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

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Emotional distress can be motivating, but if it goes beyond what we imagine we can cope with, we may just shut down. On the outside, we seem to be holding it together, but internally, our energy sags and our sensitivity is dulled. Failure to maintain our energy/enthusiasm leads to burnout or even permanent withdrawal. Activist burnout is a very real phenomenon and I'm sure a lot of people have felt such fatigue with all that's happening in the world right now! This chapter explores how to protect ourselves from disillusionment if we are struggling to believe that what we hope for is possible. What comes into view when we see with new eyes is this interdependence. There is no such thing as a “self-made man” or a “self-made woman” In this chapter, we explore how our very not knowing can enliven us; by making friends with uncertainty, we can become strengthened by the gifts it has to offer.

The “Spiral” – four stages of a transformational journey that you can use regularly to support you to move gently from grief (which can be paralysing or make you manically busy) to a deeper, calmer, sense of purpose and agency - to a place of Active Hope. Several generations of children have had daydreaming bred out of them. Our literacy is confined to numbers and words. There is no image literacy.” For example: clean air, renewable energy, lifestyles of voluntary simplicity, widespread ecological awareness. Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face this crisis so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach know as the Work that Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. This process equips us with tools to face the mess we’re in and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, to a life-sustaining society. This conversation with Dr Mark Williamson was recorded at a live Action for Happiness event on the 23rd Feb 2023.How “ The Work that Reconnects “ can help you - personally and professionally - to face ongoing, challenging times by opening your eyes, mind, and heart. The authors have drawn on decades of teaching workshops with an approach known as Work That Reconnects. This book is filled with stories, questions, and group exercises which are obviously taken from their workshops. It’s the sort of book that could fit well with a group meeting regularly to discuss one chapter at a time.

Joanna travels widely, giving lectures, workshops, and trainings in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She lives in Berkeley,California, near her children and grandchildren. Each session will begin with an introduction to the special art exhibit and a discussion in the gallery facilitated by the Sainsbury Centre. This will be followed by refreshment in the studio for the Climate Café facilitated by Norfolk and Waveney Mind. But along with continuous change, there is also discontinuous change. Sudden shifts can happen in ways that surprise us; structures that appear as fixed and solid as the Berlin Wall can collapse or be dismantled in a very short time.

Part Two: Seeing With New Eyes

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. The second meaning is about desire. It is this kind of hope that starts our journey — knowing what we hope for and what we’d like, or love, to take place. It is what we do with this hope that really makes the difference. Passive hope is about waiting for external agencies to bring about what we desire. Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for. How can we offer this valuable work to people who might never come to workshops or who don’t have access to them? Like many of you reading this, I’ve been deeply touched by my experiences in the Work That Reconnects workshops, and seen others deeply touched too. But how can we offer this valuable work to people who might never come to workshops or who don’t have access to them? Joanna Macy and I held this question in mind when we wrote Active Hope. We’ve been delighted that one of the newer forms of the work that has evolved is the Active Hope book group, where the book becomes a co-facilitator in the team supporting groups journeying around the spiral together. We’ve taken this a stage further now, with the launch of the Active Hope MOOC (massive open online course), also known as the Active Hope Foundations Training – a free, video-based online course available at https://activehope.training . To change something, we need to first hold in our mind and heart the possibility that it could be different. The concept of ‘pay it forward’ is a central theme in Active Hope. It plays a role not only in fundraising to develop free online courses and resources in Active Hope Training but also in supporting a shift in perspective that contributes to positive change in the world.

But, just as the problems can happen through people, so can constructive responses, says Johnstone, who provides free online courses in active hope: Three special exhibitions of environmental themed art-works will stimulate discussions and provide fertile ground for an enriching Climate Café session facilitated by Norfolk and Waveney Mind.

Join us for a special evening exploring Active Hope and the Seventh Generation Experience. Step into the future and hold a conversation with your descendants to hear their advice and support!

Heroes almost always start out seeming distinctly underpowered. Then we just follow the thread of the adventure, developing capacities along the way and discovering hidden strengths that only reveal themselves when needed. The events are part of the first season of Sainsbury Centre’s ‘Big Question’: Planet for our Future: How do we adapt to a Transforming World? Having a larger map of activism encourages us to move more freely between these different dimensions, as well as to combine them in ways that empower us When we think of ourselves as interconnected parts of a larger web of life, just as we may feel the Earth crying within us, perhaps we can experience the Earth dreaming within us too. However, it is not only positive visions that guide us. Our nightmares can alert us to dangerous conditions and summon us to respond on behalf of life.

Chapter 4: Honouring our Pain for the World

The Haudenosaunee First Nations people of North America follow a principle that everything they do should ensure a sustainable world for at least the next seven generations. The “Seventh Generation Experience” is an imaginative activity that puts us into dialogue with future beings–who become very real to us. Through this guided activity, we use our imagination to travel to the future and meet these beings who view us as their ancestors living at this pivotal time on earth. When we speak as future beings to someone in the present, tremendous compassion, wisdom, and insight pour through. From the first public workshop in 1978 it has been the aim of the Work to help people trust their raw experience and give voice to what they see and feel is happening to their world. Its interactive exercises frequently involve role-play and a shift in assumed identity; the Work aims to engage and expand people’s moral imagination, bringing wider perspectives on our world, while fostering both compassion and creativity. Arne Naess introduced the term ecological self to describe the wider sense of identity that arises when our self-interest includes the natural world 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. The revised tenth anniversary edition is published on 14 June 2022 in the US, and 15 July 2022 in many other countries.