We need hope.

In severe depression, the feeling of hopelessness is a key symptom.    In marriages, once hope is lost divorce becomes a very real option.  Children who experience a lack of hope in their earliest days and months of life sometimes develop a “failure to thrive” syndrome.  People without hope of life beyond this world often frantically attempt to make meaning out of whatever current thing most grabs their attention.

I think we all have a “Hope Barometer” built in to our internal world.  Much of the time we probably do not attend to the barometer.  It seems to us that it is too painful to face our hopelessness when it rises up.  We simply push it out of our awareness and attempt to go on with life.  But in the end that doesn’t work either.  The result is a diminished sense of personal worth, compromised relationships, and often a dull internal ache that makes it hard to get a full breath.  It is an unpleasant and unfulfilling way to live.

In large letters across the wall in our waiting room is the phrase, “Offering Hope.”  We believe that hope lives!  Certainly “hope” does not always translate into “better,” particularly if we mean that life gets easier.  But maybe life is more about the journey and the growth that occurs on the journey.  And maybe it is not about each of us individually, but rather is about all of us being in this world together – a world where together we pursue a greater sense of our common humanity.  There is hope in such connectedness – both the connectedness we feel in our human relationships, and the connectedness we feel in our relationship with the Creator.

Sioux Falls Psychological Services “hopes” you have a meaningful holiday season.  And if hope is lacking in your life, we encourage you to seek us out so we can help you find your way into a meaningful and fulfilling human experience.  Psychotherapy is hardly the only way to hope, but it is certainly one good way to discover a bit more about your journey.  And in many cases life actually does get a little easier and relationships do become more stable as a result.