Activate Your Engaged Hope
As we start into this New Year many of my clients and I are committing to a practice of engaged hope.
Passive hope wishes and waits for things to change.
Engaged hope calls forth our moral imagination to create a vision of what is possible for ourselves and for our world and then mobilizes us to act toward that vision.
Engaged hope is an antidote to the feeling of helplessness which psychological studies tell us is the most dangerous state of being.
To begin practicing engaged hope, ask yourself:
**What changes would I love see- in my life, and in our world?
**What state of being can I cultivate in myself that is in line with that vision?
**What small action can I take today that moves toward the changes I envision?
To stay compelling and to lead us to take action, engaged hope needs to be refreshed and re-ignited.
Have you heard of Kalmane Kamegowda? This 72 year old shepherd in rural India is called “Pond Man” and “Guardian of the Forests”. Although Kalmane Kamegowda has never gone to school he has won national and international awards for his impactful solutions to the problems of drought and deforestation in his region by mobilizing his hands, his love for the earth and the wisdom learned from his father.
Kalmane Kamegowda’s example reignites my sense of engaged hope.
I’d love to hear from you.
What is the role of hope in your life?
Who or what refreshes your sense of hope?
Believing in you!
Lea
