ARE YOU HOPELESS?
Is it hopeless to resolve hopelessness?
Last week we had our final snow of the season, and I say final hopefully! It’s been a relatively mild winter up on our mountain, so I shouldn’t complain. Besides, I know snow isn’t falling to personally ruin my day, and yes, I know we need snow. But it triggered the last ten winters of dealing 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.
There’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop those innocent white flakes from quietly invading my life. But a wave of hopelessness presented itself like an unexpected guest.
Which led me to ponder the epidemic of hopelessness that has infected countless people during these challenging times.
Easy to be one for sure.
Webster says hopelessness 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. You feel sad and powerless, like a total victim. It’s a statement of giving up on life and it can actually cause death. How often have you heard that someone died shortly after a significant loss? My own grandfather died within months of losing the business he built from scratch.
We All Have Some
To some extent, hopelessness is a core issue for all humans. It’s one that is rarely confronted or understood. Rather, we’re told to “look for the silver lining…” or “Things could be worse…” In other words, suppress, deny and act-as-if.
Those “cures” keep you resisting hopelessness and what you resist persists. It lurks under the surface, waiting to be unleashed when fear jumps in. Especially during times like these.
Well, you can assume, based on what I teach, I do know there’s always hope. Especially when things appear bleak. But not by ignoring, denying, or burying it.
Hopeless Triggers
As one who has taken the escalator down the abyss of hopelessness more times than I care to admit, I’ve learned that it’s another manifestation of triggering.
Hopelessness results from activating the deepest levels of subconscious limiting beliefs. Notions about not deserving, not being good enough, convincing you to give up. They impact in subtle or dramatic 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 to flee from those pesky fears. It says, let’s just sit around wallowing in hopelessness rather than trusting, trying again, risking or believing that anything is possible.
Hopelessness Sources
Hopelessness comes from a deep belief that your life is meaningless, that you are meaningless, that your existence is or was wasted. If you don’t believe you are being authentic and fulfilling your True Purpose, you are that much more prone to that hopelessness trap.
Truth is, you arrive in each 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! I chose well to be here!”
The minute you buy into fear, you forget all that. You then justify causing pain or loss to make sure you survive which starts a downward spiral into hopelessness.
You now believe you don’t deserve power and then feel hopeless about yourself. That expands out into feeling hopeless about life, relationships, finances, change, health, politics, the world, snow, etc.!
Your subconscious attitude becomes: “I forgot who I really am, blew it and now life is hopeless.”
Yep, that’s a really uncomfortable mirror to look at.
Hope for Hopelessness
Authentic hope is believing on a deep, fearless level that you have the power to start, change or stop anything in life.
That comes from knowing you chose all situations you find yourself in. Trusting that you can always attract something else, change how you perceive it or leave situations, so truly, there is always hope
Here’s the good news: Hopelessness often rears its head shortly before a big life change or an inner transformation is about to occur. Sometimes right before you connect with or begin doing your Purpose, hopelessness tries to sabotage you. Testing, one, two, three for sure.
More good news: Hopelessness is one of your most empowering teachers. It helps you get in touch with your deepest fears as well as all you are suppressing about yourself. Rather than buying hopelessness as truth, see it as the inspiring kick in the butt to help you succeed.
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 attracted 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.
Keep in mind 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, symbolizing a short step above death to your fear-based consciousness. That’s why many try to suppress or numb it.
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 really feel. Don’t hold back. Then, ask yourself to discover what it’s really about, what it symbolizes, the name of 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 unique 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 despair, victimhood, loss, blame, etc. and your ability to create what you want goes with it.
By letting go of your fear-based attachments, 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 space it has to show up.
Bring Hope Now
Taking away hope is one of the tricky 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?
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. You can do that by living your life as a reflection of hope.
And, listen and really hear when someone is in hopelessness. Without rescuing or insisting they “look at the bright side,” compassionately help them “trust the process.” Remind them that miracles can and do happen. Support any positive, hope-filled actions they feel led to take.
Know for even a minute that there is always hope.
Just so you know, all that snow has melted, and spring has officially arrived!
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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 sessions escort you to discover and neutralize the origins of self-sabotaging false beliefs. AND hopelessness! 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