None of us know what the future holds – what movements might rise up; what a big corporation may suddenly decide to do; what planetary shifts might still occur. But as environmental journalist Arno Kopecky writes in his book “The Environmentalist’s Dilemma”: We are “living on borrowed time. The worst is yet to come.”
In a long article,“It’s Time To Give Up Hope For A Better Climate & Get Heroic”, Pamela Swanigan says,
“By conflicting with increasingly publicized and incontrovertible evidence, the claim that there is still hope and still time appears to push some people further into denial and others into a higher level of cognitive dissonance — both psychological states that come with immense emotional and energetic costs and add to our general state of paralysis.”
Swanigan says we should forget about holding on to hope, and just act like a hero, which is also a very stressful proposition.
But the beauty of active hope is that you don’t need to be an optimists to practice it: We can be realistic in our hearts, and, even in cases where we don’t feel particularly hopeful, we can still choose to take action and work towards the change we want to see. Is this not heroic?
The Steps to Practice Active Hope like a Hero:
1. Ground yourself in reality. We start from where we are, taking in a clear view of the reality we face, seeing what we see and feeling what we feel. If you expect that we will solve climate change soon and everything will be rosy, then you will eventually lose hope and burn out.
Get in touch with your anger and frustrations so you can use it as fuel. Instead of feeling hopeless, or repressing how it feels, I encourage you to consciously FEEL.
2. Look for inspiration. If we’re to give our best response it helps to open to perspectives that inspire, empower and open us to a sense of possibility. One way of doing this is to see what words follow a sentence that starts with “what inspires me is…”
Read about Earth Heroes here, and find hope in their work.
3. Identify what it is that you hope for. Get clear about the direction you’d like things to move in or the values you’d like to see expressed.
4. Identify the gifts you have to offer the world. We each have talents and abilities, and these are the most efficient things to offer.
“Don’t worry about what you should do, worry about what you can do.”
Gloria Steinem
Active Hope Queries:
What is it I hope for most deeply, and what is something I can do to make this happen?”
What are my gifts?
What practical heroic actions can I take to give myself hope?
