7 Ways To Find Hope When It Feels Like Nothing Will Help
How to reset the patterns that are keeping you stuck.
Peopleimages.com - YuriArcurs | Canva If you’re feeling as if you’re down for the count, you're not alone. I’ve been there and these are the tools that get me up and at ‘em again, with more power and peacefulness so that the problem that caused the suffering begins to be solved the same day it hits you with a body blow.
Learning to self-soothe is the best first step to straightening out any mess that can occur in love, money, health, career, or family. Instead of perpetuating pain, you can learn to reset your life with these tools.
Here are 7 ways to find hope when it feels like nothing will help
1. Practice self-empathy for excruciating self-talk
Excruciating self-talk is usually learned from parents or caregivers. If words like “stupid”, “lazy”, or “ugly” were in your family’s vocabulary you have probably contracted this “virus”, too.
An exercise for excruciating self-talk: A simple replacement exercise for self-talk replaces compassionate words for cruel ones so you can replace vicious self-criticism with self-love.
Start when triggered or unable to be empathetic with yourself. Silently, give self-empathy for a few minutes until you come to peace. Select only the examples below that are appropriate each time you need Self-Empathy.
Examples of self-empathy during a difficult partnership issue:
- When I think about my partner, I feel hopeless because I need support. Then breathe.
- When I think about life at home, I feel despair because I need understanding. Then breathe.
- When I think about yesterday’s argument, I feel furious because I need cooperation. Then breathe.
- When I think about our marriage, I feel sad because I need a partnership. Then breathe.
- When I think about his temper, I feel desperate because I need peace, Then breathe.
This works because you activate parts of your brain necessary for solving your issue, as demonstrated by a study in Scientific Reports. It also works because you become far clearer about your needs instead of lumping everything into a snowball of “Hopelessness”. When you use this skill regularly the additional benefit is you avoid the bottom of the roller coaster altogether by self-soothing before things get out of hand.
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2. Self-soothe to balance neurochemical hopelessness
Feeling hopeless is often caused by neurochemical imbalances described in the Psychopathology Review as taking us from feeling sad to hitting rock bottom. Serotonin, dopamine, or other neurotransmitters are the brain's “natural healthy opioids” but can also bring on hopelessness.
Sometimes, after extreme stress, the body’s ability to rebuild positive brain chemistry is blocked and the more you stress the worse it gets, as supported by a study published in The Journal of Affective Disorders. If you know someone with a mostly sunny disposition, they inherited a better cocktail of these neurotransmitters that allow them to have a positive worldview despite what is happening around them so don’t blame yourself.
One client described his son's incredible response to losing a job. His son was on the autism spectrum and was a chiropractor who was suddenly fired. He emailed 50 resumes that night because he felt no negative emotions to stop him from moving forward with his goals.
When we look at the difference between this man's ability to take action without anger, fear, or despair compared to most peoples’ emotions after a job loss, we can see the cause and the cure for hopelessness can be biochemical and not situational.
I have found great support from consulting an expert to find what will help you. In addition, this exercise short-circuits hopeless thoughts once you learn it and have practiced it.
We can learn to change our mental focus so we opt for positive action instead of reaction almost immediately after a shock. The sooner you begin self-soothing, the faster you heal.
Self-soothing Exercise: “Who’s Looking Through My Eyes”:
- Sit down and look straight ahead. Observe what is in front of you; is it the window and what do you see through the window? Is it a painting or a computer screen? Notice exactly what you are seeing.
- Ask, “Who’s Looking Through My Eyes”. Most people believe they see with their eyes, but this isn’t true. Experience your eyes looking at the view; feel it.
- Move your consciousness backward. Experience your brain behind your eyes. Did you know that it’s your brain that is actually seeing? Did you know that your eyes are part of your brain? Please feel that now.
- Feel who is looking through your eyes behind or above your brain. It is your Soul. See if you can feel your Soul looking at the world; this will calm you very quickly.
- Practice. You can enjoy peace every time you feel frightened, angry, sad, or even hopeless. As you continue to practice this for a few minutes each day, the frequency of suffering and hopeless thoughts will diminish until they disappear.
3. Safely exit a harmful relationship
A common cause of despair and depression is intimate relationships that go sideways more often than not. While any relationship can hit an unexpected iceberg, your ability to self-soothe can often be the first step to a successful turnaround for you and your relationship.
However, relationships that include drug and alcohol addiction, gambling, infidelities, and any form of verbal or physical violence trigger deep despair and are too dangerous to continue. Even discussing an end to the relationship with your partner requires skills, so please do not attempt this alone.
If you believe you can solve your partner’s addiction yourself, Nihon Arukoru Yakubutsu's study on support groups for families with drug problems helps show that a partner or family member cannot. Just as surgeons do not operate on their family members and addiction specialists cannot end a loved one's habit alone, you need professional support.
- Getting a job in another state is the safest way to end abuse instead of fighting about it. If you share custody, this isn’t an option so learning peacemaking is essential.
- If you choose to stay, mastering empathetic communication is your essential tool. It takes training and practice to avoid being the victim while giving empathy to someone who is enraged or in emotional or physical pain.
- Learn and practice empathy. Give focus to the other person’s needs by offering empathy aloud.
- State the observable behavior (facts)
- Anticipate the person’s feelings for examples are they likely to be frustrated, aggravated, annoyed, etc.
- Anticipate the person’s unmet need
- Support and cooperate with respect and consideration..
- Use this phrase: "When I hear you say ____ I imagine you feel ____ because you need ____"
For example, "When I hear you say that I should pay half of the bills, I imagine you feel frustrated because you need support for our finances. And when I hear you say I need to get a new job, it sounds as if you feel aggravated because you need cooperation to work with you to find a better way to pay our bills, have I understood?"
Continue offering empathy until you notice an energy shift. Ask “Is there anything else?”
This single tool has prevented hopeless hours from being wasted on suffering when people have opted to learn to solve painful relationship issues with empathy instead of fighting.
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4. Use whole-brain thinking to problem-solve and plan against hopelessness
When we neglect any area of life such as money, intimacy, peace-making, planning for the future, etc. we will suffer until we enhance our ability to think clearly about situations before they devolve into disasters.
Ned Herrmann's Whole-brain Thinking allows us to think more clearly and prevent and solve our problems. When we learn to use our whole brain to solve problems, we create a life based on more and more consciousness and skills every day.
No matter what causes your feeling of hopelessness today, you can evolve because your brain is changing daily with neuroplasticity so nothing is truly hopeless. If you decide today that you will learn money management or time management; peace-making communication; or how to find a more satisfying job or home, look at this map to see what part of your brain will be enhanced by any of these areas of focus.
5. Practice time management to redirect risky habits
How often have we done something again and again expecting it to work out better than the last time?
Whether it’s dating people who can’t go the distance or taking a job with a less-than-squeaky-clean company, eating foods that are mostly carbs or sugar, risk-taking often goes hand-in-hand with extreme emotions. The great news is you can change yourself today.
Time management is a great support in giving up old habits that cause disasters. Learn to plan daily, weekly, and monthly times for exercise, meditation, fun family activities, additional income-producing activities, etc. so you are building the life you need every day.
- Refocus your mind for success: Most people want more money or love and those who put sufficient attention to a specific goal and follow it with proven effective action produce the greatest success.
- Practice peace: Self-soothing will put you on the comeback trail and pull you out of the emotional basement. If you desire fewer rides on the emotional roller coaster, spend more time practicing self-soothing, meditation, and yoga.
- Consult with strategic proven experts: The fastest route to exit a deep hole requires expertise. Billions are wasted each year by angry people pursuing lawsuits that have no chance of success for them, only a guaranteed payday for their ineffectual or even negligent attorneys. The same is true for people who failed to research medical and financial “experts”. Be sure that you understand what you know and what you don’t know and carefully investigate the people whose advice you will take to avoid disasters that will trigger hopelessness because the skilled expert can transform your life in hours when you listen and learn.
6. Hit the delete button after a disaster
Sometimes the smart move is to hit DELETE after you have survived a difficult situation.
One of my happiest and most successful friends survived a frustrating and dangerous situation. I provided empathy, but he didn’t need it because he said, “I did what any sane person would do, I pushed the delete button.”
The faster you can disconnect from horrifying images and sounds, the faster you can stop the stories in your head, too, and that leads to inner peace, as shown by a study in the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
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7. Step out of a distorted timeline
Research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology demonstrates how many people who suffer feelings of hopelessness are stuck in a false time continuum. In this alternate reality, yesterday’s suffering and today’s suffering bleed into an imaginary future of pain. The truth is, what you feel today doesn't have to happen again tomorrow.
Having the skills and discipline to focus on actions that generate the change you desire requires remembering that what is happening today can be transformed to some degree by tomorrow and if you are consistent with your skills, focus, and actions, a different future rapidly unfolds.
The first step to happiness is committing yourself to finding happiness, it is that simple. Your mind will begin to play tricks with you right away, so you must refuse to be distracted.
Instead of going down the rabbit hole of “why not” or false evidence of disaster, learn any or all of these tools because they have worked for people just like you and have replaced misery and suffering with the hopefulness and inner peace you deserve.
Susan Allan is a Life Coach whose Evolution Revolution Trainings offer proven tools to experience joy, and happiness and let go of suffering.