself or that it would be sustainable. It’s literally about two years of drinking green juice every day. It doesn’t have to be this monumental thing when we’re talking about hope. It’s just one promise to yourself at a time that was more powerful than any doubt, any fear or any hopelessness that you can keep to yourself, that you can make that you can win and that builds confidence in you. Hope not only breeds life, but it breeds confidence, and it is something that you have to commit to. Because you’re not going to want to. But bring hope with you everywhere you go, and you become a light that brings life everywhere you go. Think about that. And you bring hope with you everywhere you go. And what if you’re never alone again? I mean, it’s a big statement, but for me, it’s been true. If I had hope, I wasn’t alone. And it gave me access to vision, and when I had doctors telling me I wouldn’t ever be able to walk again I had hope that I could, and that was enough to start to build the momentum until I could. Went to the mountain yesterday, did bootcamp this morning. You know, and it’s my story is just an example. And the intention behind sharing my story is so that you can start to connect to the next chapter in your story because the story isn’t over. You’ve got you. You’ve got breath. Your heart’s beating. You’ve got hope. And with hope, it’ll bring vision. And then it’s up to you to commit to creating that vision and to bringing your vision to life. But what I want for you more than anything, is for you to make a promise to yourself today as you listen to this episode that you will not break up with hope, that you will not decide that it’s not worth it ever again, that you’ll know no matter what it is, you can hope for the energy to shift life to give you what it is that you’ve committed to and wanted and worked so hard for and life will. Life will give you what you believe is possible. And you don’t get to see what’s possible without hope. And if all you see is what’s impossible or hard or that what you want isn’t possible, you’re going to prove yourself right. What a tragedy. You know, you were a little kid that was hopeful, hoping on, committed to life, following your own inner guidance system, and then life happened. And then a global pandemic happened. And whatever we thought we had together got shaken up and whatever we knew maybe wasn’t working, but we didn’t have to deal with yet, we could wait for it. It all just got louder, and I think this is good news and I’m going to suggest that with hope, you can reinvent yourself like that. And it’s just one small little bit more, a little bit more bit of clarity and vision at a time. And let yourself dream in neon colors.

Rebeccah [00:22:36] Let yourself think way outside of the box and let your heart start to lead you in seeing and imagining better and better and better how you want your life to feel, how you want your life to look, how you want your life to go, hope for it and don’t give up, no matter how hard it gets. And eventually you’ll get there or you’ll die trying. And that’s what I want for you. Live with hope. Keep it with you. And as long as that’s more the rule versus the exception. Your life’s just going to keep getting better, and you deserve that. You’ve been through enough. And with that, we have some listener questions.

Question [00:23:18] Hi, my name is Michael, and my question is I want out of my marriage, but our kids are getting near adulthood and I get that I should live for today and all. But realistically would waiting until we’re empty nesters just be easier and perhaps less expensive for all of us? I don’t know. Maybe you can help. Thanks so much.

Rebeccah [00:23:35] So here’s the deal. First of all, I want out of my marriage. That’s a big statement. Why? Because you’ve given up hope or because you’ve tried everything, and it’s still just complete like the end of a meal and you’re just no longer wanting to be in a marriage where you’re out of alignment with one another. OK. Hear what I just said. You know it’s time to end the marriage when you’re complete, it’s still loving, and the relationship is just being reinvented into a next level and the marriage is over. If there’s still drama, if there’s hopelessness, I’m just going to say it’s not time to end the marriage yet most likely. Get support from a coach, a therapist, a mentor. I have the honor and privilege of doing couples intensives. I spend two days with couples really digging deep, diving in to make sure all of the stops have been pulled out, the stones have been looked at. You know, we’re not leaving any stone unturned when I’m working with couples, when it comes to such a big decision. So, I want out of my marriage, that could be because you’re hopeless. So just think about that. And then there’s never a good time if it’s over. I’m divorced. I’m on my second marriage, very pro divorce. I just want people to be thinking about, you’re going to take your issues with you even after you end the relationship. You’re going to hit the wall you’re hitting with your partner again and again and again and again, until you get through whatever emotional heart work, heartbreak, whatever the wounds are that still haven’t healed yet, they follow you. So, the divorce isn’t necessarily the solution, but definitely staying in a dead end for the kids’ sake? Absolutely not. They need their parents solid and living from a high, inspired, healed, healthy, strong vibration, where they’re their most powerful and courageous selves. Not dumbing down, going through the motions until it’s more convenient to get divorced. I don’t want you choosing based on convenience, I want you hopeful knowing you did everything you could from the space of love before you get divorced. Unless it’s an abusive situation or a situation where there’s an addiction going on, then yes. You can’t help the other person get healthier. And it may absolutely be a situation where you need to leave if it’s abusive, it’s absolutely a situation where you need to leave. But if there’s not abuse going on or active addiction in one or both of the partners, then there’s probably more deep work you can do before you choose. And it isn’t about whether or not and when it’s less expensive or how it’s going to impact the kids or when it’s going to be more convenient. It’s about you getting to rise to the occasion with hope that the relationship can reinvent and heal and either get better with you staying together, or maybe the best scenario for everyone is that we go our separate ways. Because we have done our best to make the marriage work, and we’ve just both outgrown it. And it’s not drama, it’s just complete. So, I hope that helps. That’s a great question. And so many couples right now are going through really, really being challenged with whether or not they want to make their marriage work. And I would just say, do everything you can before you make that decision with really solid support. And there’s never a good time to do what’s best for you and your life. And sometimes that means ending a marriage. And that’s courageous too. Just do everything you can first.

Question [00:27:24] Hi my name’s Leanne and I’m calling from Thorton. My question today is I’m single, and for the last 10 years I’ve been focused on my career. I’ve been very, very well for myself, and I’ve designed this really amazing little universe for me to live in. But as with most in corporate America, it’s soul crushing. Something needs to change, but it feels really risky. Where do I start?

Rebeccah [00:27:47] OK, so when I hear this question, the first thing I think of is, do you understand that you can have it all with hope? You can really, maybe, take that belief system on. And it is a belief system and so many people believe they can have one thing or the other. We have a show on Netflix right now, a sex life where it’s basically portraying this character as having to choose. Does she stay with the safe, stable husband or does she go back to the passion and excitement and feeling more alive with the ex-boyfriend? There’s this, you know, very much real modeling that goes on like you’re going to have either or; you’re going to have one or the other— in our culture and in our society— and I say absolute horseshit, you can have it all. You can have it all. You can have passion, you can have stability, you can have money, you can have the body, you can have great sex, you can have healthy and strong relationships with family members that maybe you’ve been hopeless, that you could repair and reinvent. You can have it all. So, the first thing I would say is it isn’t the career that crushed your soul. It was maybe being who you thought you had to be to sacrifice other parts of the life that you want to have. That like, maybe you just thought you could have career or something else, and you chose career? Maybe that’s what’s crushing your soul. I can’t speak for you, but I do know and see that this is a really big issue that many, many people face one or the other one or the other one or the other. What can I have? We had Nick Passalacqua in Season 1 talking about where he was up against having to pick between career and marriage and family, and he really didn’t have to choose. He just thought he did. And the thing is, you can have you and career and the other parts of your life that you want. So, what I would ask you to do is think about, OK, if you wanted this career and you created that for yourself, have you celebrated it? And what else do you want that you feel like you’re missing out on because you chose career? And how are you going to nurture career and keep it without blowing it up?

Rebeccah [00:30:03] Because that’s the thing. People will blow up the part of their lives that they’ve worked so hard for because they want something else too, instead of figuring out how to nurture the thing that they have that they’ve built. Keep it and then create more. Just keep adding to it, keep adding to it. That is the coaching I would give you here. Keep the career. What else do you want and then one thing at a time, add to the life you’ve already built. And what did you do in your career that worked to get you this far? And what can you do to apply those things to the areas of your life where you don’t have what you want yet? The homework I have for everyone today is to imagine hope being a muscle in your body that is with you wherever you go, whether you’re connected to it or not. And I want you to give yourself permission, whichever medium feels best to you to write: If I was willing to hope I would, that’s the prompt. If I was willing to hope, I would. And write about it, or draw, paint. Create a song. Something. Create a collage. If I was willing to hope. Then what? Create something visual for yourself. And let us know what you create. Let us know how it goes, but take hope with you. Bring more light and life to the world. We need it. Thank you for listening. If you like what you’re hearing, please subscribe. Share this podcast with your friends! But more than anything, my wish for all of you today is hope on no matter what. You deserve it. You’ve earned it, and you have what it takes.

Outro [00:31:50] Please note that the content of this podcast is not meant to be therapeutic or to replace any personal growth work that you are already doing with a coach, therapist, or mentor. Take the content, have it inspire you, and then keep working with your support system. The Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast is brought to you by our sponsor RebeccahSilence.com. Whether you need to be a good friend to yourself, or to be a good friend to someone else, visit RebeccahSilence.com today, and check out the online courses designed to help people like you get through the toughest of times. See for yourself at RebeccahSilence.com. If you have a question that you would like answered on the Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast please call 303-578-0027 and leave us a message. We will do our best to get to your question. And, if you like what you’re hearing please hit Subscribe right now, on whatever podcast platform you’re listening on and be sure to also share with your friends. Breakthrough is your right. Breakthrough reminds us that we’re tougher together and that we’re connected to possibility even in the most challenging and possibly darkest times. I’m Rebeccah Silence, creator of Healing is Possible and proud host of the Tougher Together, Breakthrough podcast where we come together and we tell stories of real breakthrough that exist for you as well. Get ready to break through, get ready to live more free, and get ready to experience more breakthrough. Because that’s your right. Join us on the Life’s Tough Media website and stay tuned for more. If you want to get in touch with me, visit RebeccahSilence.com. Your time is now. Your breakthrough begins now