Entrapment: The Giving Up of Hope

There is within each human being a desire to be free, to experience, to feel, to choose, to plan and create one’s life with the full sense of possibility.  The experience of ‘entrapment’ is the opposite of this.

‘Entrapment’ is a lens rather than an actuality, a perceptual filter rather than a real event. One can feel that there is no way out of a mental or emotional dilemma, say, depression, numbness, self-hatred, or any one of many other painful feelings that are quite common within the human psyche. One can believe or feel there is ‘no way out,’ without it being so.

The sense of ‘entrapment’ is perpetuated by an energy of darkness or separation which prevents one from feeling the light of one’s own being that emanates from one’s core self. Without this light, all seems dark and can feel hopeless. It is as if a thick blanket had been thrown over and around oneself, completely shutting out sunlight, so that one can only see the dark inside the blanket and not the sunlight outside. Similarly, in ‘entrapment’, one only sees the hopelessness or despair that one feels and not the possibility of change, movement, or alteration of the present situation.

Energies that create the sense of entrapment have, as their purpose, the separation of an individual from their inner truth and the light of their being. Though one can identify with these energies, one’s own deepest self is not the source of entrapment. One’s own deepest self has hope, and even while feeling helpless, would naturally continue to seek a way to feel better.

The sense of entrapment in its intensity can lead one to giving up all hope. It can even cause one to desire to give up in order not to struggle any longer. Beneath this giving up is a belief that darkness is stronger than light, and that there is no power in the universe that can undo the dilemma that one is in. Such a belief has many consequences, most especially, it can cause one to reject the power of love to alter the situation. It can create a wall around the self, built out of hopelessness and despair, that nothing and no one can get through. No longer trusting or valuing the power of love to heal and change things, it creates withdrawal into a dark and isolated place that adds to the original feeling of entrapment by creating additional barriers that eliminate hope.

If one can recognize the sense of entrapment as a belief rather than an actuality, a sensation rather than a truth, more becomes possible. If one can sense that one is under a blanket but that the sun is still shining somewhere, hope can be regained that one might find the way to that sunlight. This is often difficult to do, for when one has been under a blanket for a very long time, it becomes the shape of the world and of reality, and one forgets the rest. 

Nevertheless, the way out of entrapment is to first hold it as a belief, and second, to begin to look toward love and trust as the way through. For love can penetrate any realm of darkness if one allows it to, if one allows it to be more real and more important than despair. One must focus, however, on the valuing of love, for the energy of entrapment makes love appear to be irrelevant. Reclaiming the value of love within the self and in relation to others, the dark begins to brighten and a life-force of great potency is activated.

This is often a struggle, for the energy of darkness would remove the valuing of love, and in its place would put fear, mistrust, and hopelessness. The rekindling of love is the opener of the way, and one must seize it with both hands and with whatever portion of the heart can be set free from the wish to give up and not pursue hope. With even a small portion of the heart, one must allow love to lead one back from the dark place of entrapment, and not push it away.

The struggle against one’s former belief in entrapment can be a mighty one, with powerful forces pulling on both sides. Yet, because the inner being of oneself is unassailable and has remained free, despite one’s feeling to the contrary, there is always a path out of entrapment, back into the freedom of hope and light.