The Importance Of Hope

Hope is one of the most fundamentally important things we have. In this episode Glenn talks about hope, the seed from where everything begins; the knowingness of everything is going to be okay and why that is so important.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hey everybody,

Welcome to the show.

We are talking about Ben Laughing.

Hope.

Hope.

I hope.

I hope.

Not dope.

Bob Hope.

We're talking specifically,

This is a whole episode about Bob Hope.

Yes,

No.

Golf swing.

It's not.

Little known fact,

I saw Bob Hope in person do a show when I was a kid.

Really?

Yeah,

My parents used to take us to like,

I don't,

There was,

I think there was two places.

I think one of them was called the Melody Tent.

And then there's another one too,

I think in the kind of Massachusetts area,

Northeast area.

And they would have shows.

And one of the shows I saw was Bob Hope.

And I met his wife.

Oh.

Yeah,

It was,

I didn't understand any of the jokes.

I was a little kid,

You know,

And I was like.

.

.

I don't think you would understand the jokes now.

I would.

Maybe.

But yeah,

After the show,

I was walking up and his wife was standing there.

I think I spoke with her for a moment or something.

Anyway,

Very unimportant,

Uninteresting fact about my childhood.

But you know what is important?

I had hope.

Yeah,

Maybe that's where I got it from Bob.

People don't have hope.

Yeah,

They do.

They kind of have this knowingness that everything's going to be okay.

And that's kind of what hope feels like.

You know,

Like that's,

I often say in my journey,

That's where it started.

Because you know,

I was,

I was bankrupt,

As they say,

Emotionally,

Mentally,

Physically,

You know,

I mean,

In every way possible.

And really felt hopeless.

And then all of a sudden,

You know,

It's all sudden,

I got,

You know,

As people were talking and trying to help me,

And I was trying to open my mind,

All of a sudden,

I got this little glimmer of hope that maybe and one of the things for me was,

Was like that spark,

That hope was when I first understood that,

You know,

People were saying I needed a spiritual awakening and I was like,

I don't even know what that looks like.

Like,

If I need a spiritual awakening,

I am in big trouble.

Because I don't know if there is a God and if there is,

He freaking hates me.

So like,

I don't even know where to begin.

But once I started understanding that,

Really,

A spiritual awakening was just a shift of perception,

That it was just a change of perception.

So then I was like,

Okay,

Well,

Have I ever changed my perception about anything?

I was like,

Yeah,

I think I have.

Like,

You know,

As a kid,

You look at things one way and then you experience more and you start changing your perspective on things and you look at things a different way.

I was like,

Oh my God,

Like,

Yeah,

That kind of happens in life,

You change perspectives.

And then once that was my first glimmer of hope.

That was the first moment that I was like,

Well,

Maybe there might be a different way of living that exists with like happiness and that joy and blissful stuff that I haven't experienced since childhood.

Maybe there is some sort of existence that I can walk in a direction of by changing perceptions.

And for me,

That was like a wall that I blew through after 20 years of suffering.

So it might sound simple,

But after that,

I mean,

Everything started popping open very quickly just because it expanded my mind to think that it might even be possible to live a different way and there might be happiness.

Once I could think that it might be possible,

Then things started opening.

So I always held hope as a very important aspect of finding happiness.

And I think that that's,

I see the same thing when people are in really difficult situations.

You know,

I mean,

Really what's the lowest vibration that there is?

It's depression,

You know,

Hopelessness.

That's the lowest vibration there is.

That's the most dangerous vibration that we have because it's just we don't have the motivation to do anything,

To change anything,

To walk in a direction of anything.

We've kind of given up.

We don't have hope.

And when you don't have hope,

That's when you're at the bottom.

So really opening up our minds just to the possibility of something maybe being able to be different down the road.

I think that that is such a foundational piece that opens us up.

We don't have to,

A lot of times we think we have to find it first.

You know,

I talked with a lot of people that are dealing with death like this.

You know,

They're like,

I'll never be the same.

No,

You'll never be the same.

Absolutely.

I agree with that.

But you know,

That doesn't mean that there's not a possibility that maybe someday you might,

If the stars align and the creek don't rise,

That maybe you might be able to find a sliver of happiness possibly.

Like that's it.

That's all you have to believe,

You know,

Or even try to believe.

You don't even have to believe it.

You just have to try to believe that maybe someday it might happen.

And that's enough.

That's hope.

From there,

All things can blossom.

But if you don't even have that,

If you don't even allow yourself to think that happiness might be possible someday,

Maybe if you don't even allow that in,

You're not going to go anywhere.

Yeah.

You feel me,

Ben?

I feel you,

Glenn.

Do you feel me preaching?

I'm going to get my soapbox.

I just looked up,

I don't like the actual definitions of hope in the dictionary.

No?

No,

It's just.

.

.

You want me to rewrite them and send them into Webster's?

A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

I think it's way more than that.

Yeah,

It's the seed of everything.

And that's why.

.

.

It's that once you have that seed of hope,

That's where everything comes from.

Everything is contained within that seed.

Everything that makes a mighty oak is contained within the seed.

Once you have that seed,

All the information inside there,

It just unfolds naturally as things happen.

So if you have that seed of hope,

And then you try to cultivate the soil within you to plant that seed and just make it an environment in which a seed could blossom,

And you just care for that seed,

You water it,

You give it hope,

You feed it more hope,

You try to find things to be grateful for.

That's cultivating the soil.

That's watering it.

That's giving it food that it needs to help blossom.

Things like gratitude and just being thankful for the things that you already do have,

The simple things.

And then maybe bringing in some structure that you didn't have before,

Or maybe getting help from a life coach or a therapist or somebody,

Or talking to friends more,

Or just getting out of your house and buying yourself flowers once a week.

All that stuff prepares the ground to give that seed what it needs to continue blossoming.

But what you need is already contained in there.

How do you get hope when you don't have it?

You talked about the depression being the lowest vibration and that feeling of hopelessness.

If you have the feeling of hopelessness,

How do you get that spark back?

If you feel like you lost the acorn.

Most of the time that we're in that place where we're hopeless,

It's quite frankly,

It's just a misunderstanding of reality.

And what we'll do is we'll use the present paradigm that we're in to hold ourselves in a place of hopelessness.

So when you're feeling depressed and hopeless,

The types of things that sound correct to you are not actually true.

Your brain just likes the way they sound because they resonate with the vibration that you're already in.

So what it is,

Is you're sitting there hopeless and you go,

Well,

I tried to do something in my life and it didn't work.

So therefore it will never work and therefore I'm hopeless.

Or I love this person,

Now they're gone and they were never coming back.

So therefore I will never experience joy because my joy came from them and I'm never going to live it again.

And stuff like that actually makes sense and it's not even true.

It's simply not true.

And if you slow down enough to start having conversations and just attempt to open your mind to what the truth actually is,

Your inner body,

Your soul knows the truth and it will remember the truth if you attempt to bring it back up.

And the truth is,

Just because something is a certain way now,

Does not mean it's going to be that way in the future.

As a matter of fact,

In an ever-changing reality that we live in,

It actually means definitely things will definitely not be the same in the future.

It will not.

I guarantee you,

No matter what you do,

Even if it's nothing,

In a year from now,

Your life will not be the same as it is now.

It will change.

It's just up to you what direction it changes.

Some people think that things can't get worse until they do.

So I mean,

We have control over what direction it goes.

But the fact is,

And if things can get worse,

Like you ask somebody depressed,

You go,

Can things get worse?

Probably.

They'll believe that.

Why?

Because it sounds right to a mind that's looking for negativity.

But if you say,

Can things get better?

They go,

I doubt it.

Why?

Give me some sort of physical evidence,

Some rational thought process that equals that things never get better for people.

I mean,

The stories are endless.

Get a book.

Read about things that people that were in your situation where things got better.

Listen to my story.

My body was literally shutting down.

I was dying,

Physically dying.

My son was 1,

400 miles away.

I was homeless.

I had trouble thinking.

I was completely dependent on substances to try to keep myself functioning.

And it didn't work anymore.

I mean,

Where's all my hope?

How do I transcend that,

All of a sudden become a present and consistent father for the last 15,

Over 15 years,

And have my own life coaching business?

And just my story alone says that it's not necessarily true that where you are right now,

You're going to stay there.

So it's just being exposed to that type of information and having rational conversations with people about the reality that things can change.

And then you have to attempt to open up.

And that's what it is.

See,

People think that they need to.

.

.

What helps keep people stuck in that vibration is they go,

I have to change.

And I have to believe 100% that it's possible.

Or I have to see the roadmap out before I'll believe that it's possible and then attempt to take the steps.

And people do that when they're in depression.

People do that when they're not in depression.

That's just something people do.

And it keeps you stuck no matter where you are.

If you're in depression,

It'll keep you stuck there.

If you're in your career,

It'll keep you stuck there.

If you're in a middle point in your life,

It'll keep you stuck there.

That's not how life works.

There is no guarantee.

We can't see through steps one through 12 and then know that they're going to work.

And then we go,

Okay,

Well,

Since you've proven to me that it'll work,

Now I'll put the effort and take the first step.

That's not how life works.

So we can't lock into that type of mentality.

It's just allowing that little seed to say maybe,

Possibly,

Perhaps if the stars line up that maybe something might work.

That's it.

That's all you need.

You know,

That's it.

Which reminds me,

It's a mind expansion.

It's disconnecting from that lock of negativity that you're in.

Just for a moment to just open up this little gap and that's all you need.

Yep.

You know,

And it's that I use this example a lot,

The Alice in Wonderland example.

When she's fighting the Jabberwocky at the end,

She's repeating the seven impossible things or the six impossible things that happened to her before breakfast.

That's to expand her mind because she doesn't believe that a little girl can slay a Jabberwocky.

So she's repeating these impossible things.

Well,

That's what we need to do.

We need to expose our brain to things that can expand it and start thinking other things are possible.

You know,

When people are really like laid out with a death that was close to them and it just,

I mean,

You know,

It was somebody very close and there,

You know,

You don't run in and go,

Hey,

You know,

Don't worry about it.

Life can be happy.

I mean,

Yeah,

And rightfully so.

I mean,

You just can't expect that in that situation.

But you know what I always try when I'm talking with somebody,

Whether they're my client or not,

It's just I always try to go just please just hang on to the hope that maybe possibly someday there might be.

Just hang on to that just a little bit because that's really all you need.

And then as you move forward,

As time goes by,

If you just hang on to that little hope that it might get better at some point when you're ready,

It will start to,

You know,

It's where you close off from that hope that things get really,

Really,

Really dark.

And sometimes people don't come out of it,

You know.

So there and breathe.

So what's a what's a good way?

Like is there a is there a mechanism?

Is there some sort of like way to to kick start or jump start hope?

You know what I mean?

Like is there a miracle grow for this?

Well,

Yeah,

I think well,

Yeah,

I think that's that's the rightly worded question.

It's like is there a miracle,

Miracle grow for this seed?

Because I mean,

Hope it's it's hope is a lot easier than we think.

Like I was saying,

It's just hey,

Maybe someday possibly whatever,

You know,

If we really apply ourselves to that,

Most people can at least accept that most people can be like,

Well,

Yeah,

I guess.

You know,

The meteor might hit the earth in five minutes and blow us all up and we could all die.

So I guess maybe something might be able to happen that could shift things in the future for the better,

Maybe.

So that that little that's just a little rationale.

That's really not that difficult to grasp.

So so the seed of hope,

It really isn't that hard.

It's but if you have that,

Then what?

And that's the miracle grow.

You know,

What's going to make that hope expand and grow and take up more of your consciousness?

And that is where you need to feed yourself positive food.

You know,

I tell that to people all the time.

Where are you getting your spiritual food?

You know,

Where this society that we're in is not awake.

So there's a lot of negativity around it.

And whatever existence you lived to get you to where you are.

That there's aspects of that that were negative.

So if that's all you're looking at,

That's all you're going to see.

And hope can't grow in that.

So you need to look at things that are different than where you are.

So that's spiritual food.

You just got you have to expose yourself to different things,

You know,

Like these podcasts or blogs or books or YouTube videos.

And you know,

There's so much free information out there.

There's no excuse that,

You know,

Go to the library.

Just you know,

There's so much self help and positivity.

Just expose your brain,

Even if you don't believe what you're reading.

Excuse me,

Expose your brain to two different ways of thinking that aren't negative.

That's all.

And little by little,

You'll pick up little nuggets that will be like,

Well,

You know,

All right,

Maybe that one makes a little sense.

And you know,

And then all of a sudden,

It's like,

Oh,

My God.

So if that makes sense,

Then that makes sense.

And then all of a sudden,

You start connecting the dots.

And you know,

We have to remember that it's not as difficult a journey as it seems.

Finding happiness,

Joy and peace.

That's our natural state of being.

That's like how we're supposed to be.

That's how we were born.

That's how we're made.

That's our natural state.

So it's not like you have to build a skyscraper of positivity and then go move in.

It's,

You know,

It's all it is,

Is forgetting the BS that you've taught yourself,

That you've bought into,

That society has pushed upon you.

It's forgetting all that stuff and allowing what's inside of you to actually come up.

And it's so it really it's a lot easier than people realize.

The trick is,

Is that people stay stuck because they just stay in that,

Nah,

I doubt it's possible that they stay stuck because they're waiting for all 12 steps to be shown to them in a comprehensive way that they agree with perfectly.

And then they'll make the effort.

And again,

It's just not going to happen.

Just go out there and expose yourself to stuff.

That would be nice,

Though.

Yeah,

Well,

Yeah,

It'd be nice.

I mean,

I guess,

You know,

We live in a perfect world and we don't.

So that tells me that probably not the system in place.

Something that I like to do to sort of create a more hopeful day is like sort of pride myself in the morning.

Like I'll you know,

I like to like I have a like I have a morning routine that like,

You know,

When I laughing because I just thought of it,

When I stick to it,

Though,

It's you know,

It's a lot more hopeful day.

You kind of like you greet situations differently,

You know,

Like like like last week I was I had done everything I needed to in the morning to feel good about a day and then some like I actually think that it was last last week when we recorded What's Right With The World.

I was telling you like I got groceries and everything fell out of the bags because they were put in wrong.

And I had a new phone and the case hadn't come in yet and it literally fell off of my car onto the pavement.

And I was like,

No,

But like I was able to to not get upset and not get,

You know,

Like angry or whatever these things happening because I had sort of primed myself earlier in the morning to to to feel good and feel hopeful and feel great about the day,

You know?

Yeah,

It's huge.

I mean,

You know,

We've all been in spaces where something little has happened and we've lost our mind.

And we've all been in spaces where something little has happened or something even bigger has happened.

And we've handled that effortlessly.

What's the difference between those two situations?

It's a space you're in.

It's the it's the consciousness that you're in it when that particular event happens.

So yeah,

If you put effort into setting your consciousness into a healthy space at the beginning of your day,

That's why,

You know,

Before I get out of bed,

I meditate.

You know,

That's the first thing that I do.

And and like,

Like my son goes to school and I like I'll get up,

Go to the bathroom and open my bedroom door.

And like,

As I'm doing that,

The dog hears me and he's downstairs from when my son goes school,

He comes upstairs,

Goes in my room and I say hello to the dog and I meditate and get myself into as good a mentality as possible.

And then I get out of bed and it's from the the walk to the stairs and down the stairs.

It's all playing with faith,

My dog faith,

You know,

And it's and it's going like,

Oh,

My God,

Happy Tuesday.

Happy Tuesday.

Are you ready for the day?

You ready to start the day?

And she gets so excited.

You know,

If you just talk to a dog like that,

Are you ready for the day?

They don't know what the hell you're saying,

But it's exciting and it's happy.

So they get excited and happy,

Which makes me excited and happy because his dog's looking at me like wagging its tail and jumping around and all looks like she's smiling and like,

How the hell can you get pissed off in that situation?

So I'm feeding off of her and she's feeding off of me.

And by the time we make it down the stairs,

We're both like,

Oh,

It's a wonderful day.

So yeah,

Getting myself into that mode first thing in the morning is gigantic.

And I mean,

A lot of the teachers teach that Tony Robbins is famous for that.

You know,

A lot of teachers teach that because it's it's gigantic.

You know,

You need to set like when I when I first got sober and woke up and all this stuff,

Many people were asking me like,

What like,

What are you doing to stay so content in your sobriety?

And I said,

What I do is I monitor my moods and my thinking.

And that's exactly what we're talking about.

I go,

If my thinking is getting negative,

Then I do whatever it takes to get back on track.

And if my mood is getting negative,

Then I do whatever it takes to get back on track.

And in the beginning,

That's all I did.

Really.

I mean,

That was my focus.

And what that did was it just kept me in good space.

And when I'm in good space,

I handle everything perfectly.

And it's like so so that's you know,

This is why if I ever struggle,

I usually go back to the beginning because when I popped open,

I was like doing stuff perfectly.

And I didn't even know why.

Yeah,

Because it was my natural state and I opened up to that natural state.

You know,

And it's that I think that that's why I guess so jazzed up and I can really preach this with with confidence and and in a open heart,

Truly believing that it works.

Because like I said,

I mean,

I was really at a very bad place.

And three months later,

My entire world changed three months.

Like,

That's insane to think that your entire existence can change in three months.

You know,

Complete 180.

And so so having experienced that,

Like if I talk about this,

It's it's not a doubt in my mind,

Because I've experienced it.

And since I've experienced that I've seen it in so many other people that it's it's just it's one of my favorite things about my job is is seeing that light go on in somebody's eye or hearing it in their voice.

When all of a sudden,

It's just like,

Oh,

Yeah.

Like that hope just blossoms a little and they're like,

Yeah,

This is possible.

You know,

That's awesome.

All right.

Well,

People can get,

You know,

In touch with you on Glen Ambrose dot com if they're looking for life coaching or have any questions or anything like that.

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Etc,

Etc.

Check out the YouTube because there's a lot of new stuff on the YouTube page.

Yeah.

So check it out.

And it's I'm really curious as the videos get more and more popular to hear people's feedback because like we can get pretty goofy and you know,

On the podcast listening to them,

We can get pretty goofy.

I mean,

People comment on that all the time.

Right.

But I think the video is even goofier and which I'm very proud of.

Oh,

I want to hear some feedback on that.

I'm going to start having like visual gags.

I thought about that this morning.

Yeah.

Like there's a there's a giant whiteboard in our dining room right now that we've been using for like the kid to draw on and stuff and I was like I should just draw something on that and put it like it's huge.

I was like how do I hang that on the wall behind me?

So yeah,

Visual gags coming soon for 2019.

Oh,

Exciting.

All right.

Well,

I think that's going to do it.

Thanks for listening,

Everybody.

And we will talk to you soon.

Reviews

Love it! Thank you!! 🙏🏻

Great talk! I'm glad I listened to this now during these trying times when having hope it's so important! Thank you!

Thanks for giving me hope and a new perspective 🌼

Loved this. Thank you. Feeling hopeful:)

This is SUCH a GREAT discussion, Glenn❣️ I have a younger brother who has struggled with addiction for almost half of his life.

Being 11 years older than him and having a different life experience (filled with it’s own unique personal challenges) I, too, can attest to the Truth of your message here!

I will DEFINITELY be sharing this ENCOURAGING and INSPIRATIONAL talk with him in HOPE that he will listen and really HEAR the Wisdom you are sharing in this Enlightening talk. 🙏🏻💕

How true... I have hope.... Thanks guys 💙x

Is there a miracle grow for Hope? I love your answer. Great podcast guys.