Chris has been a trainer in the Work That Reconnects for more than three decades, working with Joanna on many occasions and running facilitator trainings in the United Kingdom. He has been active in the Transition movement since its very beginnings and contributed to a chapter on the psychology of change in The Transition Handbookby Rob Hopkins.

Hope without action is naive optimism. Action without hope can fail because it doesn’t believe in its goals. Active Hope is a compassionate and wise guide to bringing these forces together to understand who we are, what we need and what we are capable of.” 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. Because we can never know for sure how the future will turn out, it makes more sense to focus on what we’d like to have happen, and then to do our bit to make it more likely.The power of inner strengths drawn from us when we engage with challenges and rise to the occasion. The second chapter brings a new practice that offers a way for two people to go round the spiral of the Work That Reconnects in a half hour conversation. By inhabiting this vision with all our senses, imagining what colours and shapes we see, the expressions on people’s faces, the sounds we hear, the smells, taste, and feel of this future, we bring ourselves there in a way that activates our creative, visionary, and intuitive faculties. For example: clean air, renewable energy, lifestyles of voluntary simplicity, widespread ecological awareness.

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. Power-with arises from what we do rather than we we have. The shift in perception from seeing power as a noun to seeing it as a very has surprising potency. Good coaching has to be ethical in a sensitive, connected way that enables insightful communication and clarity of curiosity that has a truth and braveness to it. This too is the approach that will bring a truly determined energy to change our business as usual world of human pretence at life into being real life. This workshop has that energy.”We’ve all felt hopeless and a bit gloomy and anxious and depressed and that’s a normal reaction. It can become overwhelming, so we do want to try and create some hope, and how do we do that? It’s breaking it down into small steps and just thinking about today.” The long-term vision of the Organisation will be to open a centre that would be the base for these activities. In the meantime, it is intended to be a free-lance organisation offering opportunities to groups where they are and taking them out into God’s amazing creation.

Many of the teachings from Active Hope are about our deepening our relationships with ourselves, others and our world. In the weeks between each group meeting, you’ll receive a prompt for a home-practice activity to embody those teachings in your own life.What specific goal or project could you realistically aim to achieve in the next twelve months that would contribute to this? Neither complacent optimism nor resigned pessimism has power to motivate us; they don’t generate a hunger for learning or provoke our best response.

Next time you see a tree or a plant, take a moment to express thanks. With each breath you take in, experience gratitude for the oxygen would simply not be there save for the magnificent work plants have done in transforming our atmosphere. Chapter 4: Honouring our Pain for the World Our awareness that the outcome is uncertain is what prompts us to prepare; it calls us to attention. Rob Hopkins used this “imaginary hindsight” approach when founding the Transition movement. He told us: “It was more a case of thinking “I wonder what would happen ifnd then imagining what a permaculture response to the challenge of peak oil would look like, particularly a response that could easily catch on around the world”.Joanna had a particularly lucid and disturbing dream. She saw her children left behind in a barren, toxic world.