Welcome to Life after Trauma; I’m Clare Egan. Before we begin, huge thanks to everyone who joined our Creative Gathering last night. It was so lovely to connect with you all 💕 Our next gathering will take place on October 27th, and I’d love to see you there!
🧘 Reminder: I’m hosting a free trauma-informed yoga class on October 13th, alongside trauma-informed yoga instructor Elly Coughlan. You can learn more in last week’s post, and don’t forget to contact me if you’d like to join us. A recording of our session will be made available if you can’t join us live, and all are welcome!
Earlier this year, I sat down with
for a conversation about hope. It grew from an essay I wrote last year about the complexity of hope:
I wrote about the rationality of hopelessness, and the dangers of unearned hope. It was pegged to the American Presidential election, and how devastating it was to watch Hilary Clinton lose the 2016 election.
“It was as if American voters had said to every little girl that if she worked hard, she still couldn’t be president one day. But her abuser could.”
But really, it’s an essay about how hope exists no matter who wins. It’s about hope as a fuel, hope as “an axe you break down doors with in an emergency”1.
Catriona included excerpts from my essay in her Hope Scrapbook, and we had a lovely conversation about it on Substack Live. Today, I’m sharing the recording where we chat about:
The futility of googling for hope
Recovery from trauma beyond therapy
Normalising hopelessnessness during recovery
Rediscovering agency through creative work
And so much more!
I hope you enjoy it!
💕 Huge thanks to
for inviting me to have this conversation. If you enjoyed it, please tap the heart below to help spread the word.💬 In the comments, I’d love to hear your perspectives on hope. Is it a necessary concept, or a problematic one? How do you cultivate hope in your life, especially during the tough times?
If you enjoyed this piece, you might also like:
To quote Rebecca Solnit’s wonderful book Hope in the Dark.
