Choosing Hope and Gratitude
By: Pete Volkmann, MSW
As the year 2023 (can you believe…2023!!!) ends, I have found the end of every year and beginning of the new year creates a time of reflection. Maybe that is why there are so many different holidays for many different cultures around the world. This is a major upcoming holiday season for so many of us worldwide. Holidays are designed as celebrations with time for reflection and connection. Many of us have taken time off from responsibilities, which is a choice in the way we celebrate our holidays. We have a choice on how we share that day. We have a choice of who we share our celebration with and where we celebrate this time of the year. We have a choice to limit our distractions and reflect upon ourselves and our circumstances from the previous year. We have a choice in how we process our thoughts and feelings for the new year. No wonder the end of the year holidays seems, at times, to be too stressful. It is a time of choices of how we filter our memories and interpret the meaning of those memories. This holiday season of reflection may be wonderful for some and yet this time of reflection may be painful for others. And others may experience a little of both. I must confess certain years in my life. I remember I just wanted the holiday season to end because of all the “distractions” and “responsibilities” the holiday season created. It was a time I chose not to reflect and think and feel about my life. I also chose not to be thankful in any way at all. I wanted nothing from the holiday season. I am sure I am not the only person that has had such holiday experiences.
Through all the years in CISM, I have learned through so many people the importance of the end of the year and the beginning of the year. The new year offers a chance for reset or a course correction in life. This is the time to think about who you are and examine your purpose. My own critical incidents have changed my life, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I do attest my life has changed. The choices I have made in dealing with the good in life and the bad in life have made all the difference in my personal identity and my life destiny. It was my ICISF experiences that taught me two important back pocket skills in life. Gratitude and hope. You cannot have one without the other. Gratitude is a recovery strength that sparks hope to provide us with direction when we struggle in life. You cannot have hope without having some form of gratitude in your life. You cannot have gratitude without acknowledging some form of hope.
Gratitude encompasses your mind-body-spirit (MBS) in wellness. Gratitude is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Gratitude is both giving and taking of appreciation and kindness. Gratitude is utilized in the present moment in our lives yet acknowledges our past and our future in our lives. Gratitude is reality based and places our self-identity and our life purpose in perspective. Gratitude can be the result of experiences with others (man-made), or it can be spiritual in nature. Man-made gratitude is a result of our human experiences and/or our human relationships with each other. This man-made gratitude can also come from self-appreciation of who we are. The other type of gratitude to recognize may be “spiritual.” This spiritual sense of gratitude is something our human experiences cannot prove through just our senses. Spirituality is a sense of something cosmic or divine in nature in which we have a relationship. Let us not forget the “body” aspect of wellness that we sometimes do not recognize. “Body” wellness is the gratitude and self-kindness of what our bodies offer to us in our lives. Our bodies provide us with information through our senses that gives us proper interpretations of who we are and the world around us.
Gratitude is being thankful for what we have in our lives and what we do not have in our lives. Past struggles that have been overcome is a powerful appreciation anchor that promotes strength and hope for our present moment and future. Sometimes others’ hardship experiences provide personal gratitude for not being in such a personal life situation.
Gratitude always expands into some kind of “thankful kindness” experience that can be spiritual and/or man-made. It encompasses and results in kindness, compassion, understanding, and even forgiveness. Gratitude is a simple yet powerful conscious action that activates recovery in anything in life. No matter how bad your life is and how hard the struggle is, thankful appreciation sets a focus of kindness that can jump start your recovery. The present moment of gratitude may not change the circumstance in your life at that moment, but it can change what you focus on within your life and change your self-identity of who you are. Gratitude is a simple action that is a precursor to creating hope. Gratitude is not hope but it is the spark that can create hope.
Hope is a concept that is so important in CISM. Whether it is with an individual or with a group, hope is a major component in beginning the process of healing after a critical incident. Hope can be created through others (man-made) or spiritually created. What we do in CISM generates man-made hope through our training and our individual character. We also have the skills to expand spiritual hope beyond what our senses can detect. Spiritual hope may come from connecting with other humans or from a divine influence.
What makes hope…hope? There are six dimensions of hope that align with the five areas of distress in CISM. Check out the ICISF Podcast “Quick Tip Series” on the dimensions of hope.
Let us start with a definition. Robert Mills in 1979 provided different perspectives of a definition of hope.
- Hope is an attitude or state of being. Hope is the intuitive read of our conscious being that connects our whole selves, both conscious and unconscious, with the fullness of transcendent relationship that unites past and future as well as oneself with another.
- Hope implies participation in that which is hoped for. It is neither expansion nor reduction of self. It is transcendence of self. It is the “state of being” in which one exists in a true relationship with others.
- Hope, like love, is giving of self beyond oneself. Hope is peace beyond magical thinking or stoic acceptance that provides a glimpse of light. Hope opens the possibility of achieving a sacred sense of comfort, whether confronted by joy or overwhelmed by sorrow.
These definitions can run deep which makes grasping the understanding of hope challenging.
A colleague of mine, Brian Flynn, from Binghamton, N.Y. described hope beautifully as,
“Hope is who we want to be and how we interact with the world in which we want to live.”
Defining hope with universal concepts and a universal definition is difficult because it is a personal experience.
Hope is a complex concept that has different dimensions that cannot be seen through one lens. I have experienced two types of hope…
- Man-made hope (focuses on a valued outcome, goodness, or state of being. It preserves and restores the meaning of life. It clarifies, prioritizes, and affirms what a hoped person perceives as most important in life).
- Spiritual hope (generalized hope like a protective umbrella that is a pinhole of a positive glow that extends beyond time and matter).
Spirituality is a belief of something greater than self, something more in being human than just sensory experience, something greater that we are part of that is cosmic or divine in nature. It shifts from finding a certain way to live towards accepting and living in the experience.
I have compared the six dimensions of hope from the work of Karen Dufault and Benita Martocchio with the comparison of the five areas of distress in CISM training.
The five areas of distress include: Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral, Physical, Spiritual. Compare that with the six dimensions of hope: Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral, Affiliative, Temporal, and Contextual.
Comparing the five areas of distress (CISM) with six dimensions of hope.
6 Dimensions of Hope 5 Areas of Distress (CISM)
- Cognitive Cognitive
- Affective Affective
- Behavioral Behavioral
- Affiliative Physical
- Temporal Spiritual
- Contextual
Cognitive dimensions: Hope is reality based and not a wish. The cognitive dimensions make it reality based through a rational examination of personal resources and limitations at that present moment. It is not magical thinking. This dimension is “cerebrally based” through some kind analytical thinking.
Affective dimensions: Hope creates sensations and emotions that result in a confident feeling of an outcome with feelings of uncertainty with the necessary waiting for the outcome. Hope brings confident feelings for the future yet needs to have that uncertainty in waiting to ascertain if it will work. Hope is full of different feelings at the same time as a human being that are necessary in all hope concepts.
Behavioral dimensions: There are four realms of behavioral actions to energize feelings and attitudes to directly affect hope that include:
- Psychologic realms are those mental activities like organizing ideas, planning strategies, making decisions, and thinking of resolutions to create hope.
- Physical realms are personal acts we take such as proper eating habits, exercise, or even resting.
- Social realms are actions involving reaching out to others creating caring attachments.
- Religious realms contribute to religious functions such as charities, reading sacred scriptures, praying, and meditation.
Affiliative dimensions: are all about a sense of belonging beyond self. It is how we identify relationships with other people, other living things, and a higher power. There is an expression of hope objects that include a relationship with or concern for others. It could be a reliance on others through their skill and/or influence to create your hope.
Temporal dimensions focus on experiencing time in the past, present, and future into generating the hoping process. Past experiences may have helped you previously but can now be utilized again for your need to create new hope presently. Creating hope in the “now moment” using the other dimensions creates your future hope.
Contextual dimensions are hope components brought to the forefront of conscious awareness and experience within the context of life (life situations that surround and influence hope). This usually comes with loss resulting in hopelessness through stress and crisis. Hopelessness is NOT the absence of hope. Hopelessness is not the opposite of hope. Each concept activates a need for an outcome.
As we provide hope for others in our CISM skills, we are really utilizing at least one of the dimensions of hope. Tapping into these dimensions is what creates hope. Over the decades of CISM experiences and being part of ICISF, I have gratitude I would like to share publicly.
I am personally grateful for:
Dr. Jeff Mitchell, who created the CISD model that has changed my life for the better. You gave me the skills I did not know I had to have influence on those in their worst moments.
Dr. George Everly, who co-founded ICISF with Dr. Mitchell and expanded ICISF to become the largest crisis intervention organization in the world. You gave me the confidence to challenge the old world first responder system and bring CISM into an accepted standard of care with your wisdom you provided.
The ICISF staff who have always placed the CISM mission before their needs. I have been and will be inspired by your faithfulness through the years in all you do every day for ICISF. I genuinely love each and every one of you.
The ICISF faculty, who have dedicated the passing of their knowledge and personal experiences through course creations and provided support to every CISM student. It was not just your efforts in front of the class, but the side conversations to students providing compassion and confidence one soul at a time.
To the approved instructors who understood the trust Jeff and George gave us to be able to teach their CISM content. You all understood the responsibility to train properly and be ICISF ambassadors throughout the years. Every instructor has made a difference in keeping to our mission.
To every person who I trained in CISM, I am honored to be part of your CISM development and thankful for your time and efforts in the trenches in dealing with critical incidents worldwide.
To every person and every group who allowed me to become part of their recovery story through CISM. You have given me more than I could ever give to you…the power of human spirit and strength of hope in recovery.
To those individuals who have been there for me to keep me sober and sane throughout my many critical experiences in my life. You have saved my life again and again with no expectation for me to return the favor. Your unconditional love for me and consistent life skills you provided to me have been passed to others by me. That is the least I can do in appreciation. You know who you are. Thank you.
Through the gratitude I always realize how blessed I am in my life with ICISF…through all the good and all the bad. May I learn your personal ICISF gratitude when I see you in the future. Until then, may your gratitude in 2024 be abundant and your hopes for the new year be attained.