Active Hope is a practice.

Hope and grief can coexist

We feel deeply for those who are suffering and for the young people who have inherited this era of catastrophe. We share in their heartbreak and fury.

We also know this: hope and grief can coexist, and if we wish to transform the world, we must learn to hold and to process both simultaneously. That process will, as ever, involve reaching for community.

In a society where fellowship and connection are so lacking, where isolation and loneliness abound, we are often ill equipped to process grief. [   ]  Grief can also lead us to retreat and recoil and, too often, to abandon people to suffer in ways that we cannot bear to process and behold. 

. . . we, as people, do have power. Depending on our choices, we can turn away from injustice and let it continue, or we can confront our grief and move forward to shift the course of societal action in the face of a massive failure of leadership and institutional abandonment. Grief, after all, is a manifestation of love, and our capacity to grieve is in some ways proportional to our capacity to care. Grief is painful, but when we process our grief in community, we are less likely to slip into despair.

Personally, it helps to view my grief as a manifestation of love, maybe because it’s a reminder of my sense of humanity and connection to others, which makes the pain feel almost welcome. Maybe this perspective does the same for you. Later in the chapter, Hayes and Kaba write:

When we talk about hope in these times, we are not prescribing optimism. Rather, we are talking about a practice and a discipline–what Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone have termed “Active Hope.” As Macy and Johnstone write,

Active Hope is a practice. Like tai chi or gardening, it is something we do rather than have. It is a process we can apply to any situation, and it involves three key steps. First, we take a clear view of reality; second, we identify what we hope for in terms of the direction we’d like to see expressed; and third, we take steps to move ourselves or our situation in that direction. Since Active Hope doesn’t require our optimism, we can apply it even in areas where we feel hopeless. The guiding impetus is intention; we choose what we aim to bring about, act for, or express. Rather than weighing our chances and proceeding only when we feel hopeful, we focus on our intention and let it be our guide.

This practice of hope allows us to remain creative and strategic. It does not require us to deny the severity of our situation or detract from our practice of grief. To practice active hope, we do not need to believe that everything will work out in the end. We need only decide who we are choosing to be and how we are choosing to function in relation to the outcome we desire and abide by what those decisions demand of us.
This practice of hope does not guarantee any victories against long odds, but it does make those victories more possible. Hope, therefore, is not only a source of comfort to the afflicted but also a strategic imperative.

Active Hope is about finding, and offering, our best response when facing concerns about our world situation. https://www.activehope.info/

FURTHER READING

It happens sometimes to meet a book that we think is important, and to want to share it with others. Those of us who deal with education and training often come across texts that could nourish their work, and stimulate for themselves and for others a path of growth and reflection.

Sometimes it happens that books that have this effect on us are written in a different language. Then it is natural to think: we must translate this book into Italian!

That’s what happened to us when we discovered the figure of Joanna Macy and the book Active Hope. We are a varied group – a trainer, a teacher and three university students – who decided to take a risky path and never traveled by any of us: to finance the translation and publication of Active Hope using the crowdfunding tool, then looking for a few hundred supporters willing to buy the book in advance, before it even exists!

Joanna is a remarkable figure. A scholar of the dynamics of complex systems, she embarked on a spiritual path that led her to the practice of Buddhism in the traditions of Tibet, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

“Active hope is awakening to the beauty of life and discovering that you can take action to take care of it,” you can read on Joanna’s work site (www.joannamacy.net).

We all live the daily life immersed in a narrative: for many this means telling that everything is fine, things will be adjusted as they have always been adjusted, there is no need to worry – it is the business as usual world. Another group of people thinks that the world is irretrievably condemned to ruin: it is a situation widespread, for example, among the very young. Finally, a third group of people are concerned about the planetary crisis but intend to make an effective contribution to what Joanna Macy calls “the great breakthrough”.

To make a contribution to the “great turn” towards a sustainable human civilization on this planet, however, it is important a form of mind that can at the same time make us capable of acting while protecting us from the suffering that the awareness of the crisis can entail.

This is the substantial contribution of active hope. Joanna proposes the image of a spiral, in a process of development that constantly extends through four phases at a time. Each phase represents a way of going towards the world, an attitude that we can cultivate thanks to a conscious practice. The American scholar and activist points to the root of active hope in gratitudine gratitude: even in the midst of great difficulties we can (and must!) recognize ourselves grateful to someone or something. A good exercise to get in touch with our ability to gratitude is as follows: think of something beautiful that has happened to you in the past 24 hours, make present to yourself the emotions and sensations that this event has aroused to you – and mentally thank those who have made it possible!

The other aspects of work on active hope concern the ability to welcome pain for the loss of life and beauty in the world; a new look at ourselves, our place in time, in space and within the “network of life” finally, the ability to plan and implement next steps of change in the context in which we find ourselves. The space of this article does not allow us to deepen them (sun soon will be available on the page of the crowdfunding campaign).

https://www.pressenza.com/it/2019/05/speranza-attiva-portiamo-in-italia-e-pratiche-di-trasformazione-sociale-e-culturale-di-joanna-macy/

Promoting the Eco-Dialogue through Eco-Philosophy for Community

The premises of the emergence of concepts about nature and the environment led to the emergence of new directions of philosophy, represented by eco-philosophy and ethics applied to the environment. These ideas result from the interference of philosophy with fields dedicated to studying nature and the environment, all of which have led to new currents of thinking that have shown tendencies toward the development of pro-ecological movements, such as the deep ecology movement or ecological humanism. The paper identifies how philosophy can support humanity, and especially communities, to protect the environment and planet in general through a new specialization—the practice of eco-philosophy applied to communities, supporting the need to promote ecological concepts, based on principles and tools taken from philosophy. In order to achieve the objective of the paper, three research questions were stated, and the methodology used consisted of a comparative study of the concepts and a bibliometric analysis of the literature identified for the analyzed fields. The results showed that in previous research, a network was created between the concepts of ecology, philosophy, and ethics. This fact confirms that, to put them into practice, a training program is needed for philosophical consulting practitioners who will apply the knowledge learned in dialogue with individuals or groups, as well as with organizations and the community. The conclusion of the paper supports the development of a dialogue between various areas as a necessary component for developing a sustainable community by implementing new counseling practices for communities, called Eco-Philosophy for Community (EP4com). PDF Available.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/8/4291

“I think what we really need to cope with eco-anxiety though, is transformational mindset change. Especially since it doesn’t seem like governments will be validating nor acting upon our feelings or opinions any time soon. Right now, many of us don’t have the skills to deal with and respond to the feelings of anxiety and despair which arise when we try to fight climate change. Dr Kimmerer sums this up nicely in Braiding Sweetgrass:

 “They get very sad, they get very quiet. So quiet that protection of the environment that enables them to eat and breathe and imagine a future for their children doesn’t even make it onto a list of their top ten concerns”. “Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and to the power of the earth. Environmental despair is a poison every bit as destructive as the methylated mercury in the bottom of Onondaga Lake. But how can we submit to despair, when the land is saying “Help”?. 

In a 2022 talk, Dr Hickman talked about our need to get our conscious and subconscious to collaborate, to get rid of this ‘disavowal’ we have. We can pretend that we have no moral obligation to fight climate change, but deep down we know that we do (I’m talking about those of us who are privileged enough to make a change, but I think that’s more people than would care to admit). To do this, we must confront our narcissistic entitlement, and develop a new way of thinking which will lead to transformational change.

We need to learn to be able to navigate through life with eco-anxiety, not to beat it. Afterall, eco-anxiety is a natural response. Dr Hickman believes we should look to Indigenous and minority communities for our solution. These communities have learnt to develop emotional resilience – to feel all these overwhelming emotions, without losing the ability to care.  Emotional resilience will allow us to practice compassion, rather than empathy.

We must learn to distance ourselves from the suffering we are witnessing enough that we can take meaningful action, rather than drowning in it. We must find the right balance between hope and despair – to “keep our sadness in mind when we are happy, and our happiness in mind when we are sad”.  

Climate activist Mikaela Loach echoes this importance of joy in fighting any battle: “We can hold grief and joy at the same time. We don’t have to ignore either side. We can feel horrified by the events of the world and fight them whilst also feeling personal joy. And we should feel this way”.

. Dr Hickman says that through this mindset, we can transform eco-anxiety into ‘psychological activism’, and therefore by treating eco-anxiety, we can become mentally strong enough to take action in our daily lives (see the resources below on how to take steps towards this).

And Professor Sarah Jaquette Ray notes that oppressed communities have been doing this for generations: “Black, feminist and Indigenous leaders have painstakingly cultivated resilience over the long arc of the fight for justice. They know that protecting joy and hope is the ultimate resistance to domination. Persistence is non-negotiable when your mental, physical and reproductive health are on the line”.

And so, recognising and treating eco-anxiety can empower those who have become immobilised by fear into action.

‘Active hope’ is a term coined by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in their 2012 book of the same name. They say that the way we respond to difficult situations is a choice we get to make, and it is important to remember that action can be taken (and can make a real difference) even when we have no hope for its success. They describe it as a three-step process: 1) getting yourself a clear picture of the situation you are faced with, 2) identifying your desired outcome/direction of movement, and 3) considering the steps you can take towards this as an individual. Intention, not inspiration, is used to guide oneself, and thus it is a process that can lead to both successful action and the creation of hope, even in the absence of optimism.