Show Notes
Hope isn't a feeling you wait for. It's a practice you build.
My guest today, Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe explores the neuroscience, psychology, and resilience research behind hope — and why it may be the most underestimated skill we have. Dr. Robyne draws from her own story of childhood institutionalization and a near-death experience to show how hope can be held even in the hardest places. Her latest book, I Hope So, is born from her lived experience.
We explore the relationship between hope and trust, and what it really means to grow more resilient — not by returning to who you were, but by becoming someone who can carry more. Grief changes us. It's not something we get over; it's something we learn to carry. And hope is how we learn to carry it.
Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe is an award-winning psychologist, education behaviorist, and two-time TEDx speaker with over 18 years of university teaching and research experience. She is known for making complex science feel personal and usable — delivering insight with both rigor and heart.
What gives you life right now? What are you allowing yourself to hope for?
LEARN MORE ABOUT Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe:
Website: https://drrobyne.ca
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_robynehd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drrobynehd
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr_robynehd/videos
JOIN MY COMMUNITY
- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/catherineduncanmabcc/ - Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/CatherineDuncanmabcc - YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@catherineduncanmabcc - Website - https://www.catherineduncan.org
Everyday Awakening with Catherine Duncan is a journey into our heart and soul and oneness with the Universe.
More from Everyday Awakening
In this episode, Catherine explores what we do when we feel off-balance: pause and turn inward, or push our feelings aside and keep moving? She shares the four neuroplasticity steps she practices and teaches, and a simple in-the-moment tool: saying "I notice anxiety right now" instead of "I am anxious," which creates space so the emotion doesn't define us. But the feeling still needs attention. Emotions we don't feel get pushed down and resurface later, leading to numbness and disconnection. Catherine invites listeners to meet hard feelings with curiosity, or, when time is short, to name them and come back later.
What does it mean to find your true self and actually live from there? In this episode of Everyday Awakening, I sit down with Patrick Marando for an honest, heartfelt conversation about turning inward and the quiet pull that guides us home to ourselves.
What does it mean to be truly okay with yourself, all of it? In this episode, Brea Segger and I explore what it means to understand ourselves more deeply and what it looks like to bridge two worlds.
What if your relationship with a loved one didn't end when they died? In this episode of Everyday Awakening Catherine shares how she lost her mother while a world away — but a promise they'd made meant the connection didn't end there. A squirrel that won't look away. Leaves that seem to breathe. Signs, she says, aren't coincidence — they're the world talking. In stillness, she finally hears her mother's voice: It was exactly how it was meant to be. We explore the gifts we all carry — clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience — and why they only surface when we're quiet enough to listen. Her message: we are not alone.
I sat down with Suzanne Giesemann to talk about what it means to live from the soul, that place of light, love, and oneness with all that is.