41.88425° N, -87.63245° E

42.277927° N, -85.58176° E

Hope Is

In twenty-nine diverse neighborhoods that hosted 40,000 diverse running souls, in the restaurants of River North, and on such streets as Jackson Boulevard. 

Chicago. 

October 9.

The Bank of American Chicago Marathon. 

I, along with one of my best friends, joined approximately 39,998 other runners through a cheering section that would rival the best Super Bowl half time shows ever created! 

A heart of America’s land. 

Some spectators may have been at a sideline for their vested interest in a specific runner.  And yet.  Partiality wasn’t present.  Only Acceptance.  And Sincerity.  And Genuine Celebration.  And Care.  Voices holding the signs of a face or name of runner were the same voices that cheered you’ve got this to thousands of pairs of running shoes making their way past where they stood. 

Some spectators were there simply to encourage a group of “crazy-minded” or “adrenalin junkies” or “inspiring” individuals who felt drawn to run twenty-six and point two miles on a chill in the air Fall Day among the tall skyscrapers and historical homes of a “Windy City”. 

When volunteers and police officers were thanked, they responded with thank YOU. 

To forty thousand “invaders” of their home? 

Nope. 

The tones spoke the attitude.

We runners were forty-thousand guests. 

Though the person who coined Chicago as the “Windy City” was spot on when they did, from what I experienced, the W could begin the word

Welcoming.

Hope Is

In the starting place of our hearts.  

A few years ago, when I was earning my MA, I remember a professor who further awakened my starting place heart about how our heart exists not only in our chest, but that there is a heartbeat felt in our stomachs and there is a heartbeat in our brains.  It is one of my favorite feelings when I begin meditating to put my hand on my stomach and feel the heartbeat that greets my hand back. 

A heartbeat at our cores.

From an article titled The Heart has its own Brain and Consiousness written by Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., Raymond Trevor Bradley, Ph.D. and Dana Tamasin, BA,

Most people think of social communication solely in terms of overt signals expressed through language, voice qualities, gestures, facial expressions, and body movements. However, there is now evidence that a subtle yet influential electromagnetic or “energetic” communication system operates just below our conscious awareness. Energetic interactions likely contribute to the “magnetic” attractions or repulsions that occur between individuals, and also affect social exchanges and relationships. Moreover, it appears that the heart’s field plays an important role in communicating physiological, psychological, and social information between individuals.

Experiments conducted at the Institute of HeartMath have found remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can transmit information between people. We have been able to measure an exchange of heart energy between individuals up to 5 feet apart. We have also found that one person’s brain waves can actually synchronize to another person’s heart…The results of these experiments have led us to infer that the nervous system acts as an “antenna,” which is tuned to and responds to the electromagnetic fields produced by the hearts of other individuals. We believe this capacity for exchange of energetic information is an innate ability that heightens awareness and mediates important aspects of true empathy and sensitivity to others Furthermore, we have observed that this energetic communication ability can be intentionally enhanced, producing a much deeper level of nonverbal communication, understanding, and connection between people.

It is 14 days later since my weekend in Chicago, and I am still thinking of the individuals my path walked beside who did not have homes they would be going to in their foreseeable futures.  Grace.  Dignity.  Non-judgment.  Respect.   I wish you well.  All these elements their electromagnetic field transmissions seemed to convey.   They held a cup they hoped would collect silver or green, but they never acknowledged it in their hellos, have a good day, how are you today? greetings.  Individuals of humanity whose paths intersected for seconds and in those brief moments, the only thing present was I see you.  Let’s see each other.

A few days after the race, in that nothing is coincidence way that I believe life flows, my mom sent me a link to this story by Steve Hartman.  My mom did not yet know how much I was touched by the homeless gentlemen who I crossed paths with in Chicago.  This article an affirmation of Grace.  Dignity.  Respect.  Let’s see each other. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-hartman-on-the-road-officer-seara-burton-homeless-donation/

I recently read an article written for Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper I’m a Death Doula. These are 10 Lessons I’ve Learned About Living from the Dying by Diane Button.  Among her lessons she’s learned includes these.

Lesson No. 1: The ordinary is everything.  A client who had traveled the world and dined at countless impressive restaurants recently shared with me what she was going to miss the most when she dies: her morning bowl of steel-cut oatmeal, the sound of birds, and conversations with her daughter. Over time, she came to understand that a truly joyful and meaningful life includes quiet time, a healthy lifestyle, plenty of sleep, a spiritual practice, everyday acts of kindness, time shared with others, and fewer material possessions.

Lesson No. 10: Show up and finish well…But there is another equally dynamic and relevant aspect of life that my clients consistently reveal as a major component of a meaningful life. It is often expressed as a question: Did my life matter? Did I make a difference? Is the world a better place because I was here?

Mother Teresa guides us to “do small things with great love.” It’s about everyday acts of service. If you are willing to show up, you can make the world a better place. If you can offer someone a smile, you can make the world a better place.

How are you showing up?

What is the starting place of your heart when you do?

Hope Is

In the Angels sent to walk this Earth with us.  

Like the owner of Michigan News Agency in Kalamazoo.   Dean Hauck. 

http://www.michigannews.biz/

Michigan News Agency | Facebook

Divinely put on my path not just for her wonderful support of both of my books in her bookstore.  Each time I have the honor of talking with her voice to voice or in person, she ALWAYS is the messenger of the words I am in most need of or most meant to hear.   She is a role model in her words of wisdom and in her grace in how to have a heart of gold for others without diminishing one’s own worth and joy.  Like her words carrying a meaning similar to this:  Life is too short to be sad for the choices others’ make.  You need to focus on what you are meant to do.  She is exquisite in her dance of grace between opposites, I am inspired by her humility and generosity along with a willfulness of spirit and self-respect.  She is a pillar for fostering and maintaining belonging in community and a lighthouse shining the power of written words.  Though her encouragement that affirms it is time to put serious priority on book three has me walking out of her door feeling invincible in what calls me as writer and author, it is her presence that has me walking out her door feeling in awe that I just spent minutes with an angel that walks the Earth among us. 

Hope Is

Listening to the whisper that keeps growing louder and louder.  IT IS time for creating book 3.  After all, I’ve started a pattern of publishing a book every four years after embarking on two-year adventures writing manuscripts; 2024 is fast approaching for the next publication.  That means the balance of this year and 2023 is…Between the Dash here I come!

What is Hope to you?   I would love to read and hear your thoughts.  I’d love to share them with others via email or on my web page at HOPE IS | -Hope Ascends (hopehasacoldnose.com).  I welcome your handwritten messages or drawn pictures to the address below.  Or feel free to email me.     

P.O. Box 327

Gobles, MI 49055

ATTN:  Hope Is

26.644588° N, -81.8651° E

Reframed

I am blessed to have a dear soul come into my life in the past few months, and as I have gotten to know her, I learned about her living in a home just a short distance from the path of Hurricane Ian.  Recently she sent me a video of the heartache far and wide that Florida now experiences and among her words were these.  So many buildings are down that now you can, once again, look across and see the Gulf of Mexico and on the other side, the bay.

As I stepped through my empathy, I was reminded of words I recently heard retold from something written by Toni Morrison.  Toni Morrison says when she writes about water memory. She says, “You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally, the river floods the places. ‘Floods’ is the word they use. But in fact, it’s not flooding. It is remembering, remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”

Mother Nature.  More powerful than all of us fortunate to walk among her trees, mountains, and lakeshores.     

I began my dance in grace between opposites.  I danced in grace between my heart that went out in compassion and empathy to the gentle, sweet, fiercely determined and resilient runner my friend and I talked with before the Marathon start whose home and boat were part of the footprint Ian had left in his stomp through Florida.  Yet, in a Planes, Trains, and Automobiles movie kind of way without the humor, this dear soul was not going to let what life had brought her unexpectedly to hinder her will to run her first marathon she had trained long and hard for.  She was choosing to say in response to a storm blowing in the power of doubt with are you sure you can do this? with her certainty, WATCH ME! I AM ABOUT TO DO JUST THAT!

And on the other end of the pendulum in that dance is my soul that believes at its core that the world cracking open right now physically, emotionally, mentally, and spirit-lly is because a Universe is trying to get back to where it was, in balance and in harmony.     

For some time now I have been pondering on the ways I can be a part of new beginnings that lead us to balance and harmony.  How best can I leave this world better than when I entered it?  How I believe is that we choose the life we enter into, at the time we enter it.  In the words of Elizabeth Gilbert from her book Eat, Pray, Love that speak to my soul often I was always coming here; I was never not coming here. 

So, since I chose to be a part of this life during a time of significant transformation, how might I take the gifts I’ve been given and leave this world feeling satisfied I contributed to balance and harmony, not division and incongruence?  How best can I show up and finish well? 

I was given a gift several weeks ago while having lunch with a dear friend.  Bless her heart that she didn’t know then that she planted a significant seed with me until I shared with her at our most recent lunch a very big thank you.   She was sharing about her son, only a few short years in the workforce out of college who is trying to establish colleague, team, and manager relationships virtually and finding it challenging to feel authentic connection not having met others in person, at least once.  My friend made the comment that whether a new leader or a leader with twenty years’ experience, there is an absence from their toolkit is how to build meaningful relationships remotely.  How to truly see and hear others through a Zoom or Teams call, or even harder, an “old fashioned” phone call.  

I grabbed ahold of that seed and have been looking at it in a flowerpot next to me ever since!  I keep adding water to it, starting with revisiting the extensive training I have went through on deep and presence listening and communication practices using body gestures, on generative listening experiences through my life story listening, writing, and teaching, and in my own experiences building strong relationships virtually when I was in a role in my career in which everyone I worked with sat in multiple locations around the world.  

I have been revisiting other meaningful moments that I now see as additional seeds that were planted, or perhaps the seed was planted long ago, and I have been merely watering it with each experience that has especially footprinted my attention and my heart.  Like the Dear Evan Hansen movie I wrote about a few months ago.  Or the life-story writing I did with third graders.  Or the stories I read of parents who start non-profit organizations in tribute of their daughter or their son who took their life due to cyber-bullying.   Or the words of author and activist Julie Lythcott-Haimes when she shared during a TEDx course that technology is here to stay, and we can help be the wise elders for young adults who don’t necessarily know what it feels like to be present and in person for a meaningful amount of time with others without technology in one of their hands.  To paraphrase her words, we can be way-showers by providing guidelines at a meal for example, where it is a no phone zone and we provide an atmosphere of welcoming, present, engaging conversation.  Said another way.  Make it a time that young adults want to experience again and more.   

Or the newly appointed positions of Ministers of Loneliness in the UK and in Japan that I wrote about last month.  I anticipate these are not the only two countries in which there could be focused attention on individuals who feel isolated.  Or the fiction book I recently read written by Mike Gayle, All the Lonely People.   The main character in his 80’s.  The second main character fifty years younger give or take.  The other characters of varying ages.   Loneliness doesn’t discriminate in age, gender, ethnicity, ancestral heritage, viewpoint, or life story lived to date.  

Or I think about other ways in which my lens sees the world cracking open for new beginnings and how Mother Nature is trying to aid a return to balance and harmony.   Though for my wellbeing, I am choosing to be largely disengaged from the opinions of news outlets, I also hear of the frustrations traveling via air.  Delayed flights.  Staff shortages.  Less flight options.  I can’t help thinking less flights can equal less pollutants into the sky that our Earth is tired of.   

Or extra time during a layover is a chance to have a conversation with a stranger. 

Maybe even make a new friend.

We make it matter that it is happening by choosing to open the gifts of what life is bringing.   

I think about my experiences in receiving messages and in connecting with others who have left this Earth.  For those of you who have read To the Moon, you certainly know of my connection with Roo after she passed from this life with cancer.   Or in meditation when my Grandpa M. enters and guides a decision I am making.

If I am now creating discomfort because it is not how you believe, let me share an example that I think most everyone can related to.  Have you ever had a time when you made a call to someone, and they answered saying something like it’s so funny that you called.  I was just thinking about you!   Space does not separate hearts.  

If we choose to be open to the possibility. 

A multitude of ways we can listen. 

If we desire more meaningful connection.

To each other.  Within ourselves.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I understand, respect, and also greatly value in person interaction.  I also enjoy and value travel. 

As I ponder my part in helping the world return to balance and harmony, I think the answer lies somewhere in the center of these two circles.

People just want to be seen and heard.

Tangibly.  Sustainably. 

Not just in a quick dopamine hit via social media. 

But in a I see you.  Let’s see each other. 

Look into my eyes and see that I am a human being.

Whose story you see is not the full essence of my soul and me. 

Space does not separate hearts.   I know.  Not only through Roo.  Or my Grandma I. Or my dad. 

So does my mom and my sister still very much a part of this Earth.   Just ask one of us sometime about meal planning and chocolate covered strawberries for a wedding shower.  (smile)

Or ask some of those I’m blessed to coach who I began working with virtually before we could meet in person sixteen months later. 

People just want to be seen and heard. 

And if our starting place with our hearts is to be present and hear and see.

We can do just that.

People just want to be seen and heard.

I know.

Because the gift of my childhood was to learn hands on and gather all the tools I could as to what it felt like to not believe I should be seen and heard

That I would develop the gifts to listen and see

And then teach, coach, author, inspire, and speak how you can do the same.

For yourself.

For others.

For living this life in balance and harmony in the way that means for you.

40.71455° N, -74.00712° E

A Cold Nose

Several months ago, I had the privilege of being a guest on the podcast, Dog Save the People.  If you follow me on social media, you will also have saw my year-long inspirational sharing of messages from these podcasts.

Now check out the dog walk meditations!  Calm your mind; connect with your dog.

Dog Walk Meditation

42.65525° N, -86.20289° E

Hope’s Spiral Staircase

As you know from other monthly communications, my life is blessed with both Ginger and Kutana.   I have shared in previous months how each of them my teachers, each different messengers.   Ginger is my groundedness and centering.  Kutana is my fling your arms wide open to the joy of the moment.  Oh, and in case you doubt, every moment is joy!  (grin)

This video is different than the others I share.  Yet, I think you will find it inspirational just the same.   As you begin to watch it, be thinking about something you love to do.  Something that makes you feel like a kid at heart, joyous, eager, just can’t wait to do! 

Like swimming in Lake Michigan.  Kutana’s I just can’t wait to do! 

https://studio.youtube.com/video/vmofl9iEHbE/edit

N ° S ° E ° W °

Hope Whispers, Nature Speaks

Your homework is this.  

Go outside and walk around until a tree speaks to you to go up to and then put your back against it. 

Think of the symbolism of the tree.   How it is rooted in place.  How it is resilient to various elements of weather – wind, rain, sun.  How it provides shelter and shade.  How its root system reaches out in multiple directions.  (And there are experts who have studies how the root systems talk with each other in a forest.)  

Turn, and place your back against the tree.  Think I am supported.  This tree has my back.

Close your eyes and feel your feet on the ground.  Feel the steadiness below your feet as well as the support behind you.  Breathe in.  Breathe out. 

As you keep breathing, turning your thoughts to how your back feels supported and your feet feel like they are standing on solid ground, begin to listen to the noises around you.  Maybe birds.  Maybe the wind.  Maybe water nearby.   Maybe you are in a city, and you hear horns and people calling.  

Simply listen.   Listen with presence.

Then, think about your forehead, and how in this area is your center of wisdom.  

As you breathe in and out, feeling the tree behind you, the ground below you, listening to the sounds of now,

Think about your chest and how in this area is your center of love.

Breathe in.  Out.  Present with your back against the tree and your feet on the ground.  Present in listening, and maybe what you hear around you is continuing to fade into the background as you begin thinking of how your body is feeling and what your thoughts are related to wisdom and love.

Think about your stomach area and then your legs and how you are moving to the center of vitality.  

How in each of these areas, these centers, is life force.  Your life force of

Wisdom.  Love.   Vitality. 

And how you are always supported.  

In whatever weather of life. 

Namaste’

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.  Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Sincerely,

-Christine

P.S.

If you have enjoyed this month’s message, please pay it forward to others.  They can also subscribe to future emails by visiting www.christinehassing.com.   If you know of someone who has a Hope Is message to share, please encourage them to share via the post office address (or via email).  I welcome sharing their input on the Hope Is website or in future blog messages!   

N42.36087° W85.87946°

Hope Is

In the way sunflowers grow tall and strong.  Ever reaching and joyously turning their ‘faces’ toward the radiance of the sun.  

No matter the threats to their flourishing. 

Such as free-roaming chickens who scratch and forage near their base as they just begin to sprout and reach.

Hope Is in the way that Nature can Intune so graciously to the circles of life, circles that hold compassion in the same space as indifference.  That hold resilience in the same space as adversity.  That hold woven in the thread of their 360 degree hoops the gifted messages meant for us to choose how we will respond to what they are bringing us. 

These free-roaming chickens become messengers when they exit a break in the fence that holds them in pens of adversity and indifference.   They choose resilience when they cross a field to find my mom’s garden and flower beds.   They message to my mom that she can dance in grace between choosing compassion and choosing frustration when they may forage a flower bed a little too much.  They Intune to both of her responses.   They continue to exit their pen of adversity for her choice of compassion.  They let the sunflowers grow to their best versions of who they are meant to be because my mom chooses in her frustration to buy decorative landscaping options that meets these feathered messengers with harmony. 

What is Hope to you?   I would love to share your thoughts.   I welcome your handwritten messages or drawn pictures to the address below.  Or feel free to email me.     

P.O. Box 327

Gobles, MI 49055

ATTN:  Hope Is

39.443256° N, -98.95734° E

Reframed

September.  

Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. 

It may or may not have been a day in September for Tom…

Zoey and I enrolled in the appropriate service-dog certification training. And then, Fire, you are relentless, never quite ceasing! Okay, fine, I know you have been waiting for these words you want me to say. I’m done, I’m out of here, today is the day! You wanted my life, so you win. I do not need any more of this! I will take Zoey for a hike along with my other best friend that aims good and straight. Here, my back against this tree, this looks like a good final place.

Dad, Dad, wait, what are you preparing to do? No, put that down, I need you! Dad, you can’t save my life and then leave me alone. I have at long last found my home. Dad, I get it, how those flames are brutally hot to the point they take your faith away. There were moments in that shelter when I had no more strength. I know, Dad, what it is to reach a point where you give in and accept fate has a bigger plan. I was ready to accept that euthanasia was my outstretched hand. But then you called for me, and you saved my life. You gave me a purpose that I had been trying to find. Dad, I believe in you, and I believe in us as a team. Please give me a chance to give back to you the way you’ve given to me. Together we can fight this fiery enemy.

My face showered in kisses as Zoey willed me to put my .45 down. In that moment, additional flames were permanently doused. With Zoey and me certified, my calming force by my side, I took the next step of saying goodbye. Thirteen different medications were then tossed aside. Saying no more to the numbness in my body, no more to reliance on what I am certain was Fire’s cousin trying to entice.  After horrific withdrawals, once again I was more present in my life.

-From Hope Has a Cold Nose

Based on this information I found on the CDC web page, I would argue that our awareness should be every day.

This is only in the United States.

The World Health Organization site indicates that over 700,000 lives world-wide end in suicide per year.   A 2019 statistic.  

Given that I just read both Japan and the UK governments have appointed “Ministers of Loneliness” to “combat the growing scourge of social isolation individuals face”, or as I recently heard to address the “epidemic of loneliness”, my heart believes that 700,000 is significantly understated as we near the end of 2022. 

This may be the point where you will choose to fast forward to the “A Cold Nose” section of this monthly Hope message.  I respect your feelings and I understand.  It isn’t easy to look this topic in the eye. 

I know because I was once a very angry person at someone who reached the end of hope and decided to leave Earth through carbon monoxide poisoning.   I became witness to the heartbreak of someone who is one of the most important people in my life, a close survivor of this person’s choice.  Instead of choosing compassion or to seek understanding, I embraced deep-seeded judgment, and my mind framed a narrative I repeated often the most selfish thing he could have done!

Looking pain, trauma, sorrow, despair, and grief in the eye is hard enough for us as a collective humanity.   I perceive it feels like we are being taken to the darkest of places when we add the “nature of” that grief, the reason for why we might now find ourselves needing to choose to look into the glasses staring back at us of the tragedy of despair and hopelessness, of isolation and anxiety, of self-condemnation and unworthiness. 

We can’t always get our hearts around the tragedy of an unexpected car accident or a life-taking cancer diagnosis, but our minds can rationalize it and choose empathy and the gentleness of sorrow without judgment to the person whose life is now revered in what took place between the dash.

We can’t fathom in mind or of heart someone’s choice that not living life feels easier than living life.

Yet, in that dance of grace between opposites that I’m always messaging.   And in that way that I’m routinely sharing we make it matter that which we wish hadn’t or wouldn’t take place in the positive change we make because of it. 

What if we are being given the greatest act of love, we could receive from these souls who have left Earth feeling that the only hope they could find was by leaving this life with suicide the way they chose? 

What if we they are our messengers to bring more hope, compassion, and unconditional listening into the world that is cracking open for new beginnings.  

Yes, for that is what I also believe.  What feels like a falling apart is actually a breaking open for the new. 

Recently I took part in a virtual race for suicide awareness.   Part way through my half marathon run, I paused for a cold drink of water that I was keeping in our garage refrigerator.  As I went to open the door to start running again, on the doorknob was this dragonfly.   Now, as you have also come to know about me, I listen for Nature’s messages.   Among Dragonfly’s symbolism and my experiences when Dragonfly has crossed my path, this little one whispers hope, transformation, new beginnings, and can also be an angel message from someone who has left Earth. 

This little one decided not just to grace my path as my hand reached for the doorknob.  This little one decided to join me for some of my run.   For a few laps this little one stayed on my shirt and together we ran for awareness.

And for new beginnings. 

And for the souls who have left Earth who I believe are whispering to me make our stories matter.

I’ve been asked if book three is in the works and if so, what is it about?  And if one is not yet in the works, what is stirring as book three? 

A title that has been simmering contains these words “Between the Dash”.  

Approximately 22 military veteran lives per day.   Approximately 126 lives per day in the United States of souls who lost hope.  Approximately 1,1918 per day world-wide.   

This doesn’t count the number of survivors who now grieve so deeply, who ride a roller coaster of emotions including judgment and guilt and the longing to remember their loved ones when hope and vibrancy was still theirs.   Who long for their loved ones to be remembered as an extraordinary soul with a purpose, not a soul who “gave up”.  

I think I am starting to see and see again.   When my path crossed with the first veteran and his service dog, my heart was immediately captured when I felt the gravity of souls who reached such states of hopelessness.  I believe so deeply in hope and thriving with life, I desired to help inspire others “not to give up”.   That is still a very significant calling for me.   

Yet, there is more.   Compassion and dignity are whispering.   There is much extraordinariness that is lived between the dash when we are humans here on Earth.   No matter what life may bring and the subsequent choices that can be perceived as someone “losing their way”, it isn’t for us to judge based on what we would choose differently or wish that someone had chosen differently. 

For me, it is about finding a way I can give voice to those who didn’t believe their voices worthy anymore.

I believe they are collectively calling to us as be the change agents for our world to create new beginnings of hope, compassion, unconditional listening, and thriving with life. 

We paved the way. 

33.04192° N, -116.86877° E

A Cold Nose

A cold nose, and so many other noses in need. 

Saving Animals and Healing Hearts. 

A nonprofit organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and rehoming of abused and neglected animals. We want to spread our message of hope and compassion. We believe that a single action can make a difference in the community, and that collective action can greatly impact the world.

SAHH | Home (sahh4life.org)

On Wednesday, September 21, I had the privilege of taking part in a fund-raising event facilitated by The Animal Communication Collective, another exceptional community of professional animal communicators who have one very simply stated mission: Partner with animal welfare organizations to help them raise money!  

https://www.animalcommunicationcollective.com/

To learn more, please visit one or both links.  You won’t be disappointed if you do!

42.38337° N, -85.95741° E 

Hope’s Spiral Staircase

Your inspiration for this month.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/vmofl9iEHbE/edit

N ° S ° E ° W °

Hope Whispers, Nature Speaks

In August I had the extraordinary – and life-shifting – opportunity to hike a section of the Pacific Crest Trail through the Cascade Mountains.   Seventy-five miles across five days, up and down “hills” with 6,000 plus foot altitude gains, with eleven incredible individuals, a backpack, and the stillness of Nature whose “noisiest” sounds were waterfalls and birds.   I would turn a corner and drink in a view such as these I share and the only thing that I could think in the full presence of such majesty was there can be nothing sideways in the world when you look at something like this”.   Such a state of pure presence with no foot in the past nor in the future.  Simply.

BE-ing.

Your homework is to reflect on this quote from a professor I had the privilege of learning from when earning my MA.  Dr. Shann Ray Ferch in his preface of the book “Conversations on Servant-Leadership”

In a world often brimming with disdain, what is hope?  And where does hope reside?  I grew up in Montana, a state that boasts miles of open land spit by the rugged and sometimes brutal heights of one hundred mountain ranges.  For me, hope is found in nature, in wilderness, and in the wilderness that exists inside people.  Servant-leadership is a way of being that is characterized by wisdom, freedom, health, and autonomy; it is a source of hope in all the complexity and chaos of the present day.  Contrary to the hyperspeed of the contemporary age, I’ve found there are those who walk toward the dawn, and having traversed the night’s darkness they emerge unafraid. When we return from walking the roads we are never the same again.

What is hope to you?  Where does it reside? 

Are you able to embrace the wilderness within you?  

Are you barely surviving the wilderness of life? 

If yes, what do you need to be able to shift from surviving, to thriving? 

How could you reframe your story to do just that? 

I’d love to hear your reflections if you would like to share.  Feel free to email me at ckhred30@gmail.com

Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” —Thich Nhat Hanh

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.  Maya Angelou

Sincerely,

-Christine

P.S.

If you have enjoyed this month’s message, please pay it forward to others.  They can also subscribe to future emails by visiting www.christinehassing.com.   If you know of someone who has a Hope Is message to share, please encourage them to share via the post office address (or via email).  I welcome sharing their input on the Hope Is website or in future blog messages!   

Namaste.’ 

N42.36087° W85.87946°

Hope Is

• The sound of a robin singing.

• That tomorrow is another day.

• Whatever helps you get off the bed sheets in the morning.

These the wisdoms and perspectives shared with me since last month’s communication when I shared about the established post office box address. 

P.O. Box 327

Gobles, MI 49055

ATTN:  Hope Is

42.38337° N, -85.95741° E 

Last month I shared the message that I had been hearing.  Go back to the beginning. 

This month I keep hearing What is the need? 

Each of you have an abundance of information available to you.  That information holds an abundance of perspectives.   I anticipate what you do not have, though, is an abundance of spare time.  So, I ponder, what would be most helpful to you, the readers? 

Do you read these monthly communications for inspiration? 

To learn more about the healing power of cold noses?

To learn another perspective about how someone views the ebbs and flows of life? 

Are these monthly communications providing a win-win?   I know the passion I put into them.  (smile) Do you benefit from what you receive? 

So, dear readers, I am going to continue my quest that I started at the beginning of this year, but I am going to walk us on a new path.  Together we can decide if this is the direction we wish to travel.  And if not, well, then together we will change it.  (smile)    

This month you will find five sections:

• Hope Is based on your input sent via traditional mail or email
• Reframed, which will provide an inspirational, hopeful perspective
• A Cold Nose, which will provide a message related to dogs’ healing power and an inspirational message about unconditional listening / unconditional acceptance.
• Hope’s Spiral Staircase, which will be in video format with an inspiring message, often connected to Nature
• Hope Whispers, Nature Speaks, which will provide you with an action step or reflective assignment

I am excited for our new path.  I look forward to traveling it with you!  

34.05349° N, -118.24532° E

Reframed

When I am not viewing life as a river, I think of life as a spiral staircase. 

We stand on a step.    We begin taking steps forward.   Upward. 

Or downward if that is our choice.

And as we come back around the circle, we are where we started.  Except for.

We do not stand in the same place.  

We can either find ourselves standing higher up the staircase from our first step.   Or lower. 

But in any given moment after a previous moment.  Or a previous week, month, year.   Or after many years.  

We are not at the same place where we began.  

No matter how much we might think things are the same or have not changed, unless time was frozen still, change has been continual.  Unless time had completely stopped for a second, a minute, or a half century, we are not in the same place.   Or at least we have opportunity to choose not to be in how we perceive, hear, and see.   In how I believe, if things appear to be the same, it is because of the lens in which we are choosing to see.  We always have a starting point in how we hear and see, influenced by our personal experiences both those that are positive and those that hold pain, trauma, or grief. 

Recently I saw a message Maria Shriver had shared through her social media platform.   Recently as of June 5^th to be exact.  It was a picture of her uncle, Bobby Kennedy.  He was quoted as saying this.  What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country. 

He was speaking these words as a statement in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Just one month and one day after MLK’s death, Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated.  As Maria wrote:  On this day in 1968, before many of you might even have been born, my uncle, Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down while running for president. Gunned down on his victory night. He left a devastated pregnant wife and ten children and a shattered extended family.

As I read her words my thoughts were even then, there was significant brokenness.  Fifty-four years later the cries for love, wisdom, and compassion toward one another are still happening. 

Time has not stood still.   There have been births.   And deaths.   There has been much joy.  And there has been great suffering.

And we are no longer in the same place as we were June 5, 1968, shortly after midnight. 

Yet, life continues to bring significant, devastating, and sudden loss. 

And outrage and shocking disbelief.  As I read comments to Maria’s sharing, the crushing grief-filled feelings were as significant for those who remembered hearing the news of Bobby Kennedy and MLK Jr. as the devastating feelings I read and hear citizen comments expressed when a school shooting takes place fifty-four years later. 

And choice.   In how we decide to respond to the profound suffering that is part of what life brings. 

For me, I keep choosing to step up the staircase with the following deeply held belief.   Like a baby bird hatching out of an egg or the butterfly pushing out of a cocoon, I believe that our world is cracking open.  Others might choose to see it as cracking apart.  For me, it is a cracking open to allow new beginnings.  

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone.  The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes.  To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.   – Cynthia Occelli

45.51179° N, -122.67563° E

A Cold Nose

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend a fundraising event hosted by Northwest Battle Buddies.  An annual gala long anticipated and even longer needed could take place after having been on hold for the past couple of years.   

I will not begin to do justice to all that this evening offered in inspiring stories shared and in moving testimonials including the image of the service dog in the moments he was literally saving his team member’s life.   His team member had reached the very end of barely surviving.   His service dog sensed it was time to intervene.  The veteran took a picture of his service dog reaching out and pulling him back from the edge.   This veteran graciously gave permission for the CEO of NWBB to share his testimony.  

I won’t begin to do justice to describing the significant amount of compassion and support that sat in that audience that night, financially supporting a mission that attendees believed in with their whole hearts.   I also will not be able to give adequate justice to how a room full of humanity came together and offered hope to twenty-six more veteran-service dog teams because they desire to reduce the number to zero of those who reach that edge of barely surviving.  And who then stop living because they do not have a team member who not only senses there is a deep struggle taking place.   

A team member also reaches out its paw and in that touch whispers heart to heart I need you.  I love you.  Together we can make it through.  You have a reason for living in the form of fur and pawed feet.  Please don’t leave.  I love you unconditionally and, in my eyes, you are one thing.  You are the most perfect teammate for me.  I have got your back and I know you have mine, too.  Together, you and me, together we will make it through. 

42.38337° N, -85.95741° E 

Hope’s Spiral Staircase

N ° S ° E ° W °

Hope Whispers, Nature Speaks

I share with you a poem that was recently shared with me in an email sent from Nick Polizzi, Founder of Sacred Science.  It is a Sanskrit poem by Kalidasa, an Indian playwright and poet from the 4th and 5th Century AD.  

May this poem bring you peace on the spiral staircase of life.  May this poem inspire you to experience each day fully present in the now.  Now is the only reality.  All else is either memory or imagination.  -Osho   

Look to this day,

for it is life, the very breath of life.

In its brief course lie

all the realities of your existence;

the bliss of growth,

the glory of action,

the splendor of beauty.

For yesterday is only a dream,

and tomorrow is but a vision.

But today, well lived,

makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,

and every tomorrow

a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day.

Sincerely,

-Christine

P.S.

If you have enjoyed this month’s message, please pay it forward to others.  They can also subscribe to future emails by visiting www.christinehassing.com.   If you know of someone who has a Hope Is message to share, please encourage them to share via the post office address (or via email).  I welcome sharing their input on the Hope Is website or in future blog messages!   

Namaste.’ 

42.38337° N, -85.95741° E 

One evening I was in between stops on our quest for hope.  I pulled the map out of my backpack to look at the X’s made thus far.  Sitting under the stars, hearing an occasional nocturnal sound in the distance, soothed by them – even by the occasional howl of a pack – I heard a voice whisper go back. 

At first, I thought it was whispering the map.  I looked at where the X’s had not yet been placed thinking where I should hike next.   There is this location over there a little North of where I am.  Or how about down there to the South?   I pulled out my small notebook and pen and started writing down next coordinates.

Go back.

I paused. 

Go back?   To what? 

Go back to where you began.

Back to?   The last X?  To December when I decided to initiate the quest?  To what prompted the first email message to a list of subscribers? 

Go back to WHERE?

Go back to where you began.

My mind continued to race through memories and milestone moments.  I thought of when my path crossed with the first veteran and service dog in Hope Has a Cold Nose.  How I didn’t know when I asked if I could write his life story that it would lead me to writing twenty-two more for publication. 

I turned back to the map, back to where I was sitting under the stars only to race back through each X on the map laying in front of me.  What could I “see and see again” that might help me solve what now felt like a riddle?  Go back to where you began.

I thought of the journey in writing my first book, To the Moon and Back to Me:  What I Learned from Four Running Feet.   I thought of the journey in earning my MA, in which every course was transforming.   Said another way.  Life changing.  I pulled my computer out of my backpack, opening saved course papers I had written, mining them for what my intentions were then.  Was I living them out loud now?

I remembered talking with a veteran as I was seeking life stories for Hope Has a Cold Nose.  He was now in a peer support specialist role to aid other veterans journeying with pain, trauma, sorrow, and despair.  He shared with me about a study that was conducted evaluating what may influence some veterans to not experience as much hopelessness as other veterans may.  He shared that the study identified two significant contributors.  One is that the veteran had a “perfect” life in which everything came “easy” and then experienced significant trauma during their service.  Or a veteran had experienced trauma as a child and did not have a way of reframing their story differently, to turn the trauma into such things as resilience, dignity, worthiness, and.  Hope.  Their experiences in the service were like a final shattering of the fragile eggshell in which the core of each of us reside.   Life had taught some veterans early on that suffering holds the same space as wonder, joy, and innocence and may even act as a thief to these things.  The experiences in the military only compounding these feelings. 

Go back to where you began.

Was I not going back far enough?  

I started stepping through memories of my childhood.  I remembered the baby duck that I tried to save who had somehow broken its neck.  I was wrapping gauze around it thinking that would create a neck brace.   I remembered the special childhood I had when it came time for Easter.  In addition to a basket of sweet treats, I would get a live baby bunny.  One of the perks of living on a farm.   I remembered my pony, Sugar.  And I remembered finding her on her side in the pasture, her body now an empty vessel and her soul somewhere else grazing on grasses and enjoying apples.  I believe she was my first experience with physical death.  At least that I remember. 

I remembered a lot of stories of my childhood.

And I recalled the journey I have traveled through the years to look at those stories to see and see again.  To reframe some of the chapters.  To put other chapters in a treasure chest for safe keep. 

As I sat under the stars, looking in front of me at the maps of all the other trails I had hiked up to now, I started to see that the path I was now hiking was following a very faint trail of footsteps that had walked before me.  Were these on this faint trail ancestor steps I was following, those guiding my way?  No, those were the footsteps I could see to my left and to my right on the paths I had traveled.  Always beside every step I chose – and will choose – to make.  And then I heard another whisper.  Instead, I needed to heed the wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

I needed to take the reoccurring whispers I had recorded on strips of paper, placed in this tiny travel case tucked in a pocket of my backpack, pull them out, and see that the next steps on my journey are not on the map in front of me.  The compass points are in these pieces of paper now in my hand.   These that read:

People just want to be seen and heard. 

Foster unconditional listening, which begets unconditional acceptance. 

Identify, and then gently show through words the purpose in the ebbs of life stories

Compassionately look pain, trauma, sorrow, despair, and grief in the eye

Teach how to reframe a story that may be causing mere survival; a new narrative can lead to thriving with life

Inspire the graceful dance between life’s opposition lessons

Teach grace is in our choice in how we hear and see

Intune, speak and write words that offer beauty, wisdom, dignity, worth, and unconditional acceptance.  Within, with others, with life. 

Hold up mirrors for people doubting their worth, that they can find their extraordinary value

Inspire that hope is always in one more (be it moment, step, day)

Advocate holistic healing through the form of a cold nose

Teach holistic wellbeing, mind, body, and soul.

Teach the messages of nature

And that space does not separate hearts no matter the distance, including between those who still walks earth and those who don’t.

Step into the marginalized spaces that hold the most judgment.  Bring dignity to those spaces.  Within the hardest chapters to read are the most extraordinary stories; after all, all souls originate from love without conditions.     

The world is cracking open for new beginnings; teach how to flourish with what wants to be born.

So, I am going back to where I began. 

One place is back with the 3^rd grade class who drew the most amazing pictures of what Hope Is to each of them.   Now each of these extraordinary students will be writing their life stories.  I will have the privilege of being their life story writing coach.   Because

Hope Is

In the stories of our life.

That we tell ourselves

From an early age.

48° 22′ 58.88″ N. 31° 10′ 58.33″ E.

Hope Is

The future that will be there for generations to come

By generations starting out now.

Like the message shared in this inspirational TEDx talk by Zoya Lytvyn

42.46056° N, -83.6539° E

Hope Is

For all ages.

It is stories of wisdom from those who have found a graceful dance with resilience, dignity, worth and.  Hope. 

Like in this special place in Michigan, only one of two like it in the United States

MWDM

War Dog Michigan Memorial

Where hope.  

And worth.

And dignity.

Is in the time lived between the dash.

Hope Is

From elementary age to early adulthood, into the late autumn / early winter season of life.

Hope Is

In the sacred honor of meeting a Vietnam veteran who shared his story of his hope in a cold nose who served beside him in Vietnam.  Chief.  An extraordinary soul who saved this veteran’s life seven times, that this once young soldier could return home, without Chief, to become a husband of forty-two years, a father, a nurse anesthesiologist, and now proud owner of a rescued German Shephard now at his feet when my path crossed with this extraordinary gentleman.

We both felt the same thing.  That Chief had led this veteran to this German Shephard.

For Hope is in Chief never having left his watch of this veteran for fifty-one years.

And counting. 

Hope Is in being extremely humbled by a most reverent gift bestowed to me.   As I listened to an extraordinary story of suffering, joy, dignity, and love, and shared in return the sacred privilege I was given to co-author twenty-three extraordinary stories including one that had similar footsteps to this gentleman’s, I was handed this gift I will treasure for the rest of my dash.  This specially made challenge coin symbolizing this veteran and Chief’s lifetime bond. 

N42.36087° W85.87946°

Go back to where you began.

And then create new pathways.  

I have established a post office box address. 

It is:

P.O. Box 327

Gobles, MI 49055

ATTN:  Hope Is

And now you may be asking, for what? 

After all, it is a traditional mailing method that might feel like it is certainly going back to where we began long ago. 

It is a location in which people can communicate to me anonymously one of two things.

• What Hope Is to them
• Where they could use a boost of hope through a reframed view of their story.

How it will work once I receive your mail.  I have updated one of my two web sites to add a page titled “Hope Is.”  HOPE IS | -Hope Ascends (hopehasacoldnose.com)

On this page I will display some of what is sent to me via the post office address.   Anonymously.  If someone has sent a story that they would like reframed, they can note that request, and I will post my reframed version on this web page.   Note, people are welcome to share their name with me.  I offer sending it anonymously, including using this PO box as the return address, for those who may not wish to share their name.   

People just want to be seen and heard. 

And I am here to listen.  

I also like the thought of the Law of Universal Influence.  we have an influence on everyone around us. That means your family, your friends, and even perfect strangers are impacted by the energy you release. Remember, everyone and everything is connected, so energy has the power to expand into every crevice of the world.   https://www.practical-personal-development-advice.com/7-laws-of-attraction

The power to expand into every crevice of the world.

Imagine how much hope we could expand into every crevice of the world by sharing in what feels presently like a vast sea filled with what is not

That there is an even greater sea of what

Is

Hope

42.38337° N, -85.95741° E 

On behalf of Ginger and Kutana, they wish to share the wise words of Helen Keller.  Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.     And, with her raised ear Ginger whispers we are here to listen.

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it.  Match the frequency of the reality you want and you can’t help but get that reality.  It can be no other way.  This is not philosophy.  This is physics!  – Albert Einstein

Sincerely,

-Christine

P.S.

If you have enjoyed this month’s message, please pay it forward to others.  They can also subscribe to future emails by visiting www.christinehassing.com.   If you know of someone who has a Hope Is message to share, please encourage them to share via the post office address (or via email).  I welcome sharing their input on the Hope Is website or in future blog messages!   

Namaste.’