How To Be Hopeful

'The perfect book for troubling times. The ideas and exercises in How to Be Hopeful will soothe your soul.' Katherine May, author of Wintering There is always hope. Even when we're grieving or afraid, worn down by everyday troubles or relentless bad news, it is there. As an expert on the multiple benefits of hope and kindness, Bernadette Russell reveals how hope can be nurtured by all of us, even in uncertain times. Filled with cutting-edge research, timeless philosophy and tales of triumph over adversity, this uplifting and essential toolkit will give you all you need to cultivate hope in yourself, your community and in our future. With plenty of 'try this' tips and case studies of everyday 'hope heroes', How to Be Hopeful will inspire you to live and to act with renewed hope for a more compassionate world. Hope is the fuel that transforms our lives.

What exactly is hope and how does it influence our decisions? In How We Hope, Adrienne Martin presents a novel account of hope, the motivational resources it presupposes, and its function in our practical lives. She contends that hoping for an outcome means treating certain feelings, plans, and imaginings as justified, and that hope thereby involves sophisticated reflective and conceptual capacities. Martin develops this original perspective on hope--what she calls the "incorporation analysis"--in contrast to the two dominant philosophical conceptions of hope: the orthodox definition, where hoping for an outcome is simply desiring it while thinking it possible, and agent-centered views, where hoping for an outcome is setting oneself to pursue it. In exploring how hope influences our decisions, she establishes that it is not always a positive motivational force and can render us complacent. She also examines the relationship between hope and faith, both religious and secular, and identifies a previously unnoted form of hope: normative or interpersonal hope. When we place normative hope in people, we relate to them as responsible agents and aspire for them to overcome challenges arising from situation or character. Demonstrating that hope merits rigorous philosophical investigation, both in its own right and in virtue of what it reveals about the nature of human emotion and motivation, How We Hope offers an original, sustained look at a largely neglected topic in philosophy.

An inspirational mental health book to help you find hope and build it into a lifelong habit. Filled with practical exercises, questions to consider, revealing research, timeless philosophy, and tales of triumph over adversity, How to Be Hopeful is an uplifting, motivational, and essential guide to living and acting with renewed hope for self-compassion and for a more compassionate world. It shows us the places we can look for hope—in nature, art, the kindness of strangers, our own actions—and ways to keep it alive through moments of adversity. A wonderful gift for all occasions! Graduation Birthday Divorce Get well or feel better after surgery Cheer up Thinking of you Author, performer, and activist, Bernadette Russell, has made it her life's mission to teach the practice of hope, allowing us to focus on the positives and the possibilities—no matter what challenges life throws at us.

The challenges we face can be difficult even to think about. Climate change, war, political polarization, economic upheaval, and the dying back of nature together create a planetary emergency of overwhelming proportions. This revised, tenth anniversary edition of Active Hope shows us how to strengthen our capacity to face these crises so that we can respond with unexpected resilience and creative power. Drawing on decades of teaching an empowerment approach known as the Work That Reconnects, the authors guide us through a transformational process informed by mythic journeys, modern psychology, spirituality, and holistic science. This process equips us with tools to face the mess we’re in and play our role in the collective transition, or Great Turning, to a life-sustaining society.

"Hope is not a sedative; it is a shot of adrenaline, a blood transfusion." Through clever word pictures like this, best-selling author and former pastor Warren Wiersbe preaches the same message Peter preached so long ago. Turning each enlightening page, believers gain increasing confidence in true Hope, a God in whom they don't just wish for eternal life. In Scripture, hope means the promise of salvation for those who have accepted Him and His Son's death and resurrection. Christians who possess this hope and live as though they possess it will learn godly submission, holy living, and harmony with other believers. These qualities will prepare them for what Peter paints in his epistle as inevitable-suffering and persecution. Though Peter is writing to warn a people who would soon be under the tyranny of a heathen Roman emperor, some level of suffering will always be a part of the believers' journey. A time is soon coming when living the "comfortable" Christian life will be far more costly than the life willing to give up all.

“[A] landmark book . . . Solnit illustrates how the uprisings that begin on the streets can upend the status quo and topple authoritarian regimes” (Vice). A book as powerful and influential as Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, her Hope in the Dark was written to counter the despair of activists at a moment when they were focused on their losses and had turned their back to the victories behind them—and the unimaginable changes soon to come. In it, she makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argues that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next. Now, with a moving new introduction explaining how the book came about and a new afterword that helps teach us how to hope and act in our unnerving world, she brings a new illumination to the darkness of our times in an unforgettable new edition of this classic book. “One of the best books of the 21st century.” —The Guardian “No writer has better understood the mix of fear and possibility, peril and exuberance that’s marked this new millennium.” —Bill McKibben, New York Times–bestselling author of Falter “An elegant reminder that activist victories are easily forgotten, and that they often come in extremely unexpected, roundabout ways.” —The New Yorker

The characters in Eternal Night at the Nature Museum take refuge in strange, repurposed spaces. A middle-aged addict emcees at demolition derby, which transforms into a hostel—then a cult. An elderly folk-artist builds mailbox reproductions of her dream homes. A church congregates in an abandoned Hardee's. Octogenarians escape their nursing home. Unsupervised children sell knives to the neighborhood. In twenty vivid, rowdy, buoyant stories, Tyler Barton assembles a collection of places to crash, if only for the night.

HOPE is our children's window for a better tomorrow. In terms of resilience and well-being, hope is a critically important predictor of success. This creative story from the best-selling author of My Mouth is a Volcano!, and Bubble Gum Brain, reminds children that dark clouds can be temporary and asking for help is always okay. We all have times when we need to borrow a little hope from someone else.

When your clouds get too dark, and too heavy to push away, Reach out and ask, "Can I borrow some light?" "I'm having a really bad day." It's always okay to admit to yourself, "I just can't do it today. Everyone needs somebody sometimes, to help them find their way." Sometimes the dark clouds overhead seem too heavy and you feel like giving up. Little candle knows all about this. Bad grades, blasted on social media, worried about making the team, and wondering who her real friends are so many hard things to deal with! All she can see is darkness. But her story begins to change when someone notices she needs a boost of hope. As little candle is reminded she has purpose and her own unique gifts, and that she isn't the only one with dark clouds, her dim light begins to shine brighter. This hopeful story emphasizes for children (and adults) the many different ways to ask for help, and their ability to be a hope builder for others, too.