Active Hope

by Rosalind Dean

Active Hope is a free on-line training course designed for those who are deeply troubled – even despairing – about the state of the world.  The course starts with a “Problemometer” which asks people to rate the seriousness of our world situation on a scale of 1 to 10.  The average response from participants is 7 or 8, in other words severe.  This is followed by a “Response-ometer” asking how well developed we think our collective response is.  The average rating is 2 to 3, in other words rather slight.  Some of us are so upset about the news of human suffering and the degradation of our world that we block it out and just carry on.  

The course can be found at active-hope-foundations-training  It is designed to run over 7 weeks, but being on-line you can do it at your own pace, taking longer or shorter.  I was lucky enough to find a version that was supported locally by Flourish Economics.  The extra hour a week was still on-line but reinforced a crucial message – you are not alone, there are others out there grappling with the same issues as you.  They offer a sense of community and a source of new ideas, perspectives, information and support.  Happily, a new co-learning group is starting in November.  https://www.flourisheconomics.com/active-hope-colearning

Flourish Economics can be found at flouisheconomics.com.  It was founded in 2023 by Emma Woods in Derbyshire.  After a decade of working as a public sector economist, she stepped away from mainstream economic thought to follow her dream of a regenerative society built on cooperation, reciprocity and abundance.  She offers workshops, facilitation, learning opportunities and helped create the first Sheffield Doughnut.  The Doughnut looks at ways in which Sheffield might learn to live within a safe ring, between the social foundation for a decent life and planetary limits that allow life to continue.  

The Active Hope course is not just a happy-clappy, think positive, chin up sort of experience.  It is quite demanding, intellectually and emotionally, but rewarding.  For more read on.

The Spiral

The course is based on a spiral, covering Gratitude, Honouring our pain for the world, Seeing with new eyes and Going forth.  It emphasises the idea of process – there is not a thing, or set of things, to be done that will solve everything – but a way for each of us to see what we might do best, and how to set about it, at different times in our lives.  It is a practice, something we do, rather than have.

Coming from Gratitude

Funnily enough, a course dealing with despair starts with gratitude.  Two sentence starters are “In my life I am grateful for …..” and “I’d like to thank …..” This might seem like a self-indulgent, feel-good distraction, but it worked for me.  Wider research suggests that gratitude practices can nourish our capacity to face challenging situations and reinforce our motivation to act for positive change.  They help us focus on what we have, not what we don’t have.  And one of the things I found most powerful was the idea of actually expressing this, saying thank you to individuals, or feeding forward my sense of gratitude into the wider world.

Honouring our Pain for the World

I found this is another revolutionary concept, that I am not a weak minded wimp because I get upset about the state of the world, it is a sign that I care, that there really are things in this world that are being lost and I mourn for.  We can react in three ways.  Business as Usual glosses over the problems, and says they do not matter, or they will get sorted, somehow.  The Great Unravelling may be an accurate description of the way things are disintegrating, but can leave us in paralysing inertia.  

The Great Turning allows us to be shaken and stirred by disturbing information and rouses us to respond.  Physiologically, pain or discomfort have a function, in alerting us that something is wrong.  I can respect myself for recognising this signal.  I am not just a brain on a stick!

There is also an invitation to see ourselves in Deep Time.  Many of us are immersed in a very short time frame of busyness encompassing things to do now, today, tomorrow.  If pushed, we might expand this framework to include our life time, or even those of our children or grandchildren.  But if we stand back and see ourselves as part of our evolutionary heritage, or even geological time, we may become better able to balance short term gain against long term costs.

Seeing with New Eyes

This section of the course brings in systems theory, physical and social science, traditional wisdom, psychology and other strands in an exciting mixture.  This is summed up in the unmathematical formula 1 + 1 = 2 + a bit.  If you bring in collaboration, curiosity, different disciplines, cells in a body, people from different backgrounds, dots in a picture, team spirit, they can lead to the emergence of a large whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.  Many of the problems we face have multiple causes, and we are more likely to find multiple solutions, if more of us are engaged in different ways.

One source of wisdom is listening to our world.  I have often seen “we are all interconnected” as an airy-fairy concept without real meaning.  I now have a better sense of the concrete way that I am connected with the world.  Every time I breathe, I am making an exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide with plants.  Every time I eat, I am dependent on the condition of the soil.  My personal waste interacts with the water cycle on which life depends.  The world is a living system that is self-regulating, but only if we moderate the demands we put on it.

There is an invitation in the course to find a spot where we can pause from time to time and to listen to what nature and the world have to tell us.

Going Forth

Taking all this on and deciding what we do next can feel like the most daunting part of the whole exercise.  But there is a lot of emphasis on identifying and using what we already have: our own talents, experience, and imagination, our supporters, and all the people out care about the same issues.  Thinking and talking together about “yes, and we could do ….. “ and “what if we tried ……”  Put Professor NoWay in his place.

Spheres of action can be segmented in various ways.  For example, Holding Actions try to defend or preserve those things we want to keep alive in our world.  The search for Sustainable Systems and Practices can help us get the things we need without destroying the basis on which they are provided.  Consciousness Shift is to do with how we change the way we look at things, what we need for a good life, and how we work with others.  A release from the tyranny of wanting.

It really helps to realise that we do not have to do everything.  We can start from where we are, identify what we hope for, and take steps in that direction.  There is no single root cause for our predicament, and no single solution.  But this also means that there is more room for our distinctive personal contribution.  After many months of searching, for my niche, I realised that one of mine could be helping spread the word on this and other topics, by writing for this blog and the Sheffield Telegraph.

Was it all worth it?

Yes.  Active Hope training definitely supports, confirms and encourages.  It has many features that contribute to its success, including a good (memorable) structure, excellent graphics, and sympathetic video conversations.

I have three top-line personal takeaways.  Remembering to be grateful and expressing it is enriching my life.  I suppose we used to say “Count your blessings”!

Rediscovering that saying things out loud, with a listener, rather than just in your head, makes a big difference: it is amplifying.  And that’s the other thing I have been neglecting, the power of the group, of human interactions, even if it is only one other person.

Being A Part, rather than Apart, is great.  Working together with shared purpose makes it more likely that our hopes will be realised.  It plants a seed that may grow into something extraordinary – and it is much more fun.

The course ends with the recognition that it easy to lose what you have learnt, unless you practice.    They suggest using the sentence starters if you are bored with small talk in a pub.  Or find a friend with whom you can go through them periodically.  Or even setting up a little group that meets at regular intervals.  You and the Spiral change and develop so it is worth revisiting.