Years ago, a shaman looked at me and said, “You lost hope. You should never lose hope.”

He was right -- and, boy, did I hate that. I have a long history of unflappable optimism. I’m able to make copious amounts of lemonade. I pride myself on my out-of-the-box thinking. But the shaman was right; at that moment in time, I had lost hope. I was standing smack in the middle of a dead-end with no openings in sight. My world had become small and limited. I was in a dim, airless box and I saw no way out.

The shaman’s comment -- and, undoubtedly, his healing energy as well – shook me up. My attention had been grabbed, I knew that I needed to make some changes – and fast. I didn’t want to stay in this unconscious, hopeless place, but how was I going to get myself up and out of this hunkered-down position? I was -- after all -- feeling hopeless. My joie de vivre had taken off for parts unknown; my creativity was in hiding. Emotionally, all systems were shut down; I was numb. Energetically, I was contracted into a jumbled knot. Plain and simple, I was miserable and so very afraid to see it. Because if you lose hope, you pretty much lose your footing.

Someone wise once said, “Persistence is the antidote to powerlessness.” I like that; it feels hopeful. However, when I’m hopeless, there is no get–up-and-go. I don’t care; nothing matters because, in my hopeless hole, nothing looks positive or possible. I am awash in unknowing. Clearly, I am disconnected from Source. I am certainly not feeling powerful. Persistence requires a vision and a vision suggests hope. It feels all rather circular and just makes the rut deeper in the hole of my despair. What was I to do? How was I going to break the chain of hopelessness and find better footing?

Admittedly, the shaman’s comment helped me. It forced me to wake up and become conscious and realize -- with a fair amount of chagrin -- that my hope had gone MIA. I never saw myself like that before. Insights like this are kind of hard to ignore. I was in a quandary. What was I to do?

I decided to do what I do best when I don’t know where to begin -- and that is to get organized. In other words, I needed to place everything on the table before me, metaphorically speaking, and work to make sense of it all. I was determined to connect the dots and find the thread that would lead me to my ultimate truth. It was all I had.

So with forced bravado, I turned on all of my interior lights. I wanted to end whatever unconscious hiding, equivocating or resistance there was. It wanted see myself clearly. What had happened to pull the plug on me so completely that it had drained my entire sense of the possible? What events had stopped me in my tracks? What was the truth of my life? Obviously, there was some “something” or a “cluster of somethings” that had worn away my hope and pushed me into the place where I lost complete and utter faith in myself.

I knew I had to be very gentle with myself. I was in fragile territory. I had lost a vital current to my well-being. And I was feeling so low, so oomph-less. With patience, I followed the thread and looked at the reality of what was. I allowed myself to feel the pain and anguish of it all. And I worked hard to accept the reality of what I had been unable to accept, but to do that I needed to walk to the edge of my personal cliff and not jump.

In other words, I needed to forgive myself -- forgive myself for what could have been, what should have been or what would have been; forgive myself for what I didn’t see, what I didn’t trust or what I didn’t believe. I needed to break open my ice-jammed feelings; they had kept me blocked and locked and I was ready to flow again.

It was helpful to remind myself that I had done what seemed right at the time -– some of it was my best, some of it was expedient; most of it was based on faith and some of it based on fear. I realized now I made choices based on the consciousness I held at that time. I told myself, “It’s OK. I’m human; I’m a work in progress. This is how I learn.”

With acceptance and the oh-so-hard forgiveness of my all-too-human self, I was able to take a deeper breath and take a tiny step forward. And, you know how it goes, one step led to another, and then to another and, before you know, there was a bit of momentum and some traction and I could haul myself up and out of the damn, dark hole. It felt good to move; it felt good to imagine a way forward.

I realized two things: When I have faith in myself, I can create hope. When I have faith in the Divine, I can feel hope.

Good luck to you, my friends. I know being engulfed in hopelessness is so very tough; I also know that life is anything but static. Consider making the shifts within so that you can experience the shifts without. And your temporary darkness notwithstanding, please do not forget that you are light. Take precious care.

Author's Bio: 

Adele Ryan McDowell, Ph.D., is a psychologist, author, teacher and perpetual student who likes at life through the big view finder. She is the author of Balancing Act: Reflections, Meditations, and Coping Strategies for Today's Fast-Paced Whirl and a contributor to the anthology 2012: Creating Your Own Shift . Come join her on www.theheraldedpenguin.com where she offers some intersting ways to make sense of today's upside-down world and check out www.channeledgrace.com. Contact:adeleandthepenguin@gmail.com