The Power of Hope • Lecture by Susan Bauer

from July 19th, 2026

We welcome you to watch/listen to the video, read the transcript below, and/or share your thoughts in the comments!

About the Lecturer

Susan Bauer has been a member of the Metaphysical Chapel of Life community since the mid-1980s, serving on the Chapel's Board of Directors in several capacities since 2021, and currently as secretary. She is a Church of Enlightenment certified Healer Practitioner. 

Susan’s career as a senior program manager with the Department of Defense, spanning almost four decades and two tours in Germany, shaped a lifelong practice of thoughtful leadership and problem-solving, all supporting forward-thinking initiatives. 

She has been a practitioner of Jin Shin Jyutsu since 2001, along with hypnotherapy, dowsing, and other energy-based healing modalities.  Susan brings decades of leadership and a lived spiritual practice to everything she offers. Through her spirit of service, she co-created the Chapel's Spiritual Healing Touch class, helping  graduates become Approved Chapel Healers.  Above all, Susan wishes everyone a personal connection with The Source. (Full bio here.)

https://youtu.be/sKp9unXn9bY?si=yHcJUiPJluMDNHsn

The Power of Hope

by Susan Bauer

Thank you. Just a little truth in things with my bio — it was a little long, so Stanley ran it through AI and reduced it. It said over three decades; it's closer to four. And I've been a family member — a wife — for closer to fifty. When they reduced everything in AI, I was hoping it would roll my age back. My husband said no way, so what can I say? But my topic today is the power of hope.

And I'd like to start with a quote from Emily Dickinson. She wrote:

"Hope is a thing with feathers, and perches in the soul, and sings the tune without words, and never stops at all."

Now, I think you all know we're transitioning into the age of Aquarius. And we've been told many times that it's going to be a bumpy ride. Our own Rev. Sharon Flynn has mentioned that, and many others. But the age is bursting with potential. If we focus just on the humanitarian part and equality, we can see that we're moving into a more inclusive and fairer societies in the future, just as example. We're moving to a good place.

However, getting there is going to be a pretty wild ride. Most recently, I've been watching Pam Gregory. She was a United Kingdom astrologer. Many of you may know her. She has spoken that starting in July, July is going to be a very intense month, and it's going to be intense for a while. It's going to affect everything. It's going to affect our weather, our food, our leadership, oil, our electrical grid, everything.

So managing that wild ride is where hope comes in.

Ego Hope vs. Mature Hope

And I tell you, if someone asked you today what your word or words were for hope, you might say optimism, you might say glass half filled. You're all right. But hope is the essence of being positive. And it has more to do with our total well-being than we realize or even appreciate.

Now, from a spiritual and metaphysical perspective, we all know — or we should know — that we have an unlimited stream of well-being, unlimited amount of abundance of anything we need, and it's there for us all the time, as long as we align with receiving. Align vibrationally.

Dr. Shane Lopez — he's a former senior scientist for Gallup and also a psychologist — did a lot of studies about hope. He wrote a couple of books, and I'd like to read his statement:

"Hope is the leading indicator of success."

In relationships, academics, careers, and business, as well as a healthier, happier life. It has to do with our well-being.

On the opposite spectrum, there's something called the lack of hope. Meaning there's nothing to look forward to. There's no vision. You're in a box. It's hell. And if any of you have ever experienced this situation, and I know some of you have, as I have — where, in a particular situation, there is no way out that you can figure — it is hell.

There's also an interesting shadow side to hope. And it happens when our ego gets too involved and starts pushing our lives and our thoughts and our actions. We need to be cautious that our hopefulness doesn't become an ego hope, which is a grasping hope. It's the kind of hope where you want something specific. It's not the evolved kind of hope we want in our lives. It's not the mature kind of hope that's going to help us grow spiritually.

Another aspect of ego hope, or this grasping hope, is fear. Because along with it is the fear that we're not going to get what we want. We tend to chase the markers of success, because we think that's going to make us happy or well-being, and we learn it doesn't.

So the sign of the shadow side of hope, or the ego hope, starts showing up when our life is like a crazy up and down. You meet someone special, you break up. You get a raise, or move into a new job, and you find out the atmosphere is the pits. The boss is not good, and maybe even physically getting there is taxing on you.

So you kind of get the idea. By holding on to ego hope, it then robs you of the present moment. And the ability to enjoy. It doesn't allow you to relax and be at peace.

So mature hopefulness is subtle. And it's sometimes not easy to discern. Yet in our quiet moments, we may notice a sense of "we're okay." A sense of feeling that any challenges we're facing will pass. We're not locked into this point in time, into this experience.

Hope and Well-Being

Hope really matters. It makes a difference in our life experiences — our very physical, emotional, and spiritual being. Many studies have confirmed that hope gives a certain level of resilience against stressful situations. In fact, hope is a buffer to these effects of stress, such as anxiety.

Studies also have shown that hopeful employees have a better well-being, and that translates out not only to their job and their business, but to their families, to their friends, to their community.

So, on a behavioral level, hope also promotes healthy behavior. That includes paying attention to what we eat, so we eat healthier. Exercising more. Quitting smoking. Practicing safe sex. And reducing alcohol where needed.

If we have hope about what is possible, we end up going for it. And 99.9% of the time, you're going to succeed.

The opposite of hope is when there is hopelessness. It's a predictor of depression and suicide. You can't live without hope. You can't live well without hope. In fact, I don't know — has anyone ever met a happy, hopeless person? You know.

So we all know about the placebo effect, and how that helps health challenges — it improves them. When hope is applied, it also helps with many things. Hope affects our neurochemistry, then our brain. Brain endorphins are released, and this can reduce pain. This helps improve our immune system. It helps with our respiration, circulation, and even our motor functions.

A Story from Japan

When we have no hope, we lose our will to live. An article in the New Yorker magazine, not too long ago, indicated in Japan they have twice as many suicides as the United States. Someone takes their life every fifteen minutes.

Editor's note: The above statistic traces to Larissa MacFarquhar's 2013 New Yorker piece "Last Call" and was accurate for that period, when Japan's suicide rate was roughly double the U.S. rate. Since then, Japan's rate has declined substantially while the U.S. rate has risen, and the two have largely converged — Japan's national rate is now only modestly higher than the U.S.'s, depending on the year and dataset. One current concern worth noting: youth suicide in Japan has been rising even as the overall national rate has improved.

That's a lot of hopelessness.

And I shared this little tidbit with Rev. Trish, who's having fun in Norway. And she shared with me a story. She was on a business trip to Japan, and she was riding with one of her Japanese colleagues, to go shopping, and they were discussing cultural things in Japan. After they parked, her colleague said to her, "Trish, look around. Every car is backed in on an angle. Everyone is the same way." And she said, "In Japan, you would not do anything different than this."

So, is that a box? Is that kind of a box?

There's this Japanese monk who decided he would try and help people in Japan that were looking to die. So he did an outreach. And in the normal little outreach, he would say a little prayer to open, he'd have a little meditation. But instead of talking or anything like that, he gave them a piece of paper and a writing instrument. And he told them to sit down and write down everything they wanted to accomplish in the next six months, because they are going to be dead six months from now.

So they're all sitting down, and you can imagine some were going, "okay," and some were writing, and he noticed this gentleman who stood there — he was sitting with paper and pen in his hand. Tears running down his face.

The monk walked over to him. He didn't touch him, he didn't say a word, he just — and the gentleman looked up to him and said, "I have never lived. I have spent my whole life focused on dying."

Now, the good news is that this gentleman had an epiphany, and he did make changes.

Reconnecting with Our Deeper Hope

I think we all realize there's a deeper hope. A grander hope than the ego hope. A hope that happens when we stop thinking about how we want to acquire things, or how we want things — including how our bodies look, our acquisitions, our health.

So I ask you, when you get hopeful, or when you think about hope, what is the context? Ego hope shows up when we are hopeful about a particular thing. We know that. A new job, a raise. That hope always comes bound with fear of not receiving it. Yet still, within our ego hope, there is an opening for possibilities. The possibilities that can unfold, and be more rewarding. And that comes with awareness. Paying attention.

The very nature of hope helps us to remain open to possibilities. And even though life may not turn out the way we expected the first time, second time, or maybe the third time — I don't know — there are opportunities that we never imagined that are coming our way. We just need to realign with hope.

Three Characteristics of Mature Hope

So, if it helps, it helps to notice where hope is. And if you want to close your eyes or keep them open, that's fine. But what I'm going to share with you is an understanding of mature hope. About three basic characteristics. And as we evolve these basic characteristics, our hope will be grounded more in a mature hope. One that brings our highest potential. Maybe a holy hope.

Number 1. That there is an aspiration, a vision, towards our highest potential. And that we keep ourselves open to receiving what we most need.

Number 2. That there is trust that it is possible.

Number 3. That there is energy that will engage and support that vision. That will support our highest potential.

This, then, will lead one to an evolved, mature, or a holy hope. That we can carry always. A state of being, a dimension of our soul.

So when you can set aside some time, scan or sense — see what you feel. See what your connection is. What really matters to you? It might be an aspiration. To serve, to love, to create. Do you have a vision? Is it a feeling?

Hebrew prophets over time have said that without vision, people perish.

Even though many of us may be hopeful in different ways, we may not be remembering our deeper, compelling aspirations. What we really want to achieve. What we really want to manifest. And when that happens, there is a form of depression that normally follows. It's because we are disconnected from our aspiration — what we were intended to manifest, what we were meant to do, to be all we were meant to be.

To that degree that we are disconnected from our aspirations, there is disconnect between our heart and the energy of hope. So reconnecting and getting in touch with our aspirations or our visions is necessary.

So when you get hopeful, or you feel hope, what is the context? Do you trust that it's possible to manifest your vision? Is it possible? Do you know that the force of nature will guide you? Do you call upon your higher self to assist?

Closing Thoughts

In closing, let me share the title Dr. Lopez gave his book, which is Making Hope Happen. And in this book, he discusses the science side of hope, and describes practical ways to improve your well-being. He also provided a definition, his definition of hope, and that is:

"The belief that the future will be better than the present, along with the belief that you have the power to make it so."

But of course, being a spiritualist, metaphysical type of person, I decided to kind of tweak it a little bit. So here's my version:

"The belief that our divine Source is guiding each of us to a better future, along with the belief that each of us has the power, has the wisdom and the power, to make it so."

And one last little tidbit for those who are into numerology, or even if you're not — Hope is a number 7 number. It vibrates at number 7 level. And in Doreen Virtue's book, Angel Numbers 101, this is what the message is:

"You're on the right path, and the outcome will exceed your expectations. The number 7 is a sign that Divine magic is supporting you and opening doors of opportunity."

And so it is. Thank you and blessings to all.