All about HOPE

Contents:

1. In a Nutshell
2. HOPE's Story
3. How HOPE Helps
4. HOPE's Growth

In a Nutshell:

HOPE's mission and purpose is to help people in crisis find personal meaning, value, and purpose. This is the meaning of hope. Hope heals. We believe it is everyone’s right to find hope and to heal—to become whole.

The wholeness of healing is the integration and balance of the four elements of Being: Body, Mind, Soul, and Spirit. It is an inner, personal—individual—process. We see every one of us as a unique set of experiences that is not inherently broken, needing to be “fixed”, but inherently whole, even though wounded by the painful forces of change that are a natural part of life. We believe it is our birthright to be able to heal these wounds.

We believe in persons; we have our human-ness in common, and an innate ability to remember our wholeness through all of our sufferings. Our power and strength lie in this ability.

No two of us are alike, so we are all exceptional. It is not an accident that the Creator made us in this way. It is our obligation to find why It did. No two of us have the same knowledge and experience, and we have the innate ability to remember it and communicate it to others—to share it.

We want to share our experience—that which we believe to be true. However, the sharing can only succeed if we do not expect others to change as a consequence. We offer our truth for others to use as they see fit, without condition or obligation.

We know that the ego function of fear blocks our ability to make sense out of life. We know that hope has the power to restore that ability. Whereas fear expects chaos, meaninglessness, and nonsense, hope promises that things can make sense. Hope expects nothing; it makes everything possible.

Ego examines the painful past with the lens of time and projects to a painful future with the same lens. Soul lives in the present moment without projection and examines life through the lens of hope and finds love thereby. Hope takes problems above the level at which they were created, making possible their solution. The experience of this shift in time builds the finest, richest feelings of which we are capable. HOPE helps us to recognize that part of “self” we call the soul, to acknowledge that part of “self” we call the ego, and to invite the two into dialog. We know that the resulting collaboration contributes profoundly to the overall health of the “self”.

We have come to realize that love is, indeed, that which “makes the world go ‘round.” It is the tie that binds all things… it puts everything in relationship. When we base our actions on love, the power of the heart comes into play, and one’s service is compassionate and unconditional. Now we come to accept our uniqueness, let down our barriers, and share our lives with each other.

We know that what we would have happen to us depends greatly on what we give to others. As we choose to free ourselves of guilt and fear; so we choose the way of compassion, forgiveness, and love. We come to let go of the past and of the future and live in the present moment where our entire lives expand into creative dimensions we never before dreamed possible. As hope and love become our individual, personal knowledge, they become our experience, and society and the world are changed.

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HOPE's Story:

HOPE’s founder, Ken Hamilton, MD, grew up in a healing family environment of medical doctors, social scientists, and Christian Science practitioners. From his earliest years, he knew that health was somehow related to love and the Source of all things, and the relationship fascinated him. At eleven years of age, he began a painful struggle to understand this. It became his life’s goal. At fifteen, he committed himself to becoming a physician, and would later specialize in general surgery.

In 1975, when he was 42, Doctor Hamilton met the person-centered practices of Earl Nightingale's organization, Nightingale-Conant Corporation of Niles, IL. Their monthly INSIGHT audiotapes gave him insights into attitudes and behaviors that he found to be of great benefit to his patients. He perceived that this was a psychology of success that was directed toward identifying a person's "core passion" and coaching or guiding the person toward the development of and achievement of it. Here was a business enterprise that was doing the same thing with "ordinary" people that LeShan was doing with patients!

The upshot of all this led to him making the key decision to learn more about psychology. With the help of a close acquaintance in his hospital, he was led to the Portland (Maine) office of the psychiatrist,  Reverend Barry Wood, MD, for tutoring in a range of psychologies. In 1985, Barry encouraged Ken to attend a 12-step Al-Anon program to help him deal with familial control issues, thus introducing him to the most effective of all self-help support groups. When Barry developed a cancer in the summer of 1986, he met Doctor Bernie Siegel, whom he then introduced to Ken. Ken attended a workshop given by Bernie in November, 1986, where he found out about Bernie's unique Exceptional Cancer Patients support groups.

One month later, he participated in a workshop given by Jerry Jampolsky, MD, founder of the first Center for Attitudinal Healing, and who introduced Ken to the concepts of Attitudinal Healing, and their applications in support group settings as "Principles of Attitudinal Healing". What Ken had learned from Earl Nightingale acquired a spiritual context from Jerry's work that came from his study of A Course in Miracles (Viking Press; 2nd edition [March 1996]) Ken now saw how everything he had been experiencing since 1975 could work in support groups.

Shortly thereafter, Sharon Williams, RN, director of the American cancer Society's "I can Cope" series of meetings for cancer patients at Ken's hospital asked Ken if he would consider running a support group for several of her people with cancer. He said he would and found the opportunity to ask five of his own patients with cancers if they would be interested in starting a weekly support group using all of the models that he had been using in his own practice since 1975. They agreed eagerly. The group first met on Thursday, February 12, 1987, and when Ken challenged them with creating the acronym for HOPE, Sharon brought "Healing Of Persons Exceptional" to the next meeting, and the group eagerly accepted it.

They have met every Thursday since then, serving over 800 people in sixteen years. In October of 1987, Doctor Christiane Northrup invited Ken to start a group in Portland for several of her patients with cancer. The Bangor group started seven months later, followed soon by the first Lewiston group. by this time the groups were beginning to include people with other disabling chronic conditions like MS, AIDS, depression, and heart disease. At that time it was clear to Ken that he faced a career choice. Though leaving surgery for HOPE would take him and his wife out of the security of a surgeon's income, he knew that his experience of the preceding years provided an extremely powerful adjunct to all medical therapies. He also knew that he was comfortable with and excited by the impending career change, so he accepted it. His wonderfully supportive wife made the change ever so much more easy.

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How HOPE Helps:

More than two thousand individuals and their families have been helped by HOPE groups, HOPE facilitators, and the lasting relationships that they formed with other HOPE group participants. HOPE has now or has previously established Maine groups in Alfred, Auburn, Augusta, Bangor, Boothbay, Caribou, Camden, Eastport, Ellsworth, Farmington, Hallowell, Lewiston, Portland, South Paris, Wells, and Windham; and New Hampshire groups in Rochester, Lebanon and New London. Many wonderful and fascinating things happen in HOPE groups.

The experience of one group in a Maine coastal town is typical. It was started by two women, one of whom had recurrent cancer and the other was a retired teacher. The group stayed active for five years. It served thirty people. Ten got better, as would be expected, given the nature of their illnesses. Ten died, as would be expected, given the nature of their illnesses. Ten lived who would not have been expected to live, given the nature of their illnesses.

That group stopped meeting when its founder with cancer died, having lived for several years more than was originally expected; no one tried to keep it going when its time had clearly come. And so it has been for some other HOPE groups. In this way, HOPE has served thousands of people since its inception. Its way has been refined and developed into a living process that nurtures those who guide it as well as those whom they guide.

That refinement and development are summarized in the following four questions (each with its appropriate field of belief) that lead to "realizing  your life's intention":

• Who are you? (A call to life from Life, itself, a blessing of LIfe, and a gift of life to Life... including all your gifts and heartbreaks)
• Why are you here? (To fulfill your soul's core passion.)
• How are you going to get what you came for? (A list of those resources of time, place, people, and money that you need to do the work.)

• What are you going to do with it when you get it? (The nature of your service to others and to Life, Itself.)

HOPE has a promise that follows the four questions:

• HOPE promises you that it will do its best to help you get on with the life you've built out of the answers to those four questions.

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HOPE's Growth:

That first Portland group introduced Ken to the work of Viktor Frankl, MD, whose 1959 book, Man's Search for Meaning. Boston:Beacon, is a remarkable story of the power of hope and love in helping humans survive the unbelievable hardships of Nazi concentration camps. Upon reading this profound reflection on the discovery of the meaning of life in its deepest suffering, and rising, like the Phoenix, out of the suffering, Ken realized he had met his "main man." Frankl showed him how all the work he had done and would continue to do was helping people find their way out of the prisons of their bodies and their minds...and it fit perfectly into the work of Nightingale and LeShan.

Ken knew that these groups would not be a direct source income for him (replacing his income as a surgeon). He knew that this work, which follows Napoleon Hill's law that the rewards in life are always in direct proportion to the level and degree of one's service, would remunerate him in other ways. He knew that though it was inappropriate for him to charge a fee for his group work, he could accept their contributions that paid for the use of the meeting site and his gasoline expenses. Thus, he encourages all groups to financially support their guides according to their needs. While contributions from the participants always cover each group's expenses, HOPE has grown through the support of voluntary contributions from both participants and an interested public.

What began in 1987 as a volunteer service remains "volunteer" to this day and for the foreseeable future. However, it is also appropriate for HOPE Groups to be a part of financially remunerative professional services. Health-care practice has undergone tremendous change since HOPE began in 1987. In 2006, time is at a premium in healthcare, compromising the ability to provide care. The absence of care reflects itself in an increased incidence of malpractice suits and physician burnout. Today's patient finds very little opportunity to participate in her or his own health-care decisions because of these time constraints, regardless of their cause. HOPE is in an excellent position to make it possible for those time constraints to fall away and encourage the return of caring to health care. HOPE as a "clinical service" would comprise HOPE Groups guided by professionals (physician assistants, nurses, and physicians). They would provide valuable clinical information to the health-care practice—information protected by the standards of confidentiality of those services. They would provide a confidential forum for patients to discuss their relationships to their therapies and with their health-care providers, out of which the perception of care develops.

Today, HOPE reaches out to people in other ways to help them find meaning, value and purpose in their lives—making sense out of life regardless of what has happened in that life. in 1996, Ken and a group of friends who called themselves The Nurturers developed a workshop they called Circling the Soul, which concentrated the HOPE work into a rich two-day experience of self-discovery, which, today, is known as "SoulCircling" (if you follow this link or either of the next two, use your back button to get back here). HOPE has published a book about the process, SoulCircling: The Journey to the Who. (Order book) HOPE has produced audiotapes of sixteen of Ken's excellent guided imageries that comprise a part of a significant number of HOPE Group meetings. The analog tapes have all been transcribed into digital form that can be custom-ordered on CD's. HOPE has the ability to produce DVDs of its work. All of these products and services can be ordered on this web site. (Order tapes and CD's)

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Page last edited 09/09/2007