The emotion that I’ve been bogged down with lately is a sense of hopelessness. There seems to be a lot of darkness looming and not a lot of light. But as Martin Luther King Jr. has famously said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can”. I hope I can shine some light on different types of hopelessness and how to work to overcome it.
Psychology professors Anthony Scioli and Henry Biller published a book called “Hope in the Age of Anxiety,” and within this work they discuss what they have defined as “9 types of hopelessness.” They argue that each type of hopelessness conflicts with the three basic needs: attachment, mastery or survival. They argue there is alienation, forsakenness, uninspiredness, powerlessness, limitedness, doom, captivity and helplessness. Each of these subsets of hopelessness make one feel small, alone and lost. However, Scioli and Biller believe that recognizing which hopelessness we are experiencing can make the battle easier to win. Mental health writer Therese Borchard has an excellent article where she summarizes the types of hopelessness that you can find it here. The most important part of Scioli and Biller’s book as well as Borchard’s article are the ways to overcome hopelessness and work towards living a life of hope and joy.
The first tip is to analyze the evidence. This may sound confusing at first, but when you go through the process, it truly helps sort your thoughts. When confronted with things like alienation, forsakenness and lack of inspiration, are we actually seeing the way others are experiencing us, or are we concocting situations and piling evidence against them? Are we quick to see the worst in a situation rather than look for the silver lining? When everything that’s going on seems so black and white, so horribly bad or inspiringly good, we need to remember that light is a spectrum. If we fall too heavily to one side, we are likely to break the scale.
Another tip is to stop discounting all the positive things going on and start making a list of everything that has been a success or a joy throughout the day. Getting out of bed, doing well on an online test, walking the dog, sending a text to a friend or even drinking a couple of glasses of water can be wins throughout the day that switch your headspace from a place of doom and captivity to a place of productivity and motivation. Once the gears are turning in a positive direction, it is easier to find hope in even the smallest of things.
If you’re feeling hopeless it’s okay. Make sure you take the time to not only protect your physical health but your mental health as well.