Five Cards of Hope — strengthening your hand when hope runs low in your life or our world
I recently gave talks to two different audiences – a gathering of biologists alarmed at the decline of natural systems they seek to protect, and mental health professionals wanting to support resilience at a time of disturbing world events. The central theme for both groups was hope – how we find it when it seems to disappear, and how we can tap into authentic hope-based inspiration even at times when we don’t feel hopeful. I was struck by how useful they found the tools I shared. So I’d love to mention some of them here too, particularly ones we can use ourselves when our sense of hope dips. or when we’re supporting others who are feeling this way.
What is Thrutopia?
In the summer of 2023, I discovered a word I’m finding powerfully transformative when I read an article in Permaculture Magazine by Manda Scott called ‘Thrutopia – creating a new story for a world in transition.’
A utopia is an idealised state where everything is running well – but it is so perfect it seems impossibly out of reach. It is hard to believe in. A dystopia, on the other hand, is an awful state where things have worked out badly. There’s plenty of that already here, and also widespread fears of more to come.
Recognising the need to develop a different way of thinking about the future, philosopher and activist Rupert Read coined the term ‘thrutopia’ to describe a narrative of making it through difficult times in the best possible way.
A Thrutopia is a story
of making it through difficult times
in the best possible way
There are several key elements to this Thrutopian Story pattern.
First is that it starts from where we are right now, in the present.
And in that present, there’s recognition of something difficult for us to make it through.
The plot is about how we do that in the best possible way, heading in the direction of a future worth aiming for, finding our strengths and solidarity, as we each seek out and play our part. There’s no guarantee we will make it through in ways we hope for, but if we show up as best we can in support of that intention, we’re more likely to head that way.
We can apply this thrutopian story pattern to facing loss of hope. How do we make it through times of hope collapse in the best ways possible? Over the last few years, I’ve refashioned my resilience training work to address this question. And at the heart of a thrutopian approach to resilience is a redesign of hope itself. The central insight is that hopefulness is just one form of hope, and if we lose this, there are other forms still available that can usefully nourish, guide, resource and inspire us.
I’m building here on the work I did with Joanna Macy, described in our book Active Hope – how to face the mess we’re in with unexpected resilience and creative power (New World Library 2022, revised edition). There’s also new ground that has opened up since then, and I’ve developed a framework I call ‘Five Cards of Hope’ where each card represents a different form of hope. The first card is Hope as a feeling of hopefulness, with a value range from high to low or absent. If we’re disappointed with card we’re dealt here, and don’t feel hopeful, rather than seeing that as a dead end, it becomes the starting point of a thrutopian story where we still have other cards to play. I introduce these other cards in the video below, and explore how they can be played to activate hope in ways that nourish and guide us. I’ve summarised some of the key points further down the page.
If you’re interested in exploring this more, please see details of our course Thrutopian Resilience For People-Care Professionals starting on October 15th. The course is run in partnership with Silver Hill Academy in the US, taught by myself and my colleague Dr Jeff Katzman. You can book at this link.
Here’s the video.
The First Card is Hope as a Feeling
The first form of hope is the feeling of hopefulness — our felt sense that things might work out as we wish. When we’re low or lacking in this form of hope, it can be both a risk factor for depression and an obstacle to engagement in life. The key insight with our first card is that hope isn’t just a bright feeling you either have or lack. Within a thrutopian narrative, the experience of low hope might be the start of a story following the plot of finding our best way through this.
A resilience tool I teach applies the pair of sentence starters ‘Here’s me facing…’ and ‘what helps is…’. So if you’re facing a loss of hope, what might help is first just acknowledging that, feeling what you feel, and then exploring what else might support you here. The five card model strengthens your hand as you still have four more cards to play.
The Second Card is Hope as a Direction
This card shifts the focus from “Are you hopeful?” (a feeling) to “What do you hope for?” (a direction). The first question is about ‘hope-ful-ness’, while the second invites ‘hope-for-ness’. This form of hope functions like a compass pointing in directions we might still want to head in even when we’re not so sure we’ll be able to succeed. Having things to hope for fuels our sense meaning and purpose, strengthening the plot in the story of our lives.
Asking “From here, what do I hope for?” can help us recalibrate our goals after setbacks and explore better possibilities without denying difficult realities.
A key insight supporting this kind of hope is radical uncertainty, where we acknowledge that we don’t know for sure how things will go. Hope grows out of uncertainty. If we always knew exactly what was going to happen, we wouldn’t need to hope. When looking at a situation that concerns us, three questions that help us experience radical uncertainty are ‘What’s the best that can happen here? What’s the worst that can happen here? And what’s most likely?’ Hope-for-ness is about choosing our preferred version for how we’d like things to go. The next card is about putting ourselves behind that choice and acting for it.
The Third Card is Hope as a Practice
Passive hope is where we know what we hope for, but don’t do anything about that. Active Hope is a practice, something we do rather than have. Just as some people might do mindfulness, tai chi or yoga every day, Active Hope is a practice for personal and collective wellbeing we can show up for each day. It involves three key steps of 1) starting from where we are 2) identifying what we hope for, and 3)taking action in support of that hope.
A key insight that supports Active Hope is understanding the difference between making something happen and helping something happen. There may be some hopes we’d love to make happen, but don’t believe we can. Rather than giving up on those hopes, we might still be able to help them happen. The image of a circle and some squares helps illustrate this principle. Which square in the image below makes the circle happen? Which square helps the circle happen?
These two questions illustrate two different ways to think about our power to make a difference. While each square can’t make the circle happen by itself, it can still play a role in helping the larger shape happen. In a similar way, we might look at an action by itself, and think ‘That won’t do much, it won’t make my hope happen’. Yet if we consider what each action is part of, and what it contributes to, we can see how the larger process of change might happen through things we do each day.
The Fourth Card is Hope as a Story
There’s a difference between a picture of hope and a story of hope. The picture needs to look hopeful, it needs to have features that generate a sense of promise. A story of hope might start from places it seems absent, or pass through times it collapses. What makes the story one of hope is that the central plot is about supporting the hope, with the central characters looking for ways to help the hope happen, and finding ways to support themselves in that process. What helps this plot move forward are the unexpected twists that develop into turning points. Can you think of times in your life where you’d lost hope, but then found it again? Or where you’d faced a challenge you didn’t feel hopeful about, but then surprised yourself by what you found was possible?
When we see hope as a story, there’s more space for ups and downs, for dips and wrong turnings, even for times when all hope seems lost. The question is ‘what happens next?’ – and that’s something we can play a role in. If we’re not sure what to do or don’t feel ready, a useful principle is ‘first what, then how’. First we identify what we hope for, then we can engage in a preparation stage of change of developing our ability to support that hope and help it happen. The process of ‘hope tending’ is where we strengthen the conditions that support our active hope, including training ourselves and growing our capacities, so that hopes that seemed beyond our ability becomes ones we can move towards.
The third and fourth cards act together like two strands of DNA, each supporting the other. The Practice of Active Hope is where we take steps to help our hope happen, and the Project of Hope Activation is where we play our part in the story of strengthening conditions and capacities that help us and others engage in active hope. Hope is activated when it happens through people, but the story of hope begins even before it is visible – just as watering ground may help seeds hidden from view become activated and sprout, so we can tend to dormant hopes and help them grow.
The Fifth Card is Hope as a Powerful Force of Nature
A pile of molecules and a living cell might contain the same physical components, but the living cell has something extra – the emergent property of life itself, which is a powerful force of nature. You can have a group of separate people, each doing their own thing – but if they work together on a common project, they may develop a sense of team spirit that also has a life of its own. Is there a way that stories of hope composed of many smaller elements acting together might also develop a life of their own? Perhaps you know people who’ve been recruited to act for the same larger hopes as you, and that you feel a sense of solidarity and team spirit that helps you work well with them.
When we feel strongly connected with a story of hope that inspires us, and that is bigger than we are, perhaps we can imagine it as a powerful force of nature that happens through us, through our actions and our choices – as well as those of other people to. What if this type of hope was a way that life looked through our imagination and caring into possible futures, searching out better versions of how things might go and guiding us towards them?
To strengthen this sense of a powerful hope acting through us, just consider what our actions contribute to, what larger story they might help move forward. Then look for ways to lean into this, to show up for what we deeply hope for and play our part in helping it happen or become more likely.
So what is the hope you want to show up for, help happen or become more likely?
If that hope were to happen through you today, what might you do?
Chris Johnstone is a Thrutopian Resilience Practitioner and co-author, with Joanna Macy, of Active Hope – how to face the mess we’re in with unexpected resilience and creative power (New World Library, revised edition, 2022). He is the lead trainer at CollegeOfWellbeing.com, an online training service that seeks to support a great turning for thrutopian wellbeing.
With thanks to Carlotta Cataldi for images.
And here’s the link for Rupert Read’s article in the Huffington Post introducing Thrutopia.