Harnessing the Power of Hope With Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe

0:03Thank you for joining us for episode 531 of Live Happy Now. As we launch a brand new season, we're going to lead off with something we all could use, hope. I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm talking with author, podcast host, and resiliency expert, Dr. Robyn Hanley-Dafoe. Robyn's here to talk about why hope is so important for both our physical and emotional well-being, and tells us some of the practices we can use to cultivate hope even in dark times. Let's have a listen.

0:33Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Well, Robin, thank you so much for being back on Live Happy Now. I am excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation to come back. This is a conversation I've been wanting to have with you. It seemed like the perfect time and the perfect topic to open up Season 11 because here we are, brand new season, brand new month, and we need some hope. And, you know, hope is so important, but it is something that can be hard to find right now. It really seems difficult to find. And I find it so interesting that you actually conclude your last book, Stress Wisely, with a call to action for us to embrace hope.

1:10So I wanted that to be our starting point today. Can I find out, like, what made you so interested in studying hope? Well, first and foremost, congratulations on 11 seasons.

1:22Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:That is not a small feat. and you just said it like it was ain't no thing. Like that's a big deal. So to each and every one of you who contribute to the success of this podcast, I just hold space to say congratulations. Thank you so much. I just keep shining bright, the work you do matters. So thank you. And to answer your question. So as I've shared with you before, I was studying human resiliency and wellbeing for almost 20 years. And one of the themes that became so evident was this through line of hope. When we're navigating difficult, hard, dark seasons, there is this through line of when we think about human resiliency, that hope is what gets us through that moment.

2:05Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And then when I was working with people around wellbeing and navigating stress, hope just kept on coming to the forefront as this differentiator that this is what we're giving people the opportunity to find a way through. So that led to, again, coming out with this third book, I hope so, because we see that hope makes, it makes the difference. It's definitely the game changer. And where are you at in the process with that book? Well, I'm so excited to share with you and your team. This is the first time I've shared it out loud. So the launch date is February 10th, 2026. So it feels far away, but it's so not, as you know, time seems to go quite quickly.

2:42Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And I'm very excited for this work to make its way out in the world, because as you said, at the top of this, I think we all need a good dose of hope right now. Yeah. And can you tell me what whole hope plays in resilience overall? Yeah. So again, I love that question. So it's the capacity, like when we think about how first to be able to answer that question, I think it's helpful just to do a little bit of unpacking because I think so often the concept of hope gets maybe mixed up or maybe interchanged with optimism. And we know that those are actually two distinct areas, right? They're two distinct focuses because optimism is very much attached to an outcome.

3:23Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Optimism is like, I'm hoping or I'm trusting that this is going to work out or whatever that might be. It's attached to an outcome where hope is more of this philosophy that come what may, I'll be okay. It's trusting that no matter what, we're going to be able to find a way through this. It's leaning into that kind of faith in the unknown, but trusting it enough that it allows us to make the next right step. I love that because that's a differentiation I hadn't heard presented like that. And that is true. A lot of us don't feel optimistic right now, but if we can remain hopeful, that can completely change the journey.

4:03Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Absolutely. And that ability to stay hope-filled, it's very much an inside job. It's not attached to outcomes. It's not attached to political parties. It's not attached to bosses. It's not attached to all of these external forces. It's very much this fuel in terms of how do I make sure that my head and her heart are in alignment so I can show up boldly even when it's scary, even when these are uncertain times. It's very much this practice of learning to let go of what happens next, but being confident that we can take wise directions and steps in that right direction. Oh, that's so tough. Yeah.

4:42And we're going to get into that. But you know, I love it when people talk nerdy to me. So I wondered, you're so scientific. Can you explain where hope sits in our brain and why that's important?

4:56Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Yeah. The processes it controls. There's so many different ways hope actually is part of our physiology and our psychology. And again, even our biology. So for example, we know that when we exercise and our body starts to release these endorphins and we start to kind of feel good, that's actually referred to as hope molecules. Like it's literally hope, like permeating all these different aspects of our biology. Like they're actually called hope molecules. It gives us a sense of lightness, the sense of ease, even though it's hard. And we just start to feel this, like what some people would say, like a runner's high or whatever that might be.

5:36Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:But the way that we describe it in physiology is those are hope molecules literally just polluting our body with goodness. So on a physiological level, it's something that actually moves through our bloodstream. From a psychological perspective, it's a way in which we process information where we're able to maintain perspective. Like we're able to still have those moments of trusting in the dark, right? Being able to walk forward in uncertainty. And it's that little voice that says, you know, you're going to be okay. Right. Or it could even look a little bit like grace. I think sometimes when you're about to say something, maybe in a relationship conversation, or you're doing relationship repair and you're about to say something.

6:19Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And it's that little whisper that says, don't say it. You can't take that back. Right. Like it's just knowing that there's this deep intuition that is in our philosophy. It's in our psychology. It's in our physiology. and we know it makes the difference. And it also makes our amygdala less reactive. Correct. Absolutely. To explain why that's important. And for those of us who aren't as well-versed in the brain as you are, what is the benefit of having a less reactive amygdala? Right. What it does is it puts us in the driver's seat where we're able to respond versus react. And so often when we talk about it as the four Fs, right?

6:59Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:So that's that fight, flight, freezing, and fawning. When those reflexes are enacted or are acting out or are engaged, we're not really making sound decisions. We often talk about this idea that stressed behavior is not our best behavior. It's literally the behavior that's just trying to survive. It's just trying to get out of that situation. It's just trying to minimize the risk or the harm. That isn't our wisest parts of ourselves making good decisions. So whenever we can kind of soothe that amygdala, and if we even think about it, sometimes I remember when I was working early in my career, Paula, with children, we would talk about the amygdala.

7:37Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:It's like the shape of a little almond in our brain about that size. And literally it'd be like, okay, let's just pet the almond, right? Let's just soothe that almond. Let them know that you are in control of what's within your control and you are safe and you're okay. And you're really well resourced to navigate this. Oh my gosh, that's what we all need. We just need like, we need like a live happy shirt that says pet the almond. A hundred percent. Soothe the almond, right? Just smooth and steady. And, you know, and again, sometimes it's that same idea of you look at boiling water, you cannot see your reflection.

8:11Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:But when you look at calm water, you can see your reflection. So again, that same kind of adage plays true that when we are calm and we're able to work with our nervous system, we're able to stay in that place where we can make really wise decisions. And it also has amazing effects on our health. Absolutely. I know so many people right now who are having just weird health things going on. And as you talk to them, it's like, yeah, they're not sleeping. They're pretty amped up about things. They're very worried, very stressed out. So can you talk about how it benefits not just our emotional well-being, but it's also a huge physical factor for us.

8:51Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Absolutely. And the research on hope is so strong in terms of its impact on physiology that there were even studies, for example, when they were looking at cure rates of different diseases or recovery rates that they actually had to control for hope and the variable of spirituality because it was skewing the results. Things were happening that science could not explain. So the only way that they could actually make sense of it, Paul, was actually to kind of put this wee bit of a, this group of people to the side who had spiritual practices or had hope filled practices because it was skewing all the data.

9:29Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:We just couldn't explain things when we don't control for that variable. So we know that it has things that we don't even really know about yet. We know it makes, has a huge part of it. We also know that hope is so important in terms of recovery, but also in prevention. So what we know, for example, is that when things get left unaddressed, right, when people think, you know, I'm not going to go to the doctor because I'm scared on what they're going to uncover, and they avoid treatment, they avoid early intervention, they're putting their risk, they're putting themselves at greater risk. So when we live hope-filled, we trust that, you know what, if we even get bad information or a diagnosis that might feel really overwhelming or scary, it's trusting that we're going to be able to find a way through And as you know, that prevention is such a big deal when it comes to our physical health and well-being.

10:18That's absolutely true. And in 2016, my mother-in-law had a very bad attack of Guillain-Barre. She now has a distinction of being the only human in history that has survived four major attacks. And when she was in a hospital facility, she was what they call lockdown, basically comatose. And we were told that she would not survive that. And my partner was like, well, you don't know my mom. So she came out of that and then they said, well, she's never going to walk again. And again, it's like, you don't know my mom. So long story short, Rachel, her mom now serves on the board of the hospital. And one of the first things that she told them was you have to give people hope because not just the patient, you have to give the family hope and you have to give the staff half hope because she unequivocally says that is what helped her get through that experience.

11:14Yeah.

11:15Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Oh my God. What a powerful story. What a beautiful testament to hope. Yeah. That's her testament to hope. Like that is so powerful and you're absolutely right. And, you know, it reminds me of one of the kind of ways that I started to try to introduce the importance of hope as part of a diagnosis or part of a treatment plan is even if we take that a step further, you know, when people are given a diagnosis, whatever it might be, if the physical elements, like if there's an ailment physical, like a cancer diagnosis or something quite significant, people send casseroles, people show up and they surround that person.

11:49Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And they talk about cure rates. They talk about their chances, which is so important. But one of the things that I saw very early in my research in this area though, Paula, when we're talking about mental health diagnosis, nobody's bringing casseroles. Like when someone is diagnosed with schizophrenia, nobody is showing up at your house with a charity to go for a five kilometer run, right? Nobody's showing up with pink ribbons. Nobody is rallying around families. So if we think about how hope is so precarious, even in physical health conditions, when we think about mental health conditions, it's even more absent.

12:24Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And you're absolutely right. When your mother-in-law says like, hope is the difference. Hope is that differentiator. We need to cultivate hope practices. And I could share really quickly. Often people say to me, well, oh, Robin, we don't want to get their hopes up. We don't want to get their hopes up. And it's like, are you kidding me? Like, absolutely. I want to get people's hopes up again. And they're like, well, what happens if it doesn't work out? It's like, well, what happens if it does? What happens if it does? Or what, why are we basically trying to prevent disappointment or prevent our wellbeing at the cost of trying to control something that's outside of our control versus we're going to go through this experience.

13:02Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:We might as well go through it as hope-filled as possible. Yeah, because even if the outcome, the end outcome is not what you wanted, at least you enjoyed the experience getting there much more than if you were feeling like you're walking through doom and gloom. Exactly. And what we know is that walking through doom and gloom, taxes are cognitive resources. It creates more worry. It has us trapped in this feeling of anxiety, which is our thoughts are trapped in the future, or we get trapped in the past and we feel depressed and we feel helpless and we feel scarcity. So again, it's not setting up the conditions that are going to allow those good things to come into our space because we do know whether people subscribe to kind of some of Einstein work or not.

13:48Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Like he was right. Like attracts like. Lightness attracts likeness. Like it's a law of nature. So if we're sitting here in this pessimistic place or this doom and gloom, the likelihood is we're going to invite more of it in versus if we choose to hold the line. If we choose to hold that line of staying hope filled, it's increasing the likelihood by the laws of nature that likeness will attract lightness. And again, it's not woo woo. It's actually science. It's actually physics. So this isn't manifesting toxic positivity and unicorns and sparkles. And Hey, I love a good uniform corn and sparkles, but what we're doing is setting the container to allow room for those type of what we call those happiness hormones, that serotonin, that oxytocin, that endorphins, like that to take root because those are the conditions where hope can thrive.

14:43We'll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.

14:50And now let's hear more from Dr. Robin Hanley-Defoe. We recognize the need for hope. I don't think anybody listening will say like, no use for it. Hesky hope. Oh, that hope. It just gets in the way of my dreams. So we know the value, but how do we get there? Because it's one thing to see that. It's another thing to wake up and have hope in our hearts and to live with hope. So where do we start?

15:17Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:So where I like to start is kind of sometimes like big and work our way into small, right? Like big picture, 30 ,000 point view. What are we thinking about? I believe this starts with this understanding of our spiritual contracts. Like in my heart of hearts, I believe that all of us are here for a purpose. That doesn't mean everything happens for a reason. It means we're here for a reason and there's work to be done. I believe each and every human being is this person who has a spiritual contract with something greater than ourselves. And I think hope is part of that. And to be able to fulfill this spiritual contract for us to be able to show up and live in our skills and our talents and our gifts, we actually have to create the conditions that allow those things to take root.

16:01Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:So to me, this is like, this is big deal. This like my soul is depending on me making sure that I'm staying hope filled because that will allow me to fulfill my spiritual contract. What does that look like? Let me say real quick, as you say that, that is incredible because we, when we take it to that bigger picture, we'll do something for others or for our soul that we're not going to commit to doing for ourselves. So I love looking at it. It's just not this one little hollow shell that's depending on it, it's a bigger picture. So I love you bringing that up. Yeah. And I love this idea that it's not just about me.

16:38Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And that's one of the things that I think is so important when we think about hope is like, yeah, I benefit from staying hope-filled, right? It's going to bring a bit of ease and a sense of peace and security and feeling well resourced into my life, but it's going to be for me to be able to be of greater good. It's for me to be able to be of service because it benefits everyone. I really believe when we're able to live in this hope-filled way, it benefits everyone. So even though I think, again, I say it's an inside job, it is, but it's an inside spiritual job that allows us to fulfill our spiritual contracts.

17:12Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And again, how do we do that work? This is this kind of idea, and we've talked about this before, that it's hard, but we're choosing our heart. We're choosing to find strategies and techniques to minimize the distraction, to minimize the noise, to minimize the negative influences that we're exposed to, which means that if I'm trying to cultivate a hope-filled moment or a hope-filled day, I'm not going to start by listening to the news on repeat, right? Like I'm going to minimize my exposure to those things. Something else that I know is that when I start my day feeling gratitude, being appreciative, and we know what you are grateful for, that what you appreciate appreciates when we start in that place of sufficiency, it's going to be easier to be able to show up in the day because my head and my heart are in the right spot.

18:03Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:They're aligned. So what do we do during the day? We start, we get up, we have our, this is what I'm grateful for today. My practice, part of my practice involves choosing my word for that day. Today, I'm going to be conscientious. Today, I'm going to be optimistic. Today, I'm going to be mindful. So we go on, we get that day going, and then the overwhelm hits or the anxiety, or we get completely derailed. How do we get back into that space of hope? Yeah. Well, first and foremost, I think we need to, it doesn't happen by chance. We actually have to build a day by design, right? So we, I think we have this propensity and this kind of ties back into that kind of Greek philosophy idea about Syphysis, who's like pushing that boulder up the hill and his punishment when he gets to the top is that he goes down and he does it again on repeat.

18:48Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:and that was like how he was punished. He had to push this boulder up a hill and he had to just do that in perpetuity. I think if we're not careful, a lot of us are doing that. A lot of us are living that day in, day out where we're pushing this boulder up a hill just to turn around and have to do it all over again. So it's by design. So I don't think, again, this happens by chance. So if you said, you start your day and all of a sudden you notice, okay, here I'm in this place of overwhelm or it's gotten really noisy or I've done back-to-back-to-back meetings that I haven't even stopped to get a glass of water or to stretch my legs.

19:22Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:Again, we have to revisit how we're building our day by design. So for example, I build in breaks, right? You want to build in breaks and those are not negotiable, right? Anytime I try to negotiate with myself for my five minute break in between two meetings, I identify that as red flag behavior, right? That's behavior that's going to get me farther away from my goal. That's not behavior that's going to get me closer to my goal. So we design it so that inevitable overwhelm is actually preventable. So tell me how you do that throughout the day to have these stops built in to notice when your body or your mind is going into that place that's going to kind of eradicate the hope that you earlier had.

20:09How do you get that back in the right trajectory? Yeah.

20:12Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:So I think it comes down to clarity, Paula. Like I think we need to have clarity in terms of, again, by design, what are the top three things that I need to accomplish professionally today? Now there might be a hundred things on that to-do list, but it's the clarity of knowing which ones are the most important. And I make sure each day when I start, if it's going to be a work day, that I know exactly what those three priorities are that I'm going to get accomplished. And then I'm going to have a very, a very clear finish line. Because imagine right now, all of us are running a race. We have no idea how long it is.

20:49Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:We have no idea if this is an ultra marathon or if we're like running through the Grand Canyon or if we're, we have no idea. We just keep going and going and going. and often what happens is then we get sick and that's our body basically saying, hey, I need a pause, I need a rest. And there's that kind of example where they say, if you don't pick a day, your body will pick one for you. Oh yeah, and you're not. So we wanna get a bit proactive about how we're doing that. So having clarity that these are the three things that I need to get done. And again, when possible, having that time on task or what we talk about as bunker work, where it's like no notifications, no email checking, no interruptions.

21:29Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And I make sure before I open myself up to other people's agenda for me, I got those three things finished. And then the rest of the day feels a wee bit more flexible, right? We're more adaptive. We have more spaciousness because we already know that we got the good stuff done versus many of us use our email as an agenda, right? And we just go from one item to the next. And then when that finally maybe gets caught up, then we try to do our work. But the invitation is to flip it over because if we could use that really good rested energy, that well caffeinated cell first thing in the morning, we'll be able to do our work with less airs, with more ease.

22:08Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:And then we feel pretty fantastic going into the afternoon, noticing that we've already accomplished what we set out to do today. The rest is now just bonus. Oh, what a great way to move through the day. Yeah. So for people out there who are feeling a sense of hopelessness in general, like where we are headed as a society, where we are at right now, there is like a heaviness right now that we're experiencing. How do we use these same principles to work on something that is so much bigger than us? Yeah. You're asking such an important question. And I don't want to minimize the heaviness and the difficulty that people are experiencing right now, because it is actually really scary.

22:52Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:It is a scary season. It is scary times. It's dark times. When we look back on this, this will not be, they did it really well in 2025. This will be a moment in history where people are going to look back and they're going to study this. And so again, I don't want to minimize just this idea like, oh, it's not that big deal. Choose to be hope-filled. It's not about that. We hold space. And first and foremost, we acknowledge the truth. We acknowledge that this is scary, but we want to acknowledge it in such a way that we don't become paralyzed to do anything about it. So I think we want to be informed, but not overwhelmed, right?

23:30Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:We want to make sure that we are informed, that we are showing up for one another, but not at the cost of our wellbeing. So how to do that is that we want to make sure that we have trusted sources for taking in information, right? We don't want this to be a playing tourism as we go through different media sources and different accounts on social media. Like we're not, we're not social tourists right now taking information from all these different places and spaces. you want to have a very curated brain trust of this is where I get my information from. It's reliable, it's valid. So that way we know we're informed.