Finding Hope When Grief Feels Hopeless
By: Reid Peterson
Tags: Loss, Hope, Healing, Grief, Death

Photo by JOHN TOWNER on Unsplash

There are times in life when you will lose someone so special and important that the pain will feel unbearable. Your world may feel like it ended. You may feel like there’s nothing to look forward to, or even, nothing to live for.

In essence, it may feel like there’s no hope. Additionally, the possibility of having any hope seems too far out of reach. The pain from your grief has ruined all hopes for any joy or happiness in your future.

Unfortunately, losing hope is a common experience. I claim it to be unfortunate because the pain is so severe. However, knowing that the experience is common can be helpful. When you realize you’re not the only one suffering and that somewhere, someone else has a similar story, you understand that you haven’t completely lost your mind.

But when you lose all hope, you lose the will to live. You may think about suicide or that some life ending accident is in your best interest. You may think that your own death is the only solution to stop the emotional pain.

These are hard truths to accept. Hope is an important piece to life. Without hope, meaning and purpose have no, well, meaning and purpose.

Hope is easily lost when you lose someone special. And now in the middle of a pandemic, with so many other losses happening, plus the holidays that often bring up feelings of loneliness, hope is more important (and needed) than ever.

What is hope?

In the context of grieving a loss, hope is a belief that healing is possible. It’s also a belief that though today may not be the day you feel healed, there will be a future day that the feeling will happen. To quote my mentor Dr. Alan Wolfelt, “hope is an expectation of a good that is yet to be.”

Hope is also a part of faith. If faith were an iceberg, hope would be the very tip of it. As icebergs are mostly submerged in water, faith isn’t visible. But hope is.

When you feel hope, the outlook is more clear. Hope can show up in practical and tangible ways. Often, hope is expressed in the form of an attitude adjustment. I’ve heard people say things like “I will feel better eventually” as examples of expressions for having hope.

Despite hope being more tied to an attitude adjustment, it is felt in the heart. If you feel hopeless, there is just too much pain currently overwhelming you. Your hope can feel imprisoned by other emotions, mostly consumed by despair and discouragement.

If this is true for you, please be careful not to get too caught up in possible untruths or misperceptions. Sometimes when immense emotional pain is felt, your mind can go to places that aren’t in alignment with your true outlook on life. Just because you may think or feel a certain way, it doesn’t always mean that it’s absolutely true. I know that this can be difficult to discern, especially when grieving, but do your best to hold that as a reminder.

Lastly, hope is an acknowledgement of what’s happening in the present, along with a sense of what is to come in the future. Hope is special because it holds both the future and the present in the same context. I’ve heard many clients speak to the feeling of hopelessness but also talk about the possibility of feeling better- all in the same conversation. Sometimes, the acceptance of feeling hopeless is actually an act of feeling hope.

How to find hope when grief feels hopeless.

If you feel hopeless, you’ll want to do everything possible to find hope. Healing grief takes time and your feelings of discomfort and hopelessness may seem too consuming. If that’s the case, you will need to search for ways to find hope.

Below, I’ve created a list of ways to help find hope. The list was compiled from many conversations I’ve had with clients, resources available from other grief educators, and input provided by my grief counseling colleagues.

Hearing stories from people who have experienced a loss similar to yours.

When your pain is unbearable, it helps to know that someone else is also suffering. Hearing their story helps ease loneliness and anchors your identity with the reality of your loss, further helping you to better understand your grief process.

It doesn’t help for someone to tell you they know exactly how you feel and then go into their story, which ends up sounding completely different. In fact, if you’re feeling very vulnerable and fragile, an experience like this can be more harmful than helpful.

If someone were to say, “I resonate with your loss” and then share a bit about their experience, it can help your loss and its story feel more truthful. When you feel a sense of deeper truth, it helps create hope. As a result of the honest and authentic communication, hope is nurtured.

This is why support groups are popular for the bereaved. Support groups offer a safe space for people to share and listen to other peoples’ grief stories. Not all support groups are structured this way, so please be sure to ask the facilitator how the group is structured if you find one you’re interested in joining.

Do something with linking objects.

Linking objects are physical things that connect you to your loved one who has died. Linking objects can range from jewelry to stuffed animals. They can be anything. I have a linking object that is an 800 lb Harley Davidson motorcycle. Every time I ride it, I connect to my stepfather, Warren, who died from cancer in 2016.

Linking objects are deeply personal items. Some can be hard to share with others. You might feel judged or criticized by peoples’ opinions about your linking objects. However, linking objects are very important for psychological and emotional healing.

Develop a mantra.

In grief, a mantra is a statement that is repeated over and over again to help aid in concentration and intention. Grief mantras are quite common. Some examples are “I’m just gonna show up”, “I have to keep f*ing going”, and “one breath at a time.”

If you have a mantra now, it’s okay if you need to change it over time. This is because your needs and feelings change. You’ll know if you need to change your mantra. Keep listening to your heart. It will guide you.

Gauge your timing and pace your grief.

Sometimes in grief, feeling hopeful isn’t what you want. This is another difficult truth. You may not be okay with the idea of feeling better.

Being honest with yourself regarding what feels right in the moment is one of the best things you can do for yourself. If you’re not available to feel better right now, know that hope is less important than other aspects of your grief, and that’s completely okay.

Look for good things happening around you, especially ones that are unexpected.

I’m a big fan of random acts of kindness. They create positive feelings for everyone involved. They’re also super spontaneous and supportive.

You personally don’t have to be involved in the random act of kindness. Just keep your eyes open to witness good things happening around you. I’ve seen good things happening with the homeless being fed, dogs approaching strangers with friendliness and playfulness, and people giving away valuable possessions. Seeing things like these can bring a sense of hope, especially when feeling isolated and lonely.

Getting nudged by someone who loves you.

There’s often someone in your life who shows up as a personal cheerleader at a time you need it most. They emanate positivity. They encourage you to do things, but from a place of complete love and support.

People like this help nudge you so that you have some momentum. They don’t force anything. They only nudge.

This is a special experience because it happens so naturally. It’s a cliche to say they are like angels but that’s often what it feels like. Their encouragement and nudging helps keep a flow to your grief journey.

Although you know you’re not fully healed, getting nudged helps you have moments of feeling better. This inspires hope. This special person has hope and faith in you and that becomes mildly contagious.

Borrowing hope.

Similar to the previous way of someone nudging you, you can borrow hope from others. It’s completely acceptable, appropriate, and okay to engage in grief counseling, join a support group, or lean on your Spiritual community for additional support.

Communities such as these provide a ‘container’ to borrow hope from. You will often find interactions within these types of settings to be empathetic, warm, genuine and caring.

There are special people who give to your healing but don’t take from your grief. Where some people may say things that are hurtful and leave you with the impression “the world has moved on, why haven’t I?” these special people do the opposite. They show up to you in ways that honor your pain and struggles, yet help you see glimmers of hope in life carrying forward.

This can be very comforting. By surrounding yourself with people who have and exude these qualities, hope shows up more as a possibility. You will feel more belief from others that your loss will be reconciled. This will positively influence your own belief that healing is possible and hopeful.

When something as painful as a loss begins to make sense.

There comes a time when you realize things are a bit different than before, but in a good way. The shift wasn’t distinctively felt like in some transformative way but the perspective is more clear and you feel more accepting of the truth of your loss.

The initial shock and disbelief has worn off. You no longer feel a need to ‘fight’ the truth of your loss. You are more accepting of the fact that your loved one won’t come back. You embrace the hard truth that you will never physically see, taste, touch, hear, or smell them again.

What replaces the initial shock and disbelief is an awareness that your emotional pain is a testament for all of the love shared between you and your special person. Grief and love now seem to be more bonded to one another. Much of the pain from grief is running its natural course. Since your love can’t be expressed to them, it takes on a different form of expression.

As more of your love is expressed and you continue to grieve, hope is alchemized from all of the feelings. You understand that, although now quite different, life does continue and that it’s okay to miss your special person as you move forward.

Hope is found by honoring your own progress.

It helps to track your grief journey so you can reflect and look back on how hope formed and took shape. Everyone grieves differently. If you’ve wanted a roadmap for your grief journey, know that it’s being created in the moment, by you.

One of the more helpful ways to track your grief journey is through journaling. Although journaling may not be for everyone, it can help you get overwhelmingly grief filled feelings out of you.

You can journal as little or as much as you want. It’s really up to you and the intensity of your grief. The more you write, the more you may notice the intensity of your emotion lessen. Many people I have supported have stated that the intensity started with complete devastation, got worse for a while, but after continued efforts of journaling their despair, felt the intensity lower to a level that is more tolerable and manageable.

Tracking your progress helps you look back to the times when you couldn’t get out of bed or leave the house. Even if things are really tough right now, you can look back upon a time when you know things were worse to help remind yourself of the progress you’ve made. Recognizing the small gains helps inspire hope back into your life.

Please keep in mind that the ‘success’ or ‘failure’ for your progress is ultimately up to you to decide. Please be kind and compassionate to yourself. Small gains are what makes the difference. Getting through grief isn’t measured by drastic transformations.

Healing grief is measured by your effort and intention. For your grief journey, the effort is better described as the ways you express grief plus the time and space you allow to honor your grief. By honoring your progress and being kind to yourself as you navigate this challenging terrain, you will find hope.

In conclusion, I sincerely hope these tips help to support you in finding your own hope. Some may work and some may not. Your grief journey is like no other. Regardless of the way you end up finding more hope, please take it moment by moment and be kind to yourself.