The Geography of hope
What I learned about my inner landscape when I stopped simply accepting
I've been thinking about Krista Tippett's idea of "muscular hope"—not the kind that believes everything will work out, but the kind that looks directly at what's broken and refuses to accept it as permanent.
There's a geography to hope, I think. Territories we map inside ourselves.
The Seven-Year-Old Cartographer
A few weeks ago, I sat with one of Krista's journal prompts:
What is hope? Answer the question through the story of your life.
I thought I'd write about the brave moments—quitting a more conventional path, moving continents (several times over), deciding to homeschool my kids for a year, building a creative body of work over decades.
Instead, I found myself writing about being seven years old.
I was standing in our kitchen watching my mother prep for (another) dinner party for my father’s work colleagues. She looked and felt lonely to me. Her shoulders carried a weight I couldn't name. She moved through the motions of love—polishing silver, stirring profiteroles to be baked—but joy felt absent from the room.
I remember thinking with the clarity that sometimes visits children: There has to be more than this.
That wasn't optimism speaking. That was my hope muscle—this tiny, fierce refusal to accept that life had to feel so heavy.
Looking back, I realize that seven-year-old was mapping new territory. Marking places on the interior landscape where suffering wasn't the only option.
The Surprising Superpower
When I was eleven, I discovered something unexpected about myself: I could arm wrestle anyone. It didn't matter how big they were. I was able to conquer.
I’ll tell you. There's nothing quite like the look on someone's face when a little girl, hunched over with force, takes them down without breaking a sweat.
It felt like discovering a secret door in my own house.
This taught me something crucial: we all have hidden superpowers. Capacities we don't know we carry. The question isn't whether you have them—it's whether you'll trust them enough to use them.
My life’s work is helping people find their own secret doors. Reflecting back what I see, until they recognize their own strength. Until using it feels as natural as breathing.
I’m often asked what’s involved in this process? My rewirement at any age post I wrote about—the one so many of you said called to something deep inside you—that's what hope muscle work looks like. Building new neural pathways requires both the courage to let old patterns die and the strength to forge new ones.
The geography changes when we're willing to explore unmapped territory.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Here's what I've learned about hope: it's not comfortable. Real hope attends to complexity. It sees the brokenness and throws everything—inner intelligence, creativity, persistence—behind the insistence that things can be different. Creating something new is possible.
Most people think hope means believing everything will work out. That's not hope. Hope is what happens when you look directly at what hurts and refuse to make it your permanent address.
The people I work with arrive at the same coordinates: they know something needs to shift, but they're standing at the edge of unknown territory. They've outgrown the old maps but haven't yet learned to trust their internal compass.
This isn't a problem to solve. It's a threshold to cross.
And crossing requires the kind of hope that can hold both the weight of what you're leaving behind and the pull of what's calling you forward.
Three Questions for Fellow Cartographers
This is often where I begin with new clients, fresh on our journey together.
What hidden strength do you carry that you're afraid to trust?
What gift lives inside you that you've been too careful to share?
Where are you ready to stop circling the edge and step into unmapped territory?
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With love, Hope
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WOW. Love this reflection! And who know about the arm wrestling! You are always full of surprises and inspiration. Thank you for the reflective prompts as well!
Big hugs to you my "Hope"!
Vinita
Great words, Hopey. I think your inner strength manifests in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways—a penchant for arm wrestling, for example.