Therapy for Troubled Times

Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone have crafted a highly touted work for those in the trenches of social change. Like Meg Wheatley's recent So Far From Home which I reviewed last fall here, this title, Active Hope: How to face the Mess We're In Without Going Crazy, recognizes that the size of the challenges we face are enough to discourage anyone from trying.  
Macy, soon to be 84 years young has teamed up with Johnstone, a medical doctor, author, and coach who worked for nearly twenty years as an addictions specialist in the UK National Health Service.

Their approach is compelling, reaching inside each of us to that space that connects us to a wider sense of self. It is at once a work of self-actualization and planetary repair. It is not in search of heroic work, but rather feeding that notion that we need "to develop our inner resources and the outer community" simultaneously.

Rather than be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task the authors suggest that "We don't limit our choices to the outcomes that seem likely. Instead, we focus on what we truly, deeply long for, and then we proceed to take determined steps in that direction."