“I feel hopeless” is one of the most shared experiences for many of us. It is true that in life, there are times when everything seems to be gloomy. When one faces failure, rejection and unacceptance, negativity creeps in. A negative perspective towards the self, people and situations attracts even more negativity. This is when you feel start feeling hopeless in life and hopeless thoughts start coming in your mind. If you do nothing at this point, you may soon face hopelessness and depression. So, what to do when you feel hopeless and helpless? If you just realize that I am going through a low phase and decide strongly to come out of it, it is the first positive step taken towards being hopeful.
You must first ‘decide’ to live a hopeful life, and the key to start is ‘Positivity’.
What happens when the feelings of despair and hopelessness trigger? Negativity multiplies and everything seems negative! Then, why not put a full stop to the negativity in its beginning? So, how to do so? Well, by first turning your vision towards the positive side of life! Here are the keys to start an energetic and purposeful life when everything seems hopeless:
-
Positivity: When you wear the spectacles of positivity (gain a vision of seeing positive in every situation), your life becomes positive. Positivity attracts favorable situations. We feel hopeful and happy, which removes hopelessness in life. We ignore trivial things that disturb us and focus on the positive side of each case. Positivity motivates us and those around us and reaps success.
-
Prayers: Feeling hopeless is obvious while facing difficulties in life. This is when it may seem to be challenging to remain positive. This is when prayers work to keep us positive. When you pray to God, you surrender all your worries to Him and feel light. When our prayers are heartfelt and faithful, we surely get help from Him.
-
Magical Eraser: There are times when we try to be positive and focus on our present. But the past incidences keep flashing in your minds and disturb us mentally and emotionally. It becomes challenging to ignore such flashes and the resulting negative thoughts. At this point, we wonder how to get rid of these thoughts. This is when the magical eraser will help. It involves following three steps given below to erase each negative thought and impression:
-
Alochana (Confession): Focus on the Lord within the person who comes to your mind on and on or whose negative thought keep coming. In His presence, admit in your mind all the mistakes that happened for or with that person. Here, the mistakes are negative thoughts for that person. They may even include hurtful actions or behavior for that person done in the past. For self-negative thoughts, confess by focusing on the Lord inside you. You now have someone who is listening to you and on whom you can rely by faith. This is an effective remedy to try when you feel hopeless.
-
Pratikraman (Ask for Forgiveness):Now, ask for forgiveness from the Lord within for all those mistakes.
-
Pratyakhyan (Resolve by Asking for Strength): Ask for infinite strength to never repeat such mistakes from the Lord.
-
Isn’t it easy to follow these simple steps whenever negative hopeless thoughts come to your mind?
You may be wondering, but what to do when the other person hurts you?
Interestingly, the answer is that we need to follow the same steps even when we are hurt because we are the ones who want to come out of the suffering. Expecting others to realize their mistakes and heal our hurt will only increase our suffering.
It is worth noticing that thoughts are like the layers of an onion. When we use the magical eraser (three steps) once, only one layer of thought (along with the feeling of attachment or abhorrence) goes away. Nevertheless, we feel light and happy. If you feel hopeless if someone else has been hurting you frequently, this is what you should try.
Start a Store of Happiness :
Imagine that you have a shop of sweets. Would you then not eat sweets whenever you want to? You would also distribute sweets to your near and dear ones, wouldn’t you? You don’t have to go out to buy them; you have ample of them with you. Similarly, let us now open a shop (store) of happiness. In other words, let us make a firm determination of giving only happiness to all those who meet you in this life, whether it is a friend or foe! When we make others happy, our happiness multiplies. This is perhaps the best way to not feel hopeless. When we are full of happiness, we do not have to go out begging for joy. Our relationships will also blossom because people will like to be around us. When you give happiness, you get happiness. So, no feelings of hopelessness will then surface. You only need to make this determination; the rest will happen on its own.
Attain Permanent Happiness :
We all want to be happy and make others happy. But the question is ‘How to be happy?’ Quite often, we decide to be happy but cannot be so. Somehow, we end up being sad. We want happiness that never leaves us. Where can we get such permanent happiness? Well, that happiness is not anywhere outside. It is within us. Our Real Self (Pure Soul) is the abode of infinite happiness. A Gnani Purush (One who has realized the Self and is able to do the same for others) has special powers to make us realize our Self. When we realize our Self, we, too, become the abode of infinite bliss as well as positivity. Self-realization makes our life energetic, purposeful, hopeful and blissful! Then, we will not have to push ourselves anymore to seek happiness; we will find it in abundance right within us!
So, why not meet the Gnani and attain Self Realization to never feel hopeless ever?
