The Healing Power of Hope: How Mindset and Faith Help Us Through Life's Hardest Moments

The Healing Power of Hope: How Mindset and Faith Help Us Through Life’s Hardest Moments

📝 Episode Description:

Hope isn't just wishful thinking—it’s a mindset that shapes our outcomes. Discover how hope, mindset, and faith can guide you through divorce, illness, or any hardship.

In this powerful Saddle Up segment, Lesa Koski reflects on the healing power of hope—how it played a role in her breast cancer journey and how it’s backed by research from William Miller’s 8 Ways to Hope. Learn how mindset, belief, and the words we speak can shift the atmosphere around pain and fear into one of resilience, clarity, and gratitude.

Whether you're going through a divorce, facing a diagnosis, or walking through hardship with a loved one, this episode will equip you to hold onto hope and take your next step forward.

⏱️ Timestamps:

(00:00) Introduction: Finding hope in hard times

(01:10) What the Bible and psychology say about hope

(02:28) Lesa’s cancer story and the power of her doctor’s words

(05:12) Why hope matters: mindset, healing, and resilience

(07:00) Hope vs. fear: how gratitude creates space for peace

(08:45) A quick plug for Tuesday’s episode on postnuptial agreements

(09:20) Final encouragement: pass hope on to someone today

✅ Key Takeaways:

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• Hope is a mindset that reduces anxiety, boosts resilience, and helps us problem-solve.
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• Words matter—positive, hope-filled language can change outcomes.
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• Surrounding yourself with positive people supports emotional healing.
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• Prayer, gratitude, and trusting others can deepen your sense of peace.
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• Hope is not naive—it’s a strategy for navigating uncertainty and adversity.
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👤 Host Bio:

Lesa Koski is a divorce attorney turned mediator, coach, and podcast host of Doing Life Different. Her mission is to help women over 40 find faith, healing, and fresh starts—whether in divorce, marriage, or life transitions. Her Saddle Up segments offer bite-sized wisdom to help listeners do life better every week.

🔗 Resource Links:

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• 🎧 Tuesday’s Episode on Postnuptial Agreements → [Insert Link]
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• 📖 Book: 8 Ways to Hope by William Miller
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• 💻 Learn more at www.lesakoski.com
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🔍 Tags/Keywords:

hope and healing, mindset in hard times, faith and breast cancer, power of words, resilience podcast, doing life different, women over 40, gratitude and hope, divorce support, Lesa Koski podcast, breast cancer encouragement, 8 ways to hope

Episode Transcript

Speaker (00:00):
Welcome listeners.
Lately I have been askingmyself a lot about hope.
I see Bible verses, I'm seeing articlesabout hope and you know, how do we
keep our hope in heavy times whenthings are hard in our world, when we

(00:24):
go through difficulties, whether it's.
A divorce, a diagnosis, um,something going on with your kiddos.
How does Hope play a role in that?
And I am so excited.
I just purchased a book.
So I will do another quicklittle segment when, um, I get

(00:44):
have read through this book.
But the book is called Eight Waysto Hope, and it's by William Miller.
I'm definitely going to read, read it,because what I'm learning is that hope
really isn't just wishful thinking.
It's like it's complex and it's abouta resilient mindset, which you know

(01:07):
how much I talk about your mindsetand getting your mindset right.
It's very tied to hope.
So I wanna, I just wanna share this withyou, and I probably have talked about
it before, and I did, I had, you know,they caught stage one breast cancer.
I had a really hopeful story.
Uh, my dad kinda had a similarstory with his prostate cancer.

(01:29):
So that's very hopeful.
But what I want you to know, and thisis on my mind because I have to go
to the oncologist just for a checkup.
You have to go for thosecheckups every year, but.
I wanna let her know this too.
What made all the differencewas how much hope my doctor had.

(01:49):
So those words that we give peopleand those beliefs are powerful
if they can share those with us.
And in my case, she was so well, everyoneI talked to is, you're gonna be fine.
98% positive outcome.
Um, I had to do chemo becauseof what was feeding my cancer.

(02:10):
It was called her two.
It wasn't a hormone type of cancer.
So, and then they do chemo, which is greatbecause then you know, they can keep it
away, but not so great when you're reallyterrified of, of going through that.
And there are different kinds of chemo.
And this one was hard, butit wasn't the toughest.

(02:31):
Um, but she told me, she looked me inthe eyes and she said, I think you're
gonna tolerate this really well.
I don't think you're gonna lose your hair.
You're not gonna go bald.
Your hair isn't gonna look the same,you're not gonna keep all your hair.
She was so positive and Iglobbed on and I believed her.

(02:52):
And as I read through thisarticle about this book.
It was interesting because therewas a, a piece in there that
said sometimes it is just better.
And for me it was, it was reallyodd because I'm a digger and
a learner for some reason.
When this happened to me,I stopped and I just went.

(03:13):
I prayed, I surrendered to God, andI trusted my doctor, and I did not go
digging around and I did not look atanything else, and I just listened to her.
I think that is exactlywhat I needed at that time.
So hope can change things.
Hope can change your mindset when you arehopeful, when you are grateful, there's

(03:37):
not as much room for fear and anxiety.
So, um, this article talked about how.
What hope, why hope matters.
And it, it's, it makes us betterproblem solvers because we can use our,
our brain better when we have hope.
When we're not torn up in fear, wecan be more resilient and creative.

(04:00):
It's also contagious, like I justsaid, when my doctor was hopeful
and I am so, um, so hopeful.
For anyone who gets a diagnosis or isgoing through something hard because I
know what matters and I do believe it.
I believe in the hope, I believein, in God answering prayers

(04:21):
and, um, passing that hope along
is so.
It's fulfilling.
It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You know how, when you have hope.
You're drawn toward better things.
You see things in a better light.
It just seems to project you towards that.

(04:44):
I don't really get it.
I don't know exactly how it works, butI am here to tell you, it helped me.
It helped me throughsomething really hard, so.
I want you, if you are going throughsomething really hard or just
kind of hard, I want you to havegratitude and I want you to have hope.

(05:06):
I want you to pray, and I want youto believe that that's possible, what
you're praying for, even if it's akid, if it's a kid with depression or
whatever it is, keep your hope, keeppraying and stay around positive people
because our words are so powerful.
So I just, I felt so moved to get in andtalk about this today, and I just have

(05:28):
to add that, okay, I'm doing divorce.
Different on Tuesday that episodecame out and that is about postnuptial
agreements, which was kind of interesting.
Um.
Go back and listen to that episode.
If you're, if you're going througha divorce or if you're married and
you're going through a life change,you're buying a business, you're

(05:48):
gonna be staying home with the kids.
It's really great information from anattorney that I love, so I just wanted
to recommend that to y'all as well.
Thank you so much for being here.
I am grateful and I appreciate y'all.