The hope of new growth new world

Reflecting on my experience with emotional growth

My name is Laura Gallant. I am a research associate at the HOPE National Resource Center, and I write many of our blog posts on the HOPE framework, the Four Building Blocks of HOPE, positive childhood experiences (PCEs), and more. When I first learned about the Four Building Blocks of HOPE, I felt a real connection to the Building Block of emotional growth. It made me think about my adolescence and who I am now as an adult. What sticks out to me is my experience of failures. Growing up, I had to gain a deep well of self-love and self-compassion to help me through these difficult experiences, including situations that often felt out of my control.

Finding new measures of success beyond winning a game

For example, I always think about my time playing sports in high school. I played soccer, swimming, and tennis. In each sport, we would lose – very badly. My teammates and I would often leave the soccer field with a double-digit loss. Our team would score no or little points. It could be demoralizing, but it taught me to look for smaller wins in other places. As a team, we would get back on the bus laughing and yelling and cheering