Blog
Hope and Home
Hello VSM friends,
My heart is so happy and grateful today as I sit in the reality that I have a new home.
Life has spun a fast web with my partner and I both selling our homes and then finding our dream home, all within 3 weeks…!
This picture is the spring fed creek that runs through the small acreage we are buying. I can’t stop gazing at this photo as I dream into what it will be like to wake up each morning to the sound of frogs, walk down to this creek, sit in the shade of the trees, dangle my feet in the cool water and take in the reality that this will be my home.....
I have a HOPEFUL heart and I want to share with you the 3 steps that got me there…
Learned Hopefulness
HOPE is a skill that can be learned.
My doctorate is a study about using VSM as a tool to ignite HOPE and agency.
Learned Hopefulness is an idea I am writing about that research shows works to raise hope and lower that sense of HELPLESSNESS.
There are 3 steps to raising HOPE.
Step 1- Become real with what is here now. Face the challenges, look at what is not working, be ok with the facts you currently face. This step gets us real. It is not wallowing in the problem, but rather seeing it for what it is and taking responsibility for your part in it.
Step 2- Set goals to change the current situation. This involves looking ahead to where you want to be, how you want to feel, what life could be like within the reality of what is possible. Goal making can involve enormous long-term goals, or small do-able steps towards where you want to be in your life.
Step 3- Take action towards your goal. Ask yourself, what can I do about this? Where can I shift my life, what do I need to actually DO in order for something different to happen, towards my goal.
This is the process of VSM making.
VSM will not work unless you follow all three steps in the HOPE process.
First you must get real with the current situation, what is not working, where are the challenges?
Next you imagine a different reality where the challenges do not exist, and you plan a video teaching a replacement behaviour, a goal to work towards that will change the status quo.
Finally, you create a video, where that goal is a reality, and the challenge is removed.
This is HOPEFUL action. This is believing that change is possible and that YOU have power to make change happen.
I am planning to create ways to work with these ideas from my Doctorate and offer LEARNED HOPEFULNESS work. But first, I need to pack up 2 homes and prepare for my next adventure as a country girl, full of HOPE sitting by a gorgeous creek.
Hopeful Parent Coaching with Anthea
If you would like to talk about some 1:1 coaching to support you parenting through a particularly tricky challenge, and work with these ideas of Learned Hopefulness, please have a look at this link for more information and email me at
VSM Parent Coaching can be paid for using NDIS Parent Capacity Building funds.
Much Love
Anthea