Using Hope As A Shield

We have all had hard times - challenges of all kinds. Times where it truly seemed that things just would never ever get better. What got us through it? Hope. Having hope is like having a shield to guard us from the unbearable.

Transcript

Good morning,

Namaste everybody.

Thanks for joining.

Welcome to In the Flow with Glory Albert.

Today I want to talk for just a minute about hope.

You know we all have hard times.

We all have those those moments where you think that things could not get any worse,

Right?

Whether it's a you know hurricane coming your way or whether it's an illness or whether it's a you know whatever.

It's very difficult sometimes,

Right?

So but one of the things that I choose to do is I choose to actively consider hope.

Actively,

Right?

And there is a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh.

Thich Nhat Hanh,

If you're not familiar with him,

An amazing man.

He is a Vietnamese monk and he's like this spiritual sort of leader throughout the world and he's absolutely amazing and one of his or his quote on hope just always makes me stop in my tracks and think,

Right?

So this is his quote.

Hope is important because it makes the present moment less difficult to bear.

If we believe that tomorrow will be better,

We can bear the hardship today,

Right?

So that always kind of makes me stop in my tracks just for that short minute,

Right?

And it makes me realize that having hope is like having a shield,

Right?

To guard us from the unbearable,

Right?

So that to me is how I sort of grab on to hope.

You know we're hitting crazy weird times,

You know?

I mean in all aspects of our lives right?

In jobs and I don't even want to get into everything but our jobs and our you know the world and the all of it,

Right?

Every single aspect of our lives is seems to be seems I will say uncertain.

But if we have hope,

If we just have and if we can grasp onto that little tiny bit of hope,

That can change everything.

It can change our world.

It can save us.

It can change our world.

So I will tell you this.

This is like my little thing that I do.

When I have something going on and I feel like that I need to find hope somewhere in something.

This is what I do.

I think to myself I can do anything for whatever the period of time is.

I can do anything for a day,

Right?

I can do anything for a day,

You know?

I mean if you think about it like okay so let's it let's just say that I have to fast,

Right?

For it you know a medical test or something,

Right?

I can do anything for one day.

If I put a time period on it,

Right?

It makes it different for me.

I don't know why.

That's just my thing.

If that works for you,

You can have it too.

You can you can latch onto that and have it too.

But it's just really interesting because if we can just sort of compartmentalize where we need the hope,

The hope,

You know all of that,

It makes it a little bit better.

It makes a little bit easier to handle and we can bear that hardship today finding that little tiny shred of hope,

Right?

So what we are going to do today is we are going to meditate.

Today we're going to meditate on the idea of,

And I'll explain this in a minute,

The idea of pure potentiality.

Now to me that means hope,

Right?

That means hope because that is potentiality is possibility of everything,

Right?

So let's get ourselves comfortable,

Shall we?

Okay,

So great.

Get ourselves comfortable.

I'm in a funky mood today.

Not funky,

That's the wrong way to describe it,

But just like woohoo.

I've got this,

You know,

I'll be completely honest.

I have arthritis,

Right?

And this is a perfect example of hope.

Before we get into the meditation,

This is a perfect example of hope for me,

Right?

And sometimes it's,

I wouldn't say it's debilitating,

It's not like,

It is debilitating in that I have pain,

Blah blah blah,

All that junk,

Right?

But the reality is is that I have hope and if I didn't have hope for my own future,

How could I go on?

So I have such,

I have such sympathy for people that feel like that they don't have hope and that's why I wanted to talk about this today.

Because if you feel like you don't have hope,

What else is there,

Right?

We all need to grasp onto that shield like I'm talking about,

Right?

That shield of hope.

It protects us.

That shield can protect us from the unbearable.

So,

Okay,

Now let's get back to getting comfortable.

You can relax,

Sit in your chair,

You can lay down,

Just make yourself comfortable.

Because what we are doing throughout all these days that I do all this,

This practice of meditation is we're creating,

We're creating a habit of getting into the flow of meditation,

Okay?

So let's,

If you're comfortable,

You will want to do it again.

Let's get ourselves comfortable.

Let your eyes look closed.

And let's take a nice deep breath in through your nose and release.

That felt so good.

Let's do that one more time.

Take a nice really long slow deep breath in.

Release.

Right there it helps you relax and get your mind and your body ready for that place of meditation.

So in really contemplating what hope is,

I think we must first understand what gratitude is.

So let's think about what we are grateful for today.

What are just a few things that we are grateful for today?

Are you grateful for the weather outside?

Are you grateful that your boss is really understanding about situations in your own life right now?

Are you grateful for this modality of meditation that we can use this on a daily basis to help us be present,

Be a little less stressed?

What are you grateful for?

So our mantra today,

We're going to repeat,

Shivo hum.

And what that means is,

I am pure potentiality.

Pure potentiality.

I like to think that means that I can do anything.

The potential of having hope.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

If you get lost in the mantra,

That's absolutely okay.

You can just concentrate on your breathing,

On your breath,

Going in and out.

Where you can just push the thoughts aside.

Get back to the mantra,

Shivo hum.

I will keep the time.

Let's begin.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Shivo hum.

Let's bring our awareness back to our bodies.

Shivo hum.

Beautiful.

Let's take a nice deep breath in through our nose.

And release it.

Whenever you feel comfortable,

You can open your eyes.

Awesome.

So I leave you today with this.

There is always hope.

If we believe that tomorrow will be better,

We can bear the hardship today.

Thank you.

So I wish you all joy and peace and hope today.

So until tomorrow or until next time,

Namaste everybody.

Reviews

I was inspired by this meditation! I took notes and will follow her!