For intelligent optimist….what a concept.  I would fall in that category.  This is the tagline for a new magazine that I have been reading lately called Ode.  I did a blog on laughter that was from this same magazine……this week’s article was on hope therapy.  I like that.  I have written a few blogs on hope and as you know by now if you read my blogs, my given name is Stanhope……so it’s in my blood, my soul, my core and my mission.

It truly amazes me that we as a culture, are still wanting a concrete explanation for everything.  Stress, joy, hope, and happiness are all terms that we cannot touch yet we know are real.  Hope, as defined by psychologists, is the belief that we have the skills and energy to make our dreams a reality.  Hope, as defined by my Acupuncturist and friend, Jimmy, is Having Opportunities Present Everywhere.  So what is hope therapy?  Hope therapy is creating hope in our lives by finding out what we really want in life and creating that reality through intention, action and belief.  Hope has a way of opening up old channels in our belief system that have been closed due to failure or fear.  Even though we can’t touch this, the researchers of this world are finding out what some have known for years……hopeful people tend to be physically healthier, more content, better able to cope with stress, and most of all they are happier. Interestingly enough, hope therapy does not disregard negative emotions….on the contrary it embraces the experimentation of alternative approaches when things go wrong. 

I know this to be true for me.  When I am hopeful, I can stay in my heart and be centered when fear comes into my life.  My mission in this life is to create a world of hope by loving unconditionally.  I know hope creates a bridge for me to be totally present as I don’t have to occupy my thoughts with “What happens if…..?” or  “Is everything going to be OK….?”  

Whether we call it hope therapy, hope, belief, or faith……….we all move forward everyday without the knowledge of what will be.  So make a choice to be hopeful, build your bridge, believe……it’s what we have, so let’s play to our strengths.  Just remember the parable…….fear knocked at the door, faith and hope answered, no one was there.

It was in one of my first classes of the Creative Problem Solving Institutes (CPSI) workshop at the University of Buffalo in New York State that the presenter went to the board and wrote the following words, “I am enough.”  That was the topic of the day and it turns out the topic of my life.  My core issue then and now is all about being enough.  This was one of the defining moments in my life.

Being enough is paradoxically a very simple and yet complicated process.  It is simple in that it is three words, cuts to the chase and says what it needs to say…….simply stated, I am enough. I am perfect in my imperfections and every moment of every day I am exactly what and where I should be and I am enough just like I am. I don’t need any more or any less……..I am just enough.  Get the point…..very simple, so where does the complication set in.  Well in my mind, I think “What is enough?” This is where the dreaded left brain monkey mind comes into play.  In my mind, I can never be enough because if I was truly enough, then it would be my time to go.  So I have often wondered, do I stop short because I think enough is a finite process? ……or do I stop short because I don’t think I am enough.  Welcome to my world……now you see how simple yet complex enough is.

I read a great piece this week that looked at it a little differently and opened up a new avenue for me. It was my horoscope and it said “ It is perfectly OK to be 95% enough because if you were 100% you would have wings……..take your foot off of your throat and love yourself, you are enough.”  This reminds me of Rolf Smith’s B+ approach to life……sometimes I don’t need an A…..a B+ is just perfect……..and that is enough. 

So today, I am enough and wherever I am at or whomever I am with…..I know that I am exactly where I need to be and I am doing exactly what I need to be doing for my journey this lifetime…….and to the presenter who brought to light three words that I have said thousands of times and that changed my life, I have five words…….. thank you, I am enough.

I have always considered growing up as something that I did when I was a kid.  As an adult, I was grown up……as in past tense……been there, done that.  I have also learned that in me, I have my little boy and my adult and that growing up is the relationship between those two parts of me.  What I have learned this week is that I am still growing up.

When my mother died in November, I had no idea of what that would mean.  What I realize now is that I just moved up in line and that as long as my mother was alive, my little boy felt safe.  As an adult, I deal with the anxiety of uncertainty and responsibility, yet somehow the little boy in me knew my mother would always make it OK. Now that she is gone, things are different.  This struggle has created suffering in my life and as I can accept my struggling, I become aware and awake.  Part of my struggle also has to do with my children as they grow up.  This mirroring between my relationship with my mother and the relationship with my children has helped me see how hard it is for me to let go of controlling my suffering and to step into the belief that we are all connected and that suffering creates gratitude and compassion within me.  I realize the question of a child is….. Who are they? (parents) and of an adolescent…Who am I?(self identity).... and of an adult…Who are we? (our place in the world). I am in the question.

So this week I have sat with the discomfort of not knowing.  Growing up is not just about the path from a boy to a man, but it is my path of creating a meaningful life of intention by opening myself to change, staying connected,  and knowing that I am embracing hope as well as suffering on my journey to compassion and meaningfulness.     

My girlfriend asked me one day if she could read me a card that was given to her.  The card said “Only dead fish go with the flow.”  It was from the Great Cosmic Happy Ass Card Company.  What a name…..I had never seen this card before. So here comes the punch line…… “Stan, this was from your mother.” My mother….??...... my conservative, turtle neck sweater wearin’ Republican Dallas socialite mother…no way…..can’t be.  The card was for Marie-Pierre to let her know that being different is OK.

This has been with me all week.  This has been my journey my whole life.  I was different and never quite felt that I fit in anywhere.  When I was a boy I wanted to be Bill or Bob or Jim not Stan. Who in the heck had a name like Stan…..or better yet Stanhope.  I hung around with so many groups and felt like I fit in some with each group yet I could never find my posse…..my home….my community.  So I adapted and learned to bridge who I was to where I wanted to be.  Someone once told me that if I put all of my friends in one room, they would all look around wondering what they all had in common.

Fast forward to the first time I met Rolf Smith and did my Myers Briggs and KAI and realized that I was in a group of about 2% of the population. I WAS different….literally…..very different. When I left his office that day I cried because for the first time in my life I was validated that I WAS different and THAT was my gift.  WOW…..what a concept.

Since that wonderful day 10 plus years ago, I have been on my journey to celebrate my uniqueness, my gifts, my different perspective, and my wonderful blessing to be able to relate to all these different people.  So now these different people find their way into my life and we mourn and celebrate how it is to NOT go with the flow……to be different……and I realize that all along my teacher on how to be different was my Mom…..because she was so different, all she could do to deal with it was to conform….wow…..the lessons keep coming.

Imagine a world where certainty was certain, where there was no doubt, no question to whether we were doing the right thing, moving in the right direction, where there would be no problems, and where everyone had unparalleled  clarity and infinite power.  My first reaction upon that thought would be “Awesome”…… “That is what I work towards every day.”

Well now, I am not so sure……better put, I am sure that world would be filled with people that had become unbearably arrogant, extremely boring, and actually quite shallow……and I would be right there with them.  This would be a world of certainty…..a world of that would require no change…..a world where there were no issues to grow with…….a world with no pain or joy to feel…….we would be complete.  If there was no contrast, there would be no magic and if there was no magic, there would be no meaning. 

My life is a search for meaning and with that I welcome the uncertainty in my life. I need dark and light to grow. I need to know what appreciation feels like by living in the necessary dissonance that creates a vacuum in my life.  I have always said that nature abhors a vacuum and that vacuum helps me know what I want so I can recognize it when I get it. 

Uncertainty is doubt and the willingness to sit in that place to learn what we have come here to learn.  Uncertainty is uncomfortable and it highlights our resistance to pain and in my judgment……joy.  So I embrace the pain, doubt, joy, and hope that is created on my journey that certain uncertainty creates so I can trust, love and keep moving forward.