Helen Keller

New Podcast: Hope with a Backbone: What Helen Keller Taught Me About Grief

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In this soul-stirring episode of Journey from Grief to Healing, we explore how choosing optimism in the midst of sorrow doesn’t erase the pain—it simply points us toward meaning, resilience, and renewal. Drawing inspiration from Helen Keller’s extraordinary essay on optimism and Charlotte Brontë’s poem Life, Ray reflects on walking through grief with courage and hope. This episode reminds us that even in our darkest seasons, hope can take root and bloom. You don’t need to start a movement—you just need to live forward, with purpose and heart.

Five Salient Points:

  • Optimism doesn’t remove pain, but it helps guide us through it with meaning and strength.
  • Helen Keller’s life and writing show that resilience and joy are possible even in extreme darkness.
  • Grief invites us to choose: we can fill the void with pity or with purpose.
  • Charlotte Brontë’s poem reminds us that sorrow is temporary, and courage can conquer despair.
  • Small steps toward hope are powerful—living with intention is itself a form of healing.

Hold Nothing Back – Enjoy Life’s Adventure

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“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” ― Helen Keller

Today’s Quote: Believe in Yourself

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Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye. ~ Helen Keller

Thinking Out Loud

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Optimistic People are Hope-Filled People

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, ““Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope. . . . “Optimism is the harmony between man’s spirit and the spirit of God pronouncing His works good.” Pps. 47, 62

NOTE: When we link what we are doing to a higher purpose we are filled to overflowing with optimism. We know, that despite the challenges we face, the setbacks we encounter, that we will triumph in the end. I daily witness examples of this optimistic spirit. I see it at the gym where amputees exercise with the vigor and vitality of a healthy twenty year old. I see it in the faces and actions of ordinary people who experienced tragedy and keep on going believing they still have work to do. Optimistic people are hope-filled people.

Thinking Out Loud

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The Power of Optimism

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.  . . . “the optimist believes, attempts, achieves. He stands always in the sunlight. Some day the wonderful, the inexpressible, arrives and shines upon him, and he is there to welcome it. His soul meets his own and beats a glad march to every new discovery, every fresh victory over difficulties, every addition to human knowledge and happiness.” Pps. 39, 40, 41.

NOTE: When we discard thoughts of the impossible, hate, and fear, and open our eyes and hearts to believing everything is possible, we have an optimistic heart. We have a heart overflowing with joy and love knowing that our path forward will shine a light in the darkness and light the way for others. We know that each day we will make a difference and the world will be better because we live to make each moment better.

Thinking Out Loud

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Choose to be Happy

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, ““If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.” P. 29

NOTE: Each day when we wake we are faced with a choice: Do I choose to believe the best about people and life; or, do I choose to believe the worst about people and life. For me, it’s been a no-brainer. Each morning I wake and announce out loud, ‘I am going to have a great day.’ Then I set myself off to prove I am right. I have many more wins in my column than losses. What we’re searching for, we usually find. Why not search for what is good? Why not believe it is out there waiting for you to pick it up? It is.

Thinking Out Loud

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Today’s Challenges Will Vanish

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “If we compare our own time with the past, we find in modern statistics a solid foundation for a confident and buoyant world-optimism. Beneath the doubt, the unrest, the materialism, which surround us still glows and burns at the world’s best life a steadfast faith. To hear the pessimist, one would think civilization had bivouacked in the Middle Ages, and had not had marching orders since. He does not realize that the progress of evolution is not an uninterrupted march.”. P. 27

NOTE: Helen Keller’s essay, Optimism, was written in 1903 and published in 1904, well over a hundred years ago. Yet, in reading this passage it feels as if it is describing our current circumstances. The passage should give one hope that the  struggles of today will be conquered. We will grow stronger to face a new set of challenges in the future. Yet, we should have no doubt that the human spirit will survive and thrive and that good will ultimately prevail.

Thinking Out Loud

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Do Everything You Do as if it is a Great & Noble Pursuit

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks, as though they were great and noble. It is my service to think how I can best fulfill the demands that each day makes upon me, and to rejoice that others can do what I cannot.  . . . I love the good that others do; for their activity is an assurance that whether I can help or not, the true and good will stand sure. P. 15

\NOTE: There will only be a few of us in any generation who will win a Nobel Prize. Yet, those who win a Nobel Prize stand on the shoulders of the billions of people who work every day and perform tasks that will never receive any notoriety. Keller speaks of each of these unknown tasks as great and noble; Mother Teresa said it a bit differently, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Helen Keller and Mother Teresa give us words to live by, whatever we are doing, do it as if were, at the moment, the most important thing to do.

 

Thinking Out Loud

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A Word of Encouragement Lights the Fire

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “With the first word, I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think, to help. Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live by the hope of reaching it. P. 10

NOTE: Some years ago, I was beginning a new job with great responsibility. Shortly after I began working one of the people who reported to me (he had been in his position for many years) came to me and said, “Ray, you have five daughters and a wife. This job will kill you. You should quit. He left me and I was at a loss for words. I called my wife and told her what happened. She simply said, “You can do this.” That’s all I needed, a word of encouragement from the one I most trusted. I did do it and I did it well. One word of encouragement is all most of us need to open the door to the talent we already have. There is someone in your life who needs a word of encouragement, offer it and you will make all the difference.

Thinking Out Loud

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Love Conquers All

In her work, Optimism, Helen Keller writes, “Once I knew the depth, where no hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I knew only darkness and stillness. Now I know hope and joy. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. Now I rejoice in the consciousness that I can think, act, and attain Heaven. My life was without past or future;  . . . but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand, the clutch and emptiness, and my heart leapt to the rapture of living. Night fled before the day of thought, and love and joy and hope came up in a passion to the obedience of knowledge. Can anyone who has escaped such captivity, who has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist? Pps. 9-10

NOTE: One of my favorite mantras is, “Love always wins.” You’ll see it every now and again on my blog. Helen Keller felt the touch of love. It opened her heart to a new and beautiful world even though she was deaf and blind. That’s what love does to us. It opens up new and beautiful worlds. Love is the miracle that each of us can work. We have the power of love to open up new and beautiful worlds for each other.

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