When You Feel Hopeless

One of the most important things to know if you are feeling hopeless is that this is not your forever. I promise that this is not your forever. You will feel hope again. Understanding the contributing factors is crucial. Hopelessness is a liar that tells us, when we look at it, that everything in our life is bad. This is simply not true. If we are housed but hate our housing, the fact that we are not homeless is a positive because we can them start to make a plan to change our housing. This is just one example of the way hopelessness lies to us. It tells us that any solution to what we are struggling with is impossible, and that is simply not the case. Hopelessness creates a false sense of impossibility when it comes to change.

Deconstructing the issues driving and feeding the hopelessness can sometime be better achieved if you imagined what a trusted person in your life currently, from the past, or imagined would do. We all have a reference for a capable person, and looking to the reference and placing our situation in their hands and imagining what they would do starts the process of diversifying thought toward the positive. Once we move past our own perceived helplessness, we can see that we are not hopeless. It is natural for us to fall in states of hopelessness in our lives from time to time. It is also ok to need help to figure out a new way of thinking and approaching the problems you are facing.

If the exercise of imagining what a competent person would do or any of the other methods you have tried do not work, and you are feeling hopeless for 7 consecutive days, it’s time to ask for help. There are free options for support in every city around the world, and a quick google search for “free support line” should bring them up. If the free support lines are not your cup of tea, book with a therapist you are aware of. I like to say “if not me, then someone” because you deserve to feel hope. In my experience, my clients usually are able to feel some hope after the first session, and most are able to be on a path that generates hope within 3 sessions. You are worthy of support and deserve to have more good days than bad. I promise, however bad you may be feeling, this is not your forever.