Here’s the thing about hope: You can’t just wait for it to happen. Even in dark times, hope isn’t something that you simply do or don’t have. Like love (hope’s close cousin), hope is an action, a choice that you make again and again. 

So, how do you practice hope?  

First, you need to make space for grief; don’t push your pain aside. When we accept difficult feelings, they move through us rather than get stuck. At the same time, we can take comfort in the beauty and wisdom of the world. Nature knows how to heal itself. Ecosystems restore themselves after devastation; green shoots grow up through the ash after a forest fire. In the same way, we can create the fertile ground on which hope can grow—even small actions can be like the shoots of these first plants.

Find your own ways to create that space in yourself, where there is room for both pain and wonder. It could be through meditation or prayer, music, going for a run, writing in a journal, picking fruit from a tree, taking in the sunset by the sea or a tender embrace.