Chapter 1: Getting Unstuck, or, What Gets in the Way of Willpower and Waypower?

Let me start with a couple of stories. I think they show people struggling to find the willpower and the waypower to move on from loss of hope to active problem-solving.

Here is a quote from Adele Ryan McDowell (1). Even if you don't go to a shaman when you're stuck, read about her struggle:

Years ago, a shaman looked at me and said, “You lost hope. You should never lose hope.”

He was right — and, boy, did I hate that. I have a long history of unflappable optimism. I’m able to make copious amounts of lemonade. I pride myself on my out-of-the-box thinking. But the shaman was right; at that moment in time, I had lost hope.

Further on she writes

“Persistence is the antidote to powerlessness.” I like that; it feels hopeful. However, when I’m hopeless, there is no get–up-and-go. I don’t care; nothing matters because, in my hopeless hole, nothing looks positive or possible. I am awash in unknowing…

Admittedly, the shaman’s comment helped me. It forced me to wake up and become conscious and realize — with a fair amount of chagrin — that my hope had gone MIA. [Missing In Action] I never saw myself like that before. Insights like this are kind of hard to ignore. I was in a quandary. What was I to do?

I decided to do what I do best when I don’t know where to begin — and that is to get organized. In other words, I needed to place everything on the table before me, metaphorically speaking, and work to make sense of it all. I was determined to connect the dots and find the thread that would lead me to my ultimate truth. It was all I had.

McDowell's story shows how even a "long history of unflappable optimism" can give way to a loss of hope. She is a psychologist whose practice blends therapy and the spiritual dimensions of her clients' lives; her blog and website contain honest wisdom and a keen appreciation for the struggles any of us can go through.

Now for a surprise. From her bio, we learn that

Adele is the author of the Amazon best-selling "Balancing Act: Reflections, Meditations, and Coping Strategies for Today's Fast-Paced Whirl" and a contributing author to "2012: Creating Your Own Shift." (2)

She is no stranger to tragedy, but her life has taught her to recognize and harness her willpower and waypower when she needs to. That harnessing restores her hope, and enables her to tap her creativity for the benefit of others..

The next story occurs in a dramatically different setting from Adele's. When the tidal wave destroyed so much of the Samoan coast in September, 2009, one young man, Tafi Banse, reports to an interviewer: (3)

“I stood there and looked to where my house used to be and I couldn’t see my grandparents anywhere. I just cried at that time because I had lost hope.”

His role in the family had been to help his grandparents, to be responsible for them. In the confusion at the time the waves struck, he and his grandparents sought shelter. Tafi was swept out to sea, separated from his grandparents, but was a strong enough swimmer to save himself. His grandparents died in the chaos when their house was destroyed. The interviewer's account concludes:

Two months on, Tafi helps his cousins build their home in the Saleapaga bush. And clear land for the new taro plantation. Grief is edged with guilt. He is the chosen grandson of [his grandparents]Mata and Su’e Esera. Chosen to be their child. Chosen to take care of them.

From a loss of hope at the death of his grandparents, Tafi seems to have moved on to resuming his role as a member of a close-knit community where family members help one another.

What pained Tafi so deeply would seem to be his feeling that he had failed to live up to the trust his grandparents and his community had placed in him, that he would take care of those family members entrusted to him.

As I interpret the story, he has moved far enough beyond his pain to resume his place in the network of help, trust, and hope binding his people. He will need willpower and waypower to continue moving on from his grief, with the support of his community

Hope and Trust: Vital Partners

Knowing that we can count on getting support when we need it adds trust to our hope. Each aids the other:

trust <--> hope.

We gain insight into the link between trust and hope from the writings of the Menninger group.

“Hoping is based on a belief that there is some benevolent disposition toward oneself somewhere in the universe, conveyed by a caring person.” (4)

The group also states:

“Let us then redefine hope as the positive expectations in a studied situation which go beyond the visible facts.” (5)

The words "benevolent disposition toward oneself somewhere in the universe" not only imply a need for trust, but also for faith. We will come back later to this link between hope and faith.

I infer a similar reference to faith from the other quote, about "positive expectations in a studied situation that go beyond the visible facts."

And the fact that this is a "studied" situation? Doesn't that guard against the unrealistic hope that Menninger warned us about earlier? If you have studied your situation, you ought to have spotted the areas where you're being unrealistic.

Here is an admission on a website by Cyndi Orr, who realized she had an unrealistic hope that others would realize how much she was suffering from Lyme disease.

I have to keep in mind that the tendency to complain occasionally is simply human nature. One of my pet peeves when I first became ill was hearing other people express some minor dissatisfaction about their lives. How audacious they were to complain while I suffered so bravely!

Eventually, I realized I was being unrealistic and self-righteous. I too had complained many times before I became ill. By relaxing my unrealistic standards, I broadened my social interactions and felt part of the normal ebb and flow of life. Adapting to a life with chronic illness requires time, patience, courage, and a spiritual shift. My ability to work, my finances, and my relationships have all been greatly impacted. Such multiple losses can overwhelm even the most resilient people. I grieved and gradually looked for ways to add meaning to my life. It took time to develop the courage to meet so many challenges and find the nuggets of wisdom inherent in life's difficulties. Only then could I put bitterness and anger aside (most of the time) and function more like a whole person. But it didn't happen automatically or by accident. Suffering, after all, makes you dig deep because you are in such pain, not only physically, but mentally. I read spiritual books and stories about others' suffering, reached out to people whose lives had taken a similar turn, kept a gratitude journal, watched inspirational movies, and kept looking for ways to feel better. And, eventually, I stopped cursing my fate, and I began to live again.[Bold type added]

From: http://lymedisease.org/text/1331693181.txt

Quoted by permission of Cyndi Orr

As the Menninger group recommends, Cyndi studied her situation. We could say she mentalized: she was able to step back and look at her own feelings of self-righteousness and realize that she was being unrealistic in her expectations that her friends would know how she felt.

We can expand our earlier arrow diagram to this form:

mentalizing <--> trust <--> hope <--> willpower <--> waypower

You step back, check your level of trust and hope. If those levels seem okay, you can probably find your willpower and waypower.

Now we can look at some of many blocks to mentalizing, hope, trust, willpower and waypower. We can look for ways to overcome those blocks in some instances.

In other instances, I will not be able to come up with "how-to-fix-it" suggestions.

Lack of Trust: Not Your Fault!

Don't feel that I'm blaming you if you have some factors in your life that interfere with trust. Most factors come from a mix of causes. I don't think most people want to go through struggles over trust.

We can start exploring some blocks that affect you as an individual. I say "exploring" because, as I just mentioned I don't have answers for some of the situations we'll consider. The most I can do is get you started thinking about your own answers.