The other day we had our first snow of the season up in the mountains where we live. Even though I know snow isn’t falling to personally ruin my day, and yes, I know we need snow, but it triggered the last ten years of having to deal with it. Shoveling. Scraping. Breaking the frozen-over from the night before. Slipping on black ice. At least my car is four-wheel-drive so no more chains to install!
Those innocent white flakes quietly invading my life brought up feelings of hopelessness. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop nature from doing its thing, but hopeless presented itself like an unexpected guest.
Which led me to ponder the epidemic of post-election hopelessness that’s infected countless people right now. Maybe you?
As a word nerd, I looked up the word hopeless. According to Webster, it means impossible to accomplish, solve, resolve, incurable, desperate, despairing, futile, passive abandonment to one’s fate, etc.
Lots of bleak, scary sounding, let’s-just-give-up words.
Losing hope is devastating. It’s the cause of sadness, negativity, powerlessness and constant victimhood. It’s a statement of giving up on life. How often have you heard that someone died shortly after a significant loss? My own grandfather died within months of losing his business.
We All Have Some
To some extent, hopelessness is a core issue for all humans. It’s one that is rarely confronted or understood. We’re told to “look for the silver lining…” or “It’s all good…” In other words, suppress, deny, act-as-if. Which only keeps hopelessness resisted and persisting under the surface, waiting to be unleashed when fear takes over. Especially during times like these.
Well, as you can probably tell (or assume) based on what I teach, I know there is always hope. Especially when things appear bleak. (Sorry, Pollyanna stepped in for a moment.)
Hopeless Triggers
As one who has gone down the abyss of hopelessness more times than I care to admit, I’ve learned that it is another face that triggering takes.
Those hopeless triggers are the deepest levels of subconscious programmed beliefs coming forward, convincing you to give up. They can impact you subtly or dramatically in many ways. Such as: It’s useless to try. Why bother? You’ve always been a failure. This situation is futile. The world will never change.
Hopelessness is the “solution” your primitive, survival-based consciousness comes up with in order to flee from your fears.
I find that once you start allowing your emotions to be felt, you feel deeper levels of everything. Which includes the depth of your denied hopelessness. And that can be scary, which is why many try to suppress or numb it.
Where does hopelessness come from?
Hopelessness comes from a deep belief that life is meaningless, that you are meaningless, that your existence was wasted. If you don’t believe you are fulfilling your True Purpose, you are that much more prone to hopelessness.
You arrive in life filled with hope. “This time it’s going to be great,” you think. “I’m going to have so much fun in this body! I’ll be Love all the time. I’m going to fulfill my Purpose and do it with ease! The world will rejoice at my arrival!”
However, the minute you forget that you are Love and buy into fear, causing pain or loss in some way, you start a downward spiral into hopelessness.
You now believe you don’t deserve power and then feel hopeless about yourself. So of course you feel hopeless about life, relationships, finances, change, health, politics, the world, snow, etc.!
Your subconscious attitude becomes: “I blew it and now life is hopeless.”
Yep, that’s a really uncomfortable mirror to look at.
Hope for Hopelessness
Here’s the good news: Feelings or thoughts about hopelessness often come up shortly before a big life change or inner transformation is about to occur. Sometimes right before you get in touch with or begin doing your Purpose, hopelessness exposes its face. Testing, one, two, three for sure.
Hopelessness can be one of your most empowering teachers. It helps you get in touch with your fears as well as all you are suppressing about yourself. Rather than buying it as truth, see it as the inspiring kick in the butt to help you succeed.
But it’s up to you to recognize, know and believe that you are powerful, even if things appear hopeless. That gets much easier when you know that all situations in your life were chosen to awaken your power, remind you of who you really are, and clean up things from your past.
Feel, Feel, Feel
Feeling hopeless symbolizes being at the bottom, giving up on life and not wanting to be here, things you probably never want to admit feeling.
However, the more you resist feeling your denied hopelessness, you are in a constant triggered state that affects everything, including life’s positivity. You numb out to aliveness, pleasure, joy and love. You can’t experience the present moment.
If you are using coping mechanisms to avoid those yucky feelings of hopelessness, here’s a suggestion: Give yourself permission to sit with it and let yourself really feel. Don’t hold back. Then ask yourself to discover the what it’s really about, what it symbolizes, the actual trigger. Trust what thoughts come to you.
Doing that helps to complete it mindfully, which means you won’t drop into hopelessness as easily the next time you’re triggered. If you need assistance going deep, reach out to me.
Life is Meaningful
True hope comes from a Higher Knowing that your life is meaningful, that expressing your existence is important and Purposeful. Hope comes from knowing you deserve to give and receive love in the form it is meant to take in this life and that you can always do so.
There are big differences between Higher Consciousness hope and fear-based hope. Fear-based hope comes from neediness and is filled with expectations. If you don’t get what you “hoped” for, it triggers you into despair, victimhood, loss, blame, etc. and your ability to create what you want goes with it.
By letting go of your fear-based attachment to life in a physical form, all those expectations about how things have to be, hope can flourish. That’s called trusting the Big Picture, the Spiritual Perfection of life.
Keep in mind that sometimes hope appears in unexpected ways; often when you least expect it. In fact, the more you let go of expectations, the more it shows up.
Bringers of Hope
In case you need another Purpose, here’s a suggestion: Help awaken hope in others. Help them realize that nothing is ever hopeless unless they believe it is.
How? By living your life as a reflection of hope. And, by listening and really hearing when someone is in hopelessness without rescuing or insisting they “look at the bright side.” Help them “trust the process,” knowing that miracles can and do happen. Support any positive, hope-filled actions they feel led to take.
Final thoughts: Taking away hope is one of the goals happening around us right now. Allowing that to happen hands over your power and you stop trying. It’s up to you not to buy into that.
Let yourself tap into even a drop of your hopeful energy. What would you do? What actions would you take?
Know this one thing: There is always hope. Trust that you will find and deserve some.
Well, think I’ll go shovel that beautiful white stuff that’s graciously providing water to my SoCal neighbors and me!
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Royce Morales is the creator of the Perfect Life Awakening program. These time-tested, spiritually based, life-transforming courses and private inner-enquiry sessions escort you to discover and neutralize the origins of self-sabotaging false beliefs. Royce is the author of three books about her teachings, available on Amazon. If you feel ready to break through fear-based programming so you can experience true, purposeful empowerment, reach out at Royce@RoyceMorales.com. Check out her website at www.RoyceMorales.com