H.O.P.E. and the Future: expanding our psychology and practice into the world…

Our origins

It has been over 30 years since that first H.O.P.E. Group meeting for five people with cancer in my surgical practice who wanted to help each other get on with their lives… a practice–context I was taught in medical school. Here we are expanding our psychology and practice to deal with the dangers of our future. We have been shown the great effectiveness of the H.O.P.E. Group work in helping us expand that psychology in managing a wide range of challenges from what can be called our “Dark Side”. We have been shown a wonderful and rich variety of that shadow side of life. We have seen how keeping the focus on that which brings meaning and sense to a life – exposing that shadow and its appearance of chaos – leads us to find what Victor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning called the “inner hold” which sustains one’s moral and spiritual self.

These days we find that our species is looking at the potential for its own death. We consume natural resources faster than the Earth can replenish them. Whenever this happens in a species, the species must change or die – it must evolve. As this giant shadow side develops, in our creativity we find the resources to heal Homo Sapiens and Mother Earth. In the last century, we have come to see with clarity that our Universe expands at a great rate. We have brought millions of beautiful scientific minds together to find the point at which that expansion began. To help them we have developed marvelous technologies for measuring this expansion. They show us that it began 13.72 billion years ago deep within what is today a super cluster of galaxies in the constellation Virgo. We have given it a name: The Big Bang.

Consider this: following the same time line, we find that our solar system came into existence 4.5 billion years ago. What happened in that 9.22-billion-year gap? Answer: the whole wondrous Universe was busy in the process of its own evolution and it was not possible to create our solar system before then! As people with richly curious minds look more deeply into what truly comprises evolution, they find it is a process of cooperation… all of its parts working together to become something new and better. This is cooperation… not hostility… the universe works on love. Love – the condition of being in relationship – leads to the inescapable conclusion that we are all together… ONE!

The work

It is going to take the cooperation of all humankind to be able to stop this overwhelming over–population and over–consumption of the earth that threatens us with extinction!
Furthermore, as I look more deeply into the psychology of our behavior, looking at the nature of fear, anger, blame, shame, and guilt, I see that they are illusions that project to time and space that cannot and do not truly exist! There is only one time… NOW. There is only one place… HERE. The Universe is a subjective reality… it is the source of our body… our mind… our life. As spiritual leaders have said repeatedly, “Be here now!” As spiritual leaders and practical mystics like Albert Einstein say, “Every place in the universe is at the exact center of its universe.” Spiritual leaders of this day tell us that the power of the great shift we must bring about lies not with the institutions we have built over the last several hundred years, but in a completely new civilization comprised of individual humans coming together in small groups to help each other get on with their lives, and in so doing we help the Earth Mother get on with hers.

Enter H.O.P.E. Groups…

Our experience with over 6,000 H.O.P.E. Group meetings shows us that these small groups focus on helping people get on with their lives by understanding and letting go of guilt, shame, blame, anger, and fear. They achieve this seeming impossibility by learning to see themselves and each other with the soft eyes of compassion. They focus on living in the now, where they are fully present to each other… in peace. Here, in this state, they come to recognize that every one of them is on a journey of learning to be creative, cooperative, and respectful of each other. They come together to find the wellness that comes with the discovery of peace of mind. They help each other get out of a train wreck of fear, anger, shame, blame, and guilt… finding the way between the trees of the forest of darkness and confusion to a bright, open field with many paths, all of which lead to a bright future rich with creative potential.

Our website, hopehealing.org, contains all the elements anyone might need to convene a H.O.P.E. Group that can help them find their way through that dark forest to the light of creation. We in H.O.P.E. are at your service with our experience and all the resources we have been given over 40+ years of human development work. We have a product line of well-tested guided imageries, carefully written books, and DVD’s of our presentations. We have experience in working with hundreds of people and training those who want to explore our depths. We invite you to come and visit us on line.

In closing

With these insights, we can devote ourselves to helping Mother Nature get on with her life… and ours.
Blessings be… from Kenneth H. Hamilton, MD, FACS (Ret.)