Have you ever experienced the feeling of not being able to see a way forward? The feeling of not being able to see anything positive, anything worth getting excited about in your future? Or maybe you’ve felt as if you can’t see a future for yourself at all?

I have! And that is why, when I stumbled across the term Horizonlessness, I felt something within me resonate. Something within me stood to attention and said, “this…this is the word to describe the feeling.” I find that often we don’t have deep enough or adequate words in the English language to describe what we are feeling and what we are experiencing. So, I tend to get excited when I come across a word that achieves it perfectly.

Horizonlessness, is a term coined by journalist Kyana Moghadam and I came across it this week listening to a podcast by sociologist and well-renowned life coach, Dr Martha Beck. It resonated so powerfully that I decided to explore further and do some research of my own. When you define it, Horizonlessness is the experience of drawing a blank when thinking about your future. When you can’t see your way forward, out of the hum drum of your day to day life and you are unable to feel excited, unable to look forward to what’s to come. Kyana Moghadam coined the term in an article she wrote about well being and stress in the post COVID world. According to Moghadam, we emerged all bleary eyed and high strung from COVID lock down life where we had been perpetually stuck in survival mode and unable to see the future beyond the walls of our home and the boundaries of our streets and suburbs. This brought about a state of Horizonlessness.

COVID has become a way of life and no longer generates the same level of fear. Life shifted for many with COVID, with new ways of working, new ways of being and a new appreciation for our own sense of freedom to move, and we have shifted with it. However, our Horizonlessness hasn’t. With the cost of living, the state of housing, the fragility and the power of nature we see on our socials, the uncertainty in the world and in our lives, war, the state of politics and its impact on the world, we are still living in survival mode.

Now for a little bit of science to back it up…

When we are stressed, the part of our brain called the amygdala is in control. With the amygdala, it’s all about survival, about the here and now. We become stuck in fight, flight, freeze or fawn and our brain struggles to process the present, let alone imagine the future. But when you can anticipate a future that is bright, positive and hopeful, it awakens your prefrontal cortex. This is your higher order thinking brain. It’s the part of your brain responsible for decision making, problem solving, comprehension, impulse control, emotional-regulation, perseverance, planning and creativity. Your prefrontal cortex is directly associated with your well being.

Horizonlessness is a symptom of a brain stuck in stress mode and in order to access a vision for your future, you essentially need to hit the reset button on your brain. Unfortunately, it isn’t a matter of just making the choice to switch off your amygdala and switch on your prefrontal cortex. It takes time, it takes intention and it takes work.

Firstly, there’s one thing that I would like you to remember – you are not broken. Your body and brain are doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. It is normal, and your feelings are valid. Also, you are not alone. Your brain will tell you that you are the only one experiencing this, but it isn’t true. Research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that more than half of Australians experience personal stress. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one in five Australians aged between 16 and 34 years of age experience high levels of stress or emotional strain, where 9% of those aged between 65 and 85 years of age experience the same level of emotional strain.

Personally, this is something that I struggle with. I often switch into the “I’m broken,” thought loop, especially when I realise that my own survival brain, my own stress response has been triggered. I have support and people in my life who step forward and remind me that I’m not broken, my brain and body are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing – keeping me safe. So, until you are able to control the narrative for yourself, find those people for you, people who are able to gently but firmly step in a say, “I’ve got you. You’re not broken, you’re healing.”

Secondly, small steps are big steps. It takes small steps to reset your brain. Instead of setting yourself a goal six months in the future, instead of looking forward to something twelve months in the future, start to look forward to the small things. Look forward to your morning coffee, to the way your dog greets you when you get home from work, to your morning walk around the block. Find small things in your day to look forward to.

Thirdly, there are things you can can focus on to take action towards decreasing your stress response. Prioritise your sleep. Sleep decreases the cortisol levels in your body – cortisol is the stress hormone. Poor sleep can impact memory, emotional regulation, and mood. For me, a good night’s sleep is an important step in managing my own well being. Without at least seven and a half hours of sleep a night, I have poor emotional regulation, my heart rate is higher than normal, I am not as resilient and less able to manage my anxiety and stress response. Incorporate some exercise into your daily routine, whether that’s a walk before work, or a swim, a daily yoga practice or a game of lawn bowls – get out of your head and connect with your body. Buy yourself a journal and use it – write your thoughts down, get them out of your head and create space. Journalling helps you to connect with yourself, by creating opportunities to feel your feelings. It also helps you to become more aware of your triggers, of what happened to push you over the edge and into stress. And, one that I’ve already mentioned, find your community, build it if you have to.

Stepping briefly back into the science – in taking action, you are putting energy into motion. You are transferring the potential energy that’s trapped in your body, you are taking the surge of energy that’s caused by your stress response and channelling it into kinetic energy. In taking action, even in putting the small steps into action, you are proving to yourself that you have something to look forward to.

And that’s where your RAS comes into it. Your RAS or Reticular Activating System is a network of neurons in your brain stem that decides what information is allowed to enter your conscious mind. There are only a few things that get past your RAS – your name being called, anything that threatens your safety, and whatever your RAS thinks is important. We can use the RAS to train your brain to focus on what’s important to you. Your well being is important to you, switching out of survival mode is important to you, finding something to look forward to is important to you, your bright, hopeful future is important to you. Proving to yourself that you have something to look forward to, trains your RAS to look for, to see more evidence in the world and in your life.

I have experienced the power of looking forward to the future in my own life. I hit a patch in life of feeling stuck in the daily grind. I couldn’t see my way out of a life that felt…mundane. I felt as if I was stuck in some kind of ground hog day where the same themes played over and over again and one of those themes was a high level of stress. I was experiencing Horizonlessness. It was then that my mentor and my community stepped in – they gave me a future to aim for, until I could find my own. They gave me a vision and as I’ve slowly started to step out of my survival brain, I’ve started to build upon it, reshape it to align with me and my values. Now, I’ve built a habit of giving myself things to look forward to, things to work towards and I am constantly searching for my next thing, for my next motivator, my next ray of hope.

There’s an exercise that Dr Martha Beck suggests we all try. I’ve done it before and can testify to its power. So, I end this blog post with a writing prompt.

What is your perfect, ideal day? Close your eyes…It’s 2035, you wake up in your bed ready to start your day, when you open your eyes, what do you see? What can you hear? How do you feel? Is anyone asleep next to you? You throw aside the covers and step out of bed. Pay attention to the details – what’s under your feet? What colour are the walls? What photos or pictures can you see on the walls?

Now open your eyes, and write about your perfect, ideal day. How do you spend it? Who do you spend it with? How does it feel?

Remember, it’s okay if you find this difficult, it’s okay if you experience resistance. That’s your survival brain protecting you and it’s normal. It takes practice. Your perfect, ideal day is something you can revisit over and over again and each time you do, it will get easier, and you’ll discover more details. If you feel resistance, step away, focus on the smaller things for a while, take the smaller steps and then come back to creating it.

Because, if you can see it, you can create it.