Hello, and welcome back to Savvy Psychologist. I'm your host, Dr. Monica Johnson.

October 10th was World Mental Health Day, and it goes without saying that we've been living through a difficult time for mental health, to say the least.

Some of us have felt helpless, hopeless.

That's why today, instead of a regular episode of Savvy Psychologist, I have something else I'd like to share with you.

Brought to you by our colleagues at McMillan Audio.

It's a special excerpt from the brand new audiobook, The Book of Hope, a survival guide for trying times by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams.

That's right, Jane Goodall, the naturalist and primatologist.

And this audiobook, you'll hear about Jane Goodall's philosophy of hope.

She discusses how she copes with all the discouragement and despair she's encountered in her lifetime, from World War II to climate change, in order to cultivate hope.

And you'll hear why she believes hope is an essential tool in her work for environmental justice.

Keep listening for this excerpt from the introduction to the audiobook, read by Jane Goodall herself.

And if you like what you hear, you can pick up a copy of The Book of Hope using the link in the episode description, or wherever books or audiobooks are sold.

An invitation to hope.

We're going through dark times. There's armed conflict in many parts of the world, racial and religious discrimination, hate crimes, terrorist attacks, a political swing to the far right, fueling demonstrations and protests that all too often become violent.

The gap between the haves and the have nots is widening and fomenting anger and unrest.

Democracy is under attack in many countries. On top of all that, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused so much suffering and death, loss of jobs and economic chaos around the world.

And the climate crisis, temporarily pushed into the background, is an even greater threat to our future, indeed, to all life on Earth as we know it.

Climate change is not something that might affect us in the future. It's affecting us now, with changing weather patterns around the globe.

Melting ice, rising sea levels, and catastrophically powerful hurricanes, tornadoes and typhoons.

There is worse flooding, longer droughts, and devastating fires that are breaking out around the globe.

The first time fires have even been recorded in the Arctic Circle.

Jane is almost 90 years old, you may be thinking. If she's aware of what's going on in the world, how can she still be writing about hope?

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