If you’re at the end, if you feel all is hopeless. If you feel you’ve heard the same words over and over. The “keep goings” by friends, but feel the words are empty. If you’ve gone in the same circle over and over again; always saying, “I’ll change it now,” but here you are again in the deepest despair: Giving up. Tortured inside. And, you just want it to finally end. That death will just turn the switch off. The pain will end. You aren’t loved. You aren’t fulfilled. There is a chasm between you and everything and everyone you want in this life, and you know it will always be out of reach. The insipid insanity of “trying again,” when you know you’ll just end up in this place again, because that’s where this thing goes every time. 

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.” But, here it means, even bothering to start over again is the insanity, as the joke will be on you, as it is every time. 

Hearing that somebody else has been where you are, and has felt as you have, and that person is rarely in that place of being anymore. Well, hearing that is helpful a bit, but that person isn’t you, and you know that person won’t be there when you know it is all hopeless, all over again. 

The feeling that when you do hear advice to not give up – that it’s really serving the ego of the person telling you – “Look at what a good person am I!” – and that person walks away feeling elevated, but will be nowhere to be found when at your most alone place. 

Some even mention God, and it’s a bit reviling, because it’s that person’s idea of God, and that person’s names for it, and it becomes a soul-saving mission. If you don’t pick their God, you’re screwed. 

They can all just leave you be, because you see all of them for who they are, and that’s part of the reason you don’t want to even deal with the fakes and the frauds. You know how people are at their very basic nature. 

You see cruelty all about you. On a big scale, and in the smallest interactions, or lack thereof, where it would be so easy for people to be courteous to each other, but always choose the selfish path. Everyone is out for themselves, whether they are trying to take your money, your attention, your body, your mind. 

You know it’s after the celebrity suicide that everyone cries out, “We must be there in these moments,” but, on the quiet day, or the quiet night when you are dying inside, there is no one to be found. It doesn’t serve a purpose. 

If you’re at the very end, and have given up completely on yourself, and on humanity with it, maybe try something radical. What is there to lose? What is there to lose if you have already planned your own exit regardless? Maybe you’re right that the “definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again” – in this case, simply trying to be positive and get all rallied up that this time will be the time your life changes, when you know deep down you’ll be right back here in a day’s time, or a week’s, or a month’s. 

Then, maybe flip the whole thing around. 

You’ve probably heard “our thoughts create our reality.” You might even agree, but the idea of controlling your poisonous thoughts is like controlling a rushing river while standing naked and holding up your bare hands to it. 

But, while on the idea of holding up your hands, right now hold up the palms of your hands so they face you. Silly, I know. I am an idiot. But, just go along. …

Presuming you are doing this right now, look at them, … look at your plans facing you … and see them as symbolic. 

This represents the flow of every thought, every action, every suffering flowing into you. It’s probably the way you have been living, as many people live, as I live. 

Now … with your palms still facing you, turn them out. 

Turn them out so they are now facing the world. This represents all the energy instead of coming in at you … all that misery and suffering and pain, and instead, it is now facing out. Think of a massive on/off switch. Better yet, think of a giant flow switch that powerfully reverses all the flow of water from one direction, into its opposite direction. It sounds silly. It might be silly. But, hold your palms up to your face again (assuming you have them; fish and caterpillars are among my readers, and I don’t want to offend).

This has been the flow of all the energy, all the outward forces, all the experts and opinionated ones, all the horror of the world, all the sadness of your life – flowing in. 

Now, turn them out again so your palms now face outward. 

You’ve just turned that massive water flow valve or switch. Your energy source is now focused outward. And, that energy source IS massive. It knows how to keep your whole being going. It knows what bile to send to the food you’ve eaten to digest it. And, so many incredible activities that we take for granted. All part of your very being that would rather you not be stuck in your sadness. 

One more time … palms up facing you – all that energy happening to you. Now, palms facing out. …

Perhaps if you’ve done this a few times, you felt a strong … or a very faint … actual feeling of change inside. 

A shift of some kind within your heart and being. 

Here’s the thing: as weak as you feel, that shift came from your deepest being, where whether you’re elated and the world is just butterflies and roses, or whether you can hardly face the day, that place in you is always steady and gentle and unmoving. Think of it as love itself. You can make lists of how you would like your life to change, but that’s just your ego, trapped in a box of what you think you need to make you happy. So often, those who find what’s on their magic list fulfilled, they don’t understand why still the emptiness inside. Film producers make a lot of television series on these people, and we enjoy watching them. So, make a list if you wish of what you’d like to see change if you like. But, don’t worry that you have to go out and start the work of making each one happen. You just need a place to start. 

So, just start here. With the simple turning-your-palms-out feeling. A radical 180-degree change can begin here. Nothing has to happen to you right now in this moment. The energy that was relentlessly flowing into you is now turned around and flowing out. 

Think of just the absolute smallest thing you could do with that energy right now. What’s the first thing you think of? Perhaps it’s communicating with an old friend. Perhaps it’s helping a poor fly trapped in the screen window who would love to fly free. Perhaps it’s watering a plant. Whatever it is, if you follow through with it – small is fine, small is great! – perhaps, just maybe, you feel even slightly elevated from your deepest despair that’s overtaken you. 

Just take it to the next moment. Make “Palms Out” your mantra you repeat to remind you. The horrible thoughts that haunt you are “palms in” – and often they’re not based in reality at all. We so often get wrong the reasons and rationales of why others do what they do, or say what they say. You don’t have to bother with that palms-in stuff. Palms out. 

And, if you call the old friend, and he or she tells you to “bugger off,” and you water the plant and it crumbles and dies in front of your face, take it to the next thing. …

The beautiful rescue dog three kennels in, and around the corner who is your Goldilocks, but you never know because you stop at the second kennel and give up. …

But, aim it impersonally, that outward energy. Impersonally. Not for personal reward. The rewards slowly come when there is no “palms-in” goal in mind. That’s the beautiful irony of real success. It can be the smallest thing. But, it’s about a radical change of turning your palms out. Where everything happened to you, you now happen outwardly. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s a big gesture or a little one, because they’re of equal value. When the “palms-in” haunted thoughts occur, gently say “thank you” or “I love you” to the thought – we create monsters when we fight them – and let them disappear of their own accord, when they slowly lose power and fade away. 

It doesn’t matter your looks or your wealth or your health or your age or your perceived worthiness. Leave that worry elsewhere, and face your palms out. You have so much more power than you have let yourself believe. Take it from whatever first gesture you made with palms out to the next one. You’ll fail. It’s okay. It’s really okay. You’re loved. Try again. 

You’re made of so much love, and it simply doesn’t matter what is said or thought of you. It’s not even your concern. You’ve made a radical change in turning that flow switch. You don’t have to tell anyone. You don’t have to announce it. You don’t have to be someone even looking for praise or an ego boost. You can just go to the next moment with Palms Out. 

You can even pretend you are an angel on earth in your own silly “Highway to Heaven” series. When it fails, remember that person may be very much in “palms-in” as you and I were or are. See through it beyond their thoughts and miseries to the place deep in them that gives them life, even if they are so lost in their intellect or egos to see it in themselves. 

The result isn’t important. It’s that you’re coming from a locus now where your energy is extending outward, instead of all coming at you and trapped within. 

You might find just starting here – if you are someone reading who is at a point where you have heard every expert, taken every med, followed every advice – and feel just as bereft … just starting here with “palms out” will get you in touch with a certain power within you you had forgotten you have. 

Whether it’s a gesture to a person, or indeed a little insect looking for a way to safety, it’s all equally beautiful to that place deep inside you. It’s love. 

But, instead of requiring it all to happen at you, you are finding you are the source of it. Nothing dramatic. Just one palms-out at a time. 

You are loved, by the way. Even by the person writing who would hug you if he could. No matter what you have done or thought. You are love at your core. 

If you know you need help, get the help you need.

But, always remember: You have tremendous power. 

Palms out in love to you. Send your palms out in even the smallest way. 

It’s a big deal. And, it will get better. I love you back.