This is a lovely and succinct explanation of empathy that offers a lot to learn.
Oren J. Sofer is a teacher and practitioner of Buddhist mediation, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and Somatics.
The Empathy Documentary project was conceived and facilitated by Edwin Rutsch, the Founding Director of the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy. http://cultureofempathy.com/
Important and insightful list including a bonus item - "And, your mind wandering is normal!"
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-matters-most/201306/top-10-things-most-people-don-t-know-about-mindfulness - Ryan M. Niemiec, Psy.D., education director at the VIA Institute on Character
“If you trade your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief.”
― Brené Brown
Happy New Year!
Everyday most of us live in the space between where we are and where we would like to be. We look for ways to be better at planning, scheduling, strategizing, setting goals and taking action. Great stuff! Important stuff!
But sometimes there’s still an out-of-focus chunk of the experience that’s lurking and untouched by all of the doing. Strangely, that chunk isn’t experienced in the mind or through thinking. It’s seems to require a deeper kind of knowing that many people sense comes from the heart.
My wish for you this year is that you regularly make time to quietly visit and explore that out-of-focus chunk of your experience and learn more about it. My own visits show there is wisdom, openness and balance available that will support all of those functions of your mind.
A simple, clear narrative about the distinctions between empathy and sympathy from Dr. Brené Brown.
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts (RSA) provides this visual narrative; animated by Katy Davis via Dr. Brené Brown.
I looked everywhere, but my wallet was nowhere to be found. I was aware of the OMG story trying to raise its voice. I was thrown into the future of canceling all of my credit cards, notifying insurance companies, suffering the loss of $30. The First Arrow -- something is lost. Argh!. But how do I keep from adding to the injury with a Second Arrow -- my dire story.
So, I got quiet and present and looked directly at the drama my mind wanted to create and in the seeing, it relaxed and faded into the background. Then I felt more open and could see a wider view. Yes, my wallet was gone. But, the space awareness provided allowed me to know I was fine. I was safe and nothing had happened to me. No one was hurt.
The spacious feeling also allowed me enough space to fully have the rest of my life without being distracted. I saw a client and did some exercise, as well as strategized the process of contacting banks and credit card companies. It allowed me to calmly review all of the actions I had taken already and see if I could do more. And I could. Without any anxiety or judgement, I tried a few "unlikely" pants and jacket pockets and there it was.
Whew! There was relief, but also some gratitude that I could provide myself with a wider and clearer view of what was real. By not giving the story of this inconvenient loss additional, and unnecessaryweight, no Second Arrow was deployed.
Take a look at this moving and, I think, powerful TEDx-Lincoln talk. Reflect on what your relationship is to purpose and belonging.
In this talk Mark Zmarzly shares a tweet he received from an audience member who asks a profound question. It was a question tha changed his life. The tweet read "I'm so inspired. How can I not spend every day of my life helping people?" Being moved by that charge, he found there were challenges. He gives 5 reasons why the head is often at odds with the heart.
Since it's Thanksgiving tomorrow, I thought I'd share a little nugget from the Buddha about perspective and gratitude.
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us be thankful.
The Buddha
Have a great Thanksgiving!!
I shared with a meditation group a couple of weeks ago more about the challenging aspects of the thinking mind. I find this metaphor of boats of thought passing on the river quite helpful. I've adapted it from a teaching by Gil Fronsdal. It goes something like this:
Imagine you’re at the edge of a river, under a nice oak tree. It’s beautiful weather, nothing you need, and nothing you want, you’re so glad to be away from all the business of your life. All that running after things, and doing things. It’s just so good to be there, to be content to be alive, to be present.
And then, one of those showboats go by. Flashing lights, casinos, dance shows, dancers and everything. Pretty exciting. Next thing you know you’re on the boat, and you’ve been on it for the last 24 hours. And you didn’t even know it. What happened to the riverbank?
Somehow you manage to get ashore and get back to the tree, so happy to be back there, watching the river, content, and the next thing you know you’re on a warship that goes by, and you’ve been fighting wars for a couple of days until you realize, wait a minute, how did I get on here?
Then you get back on shore, find your place by the tree again, and then this really poor destitute raft comes by and next thing you know you’re struggling for survival on this desperate little raft. And then you wonder, “How did I get on here?”
So you go back ashore again and back to your oak tree. And all these boats go by and after a while you think, you know, there must be a different thing to do besides getting on every boat that comes by? Why don’t I just watch it?
So you decide to stay here, I’m not going to leave, I’m just going to watch it go by. I’m going to see it, the shape of it, the color of it, what’s going on. I’m not going to leave my place, my seat, I’m just going to let it go by.”
Take some time and check in to see how your relationship with the boats of thinking is doing today. I got stuck in the future on the planning boat for a while this morning. I'm back on the shore now. :)