A little about me and routine blogs offering uplifting perspective on life, transformation, and Mother Nature with a little fiction story writing mixed in, too
One of the things I have enjoyed doing for several years now is looking for “drops”. The antlers that deer shed each winter in preparation for new growth. And, for several years I searched but never acquired.
Until this year. When I wasn’t looking, the “drops” found me.
Strategically placed on my path I was running or walking, a Universal message for my soul.
The most recent one I found this past week. A frosty morning run with the girls and with the aid of the sunshine, this small horn reached out and gently whispered hey, look at me.
Of course, this shed came at the “perfect” time. I was meditating and reflecting on words someone dear in my life had shared with me just days before that from her perspective my journey over the past 18 months has been connected to “shedding my skin” like the symbolism of a snake.
Now, let me say, I have grown such that my reaction is only a slight yip or an intake of a deep mostly quiet breath when Slithers, aka SNAKE! suddenly crosses my path. I don’t know about you, but for me, they are always SUDDENLY there!
Like an antler that grows through the years, this is significant progress for me; history was that I jumped, leaped, screamed, and became like a bouncy ball on high speed for several minutes after. I came to appreciate snake’s healing symbolism through my running years, shifting from bouncing down a trail like I was fighting with a swarm of bees to helping them scurry across a public path so as not to get squished. Many a snake has received my parting nice voice Namaste.
So, why share about a snake when we were talking about a deer shed?! Because I was struggling in my meditative time. Though I really loved the thought of shedding my skin, of that letting go to let come process, I was struggling to let come images of a snake into my reflective time!
I set an intention and asked that I be sent a different shedding image. And then I let go. On a frosty morning, sunshine, not looking, merely trusting my ask would be answered. A shed. (smile)
I ponder what may grow in place of this shed next Spring. Perhaps this deer will add two more points to next year’s antlers to become a four-point. Or add six, eager to grow by leaps and bounds. Or maybe the antler will grow a little larger in diameter and remain at two points.
What comes from what was let go is in the “hands” of the deer, so to speak. In the choices a deer makes in the nutrients it takes in through eating, the alertness of its surroundings and where harm may lurk. And in the soul of this deer and how this deer’s purpose is meant to be threaded into the greater good of the collective Earth.
Like us humans. The choices we make. And our soul’s plan for this lifetime. And the thread of our lives into the greater good of collective humanity.
Into the greater good of the collective that is stitched together, even when we can’t see the weaves. Like this deer’s shed that was placed on my path in answer to my request, the Universe knowing that how I often receive my answers is in and through Nature.
I hold this shed and I think about expansion upward. The antler reaches out and up. I think of outward as outreach. Filling more space.
Touching more people.
And I think of upward as a reach to the sky, to the stars, to infinity. To unfathomable limitless space. To the realm in which increased awareness and wisdom can also reside.
The larger the antlers become, the more I witness a buck exhibit wisdom during the seasons in which harm is prevalent (hunting). I observe larger antlered bucks cross our yard, slowly, steadily, a grace-filled regal walk conveying unafraid in September. In October, wary alertness is in their more hurried steps. They do not cross our yard as November nears. In late December, the slow, steady, graceful walk returns through our yard. The smaller bucks may still appear during season, running through the yard without pause, not yet carrying the wiser antennas. Though in their runs, they are still very much following natural instincts.
Knowing of the soul.
I hold this shed and I think about the natural rhythm this deer follows. To shed an antler. To grow new. I ponder if it is this deer’s first shed. And how it doesn’t have to focus on trying to control when the new will appear. The natural rhythm and design of this deer will allow the expansion to happen.
A letting go to let come with ease. With trust. With faith.
I hold this shed and I think about how very different this deer and I are, and yet, for a moment, our paths intertwined. Where this deer had placed a footprint and left me a part of itself.
No matter how big or small, one person or many, what “drop” do we leave for others to find?
As life continues to bring sudden life-changing moments, I have become very conscious of how I am showing up in life because I know that how I show up is impacting one person, many, a collective. If my life came to a close tomorrow, what drop did I leave for someone else to find and hold?
I hold this shed and I feel in my hand is the certainty of hope. For though I won’t know what grows next for the deer who left this for me, I hold what has been let go as a promise that there is a continuation coming.
On a frosty morning, sunshine, not looking, merely trusting…
Divinely, I had a starfish cross my path yesterday. If you have read past hope quests, listened to some of the first videos I created a few years ago, or been a stranger on an airplane who received a handwritten note from me, you know that starfish are very meaningful to me. Think Starfish Parable.
This time the starfish had an additional message for me. The starfish is a natural and exquisite beauty…The problem is these creatures have been reliant on how they look (and what other people think of them) for so long that they may have forgotten their deeper callings.
Starfish delivered this message to me yesterday amid my struggle to write this month’s Hope Is quest.
Am I being swayed by outward appearances? What dreams have I put aside to please others? Starfish nudged and my inner whisper translated am I swayed by the percent open rate when I send a monthly email? Are there other ways I feel called to share my writing gifts?
I went for a run with the girls since I always gain clarity during a run, with my running mates. As I ran, I laughed and then lighthearted apologized to the Universe and my TEAM (of guides, keepers, and ancestors) for the times I am exhibiting strong-willed, determined, stubborn, I can’t hear you because I am diligently focused traits like dear Kutana. I think the Universe must feel like a satisfied parent who becomes a grandparent and then witnesses their grandchild give their son or daughter the same challenge they felt when trying to raise the son or daughter. You know, the moment of satisfaction from that once said someday you will have a child JUST LIKE YOU! Thankfully the Universe loves unconditionally, like my heart that swells with immeasurable love right after I have deep breathed my way through one of the maddening moments of Kutana’s very good display of, I can’t hear you!
As I ran, I smiled at the guardian running just ahead of me, paving the way, but staying close. Ginger, who isn’t afraid to shout her voice if needed, is also the gentle grounder, a cousin to Deer who messages compassion and grace. The one whose heart overflows with giving for those she cares about yet holds her own in what she wants or needs.
As I ran, I thought about the ways I have been utilizing my writing gifts, which includes my intuitive gifts to, as one person graciously said to me, see into my eyes to my soul and then offer a reframed story that aids another to heal their emotional pain. Whether I do that as teacher, coach, or life story writer, to provide inspiration, a listening ear, or written words that help someone find self-compassion, dignity, self-worth, and forgiveness is one of the greatest joys for me. To aid another on their transformational journey from the holes within towards their wholeness is what calls me.
To aid someone on their forward movement to better.
As I ran, I realized that where once I could sit down and write the monthly quest days if not a couple of weeks in advance of the month drawing to a close, I have been struggling for some time to write just before the month ends. I had been receiving messages to listen deeper, differently, to see and see again. I wasn’t ready to let go of I can’t hear you.
Until yesterday.
It is time for new beginnings.
It is time to stop the quest I have been traveling. This will be the last Hope Is quest in your inbox.
Now, this doesn’t mean it is goodbye. One, I don’t believe in goodbyes. But more importantly, I am available to continue providing inspiration, connection, a listening ear, or a framed/reframed perspective. Based on pull, not push. Translation, instead of me pushing to you a message that may or may not resonate for you, I will look to you to let me know what would be of benefit to YOU.
I have a vast variety of ways I communicate inspiration and offer connection. These include:
I write inspirational monthly stories that get published in a newspaper titled Good News. If you don’t live in the Kalamazoo area, you can still access these papers online goodnews-paper.com.
I send daily inspiration messages (can be sent via text or email)
I facilitate a series of classes or a one-time workshop that provide individual opportunity to reflect on the stories of your life and how they might be reframed as well as collective belonging in a community of life story cohorts.
I offer 1×1 meetings.
I can provide a written life story if that is of interest.
I have created writing club communities (though you don’t have to be a writer to be part of one of the clubs)
I post weekly inspirational videos on both Instagram and YouTube. New videos are available each Friday.
Of course, there are two written books and a third in development as another avenue to be inspired by written extraordinary stories of resilience, dignity, and hope.
And, I am interested in providing a monthly story to you, the current readership, every month via email, based on what would be of value to you, based on your email communication to me in what you would like to read. If my written words and how I see and hear the world are of benefit to you in addition to the avenues noted above, send me a message to Christine@hopewhispers.com or contact me via my webpage (HOPE – Hope Whispers: The Inner Pathway to Whole (christinehassing.com). If I don’t hear from you, I thank YOU for how you have followed the monthly quests and I look forward to when our paths intersect again. In the words of a dear friend, until soon.
For those who plan to contact me, I look forward to talking further with you.
I will leave you with this inspirational picture of hope and this quote. The picture is of flowers growing near the summit of a mountain I hiked a few weeks ago. The universal truth of life. It may be extremely rocky, rough, course, steep, jagged, at the edge and yet, life always finds a way to thrive.
Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life. – John Updike
If you have read past quests or if you know me outside of these blogs, you know one of my phrases is our dance of grace between opposites.
As I begin to write of this month’s quest for hope, or I should say, as I begin to re-write what I had started. I have danced. From a few days ago when I had a plan of what I would write about, through the start of writing, to now, I have danced.
The beauty of life is I will hit send to broadcast what I finish writing, and I will further dance.
Such is the continual dance up the spiral staircase of life.
Until we reach the top of that stained glass dome. Whenever that may be for each of us.
Before I continue, I would like to begin similar to the start of April’s quest.
How are you?
What is it like to be you right now?
I’m listening.
As you dance that dance of grace between opposites, between such dances as doing well and struggling, between good, having fun and with a sigh there isn’t enough time in the day or whatever your dance may be, are you being kind to
YOU?
Please remember.
YOU
Matter.
You can’t pour from an empty cup, so please
BE
Kind to
YOU.
I found this quote recently about grace. Ann Lamott wrote I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.
It brings to mind Albert Einstein’s words There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
My original intention was to write about a recent trip in which every encounter with a stranger felt like I was walking with the awe-filling presence of Grace. Or perhaps better described as a floating, for it began to feel so magical that I thought perhaps I should pinch myself to make sure I was not dreaming what I was experiencing.
Before beginning a recap of this month’s quest, I wrote an article for a monthly publication I contribute to in which I shared an element of my travel experience for inspiration to readers.
Since I was in those creative juices flowing mode, I turned to this quest and began typing.
Then the grace of life entered. Based on other commitments for the remainder of Saturday, I paused with a plan to return to writing my original intent the next day.
Hmmmm….these miracle moments haven’t stopped. They seem to have followed me from my trip said to myself as the commitments brought more awe-filling sensations that something meaningful had been exchanged between two individuals. Me being one of the two individuals.
The next day came and with it a commitment prior to returning to write about May’s quest.
The commitment included driving my mom a lengthy distance to visit a great aunt who had just been relocated to a rehabilitation center following a serious vehicle accident a few weeks ago.
I had plans to take Kutana on the road trip and Ginger would stay back to “guard” homebase while all her peoples – K included – were gone for a bit. Not one to relish a lot of strangers walking by her in a vehicle, Ginger finds it less stressful if she remains where she can best perform what she feels is her role as head of our family, which is Queen of Security.
Yet, Ginger dances a dance of grace each time we leave, and she doesn’t. She loves to go with us. She just finds that because she cannot adequately perform her job without proper background checks, all are suspicious until passing the treats test and when they walk by her in a vehicle, they do not seem to offer treats. Only suspicion as they walk by.
So, food bowl packed for one. Check. Back of Grand Cherokee converted into a comfy dog bedroom for the trip. Check. Ok, K. Ready? Not check.
K, normally eager to go, paused outside the garage looking at the house and back and me. House. Me. Lingering on her look at me. Lingering at the view of the house.
As I drive up the driveway to pick up my mom, I hear that inner whisper what about taking Ging?
K, do you think we should take your sister with us?
Yes, that is what I was trying to tell you before you thought I was just being my usual headstrong self.
I know. I don’t always hear you right away, do I?! Work in progress, K. Your momma is a work in progress.
Pick up mom. Check. Back down the driveway. Check. Start down the sidewalk towards the house seeing Ging’s entire body wiggling and squiggly and…
Dancing so.
Ging, do you wanna go?
It became hard to hear her Yes! as she began dancing a combination of the jig and a little mosh pit body bumping.
Fast forward through a few hours of sharing perspectives and memories with my mom as we drove the highways and secondary roads we hadn’t been on together for a decade, at least, that were once upon a time the going and returning pathway that linked us to a physical presence with my grandparents every few months.
Forward through a visit with my great aunt, and her overflowing gratitude at a visit from her treasured niece (my mom) and my grateful opportunity to be both observer and visitor. Visitor as great niece to an aunt who is two years away from entering her 90th decade on earth. Observer of the bond of an aunt and a niece, in seeing mannerisms in my great aunt that affirm her and my grandma were indeed sisters, and in reflection of my place in the generational flow as I become more and more conscious of how we are impacted by seven generations before us and our footprints we leave impact seven generations to come.
Forward through returning to the Grand Cherokee to find both girls peacefully waiting before excitedly wiggling and squiggling here comes Grammy. Here comes mom. They ARE BAAACCCCKKKKK!
And hey, this means it’s treat time, cuz mom always gives us “good girl” treats when she comes back. Or better yet. I KNOW I saw mom put your food bowl in a bag, and I think mine is right here in this bag. So, hey, let’s tell them IT IS LUNCH time and then we can get not just a treat, but FOOD! Ok. Wait. Wait. Let’s be happy to see them and then let’s do the begging trick. Got it? Ok. Here we go!
[In unison] Hi mom!
Hi Grammy!
We ARE SOOOOOOOOOOO glad to see you! And we were such good girls. See…..
Fast forward to returning home and Hmmmm…. these miracle moments haven’t stopped. They seem to have followed me from my trip.
I sat down at the keyboard with my plan to continue writing my original message, yet life seemed to continue to bring other plans.
Or more like I continued to choose to respond to what life was bringing by following the internal whisper that was calling over here instead. The story I thought wanted to be put to paper seemed to be caught in midair between intention and landing as sentences to the “paper” screen you would soon read.
Then a meaningful dialogue with someone very dear to my life and an email from an individual I have shared with you about in other monthly quest recaps – Soren Gordhamer, founder, and host of Wisdom 2.0, contained, in the words of Soren, this message theme.
How does our desire to be liked or to maintain harmony prevent us from sharing our concerns or experience?
And then it hit me.
I was dancing.
My intention to write about all the miraculous encounters on my trip was to harmoniously share with you about the power of seeing and hearing others, for, as you have “heard” me say many times, people just want to be seen and heard. I wanted to inspire you with stories of individuals who shared how a note they received had made them cry because they had felt seen and valued. I wanted to inspire you with stories of the power of handing someone dignity and non-judgment.
I wanted to be seen and heard, too.
For the passions I have, the things I believe in, the concerns I have.
The footprint I feel called to leave with whatever remaining steps I have.
I was hearing that inner whisper nudge in a vast sea of things for people to read from an even larger sea of people to read from, what makes your trip so important?
I thought about you, the readers, who respond to something I’ve written.
Why you respond.
And then I stood still, the dance paused, the center found, and I saw a single word threaded through my trip and the miraculous moments since then. That single word as I looked at Ginger with a swelled heart for how good she did on the road trip with no anxiousness or fear of not being home to perform her role to utmost perfection. That single word as I relived the energetic sensations I felt in my body with each unplanned awe-filling encounter with another person human or fur.
That single word my sacred owl whoooo’d in affirmation as I sat with my hands over the keyboard about to erase the words I had started a few days ago.
Connection.
Fully present with another. In person. Virtually ear to ear on a phone or via a zoom or Microsoft teams technology. Or in words written that were the words that felt as if they were meant for the person reading.
Connection.
Heart to heart.
Heart.
To
Heart.
People just want to be seen and heard.
And feel that they are. That they have been.
Connection.
Is also fully being present within ourselves.
Connected to
Our own hearts.
There is so much more I could say, because after all, I love words. And I am very passionate about connection, seeing and hearing each other, and and and.
Let me leave you with this video from the Heartmath Institute.
Hope is
In the dance.
Especially if in the dance, we routinely pause and live from the center.
After all. It is the center
where the heart resides.
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(s). I welcome your handwritten messages or drawn pictures to the address below. Or feel free to email me (Christine@hopewhispers.net)
P.O. Box 327
Gobles, MI 49055
ATTN: Hope Is
.
35.73°N 84.31°W
A Cold Nose
Recently I was blessed to have my path crossed with another fine organization supporting veterans by providing service dogs. I am including a link to their website and a powerful video highlighting once again the power of
Connection through unconditional listening and love.
As a reminder, workshops and courses are available. See my web site or email me at Christine@hopewhispers.net! I’d love for you to attend!
And now to share book three, here we come!
Between the Dash.
Well, you’ve known that title. Let me give you the full title.
Between the Dash…My Story Just Beginning: Inspiring Life Stories from Less Home to Hope
Before I explain further, let me first acknowledge that a year plus ago I began a journey with a third book that was a different subject than Inspiring Stories from Less Home to Hope. The avenue I was exploring may still come into fruition. Or may not. Or the stories may fold into a book concept not yet thought of. Signs were pointing to “Pause”, and since I continue to learn that it is best to let go of the oars and flow with the current, I knew it best I honor the signs. I hold these initial stories in reverence while I listen for what wants to emerge in the future. I have two to three other book concepts on my intention board; these may become the future. All things in the right time, always.
So, back to Between the Dash…My Story Just Beginning: Inspiring Life Stories from Less Home to Hope
The “Dash” Poet and author Linda Ellis writes in her poem “Between the Dash”, “…for that dash represents all the time…spent alive on Earth…for it matters not, how much we own – the cars…the house…the cash…”
Until one finds themselves without any of it. No cash. Or at least not enough to stretch for all living expenses. Like food. Clothing. Transportation to travel to and from work. A home. The basic survival needs as a human being, at least as modern society is structured to survive in the “wilderness” of towns, cities, and economies. And this is provided that survival is not threatened by other external factors.
Like the “lions” of natural disasters such as a hurricane or a fire. Like the “tigers” of dis-eases that require medical intervention. And the additional expenses of utilizing health care systems trying to assist survival. Then there are the additional predators threatening survival. If we treat each other with respect. Or don’t. Like domestic abuse. Discrimination. Racism. As if these weren’t enough threats, then there are the menacing enemies of such things as addiction and emotional and mental traumas.
To say it is not easy living between the dash can be an understatement for many.
Like Hope has a Cold Nose, Between the Dash has among its objectives to inspire, educate, and foster such things as compassion, dignity, unconditional listening, and non-judgment. It will be co-authored like HHCN was through life stories. Like HHCN it will highlight the strength and beauty of the human spirit. It will show that in the Universal Truth that life holds suffering, life also goes forward through our choice to also embrace such things as joy, faith, and
Hope.
Namaste’ my dear readers.
In a world of algorithms, hashtags, and followers, know the true importance of human connection. – Digitalmomblog.com
You cannot build a deep connection with someone who is disconnected from themselves – Yung Pueblo
It turns out that our ability to connect with other people is driven by our ability to connect deeply with ourselves. And that can be just a few minutes sitting on the porch feeling the breeze against your face. That can be a few moments spent in meditation or in prayer or remembering three things you’re grateful for. – Vivek Murthy
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 at Christine@hopewhipsers.net). I welcome sharing their input in a future Hope Is message!
Recently I was reading an email from Soren Gordhamer, founder of Wisdom 2.0, titled “Your Life Message”. He shared about a response Gandhi gave a reporter who once asked about Gandhi’s message for the people of India. Gandhi wrote on paper “MY LIFE IS MY MESSAGE.”.
Soren continued to write.
Our “message” is not only what we post on social media or put on our LinkedIn page, it is how we live our life — what is seen AND what is not seen.
If someone was tracking your life, what would they think your message is?
Our life inevitably expresses a message. We cannot avoid it. If we have children or loved ones, they are tracking us. In many ways, we can never hide anything.
So what do we want our life message to be?
While we may have an answer that uses words, our deeper answer, in many ways, is in how we live each moment of our life.
As Thich Nhat Hanh used to say, “Your actions are your only true belongings.”
Inspired by and then reflective of Soren’s message, a few short weeks later the same information crossed my path twice. A CDC study recently released in the U.S. indicates that “one in three girls seriously considered attempting suicide,” in 2021.
One in three.
If you are reading this sitting in a room filled with 3 people, look up and around and imagine if one of those individuals was a youth-filled girl who questioned if life was meant to be continued here on Earth.
One in three. Question that life is worth living.
And one of the contributing factors excerpts in mental health fields have is that social media is influencing one’s sense of value, worth, and belonging based on a young life’s perception of being “scored” through how many “likes” and “followers.” Someone gets.
If someone was tracking my life, what am I messaging?
Let me give you a glimpse into my internal conversation.
Self: Let me find these girls who are struggling to believe life is worth living, who are struggling with their sense of worth. Another space in which suicide and hopelessness grab my heart, hard! Like the military veterans and the calling to write HHCN. I am my best when I am listening to the voices who don’t feel seen and heard. I am best when I can frame and reframe the stories of life someone is telling themselves to reflect hope, worth, and dignity to someone feeling hopeless, unworthy, and judged. I will gladly share my journey from self-judgment to self-worthy, from uncertain to hope-fully, from grieving to embracing, from shame to dignity, from separated to a sense of whole. I never questioned if life on Earth was no longer worth staying in, but oh, did I sure know the depths of not feeling worthy of being seen and heard.
{My Soul and my guides, keepers, and ancestors are dancing and high fiving each other for listening to that inner whisper as I pull out my map and highlighter to make another trail system that I feel called to travel.}
self: Well, hold on. Wait a minute. First, what makes you expert? You are “just” an author/writer, coach, and teacher. You haven’t worked out all the bugs and kinks yet in your own journey of fully embodying worth, and peace and self-trust and and and. And, secondly, how can these girls find you? After all, you shouldn’t be adding fuel to the very spaces that are adding to the sense of unworthiness and hopelessness these girls are feeling. If you start posting on social media, isn’t that being hypocritical to what you really desire to teach, which is how to be present and connected in one’s own skin, with people, with Nature…with life. Aren’t you really wanting to foster “real” connection through “real” conversations? “In-person” either physically or via Zoom, because after all, you know how to teach “real” connection virtually as well as in person. That is part of your gift with the art of hearing. So, just be patient, doorways will open without “having to”…
{My Soul and my guides, keepers, and ancestors sit down, a soft, gently, loving, non-judgmental smile on all of their faces, as they making knowing eye contact with each other that communicates her dance of grace between opposites on her spiritual journey as a human being learning that she is safe in her own skin being seen and heard for her story is the inspiration others need and we are waiting to bring her the voices she can best hear. Her mission is to lead a social movement to shift the world’s grief, pain, trauma, sorrow, and despair to hope, and one step at a time, she is finding her way.}
One step at a time, my dance of grace. (smile)
During this past month my quest also led me to a very beautiful honor of reading writings from my husband’s grandmother when she was alive. I was struck by how there are certain wisdoms that are timeless. More than once as I was reading I needed to glance at the date in which she had put her words to paper. The words out of ‘today’s’ headlines; her words written in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s.
We hurry through life at such a rapid pace nowadays. There is not enough time to do all the things that we would like to do. We all know too well that we are living in chaotic times…Don’t misunderstand me – I don’t mean that you must always agree with what others have to say or believe in…but do not let this difference divide you in your feelings, from others…A bridge permits free passage, a free exchange from one area to another…or one person to another. Let us not think then only of bridges which are built with the hands because our hearts build bridges too…bridges of friendship, of compassion for brotherhood.
Her messages from her life.
Words left to paper, left for the next four generations – her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and her great-great grandchildren.
Timeless wisdom, rooted in foundations of and for humanity. Rooted in ways for life to continue to go forward amidst the oppositions that life also brings that try to pull one’s being to also take root in hopelessness, joylessness, unworthiness, the emotional pain of loss and of trauma, the physical anguish of the body internalizing that loss and trauma, and the erosion of one’s spirit in believing in and trusting the rhythms and flows of life, that there is a Wholeness, a Oneness to it all.
So, just as I felt called to something so much bigger than me when I wrote Hope Has a Cold Nose, in the very depths of my being, I can no longer not keep leaning into what calls my heart, which includes more fully “showing up” with my life’s message.
Hope Is
Life.
In how we choose to make grief, pain, trauma, sorrow, and despair
matter that it happened
by choosing to live
with joy and love
In the journey of the inner pathway to whole, mind, body, heart, and soul
in looking the grief, pain, trauma, sorrow, and despair in the eye
reframing it, absent of judgment
with compassion
to find the beauty, worth, and dignity
of every extraordinary story
For if someone bravely choose this life to live, no matter the duration
There is an extraordinary story that was
lived
A person who deserves to be heard
and seen
For in doing so
Humanity and life
dance forward
in balance and harmony
with a beautiful
grace
Care to join me on my mission? Together we can create a movement!
Perhaps in a fun way like this!
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(s). I welcome your handwritten messages or drawn pictures to the address below. Or feel free to email me (Christine@hopewhispers.net)
P.O. Box 327
Gobles, MI 49055
ATTN: Hope Is
.
42.3838° N, -85.95861° E
A Cold Nose
A duet, shall we!
N ° S ° E ° W °
Hope Whispers, Nature Speaks
Oh goodness, so many exciting trail systems ahead! (Wink, smile) Metaphorically speaking. Well, for the most part metaphorically, not counting upcoming physical hiking adventures this summer!
Where should I begin?! Let’s start with this video!
If you are on Instragram or You Tube, be watching for inspirational routine postings in video or words if it resonates for you to join alongside me. Together we can dance between being spiritual beings having human experiences and human beings having spiritual experiences. (Don’t be surprised if every once in a while you get an inspirational short email if my inner whisper nudges that at least one of you could benefit from an inspirational message for the day. Since I know that inner whisper is much bigger than little ole’ me, I strive – in my dance – to listen to it and act on it. If you could benefit, I want to deliver!)
Attached is a flyer for upcoming workshops and courses I am teaching. Email me! I’d love for you to attend!
Workshops and Courses Enrollment Options
And ooooohhhh, I am so excited! Book three continues to gain momentum to become a reality! I’m not yet able to reveal the subject yet, but oh, I can’t wait until I can!!! Just keep thinking Between the Dash and hold out as patiently as you can for the May Hope Is message! I do believe I will be able to communicate more details then!
I’m also trying my best not to add too much water to another seed before it’s ready to drink more – I have always been a little bit clumsy in my dance between patience and impatience! But. There is a potential 4th book in which the seed has been placed in the soil this month. We shall see. (Smile, grin).
And, hey, one more thing. In the spirit of Soren and another very inspirational person who has recently crossed my path (author Julie Lythcott-Haims)
I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole earth will become One Circle again. – Crazy Horse
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 at Christine@hopewhipsers.net). I welcome sharing their input in a future Hope Is message!
This month found me spending more time meditating than usual on what to share from this month’s hope quest. Then I heard “origin story”.
Hmmm, now you are thinking, origin story?
Origin defined as: the point or place where something begins, arises, or is derived.
Last month I had shared with you about one of my guiding principles for how I approach life – “making it matter that it happened”. Shared with all of you in January in that Divine way that a puzzle piece snaps into place in the picture of our life, when we don’t yet see the puzzle piece we are soon meant to find that will connect.
The puzzle piece I would find this month. And the spiral staircase circle I would travel to come back to a certainty of my guiding principle, “make it matter that it happened”.
I was spoiled in the beginning of February to go on a sun-filled very warm vacation in Mexico. Yea, I know – quite a puzzle piece?! {smile} During this trip, as I watched pelicans diving into the ocean for their catch of the day, I learned that at a certain point in a pelican’s life, they lose their eye sight. Though they are following their natural instinct – and their need for survival – by diving for food, the salt in the water and perhaps the rate of speed in which they swoosh through the waves, causes blindness. Their ability to survive becomes reliant on humans kind enough to feed them as they perch on a dock.
Also on this trip, as I was on a boat in the early morning, I witnessed the moon going to sleep over the town and then only seconds later I watched as the sun started to say good morning. I, in the middle between opposites of night and day, dark and light, marveling in awe at Nature’s rhythms, miracles and beauty.
Fast forward to February 14th, learning that tragedy had occurred closer to home this time with an all too familiar headline MASS SHOOTING. A university in my home state, one in which has a life-time fan in my step-dad and creates fun family bantering between him and my brother-in-law who is a lifer for the rival to Michigan State. A university that a dear friend holds in high esteem as her alma-mater. A university I experienced my 3rd triathlon event at some, gosh, 11 or 12 years ago.
I found myself thinking about the families of the victims. And then my spiral staircase walk in a circle began.
How could I begin to say to these families “make it matter that it happened”? Can I really hold as my favorite quote of hope about the certainty that regardless of how it turns out, it makes sense?
And then I remembered an “origin story”. I’ve shared it with individuals in the past, but it was always in the context of a specific role I had in my career and how that role greatly influenced me personally. My exact words to individuals is it gave me my life back.
Now the original (no pun intended on origin) reason I declared that is I would say to people that I said yes to a plant manager role of a 24/7 operation scared to death because I already didn’t balance life and work well. How could I begin to balance life responsible for a 24/7 operation! Yet, despite the fear, I said “yes”. What I would then tell people is how I became responsible for shutting down the site based on an executive management decision, and in the course of leading people through a shutdown, I learned that leading was more than the job one did. I began to understand leadership was not just the mind; it was also the heart. Most importantly, the heart.
As I reflected this month, pausing to ask if my stance in approaching life was still “make it matter that it happened”, I thought about what else happened when I said “yes” to that job. I was driving, doing my typical fast forward to the next station for a song that grabs my attention, when a song began, and I heard this chorus.
So, carry your candle, run to the darkness
Seek out the hopeless, confused and torn
And hold out your candle for all to see it
Take your candle, and go light your world – Written by Christopher M. Rice
I didn’t know why I thought it was significant but then again, souls work like that. That inner whisper says hey pay attention and sometimes the body joins in with goosebumps or an energy surge and the logic or analytical part of the mind decides to sit down for a moment. I pulled over so that I could write the words down to then look up the full song later. That is how significant I thought it was.
Nearly two years later, when I felt oh so very responsible for the shutdown, I remembered that song. My soul said this is why you were meant to say “yes” to this role. To be a candle for everyone who were feeling the gravity of their lives becoming before and no longer the same.
My soul has reminded me more than once that this song is a very significant puzzle piece in the picture of my life. More like one of the straight edge pieces that frame the rest of my picture.
When I thought about it more this month, I realized that this song entered my life approximately two or three years after I cried out, but I do not want this!
In the middle of the night. Just a bad dream, my husband assured me as my cry out in my dream state woke us both. Some of the following words from my published memoir describe that dream.
Walking slowly, ever slow; where I might be I do not know. Trees, some standing, some in a lean, some in stagnant water, no longer able to grow leaves.
I am searching to find…certainly there must be some sign of life. I am alone, and for a few moments I do not fear.
It begins to sink in what my eyes see. I begin to run, my legs gaining speed.
My lungs feel the burn, I am struggling to breathe.
Up ahead, a building, perhaps someone will rescue me. Closer, as if it is the finish line, “Help me make it,” my tearful plea. Silence still, but a wall to embrace my back; against it, sliding to the ground, I collapse.
The kind of sobbing that shudders the body pours from the depths of my soul. I cannot shake the panic that has taken control. No moon, nor sunlight, no sign of any life.
As breath leaves, my chest is held in a tighter squeeze. “But I do not want this,” I call out from somewhere deep. No one to respond; silence greets the words I cry. Or maybe they weren’t said aloud, my voice skilled at staying buried inside.
The relief it was not reality but just a dream. Or was it a warning if I did not heed?
My soul dying, my heart starting to decay. My life on a course to darkness. And I begin to run, searching for change.
That dream was the beginning of what I refer to as something that I believe each of us as humans experience, this cracking open, out of a cocoon or out of an eggshell. A point in which we begin shifting and transforming and stepping towards what our soul most desired for why it chose life. A point in which we begin to recognize that life is not lived only of the mind. Life is lived not only with a body. Life is also lived with heart. And the more we open ours up, the more
We make it matter that it happens when life brings darkness.
Which brings me back around on that circle of the spiral staircase as I wrestled with and reflected on my stance of my guiding principles for my life. I traveled that circle and came back around not in the same place when I started.
I found my stance to be the same, with an added sentence or two. Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning” writes between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. If I had a magic wand that would erase tragedy, I would hand it to those whose hearts grieve and who experience trauma and profound loss that they wouldn’t have to experience the gravity of it all. Since a naturalness to life includes suffering, then I focus on choice. If we choose such things as bitterness, anger, frustration, fear, resentment, and such, we don’t keep life moving forward balanced and in harmony. The light of joy, and of love, becomes diminished, and life starts to cease moving forward. If we choose to first honor our grief by feeling the emotions of anger, frustration, fear, and such, for to hide or bury them do not move life forward either, and then let grief move us into being more present with the finite time we are given, present happily, gratefully, attentively, trustingly, compassionately, etc. we perpetuate the goodness of life. We perpetuate humanity and the next sunrise.
We make it matter that it happens in how we choose.
We make it matter if we choose not to let our world go dark.
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(s). I welcome your handwritten messages or drawn pictures to the address below. Or feel free to email me (Christine@hopewhispers.net)
I am excited to share with you about two upcoming events! Two FREE webinars!
The Art of Hearing I: Meaningful Relationships in Virtual Spaces Monday, March 20th with one session at 12:00 p.m. EST and if you can’t make that time, a second one available at 8:00 p.m. EST.
The other webinar is The Art of Hearing II: Listening, Connection and Hope being held Monday, March 27th, with one session at 12:00 p.m. and again, if this time doesn’t work, 8:00 p.m. EST.
I am also providing links to my web page for additional information about the webinars, what is included if you attend, which includes an early bird discount to two courses I am launching that will begin April 10th.
The Art of Hearing II: A Course in Listening, Connection, and Hope
I would love for you to join, and please, spread the word. You, and others you share this with, can register when visiting my webpage or you can register by emailing me directly at Christine@hopewhispers.net. And of course, feel free to email me with any questions!
Namaste’
The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them. And transcending them is the ultimate point. The bittersweet is about the desire for communion, the wish to go home. ― Susan Cain, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole
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 at Christine@hopewhipsers.net). I welcome sharing their input in a future Hope Is message!
Many of you have traveled with me over these years, and first, let me start out this new year expressing my gratitude to each of YOU for that! Thank YOU!
Some of you started walking a quest with me from the beginning. When I wrote the first “for the public eye” story when I met a homeless gentleman and his dog on the streets of New York City.
“Even then”, my essence was keeping me eyes, my ears – and my heart – open to those who
“Just” want to be seen and heard. For, everyone just wants to be seen and heard.
As I believe, anyway.
And, as I wrote in Hope Has a Cold Nose the words by Cheryl Richardson, people start to heal the moment they feel heard.
For that is another essence of me. This sometimes calm and tranquil, sometimes mildly wavy, sometimes raging, and tumultuous river of life brings at least one experience with, as I phrase it in HHCN, pain, trauma, sorrow, or despair. And grief. Joy and sorrow, together for us to dance in grace between the two.
Can we do so with hope as our anchor? And how I define hope?
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. ― Václav Havel
Make it matter that it happened. The words a friend said to me nearing thirty years ago now.
As I wrote in my memoir, life brings moments we wish wouldn’t, or never had to, take place. When we find purpose in each one, we find faith. We find the ability to bravely and gracefully move through life, through every up and down we are certain to experience.
And if we embrace the purpose, we know unconditional love.
Yesterday as I was holding space for what to share from this past month on my Hope Is quest, I was reminded of words I shared with a friend a few weeks ago.
I was reminded from a sparrow.
I am blessed to have our home full of many windows. The blessings are the view I can behold every day. The curse. When these same windows look like a twin feathered friend to an unsuspecting bird about to find itself in a sudden nosedive to the ground.
I periodically find myself in rescue mode. Now, before you have an image that the interior of my home is filled with song birds in cages. (smile) My rescue consists of running outside to pick up a feathered new found friend and try to calm its rapidly beating heart. I will it in gentle whispers to choose to fly again. Often it does. Sometimes.
Loss steps in to hold space in place of joy.
Yesterday, in the cold of winter, this little sparrow took a nosedive into the snow, too disoriented to rise out of it. The sound at the window 911 to my ears, and outside I hurried. Between the palm of my hands I gently held my new friend, assuring it that it would be ok. A few minutes later I set it on a dog bed under our porch continuing my willing intention that it would soon fly.
A few minutes later when I went outside to check, it looked at me and then joyously soared into the air and away.
I remembered my friend who reached out to me after she came home to a pileated woodpecker having hit her sliding window and though she, too, tried to will it to fly again. Suffering was meant to hold space in place of her joy she always experiences in her photo shoots of these wonderful “beat to the rhythm of your heart” messengers that woodpeckers are symbolically.
Because she knew I was a “rescuer’, she asked how I process the times flight isn’t meant to be again.
To behold a living winged being full of such beauty in its last moments deeply touches the heart in sadness and in awe! When I’ve locked eyes with a winged friend taking its last breaths, I have felt this sacredness that I’ve been able to give them the greatest gift of all, which is to know love. I’ve felt additional awe that I’m holding in my hands a part of the Universe and in this moment, we are not human separate from bird. We are one. Since joy and suffering hold the same space in this one beautiful wild unpredictable thing called life, you were experiencing a very special and reverent moment in which in the deepest sorrow is to know the joy of the deepest love.
We make it matter that it happened when we choose to appreciate and be present to every moment we are given to listen and to see.
With all our BE-ing.
A person facing loss starts to see beauty where their eyes and their heart were clouded by a to-do list or by a sense tomorrow is always guaranteed. When their perspective shifts, what begins to matter most is what someone else still takes for granted. To watch a sunset—to really watch a sunset—is nothing short of beautiful and extraordinary.
If we choose to see.
And listen.
Unconditionally.
Unconditionally doesn’t have to mean agreement. It simply means.
Namaste’
My soul honors your soul.
I always tell my feathered friends Namaste’. Both of us certainly very different. Yet, in the moment a winged friend is giving me the most sacred gift we give another. Trust. At its most vulnerable, it is trusting me with its beating heart.
In past quests I’ve shared one of my favorite parables. Passed from Cherokee wisdom. A tale of two wolves.
In a sea of some many words amidst so much information to describe so many ways of being – and doing – I love the way this parable describes our human experience.
One evening, an elderly Cherokee brave told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
“My dear one, the battle between two ‘wolves’ is inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is good. It is: joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a moment and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”
Hope Is
How we choose to show up in the world.
My quest this month led me to then revisit one of Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper messages from 2022.
Then my cousin’s husband hit me with some numbers that almost made me spit out my coffee. He said, “Maria, do you realize that since the late ‘80s, we’ve been gaining roughly 800 million people a decade! Do you realize that in the last 2 1/2 decades, the overall increase in population is 200,000 people a day? That’s 9,000 people an hour, 150 a minute. That’s 1.5 million people a week!”
It is no small wonder that people are feeling unseen and unheard.
Longing for genuine connection.
That countries like the UK and Japan have Ministers of Loneliness now.
That social media continues to grow leaps and bounds to
Connect
And be seen and heard.
Yet, in the rapid treadmills of life everyone is running on, how often do we pause, be present, and truly listen within and with-out (externally)?
There are wisdoms that say the teacher appears when the student is ready and we teach what we are most trying to learn.
Life is magical this way. I aspire to be the very best compassionate, non-judging listening teacher, coach, writer, author, and speaker I can be. My soul desires to create and lead a social movement of unconditional listening and hope.
The Universe is always bringing opportunity for me to grow in being the best version I can be to fulfill this calling.
Like when my path crossed with a dear and beautiful soul named Haven. A name that means “safe place”. The meaning of her name symbolic in the teachable moment I would soon receive.
She was making a delivery recently during a very snow-stormy afternoon. The intent was the package would deliver across the street to my parents’ home. In missing their driveway due to icy conditions, she attempted to use our driveway as a turn around to go back. At the point I came home, she was stuck mostly in a section of our yard, having slid off our driveway.
Sometimes listening is about hearing and hearing again. My first reaction was frustration. Since I know our driveway is long and challenging, I strive to have packages deliver to my parents’ to avoid issues like…getting stuck. As my mind thought, what was this driver thinking? As I questioned out loud to the driver if they were trying to deliver to the right place. Instead of asking are you ok? Or at least offering an empathetic smile.
I know. Not typically me, one who values showing up in the world seeing others thru the lens of compassion and non-judgment.
But since there is always more than we initially hear and see, I am sometimes unconsciously triggered from childhood feelings I am not safe, either within (my own skin) or with-out (externally). It is only in hindsight and reflection that I become aware. That I hear and hear again to better “see”.
The driver let me know a tow truck was on the way. I grumbled concern of the tow truck turfing up our yard.
I proceeded down our driveway. When I reached our garage, my husband – the Earth angel he is for me – reminded me how I want to show up in the world when he talked about how it can’t be easy for drivers going to places all over the countryside, especially in weather like we were experiencing.
I began listening to that inner whisper. Christine, did you see and hear the driver? What were you scared of that caused your frustration reaction? After all, frustration is a defense mechanism when one isn’t feeling safe. How do you want to show up to her? She is part of the world.
With a bottle of water and a bag of chocolates in hand, up the driveway I walked a few moments later. As she rolled down the window, I apologized for my initial frustration and I pointed out that I know I am a stranger but I promise the water and chocolates are sealed and would she like them as she waits for the tow truck. She gladly accepted and we began exchanging in dialogue. She graciously telling me its ok my initial response and me telling her she didn’t deserve my own internal struggle.
For that is another multi-faceted aspect of listening. We aren’t hearing what others say (or watching for what others do). We are listening from our own starting places based on our experiences, learned perceptions, and internal scars, too. And we are then choosing our response, which is either taking responsibility for our reaction or choosing to act in defense to point it externally because we don’t feel safe within ourselves.
I once heard it said that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between two perspectives. This dear driver didn’t seem to think as much of my initial response, but what matters is how I felt about the energy I was casting.
We ended our dialogue with this dear and beautiful – and brave driving – soul asking if she could give me a hug and me oh so gladly accepting!
People just want to be seen and heard.
Amidst the 200,000 people born a day, every day.
Hearing and hearing again to be present to and with a stranger, feeding the wolf of kindness and empathy is
How we live a meaning-full life.
The art of hearing. Within. With-out. In the now. With are entire being – mind, body, soul. And Soul.
This month’s quest also found me very conscious of being fully present in my in-person interactions with strangers. I was traveling in mid-January, arriving to the airport disappointed in myself that I had forgot my one essential travel kit I strive never to leave home without. My notecards.
In past quests I’ve shared how I love to give note cards to strangers. A waitress or waiter in an airport restaurant. A steward or stewardess. A stranger on a plane. Ugh, I forgot! Ok. I will find note cards in a gift shop.
Gift shops closed that early in the morning.
But I can still pay attention in the same way I do that prompts me writing a note card.
And the journey began.
The gentleman standing before the doorway of the plane to collect bags that would no longer fit in the overhead bins. Good morning! How are you? my greetings to this early morning riser hard at work for all of us travelers. I stop to make sure I look this gentleman in the eye and listen to his response. The surprised look on his face spoke volumes.
He had been seen and heard.
On my second leg of the journey I was feeling the rising energies around me of people not feeling seen and heard. Defensiveness streaming to my left and in front of me in the words people were saying about others. Their own internal lens feeling unsafe in some way. Not valued. Not heard. Not seen for what they care about. They didn’t do. They should do. They shouldn’t. I can’t believe he. She just doesn’t care.
And then my soon to be seat neighbor neared me. From the moment she graciously pointed that she was the one to take the empty seat next to me, I knew the energy was about to shift.
We struck up a conversation before the doors of the plane closed. That conversation continued for the nearly 3 hours until we landed at our next destination.
When we both expressed our gratitude our paths had crossed, I heard that inner whisper if I had remembered the cards, I would have missed this puzzle piece meant to snap into place in the picture of my life.
Sure, I might have still had a conversation with this dear soul. Or maybe not. I was more open this day in how I wanted to show up in the world. I wanted to not just acknowledge I was seeing someone for the extraordinariness that they are by leaving them a handwritten note. I wanted to let them know I also valued hearing them.
That their voices matter to me.
True to the quest journey, one “stop” along the trail of this quest leads to the next stop.
Like a brief exchange when doing some banking recently. A new face I had not seen before. As this dear soul was assisting me, an inner whisper nudged ask his name.
I love to see the look on a face and hear the tone in a voice when someone appreciates being heard and seen!
By the way, his name is Marcus. And he shares a similar value as me.
People.
Relationships.
The power of being heard and seen.
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(s). I welcome your handwritten messages or drawn pictures to the address below. Or feel free to email me (Christine@hopewhispers.net)
If you are interested in being guided on a writing journey of stories of your life and / or are interested in going on a listening and hope-filling journey, contact me to take part in one of these courses:
Hope Whispers, Nature Speaks: How Both can Aid us in Reframing our Life Stories
The Puzzle Pieces of our Lives
The Art of Hearing: Within, With-Out, Present, Whole.
Also, if you would like to chat about listening or hope or the river flow of life, contact me at Christine@hopewhispers.net. I’d love to talk with you! I welcome, too, your input on what messages would be of value to you in future Hope Is quests. As mentioned above, in a sea of words and information – and only so much finite time you have – I want to make sure that what you receive from me honors your time. If you are reading these messages, you are giving me an incredible privilege to be a part of the limited time you have. I want to make sure
I make it matter that you are.
Namaste’
The first duty of love is to listen. – Paul Tillich
My goal in life is to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am – Anonymous
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 at Christine@hopewhipsers.net). I welcome sharing their input in a future Hope Is message!
