These articles are part of the One in a Million platform — a space for real, soul-to-soul connection. They’re here to support the deeper conversations I have with people one-on-one. Through mentorship, friendship, and real-time companionship, I offer a place to talk, reflect, and walk beside you on your journey. Each article is meant to spark reflection, open dialogue, and gently support you as part of the larger experience at oneinamillion.me.
This is the lowest vibrational state — where the self is buried, the future is gone, and he present is numb. It is the exit door of the psyche, where people begin to emotionally withdraw or energetically vanish. But even in this place, one tiny connection — a conversation, a ray of light, a moment of being seen — can start to break the spell.
Reach out if your Feeling this Low. Don’t do this alone.
I’ve been here and it’s a living hell. Despair is one of the lowest human experiences its the complete loss of hope. Please don’t do this alone.
When everything is gone, the only thing left is what’s true.
— Unknown
Hold on In There, You are not alone in how you feel here……
SHAME
The Experience:
Shame is an attack on the core of the self. It says not “I did something wrong,” but “I am wrong.” It’s a burning exposure of perceived failure, inadequacy, or unworthiness — often tied to identity, body, history, or deep feelings of “not being enough.” Shame doesn’t just sting — it cripples the soul. It tells you that you’re fundamentally flawed, unfixable, and that if people truly saw you, they would reject you. It’s the inner executioner, whispering you’re a mistake.
Psychological Insight:
Shame is often rooted in early developmental wounds — moments of rejection, humiliation, or punishment where love felt conditional or withheld. It emerges when attachment (belonging) collides with perceived defectiveness. The nervous system translates this as danger to survival: “If I’m bad, I’ll be cast out.” People stuck in shame often self-isolate or self-punish to preempt external rejection. Long-term, shame becomes the inner jailer, chaining someone to a false identity they never chose.
MISERY
The Experience:
Misery is a kind of spiritual suffocation. You’re not screaming anymore — just drifting in a grey fog, disconnected from meaning or joy. It’s emotional anemia. The days blur together, and everything feels heavy. Misery can come after prolonged despair or shame, when hope has slowly starved. It’s when suffering has been normalized — and now life just hurts in a dull, constant way. There’s no panic… but also no light. You’re alive, but not living.
Psychological Insight:
Misery often arises from emotional shutdown — a protective response after too many cycles of pain without resolution. The mind numbs to survive. This may look like apathy, emptiness, or disinterest, but it’s often deeply tied to suppressed grief, unspoken trauma, or existential disconnection. Many people in misery aren’t even sure why they feel this way anymore. The brain has learned to “tune out” to survive the overwhelm. Misery is the result of too much unprocessed emotional data — left festering in silence.
DESPAIR
The Experience:
Despair is the collapse of the future. It says, “There is no way out.” It’s a complete loss of hope, agency, and vision. If shame attacks the self and misery attacks the present, despair attacks the possibility of tomorrow. It’s the feeling of being stuck in an unchangeable fate — powerless, voiceless, lost. Despair often comes with a sense of soul-fatigue, like you’ve tried and failed too many times, and now… you’re ready to give up.
Psychological Insight:
Despair is often triggered when repeated efforts to escape pain, find connection, or make progress have failed — especially in the face of trauma, poverty, abandonment, or chronic illness. It’s the moment when the psyche disconnects from imagination, because every imagined path forward has ended in fear or futility. Despair is dangerous because it often precedes suicidal ideation, not because someone wants to die, but because they can’t see any way to keep living like this.
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
— J.K. Rowling
SELF-SOOTHING FROM SHAME MISERY & DESPAIR
Mini-Process: Questions + Rant Builder
Self-Soothing Questions:
These questions act like emotional breadcrumbs — pulling someone gently out of the darkness without forcing positivity.
Is it possible that this moment doesn’t define me completely?
Have I felt even a tiny bit of relief before? What helped?
If I knew things would shift in a week — what would I do right now?
What would I say to someone else I love, if they were feeling this way?
Is it okay for me to just rest for a moment and not figure it all out?
Perhaps right now I don’t have to figure it all out I just need to feel better, then I will figure things out from a better perspective
Who else can I think of who has hit rock bottom, who lost everything, failed, fell far, and who managed to finally get up and turn it all around?
Perhaps being in this place is something that many great people go through, its the rock bottom test of my soul I am being forced to dig deap inside and find my true inner compass
I don’t have to move forward from here right now, perhaps all I have to do is go inside, dig deap and allow myself to just be here, its not the final story
Self-Soothing Rant:
Talk to yourself as if you are your best friend, someone who cares. These sentences can be read silently to yourself. They can help you start to form your own sentences, your own self talk. Keep this momentum going, follow on from the ideas and start to create your own self rant talk, let the ideas flow, and if they don’t come, just keep reading these.
“I’m feeling heavy right now. Really heavy. And I don’t have to pretend I’m not.
But I’m allowed to rest. I don’t have to climb a mountain today.
Maybe I don’t even have to climb at all.
I can lie down. I can breathe. I can feel the earth under me.
It’s okay that I don’t have the answers. It’s okay if I’m not okay.
Maybe things won’t always feel like this. Maybe they’ll shift.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m not as alone as I think I am.
Maybe this is the very bottom — and if that’s true, the only way is up.
And maybe… I don’t need to fix myself today. Maybe I just need to hold on. And maybe, that’s more than enough.
So many great people who have created empires have hit this place.
This is the grit, what differentiates men from mice, if I can just hang on a little longer, I am not letting go and that is a win.
All great people fall, all great ideas come from the ashes, this is my story and I don’t know how its going to work out, but I do know that deap inside, if I dig far enough, I can find who I am and that is the space I will build upwards from.
This is the grit — what separates those who rise from those who fade.
If I can just hold on a little longer, I’ve already won.
I’m not letting go, and that matters. That counts. All great people fall. All great ideas are born from ashes.
This is my story. I don’t know how it’s going to unfold…I can’t see the path or the solution, But I do know this:
Neither did others who have been in this space, they didn’t see the solution either.
If I dig deep enough — really deep — I will find the core of who I am.
And that is where I will build from. That is the ground I will rise from.
Infact, this is the gold, the thing that very few people really find. The inner strength to keep going. That is my inner spark the inner me. I am building from a gold nugget inside of me I have found that is worth more that all the noise around me.
Keep going with your own inner voice. Keep reasoning your way into a space with more light. Keep speaking—let the sentences come to you freely. You are what you’ve been looking for. You can do this. Let your soul be your guide and your light. You are empowering yourself now to be your own guide, your own strength, your own light. You’re uncovering the most valuable thing you could ever discover: your true self. So work with this—don’t give up, my friend. This is the greatest gift you can give yourself: finding your way through this darkness, this rock bottom. Believe in your inner light. You can do this. Keep self-ranting, keep self-soothing.
Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you’ve ever been to stand up taller than you ever were.
— Anonymous
Reach out if your Feeling this Low.
I’ve been here and it’s a living hell. Despair is one of the lowest human experiences its the complete loss of hope. Please don’t do this alone.
One in a Million 
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