Why do I feel so bad? How can I find hope?

“I feel so lost – how can I find hope?”

First of all, I am so sorry you are feeling like this. Being without hope is sickening, desperate and awful. It means reaching some sort of lowest point, and not knowing if there will ever be a way out. I have been at this point myself, and perhaps the first thing I want to say is, you are not alone.

I’ve been thinking a lot about hope recently, how to find it, and what it is like being without hope. We are living through very challenging times – for reasons which I know I don’t need to list here – and hope can feel very elusive, or even non-existent, sometimes.

A sense of hopelessness is something so many of us have experienced, and maybe in that there is the beginning of an answer – that you are not alone in the feeling. Others have felt this too, perhaps they are feeling it now, or have felt it in the past, until slowly, almost imperceptibly, their feelings of despair have eased and finally dissolved. The idea that others have felt lost and yet somehow found a way through connects me deeply with humanity.

So, knowing you are not alone is perhaps a first step towards hope.

And, strange as it may sound, acknowledging hopelessness is another.

Acknowledge despair

Before finding a way, we need to know that we are lost. Saying I feel lost – or I need help – is a difficult thing to admit in a culture which prizes resilience and self-sufficiency. There might even be some shame attached to the thought, or it may come with a sense of dread, or of weakness and powerlessness, which perhaps you have been trying to fight for a long time.

There might also be a kind of relief in acknowledging that you are lost. Perhaps there is a feeling of letting go, a sense that you no longer need to battle that critical voice in your head telling you that you should be powering through, or which is shaming you for not feeling better. Acknowledging hopelessness is a way of honouring it, and being kind to it – and by extension, being kind to yourself in the place you are now. Wounds, failure and scars are all part of our humanity – perhaps the greatest part – and there is no shame in saying that, just for the moment, you feel lost.

Meet despair with compassion

Another important aspect of hope is treating your despair with gentleness and compassion. Finding compassion for yourself is often the hardest thing – much harder than being compassionate toward others – but perhaps there is some small part of you which you can be kind to. Maybe it’s your efforts to hold things together for so very long, or the way you have strived to hide your feelings in order to spare others.

If you can’t think of ways to be compassionate towards yourself, perhaps ask yourself how would you would treat others in this situation – or what you might want to say to your younger self, if they were struggling in the way you are now. Perhaps you can put a hand to your chest or your stomach, wherever it is you are feeling your deepest despair, and gently hold it there and let your feelings flow.

There will be a way through – you just can’t see it yet

Hope strikes me as a paradoxical thing. If we are feeling hopeless, what we often want is a clear path through, and for something distinct to change (you probably know what that thing is). Essentially, we are looking for evidence that life will get better. But hope does not need evidence. Hope comes first, and the evidence follows. Which doesn’t mean waiting desperately for hope to come – it is more about making space for the idea that it might, quietly, tiptoe towards you when you are least looking for it.

Making space for the idea of hope is to allow for the possibility of change.

Be your feelings

The psychologist Carl Rogers famously said, “when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” It is quite the paradox, and captures, I think, some of the elusive and paradoxical nature of hope. It strikes me that a fundamental aspect of hope is a quality of allowing and acceptance – that is, being deeply in touch with your feelings, even if those feelings include hopelessness. Once again, this can feel tough and even counter-cultural, given that our society tends to prize success and resilience (and prizes!). But life can feel like being flattened by a truck at times, and the idea that we always have to be strong is an introjected value, around which we can so easily condition our sense of worth. Acknowledging vulnerability is perhaps the most courageous thing anyone can do.

Nothing is permanent but change

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “all things are in flux” – he was the one who noticed you can never step into the same river twice, because that river is constantly flowing and changing. I find comfort in the idea that nothing is permanent. Feelings change, and life will change, and nothing stays stuck forever – which means pain will pass too, as well as joy. For me, this is hopeful. Virginia Woolf, the British writer, said, “a self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living.” This captures the idea that hope and change go together, and that both are about living fully.

The psychology of hope

Hope is a somewhat neglected topic in psychology, perhaps because as a profession we seem to be drawn towards misery and hopelessness! And yet, in my work, I see examples of hope all the time. It is linked with the capacity I see in the human spirit, and my trust in peoples’ agency and ability to find ways through – even if those paths are unclear or invisible to them at first. It has been suggested that higher levels of hope are related to better outcomes in academia, physical health, and psychological adjustment.* None of this means embracing false hope or toxic positivity. Hope is grounded in reality – it is just a subtly different lens through which reality can be perceived.  

Hope might be very faint at times, but it is a quiet voice in the dark, and it is worth listening to.

References

Graham, Daniel W., ' Heraclitus: Flux, Order, and Knowledge', in Patricia Curd, and Daniel W. Graham (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy (2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 2 Sept. 2009), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195146875.003.0006

Rogers, C. R. (1995). On becoming a person (2nd ed.). Houghton Mifflin (Trade).

Woolf, V. 1882-1941. (1942). The death of the moth : and other essays. New York :Harcourt, Brace and company

*Snyder, C. R. (2002). Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind. Psychological Inquiry, 13(4), 249–275. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1448867