As John Chaffee, PhD, author of The Thinker’s Way, tells us, “Creativity is not an add-on, something extra that you have to find time for in your busy life. Instead, creativity is a better, richer, more productive approach to doing what you are already doing. It’s braided seamlessly into your life, not a bow that’s added on for decoration.” I would add that our creativity got us to where we are today in our human evolution, and H.O.P.E. Groups are Centers of Creativity.
Creativity works equally well for both good and evil purposes, and it is clear that the “good” exceeds the “evil”. As I look at my country — United States of America — it becomes clear that we are in a destructive phase of our evolution marked by a dumbing down of our creative nature. Just look at all of the promotions for distractions, and what appears to be a ravenous hunger for these same distractions.
Consider that this is not an accident. Rather, it is a product of the imagination of a cabal of humans who live in fear — their own — that they project onto all of humankind. The question is: how far down do we have to go before the destructive trend ends?
I invite all of you who read this post to look into how you have been led to separate yourself from your fellow human beings. We have long lived with the experience that two heads are better than one, but we are forgetting that synergy — bringing minds together — always produces superior results to keeping those minds separate. We can return to that wisdom way… we have done so quite a few times in the past.
If you, like me, see that we are getting into trouble, I suggest that you come together with others of a similar concern to share your creative thoughts with each other, knowing that nurturing each other restores our creativity. There is a body of human experience that tells me — and I share this with you for this benefit — the solutions to our problems lie in coming together in “small groups”.
In February 1987 I created the first small group in my surgical practice for five of my patients who had cancer. They chose to call themselves a H.O.P.E. Group with the letters standing for “Healing of Persons Exceptional”. Briefly, “Healing” means becoming whole; “Persons” includes all of us; and “Exceptional” acknowledges the fact that no two of us are the same. Our focus was, and still is, a process of choosing where we would like to go with our lives, and the attitudes that make that movement possible.
You, too, can focus on that which gives your life meaning, and the associated attitudes that make this possible. You can convene a H.O.P.E. Group yourself, without having to be trained as a counselor or facilitator. Simply visit hopehealing.org/resources, click on the little “Pop-out” symbol in the upper right corner, and there you have it… the .pdf file called “The H.O.P.E. Goldbook”. Reading this at the beginning of every small group meeting gives you and your small group the means to keep the group focused on what it would like to have happen… the group runs itself.
If you wish to be in touch with me, the Founder of H.O.P.E, send an email to hopeheals@hopehealing.org. I’d love to hear from you.
