Hope + Resilience - Moving Forward
Hi there, and welcome to Pisces season 2022 (my favorite season of the year)!
If you don't know, we are entering into my full-month birthday celebrations and this year is a big one because I'm turning 30! 🎉 I think I'm also entering my Saturn Return phase and the 2nd "stage" of my life, according to my Human Design profile (6/2, Generator). If none of that made sense to you, I'll link some resources next:
What is a Saturn Return? (article from Bustle)
Human Design profile (in general)
6/2, Generator (article from Interior Creature)
Although I'll be celebrating my birthday all month long with my self-imposed challenge, Boozy Boujee Birthday Bash Content Marathon, that I'm hosting on LinkedIn (connect with me there) - that's actually not the topic that I want to explore with you all today.
Instead, I'd love to explore the feelings I think we all have, which are HOPE & RESILIENCE, and how the two, in my mind, always seem to be tied together.
From 2020 to now, there's been A LOT going on - I'm sure you know. In the current socio, political, economic situation, we still have a lot going on, on top of our regular day-to-day lives, life admin things, and just... living, being, and doing.
Something that's come up a lot for me in the past few months is the exploration of what hope and resilience mean to me. I've been exploring more of my identity, my ancestry, and really getting into my own spiritual practice and the two things that have been constantly revealing themselves is this notion of having hope and being resilient. Which, in my mind sounds tiring, empowering, and natural.
I had to Google the meanings of the two because at one point I thought they could be synonymous - but they're not, according to the online dictionary.
Let me share what came up when I Googled. These two definitions are from Oxford Languages:
Hope (noun) - a feeling of trust
Resilience (noun) - the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness
As a person who identifies as a daughter of immigrants and refugees, who is also an immigrant now, "hope" and "resilience" seem to plague my stories of my parents, my grandparents, my ancestors, myself...
Stories like "having hope that things will get better", "having hope that everything will work out"... or even "the resilience to work towards what I want", "resilience when the odds are against me/us"...
See what I mean when I mentioned that the two words sound empowering and inspiring but also tiring and exhaustive.
What happens when hope and resilience are reminders of continuing to go even when you're tired, never giving up, and holding on to the idea of something "better". It sounds motivational, yes, but I think about my grandparents who I believe carried hope with them and had the resilience to get their family to where they are now, AND the very real situation that they are TIRED. I see my grandparents and they look exhausted.
Then I think about all of us...
We have been living through a pandemic for 2, going on 3 years. There is a climate crisis happening, social justice uprisings, war, attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community, and just blatant ignorance around the fact that we are moving into a global (r)evolution. I think about how I have hope and resilience to push forward, to imagine a better world, to want to WORK to create that better world within my personal development and community work.
I also think I'm really fucking tired. I feel exhausted. I feel like I'm moving through emotional, spiritual, mental upheavals - maybe from my 30th birthday coming up, my Saturn Return, and moving into the 2nd "stage" of my life - and I don't want hope and resilience anymore. I want spiritual peace, for myself. I want emotional stability and maturity, and I want mental space to process and work through things.
I think how I can't let go of hope and resilience, even if I tried because I feel as though it's now built into my DNA. I also think how I take for granted my hope and resilience because it's gotten me to where I am today, it's kept me safe, and it's guided me.
The thing with hope and resilience, in my opinion, is that the two cannot be separated. Although they don't mean the same thing according to Oxford Languages, I feel as though you can't have one without the other. You can't be hopeful, without also being resilient... and you can't be resilient without hope for something 'better' coming along.
*Fun fact that I want to share here - I actually have the word hope tattooed on my body, so this feeling isn't really going anywhere (lol).
So what does this mean for you, me, and us - as a collective, a community, or even as individuals?
What do we do with our hope and resilience?
Great fucking question, Cassandra 😅
I think what we can do is share and pass on those feelings to others who might be too tired to hold onto the two.
We take turns, we share hope, we bring resilience, and we trade on and off with folx who are already tired and hanging on to hope and resilience but feeling burnt.
What does that actually look like for me?
Maybe, when I know I'm emotionally drained or spiritually tapped out, I turn to a support system to regain hope - this could be professional support, my tarot or oracle cards, a conversation with a friend... or anything that is nurturing and nourishing. Or maybe, I give myself grace and let go of shame and guilt for "not" being able to feel hopeful today.
For my resilience, I ask for help, for someone to step in just for a little while I take a break and rest.
And all of that reminds me of community and collectivity. It reminds me of community care and mutual aid - something that I learned from the book "Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice" by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.
So while I'm feeling hopeful and resilient today, I know maybe you aren't - so I want to share that if you need a moment to rest, if you need some hope sent your way, I have the capacity this week! Just hit reply to this newsletter and I would be happy to pull an oracle card to share a message for you.
Moving Forward
We're moving into Spring Equinox energy, for the folx in the Northern Hemisphere.
I'm moving into a new decade of life and shedding 20+ years of old habits, stories, beliefs, and more... I'm also moving through my Saturn Return and into my 2nd "stage" of life...
And with all these energetic shifts and changes, my hope and resilience have changed a bit...
Previously, hope and resilience looked like pushing through things that I didn't love or want, just because my hope was searching for validation and acceptance.
In this new energy, my hope and resilience look more like...
Space and peace for hope to flourish and be rooted in something larger than personal gain
Care for myself and for others
A stronger fight
So as we move through this season together, I'm wishing you lots of beautiful Pisces energy, hope rooted in peace, and the resilience to move towards the change YOU wish to see in the world.
As always, thank you for being here, and thank you for reading words that spill across my keyboard into an email that is so personal.
Sending you Pisces vibes and great energy!
#stayfierce fam 🐙
Cassandra
P.S. Celebrate by 30th birthday with me on LinkedIn! I'll be sharing short 7-10min videos every day (M-F) during the month of March on different topics that cover marketing, business, self-love, travel, multiculturalism, and more.