Empathy Circles A Blended Empathy Practice:
Empathy Circles are a hands on, walking the talk, empathy practice.
The circles are based in science from many different disciplines such as psychology, neuroscience, biology, philosophy and arts (i.e. dance and literature). When developing the empathy circles, we did not want to get fussy over the term while getting distracted from the real important outcomes of the volumes of books, scientific studies and practices developed. We therefore decided to take a blended approach to empathy and started to actually practice in the empathy circles what all these different disciplines had to say about it.
We blended science and practice to both decipher what empathy looks and feels like as well as figure out what works and what does not work in practice. Combining the different disciplines lead us to propose five phases of empathy: Self-empathy, mirrored empathy, reflective empathy, imaginative empathy and empathic creativity or -action.
At the core of these five phases of empathy are different levels of synchronicity between two or more people. Empathy Circles are meant to be a hands on method in supporting your practice.
Distinguishing Empathy from “Emotional Contagion”
In the experience of empathy, we must be able to disentangle our sense of self from others.
Emotional contagion is defined as the tendency to ‘catch'(experience/express) another person’s emotions.
One of the main differences between empathy and emotional contagion is that there is no differentiation between self and other in emotional contagion. It is a non-conscious process of automatic, somatic mimicry. After automatically mimicking and synchronizing facial expressions and movements with those of another person, emotional convergence takes place.
fMRI studies on empathy and perspective taking show that agency (i.e. the awareness of oneself as an agent who is the initiator of actions, desires, thoughts, and feelings) is a crucial aspect of empathy to successfully navigate emotions and behaviours as belonging to either ourselves or the person in front of us.
..::”If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?
– Rumi
When we are confronted to the emotions and expressions of another person, self-awareness generally, and agency in particular, are crucial aspects in making sure that we can be open to these people with a selfless regard for the other rather than a selfish desire to escape, or project ourselves into, their expression.
We also need to protect ourselves from being overly stimulated by our social interactions, which can result in burn-out or compassion fatigue. So, whereas agency is absent in emotional contagion, it is a crucial aspect of empathy.
https://www.academia.edu/27786942/Empathy_Circles_A_Blended_Empathy_Practice
..::”Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of people who are oppressing them.
We Think We Listen, but that might be a thought!
https://empathymatters.org/now/active-listening-carl-rogers/
Understanding this could greatly reduce human suffering.
“The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the seed of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is already dead. ~Albert Einstein”Refusing humility traps you in delusion.♡ Love Albert Einstein … Only a comic book bible would suggest a cultish behavior to genoc~~ everyone else, but some special chosen ones? OMG
Imagine living on a planet where the rich get richer by indoctrinating the people to follow ancient dogma, repeating an ancient doctrine of genocide projected onto innocent children, again and again, the rich get richer, and the children receive brutal indoctrination instead of Living Their Sacred Free & Joyful Life.
Secret History: How Evil Triumphs:
