A Ray of Hope
There are often times in our life when we break down. We feel ripped off of all the possible strength that we had gathered over the years. We feel completely helpless and hopeless and what makes it worse is we don’t understand how we got here. We wonder what we did to shoo that confidence, hope and certainty and invite hopelessness and uncertainty at its place.
Neither the situation makes sense nor the Self that we (then) start judging, criticizing and analyzing. We sit there wondering ‘What do I do?’ And often, this is followed by series of other questions like ‘What is this life? What am I doing with my life? Who am I? How did I become this person? Why is nothing of it making any sense? This is not how its supposed to work out.’ This phase makes us wonder if whatever we did up until now in life had any meaning or value.
I am a Psychologist, an author and a speaker – three career options and multiple social involvements and yet I have my own moments where I feel hopeless and helpless, almost convinced that I haven’t done enough in life, that I am not good enough, and that I need to do something about this life and so on! When I hear many people speak the same language, I bring myself to sit back and spend some time to understand this phenomenon. From my experience and contemplation, this is what I have come to understand so far:
I think we all, as human beings, at some point or the other need this break down. It is like a pause a halt that is required for our being. It is like we deserve this break down for the years of strength that we’ve shown in all walks of our lives. This break down, this hopelessness and helplessness becomes a pit stop where we begin to question about self and life which, if things would have run smoothly, we wouldn’t have time for! Often, I have let myself experience this break down and allowed myself to become the most sensitive, most vulnerable and most chaotic individual for that day(s).
What I discovered is that however messy and miserable it feels then, something within me shifts every time - a shift that I often refer to as evolvement. I have often sensed my being grow in some form after I have experienced such breakdowns. There were many times I could manage myself on my own and there were times I desperately reached out to my friends for the strength and reassurance. There were times when I became my own strength and there were times I found my strength by leaning on to someone else’s hope.
In life, even though we have different routes and different travel kits, we are all, at the end, travelers - the travelers who have capabilities to walk miles and miles and feel tired at some point. Allow yourself to pause at such crossroads. Allow yourself that one day (or few days) of break down – to touch this vulnerable, hopeless and helpless part of yourself. You and only you can touch this. Its like discovering another fascinating aspect of your being.
Sometimes, it is ok to lose that strength and feel broken. Sometimes, it is OK to not know and dwell in uncertainty. Sometimes, it is OK to feel weak. Sometimes, it is OK to allow yourself to experience this flip side of being human. And just sometimes, it is OK to lose all your hope and stay with the mere idea of the same hope wondering somewhere in the Universe. When we lose hope, this ray of hope doesn’t disappear. It steps aside, silently admiring us and awaiting us to look at it, to hold its hand one more time to continue this fascinating journey of being chaos and beauty personified human beings!
