How To Transform Feelings Of Desperation Part 1

With all that we have in material support, it seems strange that we have so much suffering and desperation. Desperation feels awful.

Desperation – What Is It?

According to vocabulary,.com, desperation is
Desperation is a hopeless state. If you learned that your friend had sold her beloved shoe collection, you’d know she did it out of desperation.
When you’ve lost hope or have run out of possible solutions to a problem, you’re experiencing desperation. The word implies a reckless kind of frustration. For example, a person who hasn’t eaten in three days might steal food out of desperation. The origin of the word traces back to the Latin desperare, “to lose all hope,” which is formed from the prefix de-, “without,” added to sperare, “hope.”

Desperation comes as a result of losing hope, and it suggests that one is running out of time and also that one’s back is up against the wall, and one has run out of options. It also suggests that sometimes people act against their own best interests when they are desperate. It is also painful because desperation often suggests physical vulnerability and even the threat of death. Of course, not all desperation is equal.

Different Kinds Of Desperation

We can feel desperate for food or water if we have not had any for a while, and that can be serious, even life-threatening.

We may feel desperate if we cannot seem to win at something like a game, but it is a game, and although we may become extremely frustrated, the danger to us is minimal. It is more in our minds and expectations. It is not a matter of life and death.

Next comes relationships which can be a great source of desperation, particularly if we cannot be who we are in them and if they are extremely toxic and debilitating. In some relationships, you do not have a voice. We see this in the political space in the USA; the effort to make sure some people do not have a voice and, of course, not having a voice and a say in one’s life leads to desperation and a lot of anguish.

What Causes Desperation

Desperation can feel harsh and immediate, but it does not necessarily come out of nowhere. Desperation can be a creation or side effect of our living habits and practices, or it can be the result of the habits and practices of our culture. In addition, it can come from a change in circumstance, something unpredictable like a flood or illness, which changes living conditions. The explosion in human population and climate issues are a perfect storm for creating desperation as the earth becomes increasingly unable to support all 8+ billion of us.

So there are a lot of causes of desperation—some created by us, our circumstances, and our cultures. Desperation can come from anywhere. This may seem like a strange question can there be anything it does for us? Let’s look at that.

How Beliefs Can Invite Desperation

Being aware of the potential for desperation can cause us to create support for ourselves and our needs. Not being aware of the potential can actually be harmful. Some beliefs invite separation, and others heal it. Here are some ideas:

• Perhaps the easiest way to invite desperation is to think we are invincible or not vulnerable. Not so, of course.
• Reality gets in our way and is not our friend.
• Mistaken ideas about limits and limitlessness.
• Inflexibility about problems and solutions.

Seeing desperation as a hindrance supports us. It can help us see how it interrupts our flow in life. Flow is something we all want because of the wonderful wholeheartedness we feel when in flow. It has the quality of ease and a natural forward movement that feels beautiful. We want more of that!

Our next post will discuss in more depth the beliefs that get in the way and how a joy practice minimizes the potential for separation and helps us feel safer and happier because we are thriving more.