Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy

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In this pandemic moment, many of us are hearing the call to cultivate hope, resilience and deep connection (to ourselves, our community, and our earth)… these things are innate to each of us, but they are also skills that can be honed, so that we have access to them in trying times such as the moment we are in. Based on the teachings of eco-philosopher, teacher and activist Joanna Macy, it is a set of practices and insights, drawn from deep ecology, systems theory and spiritual traditions. It helps us to draw strength, discover new perspectives, gain clarity and find our purpose. And it helps us to appreciate that we can each play a meaningful play in the transformation of our world. We can think of it as a flame in our hearts and minds that guides us and shines through our actions. Chris is known for his work pioneering the role of resilience training in promoting positive mental health, developing self-help resources and setting up the Bristol Happiness Lectures. He is author of Seven Ways to Build Resilience(Robinson, UK, 2019) ,and runs online trainings for resilience, wellbeing and active hope at CollegeOfWellbeing.com

Most of all, the book invites people to engage in a strengthening and transformative journey designed to nourish and build our capacity and commitment to play our part in the Great Turning. Each chapter has been revised to better support this journey from the context we face now. Like seedlings that need thinning out, we need to choose which visions we support, and then clear space around them so that they have room to develop and thrive. When you fall in love, you feel incredibly bonded with your loved one and at the same time more uniquely yourself, different from anyone else in the world.Our large selves feel through us. Our emotions happen through us. But where do they come from? If we see ourselves solely as separate individuals, then we think of our feelings as arising within us and understandable purely in terms of our own story. The Climate Café is a safe, supported and empathetic space where fears and uncertainties about our climate and ecological crises can be shared and expressed. At this special event, resilience specialist and authorDr Chris Johnstonewill introduce Active Hopeas a practice we can use each day to nourish our sense of purpose and possibility. But, just as the problems can happen through people, so can constructive responses, says Johnstone, who provides free online courses in active hope:

Dr Chris Johnstoneis a codirector of ActiveHope.Training, a non-profit organization offering free online training to help people grow their capacity to make a difference in the world. He is also one of the United Kingdom’s leading resilience trainers, having taught resilience skills for more than thirty years. His books includeActive Hope(co-authored with Joanna Macy, 2ndedition 2022) andSeven Ways to Build Resilience(Robinson, 2019).

Part 3: Going Forth

The importance of “we” - you are more significant, stronger, creative, and more deeply interconnected - with other human and non-human life - than you may have yet realized. What part can you play in reconnecting and being part of supportive communities? In Chapter Twelve, a new section draws on health psychology research in looking at how to nourish and strengthen our motivation to act for positive change. Rather than viewing our self as a fixed thing with characteristics that can’t be changed, we can think of ourselves as a flow of becoming. Connectedness with ancestors and with future generations lifts us out of the micro-plots of Business as Usual and places us in a truer and more expansive story. This work can be done alone and has enriched many individual lives, but it is designed for groups. Its effect is deeper and more enduring when experienced interactively with others, for its approach is improvisational and its impact is synergistic.

The authors are well respected advocates for social and environmental justice. Active Hope is a thought provoking book that requires engagement from the reader. It's about expanding our view of ourselves and the world. My favorite quote from the book is from Arne Naess who wrote: Active Hope is a Christian charity based in Warrington, we are committed to providing quality outdoor and adventurous activities from well qualified and enthusiastic instructors to children and young people from across the area. What specific goal or project could you realistically aim to achieve in the next twelve months that would contribute to this? After all, what is the point of making an effort to improve things if we believe catastrophe is inevitable?Try This: The Council of All Beings, it invites us to step aside from our human identity and speak on behalf of another form of life. The power of inner strengths drawn from us when we engage with challenges and rise to the occasion. Do you hope this will happen for you? Or that you might play a role in helping this happen for others? If so, we invite you to join us in our journey. Together we will explore how we can access unexpected resilience and creative power, not just to face the mess we’re in, but also to play our part in doing something about it. Joanna Macy Ph.D, Author and teacher, is a scholar of Buddhist, systems thinking and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with learnings from six decades of activism.

Once you’ve drawn your map, ask yourself how satisfied you are with the flows of support you receive and offer. The first session - a full day - will take you through the above, and the half day one month later will be for you all to reflect and share your journey since then, and continue to discover what Active Hope means and looks like for you. Fee: A useful question is ‘if the story of things working out well, or even not getting much worse, was to happen through me, what part might I play?’”Joanna macy Ph.D, author & teacher, is a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with learnings from six decades of activism. The revised tenth anniversary edition is published on 14 June 2022 in the US, and 15 July 2022 in many other countries. The process of thinking happens at a level higher than just individual brain cells - it happens through them. Similarly, there’s no way that we personally can fix the mess our world is in, but the process of healing and recovery at a planetary level can happen through us and through what we do. This theory proposes that important steps in our evolution have occurred through cooperation between species, even to the point of separate organisms joining together to create entirely new forms of life.