Never Give Up: Addressing Hopelessness and Developing Hope, Empowerment and Inspiration

Hey there everybody, and welcome to never give 15 tips for addressing hopelessness. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to define hopelessness, explore the connection between hopelessness and helplessness, and identify tips to take back your power and regain hope. So let's start out with what is hopelessness? Hopelessness can be thought of as a feeling that things cannot get any better, there's no hope, nothing I do is going to matter. Helplessness can lead to hopelessness. Helplessness is the notion that nothing I do is going to work. I can't change the situation. And when we keep doing things or we feel like nothing that we can do is going to make a difference, then we start to feel hopeless. A key feature of major depression is feeling helpless and hopeless. It's important to note if you're feeling depressed or are in Crisis, contact your doctor therapist or the National Crisis Hotline at 800-273-8255 or beginning July 17, 2020, 2022, you can just dial 988 to be connected with the National Crisis Hotline. If helplessness leads to hopelessness, what causes helplessness? For some people, it's past trauma or outdated schema. When we experience trauma, it takes away that trauma which, whatever happened, took away our sense of personal power and our sense of safety. And if we're still holding on to that sense of powerlessness and unsafeness because we have not processed that trauma, then it may cause us to feel helpless and hopeless in the future. And it's important to regularly check in when we start feeling hopeless and helpless and ask ourselves in this context at this time, what happened when you were a child or even last week? You know, you are a different person, you are a stronger person now than you were then. So is your schema, Are your beliefs about your power and self safety accurate in this context at this time? Extreme thinking also contributes to a sense of helplessness. All or none thinking if this happens, the sky is going to fall. If this happens, everything I've worked for is going to be for naught. It's important to address our extremes of thinking and really ask ourselves, is, is that true? If this happens, is everything I've worked for all for naught? If this happens, is everything that's important to me going to go away? Am I completely powerless over everything all the time? And while we may not actually say those words to ourselves, in so many words, a lot of times that's what we're feeling feeling. So we need to evaluate are we Telling ourselves that we are completely powerless, completely impotent at this point in time. Another thing that can cause helplessness is focusing on the things you cannot change. In any situation in life, there are things you can change and things you cannot change. Focusing on the things you cannot change is just going to cause you frustration. Trying to dwell on those, dwell on this obstacle that's in your way is going to cause you distress. If you're focusing on that and going, that's there. I'm stuck. Instead, seeing it as that's there. How can I get over it, around it, under it, or through it? Viewing it as a challenge can be helpful. Focusing on the aspects that you can change. You may not be able to move the boulder out of the middle of the road, but you can change your path. You can go around it or climb over it. Focusing only on the things that are going wrong, you can also cause you to feel helpless and hopeless. And I know there's a lot of crap going on right now, and it can be very depressing and it can feel very hopeless. When you watch the news, when you get on, you know, various Internet websites, when you look around, sometimes it can feel, feel like everything, extreme thinking, everything is going wrong. Our brains are wired, unfortunately, to focus on the threats, not on the positives. So it's important to also force yourself to focus on the things that are going right. Recognize that, yes, this over here sucks. And I don't like this, this sucks too. And there are a few things over here that are going right. There are a few things that I can be grateful for. Inaccurate attributions can also contribute to a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. If you applied for a job and you didn't get it, even in this job market where people are crying for help, it may not be about you. Maybe your application arrived late. Maybe you just weren't the right fit for what they were looking for. Unfortunately, and I hate to say it, but it happens, it may not have been a real opening. Some companies require that jobs be posted for a minimum of two weeks before being filled. And even if the hiring manager already knows who they're going to put in that position, but they have to post it anyway, which is really unfair, but it's reality. So in those situations, believing that it is your fault that you didn't get the job is inaccurate in most cases. Now, can that contribute to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness? Well, yeah, to get that job, you're pretty much out of luck. However, it doesn't mean you can't get any job, it means you didn't get that particular job. And you know, it's important to recognize that life a lot of times is about dropping back and punting at the fourth down. Relationship successes or failures are the same thing. A lot of times people feel like they will never get into a lasting relationship or nobody cares about them, never and nobody Extreme language It's important to look at your prior relationships and the ones that failed and evaluate what part of that was on me and what part of that had nothing to do with me. What part of that was totally them. What could I have done differently? What could I have changed and what couldn't I have changed? And I'll give you a hint. You can't change other people. No matter how you try, no matter how much you think you can take them on as a project and mold them, you can't. If they don't want to change, you can't change them. It's also important to recognize that the success of your relationships is also in part due to you. Relationships don't just grow and flourish without work, you know, just like your garden may not. I can't plant a tomato seed and walk away and not do anything to it for six weeks and come back and expect to have a flourishing tomato plant. It just ain't going to happen. It's important to recognize that the same thing is true with relationships. If your relationships regularly fail, it's important to look at that and say, is there something I could be doing differently in order to promote the success of these relationships? Maybe getting in relationships with different people or. Or investing more time and attention in your relationships? There's a lot of different things that may happen. Another one that I hear so often is social media likes. People feel hopeless and helpless and invisible because they posted something and it didn't get liked or shared. Yep, it didn't. It may not be about you, and I think a lot of people understand this concept, but there's also a lot, maybe in my generation that don't. The algorithms that social media uses are based on what they think people want to see. So, for example, I have a bunch of connections on Facebook and if I start liking posts about dogs that are up for adoption, I do a lot of animal rescue stuff. Guess what? The only posts I end up seeing after that are about dogs that are up for adoption. So anything that my other friends post, even that I might be interested in are not going to show up in my feed. I have to go to their feed to like, comment, post to Try to get them back, get their stuff to start showing up front and center again. Even when I select whose stuff that I see, it is very selective. I've noticed that I still don't see all of my best friend's posts if they are not directly related to things that I've recently liked. Therefore, helplessness and hopelessness, if you're not getting the attention or the feedback that you want, maybe because your friends just didn't see. Also can be that for some reason you got put in the social media black hole and nothing you post is going to get shared, period. And that happens a lot with people who run businesses and they use auto posting. Social media really doesn't like that. So a lot of times things you post don't go anywhere. Just saying it's important to really consider why might this post or whatever not be getting liked. Ghosting is another thing that comes up and I don't have that on this slide. But that's another thing that causes people to feel hopeless and helpless. And it's important to evaluate why you were ghosted. And most of the time, I would venture to say most of the time it has to do with the other person either not being who they say they were or having their own attachment issues or whatever, taking it personally and feeling like it's you, that you'll never be able to find somebody. You may want to say, well, this avenue here, being on this social media platform to try to find somebody to be in a relationship, this ain't working too well. So instead of staying on there and continuing to get frustrated, what can you do? Change? Where else might you be able to connect with people? Meetup is a great place. Volunteering is a great place. For some people, the gym can be a good place. A lot of times that's not a great place for socializing. But in some gyms they have like juice bars and things where you can meet other people or group classes. Emotional reasoning can also cause people to feel hopeless and helpless. I feel powerless. I feel defeated. Therefore I must be powerless and defeated. That's not true. You may have lost the battle, but it doesn't mean you're going to lose the war. Something happens, you don't like it and yeah, it was something that you didn't want to happen and you feel defeated in the moment. But does that mean you're completely defeated? Does that mean you are in total danger? And it's important to evaluate the fact that facts in the situation, all right, I lost this battle, so how can I adjust my strategy in order to win the war. And that's an old saying, you know, I'm obviously not talking about war itself, but it's important that we're able to adjust to life as it happens and, and not expect that they were going to succeed or win every everything. I mentioned emotional salience earlier. Our brains are programmed to help us see the threats, the snakes, the sinkholes, the quicksand that could cause us harm. Not the bunny rabbits and the sunrises and the other things that are beautiful and could add richness to life and could help us enjoy life and feel more content. It's important to turn your attention one activity that a lot of people have found helpful and there's even research on it, 20 minutes a day. And in our house, we do it at dinner time. At dinner time, we sit down while we're eating dinner. We, we focus on the positive. What went well that day, what are we hopeful about, what's awesome the other 23 hours and 30 or 40 minutes in the day we talk about anything and everything, but during dinner, we focus on the positive. And that encourages your brain to just take note of, hey, there is positive stuff going on. And it can help deploy or decrease the stress hormones that you've got coursing through your body. Jumping to conclusions based on partial evidence or failure to do due diligence can also cause you to feel hopeless and helpless. The news is horrible for this. Why? Because they want you to tune in. The news survives based on ratings. And if they tell you this happened, but it's really no big deal, are you going to actually tune in to see the story or are you only going to tune in if they say this happened? You better tune in to see how bad it's going to get. Okay, the second one is going to get me to tune in because now my fear, my threat response is activated. It's important to step back regardless of what you're looking at, whether it's a story that you'll like what you're hearing about or you don't like it and say, what else? If it's a good story, what's the downside to this? You know, let's look at the balance, make sure that we're not only seeing the good stuff and cherry picking and if it's a bad story, what else? How likely is this to negatively impact me? How likely is this to impact me in my little corner of the world? I live in a place about 30 miles outside of Nashville. Things that happen in Miami, things that happen in Chicago, things that happen over in California, yes, they are devastating. They are. They make me sad. However, how likely is that to impact my life at this point in time? With the exception of, you know, maybe any sort of volunteering? I do. It's important to recognize that and do due diligence. What else? How likely is this court decision, the Supreme Court makes a decision. How likely is it that it's actually going to impact me? What does it actually mean? Find the text of the bill. I know it takes some work, but I have Never, in my 50 years, I have never heard a news story about the a ruling from the Supreme Court or a law that comes out. I have Never in my 50 years had a story. A journalist actually provide all of the information. They cherry pick the parts that they want you to see and they leave out the parts that they don't. So you need to really ask yourself, what does this mean to me? Does this mean this is a good thing and it's safe? Well, let me make sure that there's not anything, you know, any gotchas hidden in there. Does this mean the sky is falling? Well, let me look and see is, you know, the sky might fall. There's a 1, 1000th of a chance. Okay, well, they forgot to tell me that. So it is important to do due diligence. Same thing on social media. You may be looking at somebody's profile and clicking through and it looks like they have the perfect life. You may be looking at an influencer or a celebrity's profile and it looks like they've got a perfect life. Well, we don't tend to broadcast, especially the average person. We don't broadcast our worst moments. The paparazzi may try to broadcast the worst moments for celebrities, but most of us, if we're going to post on social media, we're posting, we're putting our best foot forward, we're putting on a good face. We don't want to assume that everybody is cheery and happy and their life is perfect just by what we see on social media or in the news. If we're talking about celebrities, you know, go back and look. And a lot of celebrities have multiple marriages and divorces. They have bankruptcies, they have all kinds of stuff. If you start digging, they've got real life. That hits them too, over personalization. And I've touched on that a little bit. But it's important to ask yourself instead of saying, this is all about me, this happened, you know, people don't like me. I am helpless to form meaningful relationships or everything is against me. Instead of over personalizing and assuming it's all about you, find three other alternatives. Why else might your friend not have returned your text? Maybe they dropped their phone in the toilet and so they didn't get their text messages. Maybe they're busy at work. Maybe they are planning on texting you back later, but they're in the middle of something else. I don't know. And don't mistake temporary setbacks for permanent ones. Yeah, again, in life right now, there's a lot of stuff that that is in a temporary setback. However, it doesn't mean that it can't get better. Look, historically, let's take the market for example, because a lot of us are our retirements are in the crapper at the moment. This is a temporary setback. Yes, we are helpless and hopeless to change it in this very moment. However, there are things we can do in order to support the recovery of the economy which will support the recovery of our 401ks in the future. We may not be able to get immediate gratification, but is it permanent or is it temporary? Some more tips to take back your power Explore why you might be resistant to letting go of a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. Some people really seem to want to hold on to that and I found that when I in the last couple of videos that I did, a lot of people were posting very nihilistic statements that there's nothing you can change and the world is always going to be against you. And which is obviously what prompted this, this video. Because I think it's important to explore what might be contributing to you believing in that situation. Yes, in this particular context, maybe you have a very famous family and you can't get out from under their shadow in the town that you live in. You may be powerless to do that in the town that you live in. However, around the obstacle means you got to go to a new town. If you want to get out from under their shadow. It doesn't mean it's hopeless. It just means in this context at this time, you can't do anything about it. But there are ways. If you want to achieve that goal, there are ways to do it. Some people are choosing to hold on to their sense of hopelessness and helplessness because they are angry. They're angry at others for not doing what they were supposed to do. Whether it's their politicians not voting the way they should have, their boss for not doing what they should have, their significant others for not doing what they should have, or even neighbors for not behaving the way that you want them to. And you may feel hopeless and helpless. Maybe your neighbors aren't mowing their lawn like they're supposed to, even though there's an hoa. I don't know. But it causes you anger. And a lot of times people get angry about things and they sit on that anger. Anger and anxiety are very natural emotions, very normal emotions, but they're not meant to be savored. They're not meant to be stewed on. They are meant to propel you to action. All right, I feel angry about this. What can I do if your politicians are not voting the way you want? Well, get active in your local politics and make sure people are getting out to vote. You may not be able to change it right now, but at the next election you might be. If your significant others are not doing what they should do. If they're not, maybe you had a relationship where somebody cheated on you. Okay, well, that really sucks. They did not behave the way they were supposed to in that relationship. Holding everybody else hostage for that and expecting everybody else to do the same, Is that helpful or is that actually creating more harm than. And how exhausting is it to hold on to that? So how can you get into a relationship in the future and try to protect yourself from getting hurt but also be able to have a meaningful relationship? That anger is designed to say, hey, there was a threat. Learn from it so you can protect yourself in the future. It's not meant to say, let's just stew on this and burn up a lot of energy. Stewing on anger and anxiety is like sitting at a stoplight or in the driveway of your house and just revving your engine and burning through that gas. You're going nowhere, but you're heating up the car and you're burning through energy. Some people are afraid to let go of helplessness and hopelessness because they're afraid of failing. And if I get hope, if I think that there might be a chance and I try and I fail, I might not be able to tolerate it. Okay, well, that is a fear. So what could you do in order to have the support in case you fail? How could you reconceptualize your relationship with failure? And, oh, gosh, I can see his face right now. Michael Jordan has a lot of great quotes about failure on the Internet. If you're looking for ways to reconceptualize failure as opportunities to learn or opportunities to grow or. Yeah, there's a lot of ways. And some people may not be willing to let go of that sense of hopelessness and helplessness because they're just so freaking exhausted and they don't have the energy to do anything else. They're out of gas, they're burned out. And it is important, if you're exhausted, to be compassionate with yourself and allow yourself some time to recharge, to build those reserves back up. Before you start trying to make huge changes or even small changes, unhook from your automatic thoughts and feelings. Something may happen. You hear a story in the news, there's a political decision, your boss makes a decision, it's not what you want. You have these automatic feelings of, why did I even try? I'm hopeless, I'm helpless. Okay, unhook from those. Hold them right out. Here I am having the thought that I'm hopeless, or I'm having the feeling that I'm hopeless. Okay, what are you going to do with that? Are you going to hold it? You can carry it around with you? What can you do to release it? What can you do to potentially alter the situation? Get out of the echo chamber, please. If you hang around with people who are nihilistic, who are always doomsaying, who are hopeless, helpless, negative, and that is what they are constantly talking about. You're in an echo chamber and they're just reinforcing the threat, the negative, and pushing the positive any hope of noticing the positive further and further away. Yes, there is always going to be crap. There are always going to be negative things. Unfortunately, that's just life. However, get out of the echo chamber so you can get a more balanced view of life in your corner of the world. Explore the benefits and drawbacks of choosing to dwell on the bad. Hopefully YouTube won't get too angry at me for saying this, but shit happens. It just does. Facts, control and probability based on your facts, not your fears. What is the probability that whatever happened will negatively impact you right now or in the next six months, in the next year, in the next five years? Control. Is there something that you can do to address it? Like I mentioned with politics or the economy, a lot of that has to do with our politicians. There are things that we can do. It's not going to have an immediate impact, but it will have an impact at the next election or as we come out of the bear market. Do you choose to dwell or use your energy on things you can change? You only have so much energy, just like you have only so much gasoline in your car. Are you going to use that energy to fight against things that are not changeable? To argue with Somebody who is not going to change their mind to be angry about something that you can't change, or are you going to use that energy and say, well, can't change that stuff over here. It sucks, I hate it. What I can do is nurture these things that are important in my life, that nurture these situations, create safety in my environment. How is your hopelessness and helplessness impacting your health? When we feel hopeless and helpless, our stress response system is on overdrive. So it's going to negatively impact your energy, it's going to negatively impact your sleep, it's going to negatively impact your pain. You're going to have muscle tension. Your pain threshold actually goes down after a period of time when you're stressed for long enough, you start experiencing systemic inflammation, which further increases pain and reduces immunity. None of that's good. When you feel hopeless and helpless, it's hard to also feel happy at the same time. Now, it's important to recognize there may be things that you feel hopeless and helpless about, but also to notice the things that you're positive about, things that you're grateful for. And how is your hopelessness and helplessness impacting your relationships? Is it causing you to be more impatient? Is it causing you to withdraw from other people? Is it causing you to feed into negativity and actually create some of the echo chamber? Is it draining your energy so you don't have energy to spend with people? Identify what's important in your rich and meaningful life. What people, things, experiences, activities are important? Which of these do you currently have? Go through that list. You know, do you have your health in general? Are there people in your life that love you in general? Do you have pets that you love? Are there things in your life right now that give it meaning? True, you may not have everything you want. You probably don't have everything you want, but do you have some of the things that you want and how can you nurture those to make sure that they continue to flourish? Which of the things that are important in your rich and meaningful life are you completely prevented from accessing? And there may be some. Maybe you had always dreamed of being a lawyer, and you're 55 years old right now and going back to going to college and then going to law school and everything. It's just, it's not in the cars. You, you don't have the time, you don't have the finances, you don't have the whatever. Okay, well, you're completely prevented from accessing that. How does that change your rich and meaningful life? Now, for a lot of people, they are going to say, you know what, I'm just going to move that over here. There are enough other things in my rich and meaningful life that I have that I can grieve, that, say, that's just not going to happen and, and I can move on. You need to decide which of these may need to be adjusted or set aside some things you're going to look at and go, I'd really love to do that, but I've only got so much energy, so many hours in the day, and there's only so much that I can do. So which things might I choose to set aside for now? How are you going to use your time and energy to, to work toward the things that you have left on your list in your rich and meaningful life? How are you going to use your time and your energy to nurture your health, your friendships, to your, your hobbies, your creativity, your goals that you have? If you're using your energy to work towards those things, you don't have energy to fritter away on things that you cannot change. Address burnout and emotional dysregulation when you are stressed, when you're feeling hopeless and helpless, it negatively impacts your sleep. So work on improving your sleep quality. Work on improving your circadian rhythms so you're going to sleep and getting up about the same time. That helps set all your other systems, including your immunity and your hormones and everything else. Have decent nutrition and hydration. That will help your body have the building blocks it needs in order to help you make things like serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine that are going to help you feel things like optimism, excitement and hope. Do things each day that inspire joy and contentment. This is a way of tricking your body into releasing dopamine and endorphins and some of those other feel good chemicals. Practice relaxation every day. Actually manually override that stress response and practice relaxation. 10 to 15 minutes a day to start can be huge in helping you start to recover. Do what you can to feel safe and empowered in your environment. That may mean rearranging things. That may mean putting up inspirational quotes. Whatever it means to you, create an environment that inspires you to feel safe, content to smile, to feel empowered and nurture your supportive relationships. It's also important to get support, guidance and mentorship. If you're trying to change things but you don't know how to do it, ask. There's probably somebody out there who does know how to do it. So reach out to Professors reach out to colleagues, reach out to strangers for that matter, and ask, you know, what would you do? Or do you know how to address this situation? A lot of times people are really happy to help set reasonable, achievable goals. Scale it down. You're not going to change the world by yourself. You can change your corner of the world. What can you do? Start out with you and then your family, and then maybe your neighborhood and community, but work on your aspect of the world. What can you do to make that a happy, healthy, hopeful place? Use your energy to work towards those scaled down, realistic, achievable goals and don't expect them to fall in your lap. For example, you have a job, you have a career and you go to work every single day and you get a paycheck. You're not guaranteed a promotion, you're guaranteed a job. You've got to work to get the promotion. You go to class at school, you're hopefully guaranteed the teacher's best effort to provide you a good education. You're not necessarily guaranteed an A. You got to put in the work housing. Maybe you dream of owning your own house. Well, okay, that's possible, but you may not be able to start there. You may have to start with renting, or you may have to start with a small condo first. And then as you save money, as you get raises in your job, then save up for a down payment on a house finances, expecting to be a millionaire by the time you're 25 or 30, could it happen? It does for some people, but it's not super common and it's not super realistic. So what are some reasonable achievable goals that you can set? Each time you set a goal and you achieve it, you increase your sense of personal power. You reduce your sense of hopelessness and helplessness. So instead of setting these huge goals that you may or may not achieve in 10 years, what is a goal you can achieve that helps you move towards that long term goal? What is a goal that you can achieve this week, this month, in the next three months, six months, year? Each time you achieve a goal, you'll see that you're making progress toward where you want to be. Most people occasionally struggle with a sense of hopelessness or helplessness. It's important to remember that feelings are not facts. Be compassionate with yourself though. Notice the feelings. When you start feeling helpless, hopeless, burned out, rundown, whatever word you want to use, notice the feeling I'm having the feeling of being burnt out. I'm feeling hopeless. Okay, I'm going to unhook from that. I'm going to put it out here. I'm not going to struggle and tell myself I shouldn't feel this way. It's how I feel. What am I going to do to improve the next moment? This is how I feel right now. What are some options that can help me improve the next moment? While you probably will not be able to get everything you want in life all the time, as you become more aware of what you already have and your personal power, you may start to find your hope returning it.