Hope Lives Within Me

Hope.

Sometimes I sit. I sit through the storm and I shake and I wonder if the

Winds will blow me away. I wonder if I can endure the violence, the rage,

The anger. I forget what it was like to feel safe and be at peace, to live in

Contentment and know in my heart that I am okay. I shiver in my boots

And the tears stream down my cheeks and I am reminded of my mortality

And I feel small. I turn inward and I wait, trying hard to disappear or make

This feeling go away. I feel like child and I don’t know how to care

For myself.

I need help, but no one is around. No person can do it for me. I stand,

Stunned at the vastness of this

Emptiness and I look outside and wonder will I ever feel okay again?

This is how I feel at first. When something unexplainable happens. It can

Be in any form.

One time an argument my parents had, one time I didn’t get

Picked for a game, one time my friend was killed, one time I was beaten,

One time my pet disappeared, one time I lost my job, one time I had a fight

With my best friends, one time my father died, one time a sick baby was

Born, one time my brother lost his mind, one time I was all alone.

I sit and I take a deep breath. The rise and fall of my belly and chest, the

Vehicle of prana, my life force energy flooding every cell in my body,

Infusing me with aliveness, awareness and acceptance. I cannot and

Would not want to control my circumstances or the outcome. I don’t

Know what lessons it brings, or what strength it builds. I lose the

Desire to be in charge or change a thing. I surrender and allow the

Vastness of my human emotion to tumble and unravel and untangle me

From these binding thoughts, expectation and fears.

I release myself into the fear and the fear

Becomes a ride I am on. And I keep breathing and allowing and giving

Myself to the emptiness and soon, I feel completely enveloped and

Enfolded, embedded in the safety of this emptiness I feared. I allow the

Pain, I give in to the feeling of my heart opening: God’s hand in my heart.

It hurts. This love I am feeling hurts, but in a good way. In a healing way, it

Aches within me and the clarity of my true self rises from within. From

Somewhere deep within me wells up a feeling. It’s small. It’s very small,

I can barely hear the faint, high pitched sound that streams from within

My own head. From the center of my mind. I feel somehow that all will be

Well. I feel that this hurt will somehow be healed and that I will be stronger

Than I was before. That the hurt and the fear and the free fall into the

Abyss will be followed by something than can only come from a return. A

Recapturing, a recovery. Somehow I know that I will recover from all of

This. Somehow.

I open my eyes. Only 10 minutes of meditation have gone by. I have

Visited the inner workings of the mind once again, and have made it out

Alive. Meditation is for the brave at heart. If I can learn to face my fears,

My fears triggered by my past: an angry father, a heartbreak, a baby with

A feeding tube, my sick grandfather, or my struggling sibling, the career I

Lost, my back injury, the dreams I had of true love now vanished. The list

Rattles off, almost constantly in the back of my mind, but for 10 minutes of

Sitting in stillness, I may never know the terrorists that live in there. But that is

Also where I feel my heart. The resilience of that muscle, like no other. In

Acceptance, I have everything. Nothing to fix or change. Everything as is.That is when I know my heart, and feel the rise of the hope: the salve that

I have been blessed with. It ignites within me a luminosity and a purity that

Remains untouched and untainted by the stories and the play that lingers

Long past the performance.

My yoga for the day is done. I unburden myself. Rise and open my heart

To the possibility of another glorious day.

Hope lives within me.

We asked experts, authors and readers like you to share their stories of Hope. Every day for the next month, you’ll find new tips for optimism on Gaiam Life, the Stream of Consciousness blog and our social media sites: Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. And don’t miss the GaiamTV.com Hope Film Festival, with FREE films all month long.