The Woman's Book of Hope. Eileen Campbell
exhibition titled “Buddhas on Death Row.” When meditating in his cell one day, Moyo decided that he would like to study the image of the Buddha through a series of portraits. Maria helped organize an exhibition of his work at an art gallery in Helsinki. The portraits are accompanied by reflections on suffering and happiness, conflict and peace, impermanence and eternity, ignorance and awareness.
Moyo continues to be committed to the work of transformation. Instead of feeling anger and resentment, as he once did, he sees himself as working to “polish his soul, clean stains from his heart, and open windows of his mind.” He has chosen to find meaning and purpose in his situation.
However dire the circumstances, there is always hope, as Moyo's story shows, not necessarily that the situation will end, but that the situation looks different. As human beings, we clearly have the capacity for transformation, even in the darkness, when we find a meaning and purpose to our existence.
I know that however difficult my situation is, hope is always available.
I am learning to make sense of my existence.
I spend my time in worthwhile ways.
7. Letting our creativity blossom
If we want to change our lives and create a future that's better than the situation we're currently experiencing, then we need to use our imagination to the full. Pir Vilyat Khan, the much-loved Sufi teacher, wrote: “The future is not there waiting for us. We create it by the power of the imagination.”
We're all capable of accessing our imagination; it's just that as adults we don't necessarily employ it as easily as we did when we were children. We were more open and receptive then, but becoming adults meant that as we learned the ways of our left-brain-dominated culture, we probably became more closed down and inhibited.
Imagination is such a powerful tool when we give it free rein. It is connected with the life force, the source of all creativity, and we need to turn inward to find this so that inspiration floods in and increases our hope for what is possible. Instead of being perpetually drawn outward by all the distractions of modern life, if we pay attention to our inner world, we can more easily access imagination and picture (literally) new vistas and new ways of being. What we imagine, we can create, and the vision we create on the mental level, giving us a sense of purpose born of hope, can spur us on in our darkest moments.
Patanjali, the great exponent of yoga writing in the second century BC, understood the process:
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.
One of America's greatest poets, Emily Dickinson, had a rich interior life and lived in a world with far less stimulation than ours. Hers was a life of simplicity and seclusion in the family home in nineteenth-century Amherst, Massachusetts. “To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations,” she claimed. Along with the almost eighteen hundred poems she wrote, her life comprised baking, gardening, attending church, painting, reading books, playing the piano and singing, and taking walks. She shared her poems mainly with family and friends and was barely published in her lifetime. We know from both her poems and her letters that she suffered tragic losses among her family and friends, and she wrote about the nature of death and immortality with great power and insight. Unorthodox and independent in her views on religion, Emily drew inspiration from the beauty of nature and her experiences of ecstatic joy. She well understood the nature of hope, expressed in her famous lines:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
We too can be in touch with our inner world and let our creativity blossom. When we're hopeful and open to receiving inspiration, our imagination is fired, ideas seem to come to us out of the blue, and we feel joyful and alive. We're affirming our creative nature and can put our energy into making the future brighter.
I turn inward to access the power of my imagination.
I am putting my creative energy into making the future brighter.
I find myself in a new and wonderful world.
8. Living with integrity
One of the most important things for us to do when we want to change our lives for the better is to pay attention to the spiritual dimension of ourselves, just as much as we take care of the physical, mental, and emotional aspects. All four aspects of ourselves have to be part of the equation of the whole person that we are.
Having integrity is not about fitting in, pleasing others, telling lies, and modifying our behavior accordingly in order to achieve something. It's about living with the energies of the higher vibrations and being in touch with who we truly are. We are happier when we live our truth. The authentic self is naturally balanced and is the real source of self-esteem, courage, and imagination.
Living with integrity doesn't require us to have more time or more resources. We can begin exactly where we are. When we choose hope and commit to working to change the circumstances of our lives through altering our attitude and behavior, we begin to see the possibilities for things to be different and find the courage to pursue them.
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and was Iran's first female judge. With the Islamic Revolution of 1979, women were forbidden to judge men, so she was demoted and given a job with clerical duties instead. Rather than compromise her integrity, she resigned her post, and it was not until 1992 that she was able to set up her own practice. Unlike others, however, she did not leave Iran but chose to stand by her principles and oppose the regime. She worked as a consultant, offering legal advice, writing articles, and speaking out in public about the rights of the most vulnerable in Iranian society—women, children, dissidents, and minorities—and pushing for legal change. In 2003, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts, but this put her under even greater pressure from the Iranian government (she had been closely monitored since the 1990s with phone tapping, death threats, and imprisonment).
Shirin paid a high price for her integrity. Her family, including her two daughters, were put under enormous strain because of her activities; her brother and sister suffered many interrogations; and after she was forced to leave Iran in 2009, her husband was framed, imprisoned, and beaten (they subsequently divorced after thirty-seven years of marriage). She tells her story in her powerful memoir, Until We are Free: My Fight for Human Rights in Iran. Her aim in writing it was to show what the people of Iran have had to endure under the police state of the last decade, particularly the many Iranian political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, especially journalists, lawyers, women's rights activists, and students who oppose the regime. Her integrity and courage are hugely to be admired and demonstrate what is possible for a human being to achieve in such circumstances.
I try always to live with integrity.
I am committed to changing the circumstances of my life through changing my attitude.
I am finding the courage to pursue new possibilities.
9. Clarifying our vision
Whatever it is that we hope for in our lives—the basic requirements of health, home, relationships, and a means of livelihood if those things are problematic for us; to overcome some past trauma or hurt and to move on with our lives; or something we long to do but have not so far had the opportunity to try, or we hesitate to attempt—clarifying what we really want for ourselves is vital. We can begin by visualizing what we want in our life, what it might look like,