There’s a scene in family animation Finding Dory (2016, out now on DVD) where Dory is utterly lost. This small blue tang fish finds herself completely and utterly abandoned.

The moments before there was help from her friends, but in a ‘change of tide’, she gets lost from her band of supporters. This is a moment where she must have experienced a sense of lost-ness in the world. The moment where there is nowhere to turn and the stuff going through the head-space—for this talking, thinking fish—is in circles. She is going nowhere.

No more no return

Getting told to “get lost” isn’t as bad as being lost. Being lost is like being in a moment of no return. There seems no way forward.  In this moment, there is anxiety, because there isn’t a foreseeable way out.

Dory could drown in those emotions.

But it’s just a moment. If living in this moment would last, it would be unbearable. So, getting out of this moment is kind of what should be done. Don’t want to live unbearable no more.

Sure enough, the moment also has a sense of hope. Remember, Dory is not alone. Dory: take a minute and think. What’s around you? The ocean’s around you. The beautiful ocean. The light streaming in from the sun lights up the waters. There’s tranquility. In her moment of crisis, there are still the wide arms of the ocean surrounding her.

When an event passes which must have filled her with anxiety, what’s out there is the teeming ocean filled with the breadth and depth of life.

Sensing this life may comfort her from her sense of lost-ness and abandonment. Dory isn’t alone and the hugging arms of the ocean, illuminated by the light of the sun, are saying something good is on the way.

Her utterly lost moment won’t last forever.