As a kid, my mother told me that if we’ve had a tough time as a kid, it was bound to run out and then we’d have the rest of our lives to celebrate and live a great life. Get all the crap out of the way early!
She was teaching me to hope and believe.
Today, I would want to give a MiniBook to someone special who needs a good boost of Hope and Believing.
I would want this book to be heart-felt and encouraging. I would want there to be useful tidbits that they could use and help them go to bed tonight feeling their heart filled with so much hope and belief that they wake up tomorrow morning with it shining from inside!
This MiniBook is not about doing it for other people. It’s not about denial. It’s not about having it easy. It’s about having real and serious challenges that face us and tapping into what we’ve got inside to make it through.
Let’s get to it!
I write this in early 2020, in the shadow of the loss of Kobe Bryant. Like many, this lead me to read about his process towards his craft as well as the processes of other basketball players such as Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neil. As I was reading about their individual processes, I was reminded of 3 other legends of process: Abby Wambach, Muhammad Ali and Walt Disney. This magically wove itself into a subject I needed to address today: Hope and Belief.
“I never worry about the problem. I worry about the solution.”
Shaquille O’Neil
When we look at professional basketball players, we can lose sight of all the years that preceded the moment when they walked onto the court with the sports channels filming and famous people watching them from the sidelines. Those basketball players threw hundreds of balls a week for years to get there. They worked hard and kept their focus in the right place.
Every. Single. Player. has been a little kid who touched that orange ball for the first time and threw the ball with the hope that it would make it to and through that very distant hoop.
Every. Single. Player. has missed, has fallen and got hit in the face with a ball more than once, and was possibly told they would never a be real basketball player (Air Jordan didn’t happen over night!).
Every. Single. Player. got back up and got the next ball.
The courts and teams are FILLED with people who had a dream, had hope and believed. Everyone wearing a jersey and stepping on to the court has hope and belief in their heart. They might have had people who believed in them, which is great, but they believed in themselves.
Hope and Belief are what makes it all possible. They are what make anything that once seemed impossible become possible. It’s easy and feels natural to be attached to the results. However, when we aren’t forcefully attached, but keep our focus, hope and belief and we allow ourselves to enjoy each moment of the process, we’re setting ourselves up for a great life.
Please allow me to address the concept of “giving up” vs. redirecting. Goals can change, and that’s a good thing, as long as our focus from our old goal is changing for the right reasons and for the better.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a Champion.'”
-Muhammad Ali
HOPE
Karine’s definition of Hope: To have an idea in our spirit that there is better in the future. Essentially, it’s the vision of the hoop with your ball flying through it.
Hope is completely intangible. Not only is it a concept, but it’s a loose one at that!
But, what would we do without it?
What does it give to have it?
Hope gives us direction. It shows us where we want to go and it gives us light inside to shine the way there. Without it, I feel that we are in the dark, without direction, without light.
There are countless stories of how Hope changed people’s lives. There’s a fun reason for that: because we allowed ourselves to dream past what we could see and feel. And that is Hope.
BELIEF
Karine’s definition of Belief: To be CERTAIN, without a doubt in our spirit and through our mind and body that something is true. Essentially, it’s the player throwing the ball to the hoop knowing that it belongs inside.
Belief is something we are feeling more presently, but is still not something you can see or touch. Belief is grounded and has certainty.
Without belief, without that grounded trust and confidence in something better, I feel we have less direction and float in a gray zone. Belief shakes us out of that murk and gives us focus. Each bit of belief makes us stronger.That confidence is focused on positive life aspects.
Overshare: I’ve always believed that two of my gifts from the Universe were that I always had and have hope and belief. I’m naive that way. Having these gifts has tremendously helped me deal with things in life because I always knew and felt that, without a doubt, I’d have a great life. Please bare in mind that I never believed life would simply “happen” and always understood that there was work to be done.
Desire is what brings a person learn and practice basketball. Hope keeps them going and dreaming. Belief is what makes them shoot a basketball into a hoop and score the winning points. Without these, that person would have been sitting at home and watching a basketball game, that in another reality full of desire, hope, and belief, they would have been on that court and celebrating that win.
To me, a basketball is a symbol of Hope and Belief.
Overshare: As a short kid who’s a girl, one wouldn’t necessarily think that I would have been good at basketball, but no one dissuaded me or shed any negative light on me playing. I just did. Somehow, I hoped I could do it, I worked at and and believed I could. I was actually pretty good back then.
“What you are thinking about, you are becoming.”
-Muhammad Ali
From my studies, I have found so many claims of how our cells seem to be listening to our thoughts and how our thoughts might be directing our health. Deepak Chopra was the first to introduce me to this. Though I cannot specifically prove all of this, I do prefer to have hope and believe that it could very well be true and that I have a role in my own wellbeing.
For this reason, it is even more important to align ourselves with our own message of Hope and Belief.
The goal may seem impossible, but I have heard and known far too many people who have gone beyond those limits. I hope and believe. Both are free and don’t hurt anyone.
This is not about the negative. It’s not about what other people think. It’s about putting what we feel and think ahead and going all in.
It’s about knowing our own value.
It’s about loving and valuing ourselves.
It’s about not accepting defeat, but understanding the road/journey of life and putting our own energy towards making it a life that reflects ourselves and our hopes, dreams, goals and beliefs
Don’t worry.
Have no doubts.
Don’t think of how it will happen.
“If you can visualize it, if you can dream it, there’s some way to do it.”
-Walt Disney
TRICK 1: Breathing it out
Let’s start by getting rid of what we don’t want before doing anything else. By this breathing practice, which I recommend to take at least 10-20 minutes, we go through each part of our body and mentally prepare it for a new message. You can have soft music in the background if you wish.
Setting up: Start by sitting or lying down (preferably) in a safe place where you can let your guard down and not be disturbed. Remove anything that is going to potentially bother you and give yourself a light blanket if you feel you might get cold.
For the first part of this practice, you will have your eyes closed and mentally focus solely on one body part at a time. This means one toe at a time, and working your way up to one organ at a time and working up to the top of your head.
At each part, breathe in slowly and fully, breathe out with intention of emptying that part of whatever doesn’t serve you positively.
When you have completed each part of your body and have arrived to the top of your head, it’s time to give a new message to the cells of your body, one that you will remind yourself of a few times a day and one that is anchored in hope and belief.
I recommend writing this message down. This will become your words to yourself, your mantra. Breathe it through your body. Imagine that if you were a balloon, you could breathe that message all the way to every part of you.
This message might be “I live and shine with hope and I believe in my life”.
Remember you personal message and the breathing you did emptying of what doesn’t serve you and filling with positive breath and message.
TRICK 2: Redirecting
Learning to redirect our thoughts and emotions can be a long process. But the important thing is to keep going. We deserve thoughts and feelings of hope and belief. So, we will add them consciously.
When we feel a negative thought creep in (such as negative monologue, thoughts of worry or fear, feelings of discouragement), we know we don’t want it. There are good chances that there is no point to having it and are just there because of old patterns. So, time to flip it!
Redirecting into a positive and nutritious/enriching and fulfilling thought is what you deserve!
Overshare: I found one of my flipping tools was part of a song that I sing to myself in my head when I catch a negative thought trying to creep its way in.
Ultimately, have EVERY CERTAINTY that this negative thought is NOT allowed on the premises! Unless, of course, you feel like you need to work through that thought. Then, by all means, work through it through talk, writing or whatever works for you, then DITCH IT! FLIP IT! And allow the good to shine.
TRICK 3: Confidence
What do you believe for yourself? Are you going to let the negative messages get to you? We see confidence when we watch a great basketball player walk on the court. We see confidence in acrobats. We see it in some amazing speeches. But here’s the thing: all those moments of confidence that we have witnessed weren’t born that way. They were cultivated!
Now’s time to cultivate our confidence in our hope and belief!
Growing anything comes with a few musts: Proper soil, food, water, sunlight & shade, support, and away from dangers.
Let’s break this into how we can use it:
Soil: Setting ourselves up in the best way possible for confidence.
Food: How we feed our confidence is by reminding ourselves of the goal.
Water: Water goes deep. This is about how you are caring for yourself and your goal. Your goal is important. By reminding yourself of the importance of it and of your confidence in yourself and achieving that goal is how you are giving yourself the supplies needed to keep growing.
Sunlight & shade: We allow inspiration in and we allow ourselves to bask in the light of the stories of others. The shade is knowing when to focus on our own story and believing how it is a valuable story.
Support: Many things that grow need support to lean on sometimes. Know what sources of support you have and use them!
Away from dangers: Knowing what shakes our confidence is important. In many cases, it can be fixed by being open and honest with people about what your mental monologue is saying and trying to do.
TRICK 4: Imagery, symbols and quotes
I love imagery and quotes and I put them everywhere. I even like fortune cookie messages!
These images and quotes are some of the things that remind us of our direction and help us stay on track. For some, it can be a bracelet they wear that, when they look at it, reminds them of all the hope and belief and they are back!
I like my images and quotes to hold some humor and all of them together, project a special note of inspiration that I have curated for myself. This is not about what’s trending or popular. It’s about what makes you feel good and reminds you of all the good stuff you hope and believe for yourself.
Now, what if we don’t?
Do you want to be a victim of your life or do you want to know that you have done everything you could?
I don’t know your situation. No one does, really. Simple reason: we are all different. Even twins live a different reality through their unique perception and perspective.
However, speaking to people who have made it through what you are living through is one way to give us hope. You can ask and reach out to find people who lived through a similar reality. Nowadays, we can benefit from YouTube videos, blogs and social media from people who are sharing their message of making it through. Knowing we aren’t alone can be really encouraging. But even in the absence of knowing people who have lived what we are living, we can find it in our spirit, by some digging, that hope is already there.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind people struggling about Claire Wineland and her very inspirational and strong perspective (you can find her on YouTube).
Sometimes, believing is all you’ve got. And believing in yourself, your spirit and your ideas is some of the most important things you can do in your life.
So, in the basketball game that is life, grab that ball off the floor and do your magic 🙂
I will leave you with this: Early in this MiniBook I said that I believe that Hope and Belief were two of my gifts from the Universe. I believe we all have them. I suppose my gift was more of a flashlight to help me find them…
“Sometimes you have to go through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff.”
-Abby Wambach
I have confidence. I believe. I have hope.
Life, Light & Love,
Karine
“Sometimes, believing is all you’ve got. And that’s plenty good if you believe with all your might.”
-KF