Hope

Yesterday was  Father's Day, and I made my husband a card that said how lucky our kids were that he always seemed to have hope, no matter how badly they were behaving, especially in their teen years.  I would be the one despairing and taking the situation at the moment into the future (which predicted a bad outcome).  He would remind me to be hopeful and to think of them in 25 years, that they would be fine--after all they came from a nice home and had us as parents.  (That was my fear--that I was a bad parent.)  My attitude would snag me into over reacting and to anticipating the worst.  His attitude would allow him to parent them with judiciousness, viewing them as whole persons, which meant they would listen to him more than they would to me.  In the Yamas and Niyamas, yoga's ethical guidelines which are a roadmap for living, the first Niyama is Purity.  One of its qualities is to enter each moment purely, letting it have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  I was dragging the past into my moment, as well as jumping into the future.  My husband was more successfully trusting the moment.  I still think our kids were fortunate to have two parents, especially one who felt hope for them and their lives, even when they were struggling and misbehaving. 

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without words,

And never stops at all...."

Emily Dickinson