Welcome. I'm Kevin Miller, and this is a podcast about how we make meaning of our lives and experience the miracle of living.

In this episode, redefining hope and why it is the greatest predictor of your well-being.

I think we've gotten to the point of defining hope as this expectation of something good that's

going to happen in the future maybe. But I've really found that many people who I refer to as

hopeful, they don't exude hope just in the future, but right here and now. A primary definition I found of hope is

simply a feeling of trust. And that's current in the present. So my guest in this episode says

hope is the single best predictor of well-being compared to any other measure of trauma recovery.

So if hope includes having trust and it's relevant for us all to consider how trusting that we feel in our lives, about our lives, not just on other people, but just again, overall, life in general.

So my guest is Dr. Julia Garcia. Julia is a psychologist and author dedicated

to empowering people through the science of mental health. Julia works with people facing life's

toughest moments, helping them overcome fear, doubt, and hopelessness to build lasting habits of

healing and hope. She says her mission is to prove that hope isn't just something

you feel. It's something you practice one habit at a time. I mean, I find hope and trust

seems like it's in short supply in our current culture. And yet I find my own hope ongoing in the just the miracle of living as a constant

fuel for the level of peace and joy that I do have. Julia has written a book on this work

with hope. It's called the five habits of hope, stories and strategies to help you find your way.

We start off talking about these cultural concepts around hope and then walk and talk through

her five habits of hope. So coming up next is my conversation with Dr. Julia Garcia and the

relevance and five habits of hope.

Julia, the topic of hope itself is always an area I am so interested in and hopelessness

both. So I'm eager to dig in there, though even above that, a line that I found,

I think at least twice on your website, and I'm going to read it. You said, we can't always alter

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