Episode 36: A Conversation with Ruth Fishel: Embracing Hope, Mindfulness, and Transformation

Join Jay DePaolo on the Choices Podcast as he welcomes bestselling author and mindfulness teacher Ruth Fishel. They explore the power of hope, gratitude, and meditation in overcoming life’s challenges. Discover Ruth’s insights from her book Time for Hope and learn how small daily practices can bring light even in the darkest times.

 

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Choices, books, and Gifts where you always have choices.

My name is Jay DePaolo , owner of Choices Books and Gifts in New York City. It's a store dedicated to health, wellness and recovery. For over 30 years, I am the host of our podcast. You always have choices where we dive deep into stories of transformation, healing, and personal growth.

We can be found at 220 E 78th Street, between Second and Third Avenue in New York City, as well as online at Choices gifts.com.

And today, our guest is Ruth Fishel. Am I pronouncing that right? Yes. You are. Excellent, excellent, excellent. Before we get into Ruth, I'm going to read a little bio about her, and then we'll get to know Ruth better.

Okay, good. All righty. So today we welcome Ruth Fishel, a bestselling author, inspirational speaker, and mindfulness teacher. Ruth has over 30 years of experience in meditation, spiritual growth, and emotional healing.

She has touched countless lives. She is the author of several transformative books, including Time for Hope, where she encourages readers to embrace mindfulness and gratitude as pathways to cultivate hope, envy. And even in the face of life's challenges.

We welcome Ruth, and we say hi. Hi, Ruth. How are you? I am very good. Thank you. And I'm happy to be here. We are happy that you are here. All right. Can I jump into some questions with you right now?

Sure. Excellent. So question one, what inspired you to write Time for Hope? And what message do you hope your readers will take away from it?

Okay, well, I am very moved by words. I see words, and they touched me deeply. And I also have been given a gift a long time ago of whatever I learn, whatever helps me.

I have a need and desire to pass it on to others. So that's what happened with time for Hope. I started to see.

Sentences. It quotes. I don't know what it was about. Hope. And just suddenly. I know that was my next book. Yeah. It just was there, and I knew it very often when I wrote a book.

I've written about 20 books, actually, and very often. Yeah, I will have about five ideas in my mind, and I won't know which one to do. And then all of a sudden I'll know. And that's what happened with time for Hope. I just knew that's what I wanted to pass on to people. That's excellent. I love that story.

In the future, I want to learn more about those other books you've written, too.

Our second question for you. How do you personally define hope, and why do you believe it is such an essential part of life? Okay, that is something that I have actually a very short definition right in the book itself. Excellent, excellent.

It's a quote from Desmond Tutu. And Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness. And I thought that was very simple and very, very lovely. And very true. We just we cannot control everything. We can't make the future be exactly what we want it to be. But we have hope that it will be what we want it to be.

And we have. And even if it isn't, we know that we're okay. Absolutely. Absolutely.

What do you say to people who feel hopeless or stuck in difficult circumstances? How can they start to rebuild their sense of hope again? Well, I believe strongly in a power greater than ourselves. Something you can call that God. You can call that whatever.

That's right for you. I believe in that very, very strongly. And so praying to this higher power is one way that we can have hope and through meditation is another way that we get to know ourselves through meditation. And we get to see the negative thoughts we might have. And we see how our own thinking creates our unhappiness.

And we can, once we start meditating more and seeing our thoughts, we can change those thoughts to something more hopeful. And it really makes a difference in how we feel. I like that I use two of those practices myself in my own the praying. I believe in a power greater than myself, and also I meditate every morning after waking up, so I find both of those to be wonderful things, to find hope in.

And one more thing. May I just add to that reading my book time for Hope. It gives you a great it's a wonderful way to get hope. Absolutely. Absolutely. What role does gratitude play in Fostering hope. And how can someone incorporated into their daily lives?

 

Well, that's something I do every morning. I have a gratitude list. And what I do is I actually.

morning. God, I have a good morning, God journal. And then the good morning, God journal. I incorporate a gratitude list, and I do at least five things I write at least five things that I'm grateful for, and that gives me a great deal of hope. That sets me off on a positive attitude.

It fills my heart with hope because good things are happening on my gratitude list. And I read just something funny once, I read that if you can't think of anything else to be grateful for and you're meditating in your bedroom, for example, be grateful you have a dresser. I mean, you know, we can always find something we're grateful for no matter what's going on in our lives.

Agreed? Agreed. 100%.

You have a background in mindfulness and meditation. How do these practices support cultivating hope during challenging times?

Well, mindfulness is merely, I have a definition of  that  I love to use the aware balance, acceptance of the present moment and our experience of the present moment. And if we're carrying around our past with us, we're going to feel helpless.

And if we're fearful of our future, we're going to feel hopeless. But mindfulness, by practicing mindfulness, it brings us into the present moment. And that's where we have hope.

Excellent, excellent.

In  today's fast-paced and often negative world, what practical steps can people take to protect and nurture their sense of hope?

Reading the book time for Hope is certainly one way. People can read it either a day at a time or just flip a page, any page and most often we get the right message at that time. But again, it's prayer and meditation. It's being with positive people. It's journaling. That's another wonderful thing that gives us hope.

By journaling, we let go of again. We can let go of the things that pull us down and that gives us the space to lift us up. I do something else every day. I, I do a daily meditation.

I send off that daily meditation to to my list, and it's called spirit lifters. And that's really what hope is that lifts your spirit.

Very nice. I like that. Can you share 1 or 2 of your favorite exercises or practices from the book that listeners can try for themselves? Well, I'm really repeating myself here, but we're into or into journaling. We're into prayer. We're into meditation. That's all right. That's all right, people need to hear it. Yeah. And we into it. I was reading Gratitude List.

Those are probably the four most important things that one can do to lift one spirits to lift hope.

So we got reading the book, praying, meditation, and the gratitude list. Right. And then journaling can add journaling to it too. Yeah. Journaling is really good to let go of what's what we're holding inside of us that's creating any negativity or any fear.

And one way of letting go is talking to a friend. And another was in journaling. Okay, great. Great How can hope serve as a bridge to healing, whether emotionally, mentally, or spiritually?

Well, when we're carrying with us a lot of the past, a lot of negativity. They've proven scientifically that can make us sick, actually. Oh, yeah.

And I just was somewhere today where a gal was talking about she was in recovery and she was talking about really feeling good in recovery. And then all of a sudden, she realized that she hadn't let go of many of the things that were bothering her from the past. And she was in a, she said, the worst state that she's been in, even when she had been drinking.

And she realized exactly what we're talking about, that she had to release it. Yeah, in order to get hope again. And then the releasing was the talking and the journaling. Just letting go, getting it out of ourselves. Yeah, yeah. Let go and let God. There you go. That's exactly right.

All right. What role does community and connection play in maintaining hope? And how can other people build supportive relationships?

So many times we don't want to let people see who we really are. We're embarrassed, were ashamed. We want people to think that we're perfect. We don't. We just. And we don't share. But as we start to learn to realize that we are not perfect and nobody is perfect, I think that's one of the biggest things that helped me when I learned that nobody is perfect, not just me, that I'm imperfect, but that everybody is imperfect in some way.

Then I was able to have much more hope because I knew that I'd never be perfect in the future, but that I could handle what came up in the future. And I trusted. I trusted my higher power, and I trusted I trusted myself and that was a big thing right there. Takes a lot of pressure off you when you know perfection doesn't really exist.

Do you have any advice for people who are trying to share hope with others who may be struggling, or is that along the same lines that we've been talking? The one thing I would add to that, is sharing your own situation and sharing things that have happened. I share my own story and let people know that I have changed and that I'm not living in fear anymore.

 And I share a couple of little miracles in trusting my higher power. Can I just, do I have time to share one of my. Most certainly do. Go ahead. Okay. I used to my partner and I started out a halfway house for recovering alcoholic women. And at that time, my partner started a program in the prison in Framing him for women.

And she had invited me into teach meditation to the inmates. And at the at first, the inmates were just sitting there with their arms crossed like this. Really? Yeah. Like show me. Right? Right. And all of a sudden I realized I was absolutely no different than they were, that they were in prison because they either committed some crime or they hit somebody in a car.

Something like that. Or and all of a sudden I realized I was absolutely no different than them, that I could be in prison with one more drink myself. And all of a sudden I know that we were the same, that I wasn't any better because I was their teacher.

And that's something changed in me. And they got it. They felt the change, and all of a sudden they were open

and they started really enjoying the meditation class. It was a wonderful moment, just me realizing that I was no different, no better than them. And that was because I had prayed about it, and that's what came from it. That's wonderful. Is that still going on? No, that's in Massachusetts and I that isn't going on any longer.

That was a while ago. Unfortunately. All right. It would be nice if it was. So if I were to ask you to.

Give us some of your best insight of the book, even if you have to read it or something. Something we want to leave the people with something special.

And you have time both. Is there something you'd like to really have us understand and know?

I think that something happens. I think we're led when we ask for help. And I think that any time we just

have a situation, we want to find an answer for, when we want to have more hope for something, just open the page. And so 90% of the time, it's going to open the page to exactly what you need to hear.

I do have another story I'd like to share with you about praying. And it's trusting and having hope. It's about trusting and having hope that you'll have your answers, which I believe, I believe you will when you learn to practice the principles in the book. But again, I was at the prison one day.

I had just left the prison after teaching a meditation class, and this is going way back to the late 80s. And I remember kind of looking up and then saying, praying and saying to God, here I am helping maybe 20 people in the prison and 18 people in the halfway house. I'm teaching them meditation and it's really working.

They're getting much better, but how can I help more people? And all of a sudden I just got write a book, you know, it was just it was incredible. I just had goose pimples as I even said that to you. Yeah, yeah. So trusting that no matter what, even if you don't get what you hope for, you'll get the strength to go through whatever it is that you're going through.

I think that's the most important message, is that you might not always get what you hope for. I might

not get the best car, I might not get the best job. Whatever. But whatever I get, whatever happens in my life, I can handle it because I have hope and the higher power.

Right  it's so interesting because, you know, the message I'm getting from you is, you know, always have hope.

Don't lose hope. Exactly. No matter how dark a time you may be in or whatever it is, you know, reach out. As you said, talk to others, read the book. You know it's funny because,

I think we've gone through similar things in our lives, especially in different, types of healing and programs and whatnot. And the, the opening the page thing, I learned very, a very long time ago. Like, I have a what they call a daily reader, and I wouldn't necessarily read that day. I would just open it up. And I promise you, it always landed on exactly what I needed. And I love that your book does the same thing.

Isn't that amazing? I find that absolutely amazing, right?  Absolutely, So yeah, there's  never a time that I have an open to a page that didn't have a message for me that I needed to hear.

Yeah. So, can I ask you to please hold the book up for us? Absolutely. All right, everyone, so this is it a time for hope. It is a wonderful, wonderful book. It can be purchased on Amazon and, it will also be purchased in choices the bookstore. And we're going to make sure it's online as well.

That's good. Ruth. And get out there and get yourself a copy and just start opening the page just randomly and finding out that's what you need for that day. Ruth. It was such, such a refreshing pleasure to have you. I hope we can have you back, especially maybe on some of the other books you've written as well.

That would be wonderful. I'd love to. Thank you.  I really would. I want some more of that. That would be great. So in the, with that, you know, I have a little closing that I like to read and that is, as we wrap up this episode of the Choices podcast, I hope our time together was inspiring and motivating.

Stay empowered and stay well. You can watch this episode and all of the episodes on our website. On choicesgifts.com .May God bless you and look after you always. Ruth, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. God bless. Thank you.