Hope, like wellness, is a feeling, a process, and an outcome. Work on the process by which you feel hope and you'll get a hopeful outcome.

I maintain hope because I’m curious about how life will turn out and I value courage, compassion, and connection. In general the mystery of life seems meaningful to me.

I can’t control nor perfect my consciousness. There are forces working on me and in me that I am unaware of and I’ll never have full awareness. Rather than trying to control and perfect my consciousness, I can be humble before the mystery of human life, and enjoy my exploration of it.

A reasonable philosophy of recovery is one that assumes that you’ll get re-sensitized. You’ll get anxious again and you’ll avoid again. You’ll have another intrusive thought and you’ll do something to neutralize it. You’ll have a low mood and have trouble maintaining participation in the activities you value. The resilience of your recovery is marked by how quickly you return to relating effectively to your internal experience, rather than by the absence of thoughts, feelings, or sensations.

It isn’t your fault that you have the biological vulnerabilities or the cognitive and behavioral mechanisms that maintain your illness. Your suffering is unavoidable. It is your responsibility. The way you respond can further reinforce your suffering with shame, self-criticism, and hopelessness. Or, it can give you a sense of meaning. It can make you feel courageous, curious, and compassionate.  

Change as a fact of life is an experiential truth. Try to show me a thought, feeling, or sensation that has never changed in any direction in a single organism. Everything changes.