My Unbecoming, My Fixation, then My Beacon: Active Hope

There is something I would like to introduce you to. Active Hope. It is nearly exactly as it sounds — a practice of being actively engaged in your own hope. It requires a few things of you: to understand what you hope for, to recognize that you always have an impact and make ripples whether you are intentional about it or not (you are part of the world), and to know that at any time you can become an agent of building towards that hope. For me, an optimist, hope is integral to my drive, my direction, and my grounding.

I didn't understand that about myself until a dark time in my life, a couple years ago now.

Intense burnout in my career landed me in a scary, messy, unfamiliar place. My worldview had collapsed. My motivation and joy were far away. And without recognizing how bad things had got, it was my body that finally set the boundary. I was taking meetings in the dark, from my bathroom floor, so I could mute and puke because of nausea. A rash up my throat. Swelling. I was barely holding it together.

A diagnosis of severe depression was the first language I had for what was happening. Later, I would get more language — and learn that what I had been experiencing included suicidal ideation. When I was given the words and the perspective to understand that, it scared the living shit out of me. There are few things riskier than living in that space.

I was lucky to be afforded time. My partner had been keeping me together for months. A leave from work triggered connections to the right doctors and support. My only goal for a solid month, as given by my doctors, was to make and eat breakfast. It was scary, confusing, embarrassing, and unavoidable. I avoided the grocery store so I wouldn't see colleagues or friends and have to explain myself. 

It was, in the strangest way, the opportunity of a lifetime. In that black hole period — where everything fell away — I became fixated on hope. What even is it? Why is it? Is it uniquely human? Is it only available to some of us? Is it even useful? I went deep into the work of Joanna Macy and the Work That Reconnects. I'd been in an Emergent Strategy book club since the beginning of the pandemic, learning about justice, change strategy, studying lessons from natural systems and activist movements. All of that learning, which had lived mostly in my head, was starting to connect outside of the realms I originally saw.

Macy writes: "Active Hope is waking up to the beauty of life on whose behalf we can act. We belong to this world and we are here to play our part." 

And this from adrienne maree brown:

"Do you already know that your existence — who and how you are — is in and of itself a contribution to the people and place around you? Not after or because you do some particular thing, but simply the miracle of your life. And that the people around you, and the place(s), have contributions as well?"

What Active Hope gave me, practically, was this: the ability to zoom in and out between scales. To right-size a moment, a situation, a decision. To put things into context without losing myself in them. And more than anything — to get comfortable enough in my own skin to speak. To myself first. Then to friends. The confidence and connectedness I found in that black hole era is one of the most beautiful things that came out of it.

People tell me now that I took a big risk — leaving a stable career, a pension, the security of a known path. A lot of options open up when it's no longer an option to stay the course. I consider myself a risk-averse person. Leaving was the lower-risk move, because it gave me back control — over decisions, over the values I act on, over how I show up every day. 

I started Delve Recycled because I believe big change is possible. I think that hope is a practice. Something you commit to again and again. I wanted to build something that shows the power of doing that “right work” of solving the problems that you really think need solving. A business with layered impacts, centered on the idea that real problems can be tackled at a human scale, by real people, in real communities. 

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Alongside the micro-recycling studio I run, I am now trained and practicing as a facilitator of ‘The Work That Reconnects’. It's a framework, with many activities, tools, and practices, to help transform despair over the world's crises into collaborative, connected, proactive action. 

If you're curious - send me a note. I love talking about this stuff, and I have a few recommended reads if you're looking to learn more.