2019-10-30 Wahl

Transcripts

I'll just give a little introduction I'm Edwin Drudge director of the Center for building a culture of empathy and here with Chris Daniel Christian Wall who you're the author of designing regenerative cultures and you have a website that anyone can check out at Daniel Christian Wall dot-com and we're here to talk about the relationship between designing regenerative cultures and a culture of empathy so that's just a little way to get us started do you want to say anything more about yourself and more of an introduction well yeah maybe that in my reading of empathy it extends beyond just empathy with human beings but empathy with all life and understanding life is a planetary process and I think that's where regenerative cultures connect because regenerative cultures are cultures that are trying to meet their needs within the unique bio cultural conditions of their place in ways that further life as a planetary process like into the wonderful where the Janine Benyus has defined what life as life creates conditions conducive to life and the current situation on the planet shows us that if we don't learn how to do that as a human speed species we might not be around for much longer so that's really great well my I've got interested in empathy about 12 years ago I was making documentaries on different human values you know things like trust fear etc came across the value of empathy and just just realized the centrality of importance of the value of empathy that that this is like a really central value to human connection and I think well-being and I've been a seeker in my early days you know it after high school or high school here I went traveling for ten years around the world most sort of a seeker you know just kind of seeking the meaning of life and trying to put myself in as many different cultures and situations as possible when I came across empathy it was like oh this is really what connected me with everyone you know this quality of connection which I found really important so my lights we have really strange weather here we have high winds there's been fires here in California sort o of the power stays on and everything so so so then

I just have thrown myself into the into empathy you know really studying it then developing practices and so and it's it's looking at not just sort of this individualistic empathy whereas usually empathy has looked at is this individualist from this individualistic Glens of that you're empathic towards others and it doesn't look at the relationship like what's the level of empathy in the relationship right if we're you and I are here what's our a mutual level of empathy between us not just me as an individual you as an individual and I think that's sort of the cultural aspect of of empathy so yeah I mean I think that this wonderful word that the Vietnamese Buddhist monk did not Han has coined into being and if you take that idea that did nothing can be be in isolation everything is in relationship to everything else and and really that that from the cell through an organ to our bodies to families communities ecosystems and the planet it's really all one process that is structured in this sort of complex nested whole okey where the illusion of separation the fact that we experience ourselves as somehow other than like I'm you another to me I'm another to you is is actually Einstein called it an illusion of consciousness and if you take this motion of interbeing really serious then then empathy could be reframed as feeling with the larger hole that that actually brings us forth that and that we co-create so I think it's a it's a central notion for bringing and bringing about a more sane human presence on earth M in the next hopefully in the next few decades because we don't have much time left yeah well you know I was seeing from the description of you of your book it says through the lens of transformative innovation whole system's thinking ecological design and transformation resilience the book explores the pathway towards a regenerative culture so you're really looking at it from looking at the whole system's how do we transform and and redesign systems and that sort of that interbeing right that your that although the system is interconnected and people are really interconnected that we're not we're with

empathy it's like we're not just separate beings is but as I moved my hands you actually have neurons that are firing that is feeling the level of energy that I have in the movement of my hand as I see you kind of focusing and thinking I can feel your concentration and you're kind of you know just the quality of your the feelings that you have so I'm moving along with you with your health experience and you're moving along with me with my felt experience so we're not just separate disconnected beings were highly interconnected are our minds and our felt experiences highly interconnected absolutely and I think those those kind of insights that that we are interconnected and interdependent and that we in that strange position of on the one hand being emergent properties off this interconnected hole but also co-creative agents in it so everything we do or don't do has causal efficacy to the worlds that we end up bringing forth or living in and I think that that's the meta design shift that's that the even before you design new systems with regard to regenerative cultures it's the narrative and the understanding of who are we how are we related and how are we interconnected that is actually the most important shift that there lies at the at the heart of creating regenerative cultures and that's why I said yes to this invitation to have a conversation because empathy I think it's central for that notion yeah so you we're hearing there is that you see that you're talking about co-creation it's not like we there's a designer designing other stuff but it's sort of a mutual relationship in terms of the design it's like that co-creation quality of it is that kind of am I getting that what I mean with co-creation is that did not just human beings I think every like if if you think of it from from the perspective of consciousness then consciousness is primary rather than metal then the world experiences itself through different perspectives that the whole takes onto itself and in the act of perspective taking we create this supposed other from everything else but that other can be a dog a tree a rhino or human being and they all have some form of conscious participation in this whole and experiencing it and and also bringing it forth through that act of experience and and so ultimately all of us together all of life together is creating the

experience that that we we live that that's where reality to my mind comes from I think we're slowly getting to a point where we're understanding that that the physics theories of the last century were little bit limiting they were useful they gave us lots of interesting technology and they have a certain validity but really the idea that consciousness and life emerges out of dead matter doesn't really make that much sense and it makes a lot more sense that that earth or even the cosmos is primarily alive and conscious at different levels of complexity and and that really what in evolution is is a diversification and then subsequent reintegration of that diversity at higher levels of complexity slowly making sense of our participation in this dynamic whole and and the more we can feel with not just other human beings but also with more than human life with the the the community of life that we saw uh turley depend upon the more likely we are going to create cultural patterns that in the future will probably be a blend of the wisest of indigenous wisdom who've always understood this kind of interbeing and our interrelatedness with all our relations but also technology have not has now given us a way to to blend those insights with modern technology in such a way that we that we can do so for seven point eight or seven point six billion people on the planet if we choose to and do so in a way that isn't as inequitable and destructive as it is right now ok so what I'm hearing there is that it's sort of we need sort of a difference meta story of how we are conscious and relate to life that were we're not just working we're not just manipulating life around us but there's a sort of Akko relationship between all these different qualities the animals the plants other humans that work on like sort of co-relating with each other and co-creating life together and we need to have a there there needs to be sort of an awareness to begin with of that co-creation that we have with life and versus this sort of more would it be a sort of an individualistic we as an individual are changing all of life or something is that's the shift we think of the individual as somewhat divided from everything else and separate from everything else rather than as an emergent property out of that larger process of life then it's very easy to then get individualistic or

species in the sense that we we then begin looking to look at life in such a way that we always see is competition for scarce resources because we only look at the individuals and we only look at the individual species but Gregory Bateson long time ago reminded us that the unit of survival in evolution isn't the individual or the species but the individual and the species in its environment so it's it's the totality alive as a planetary process that that needs to survive as the basis for anything else to be able to survive and and it's when we when we make that shift back into understanding that that it's really living a paradox of being somewhat separate from but also in expressions of the whole that that we participate in and and so along with that mindset or a story shift you right it's a it's a shift in narrative a shift in story also is a shift from from telling that life is all about competition and survival of the fittest and to understand that it's really about collaboration and survival of the most fitting which is what Darwin actually said and so really if you if you it's not that competition doesn't exist in the world but I very often use this image to kind of put it into proportion it's it's like standing on the ocean and being and somewhat mesmerised by the dynamism and and and the force and and the loudness of the crashing waves and on a stormy day and and so all you focus on other waves but really and that's that's a competitive bit the ripples on the surface but but life has a planetary process over 3.8 billion years has created conditions conducive to life has improved the conditions so more life could come about and really life coming back to this this ocean metaphor is a sea of symbiosis and collaboration and and synergy and synteny and and everything else is just just fine-tuning on the surface and you can retell the story of life from its very beginnings in that

understanding that their life has actually always made its next major jump through an act of collaboration rather than an active competition and and when you look at the story of our species our species has evolved because we're great collaborators that's our it's not our competitive edge it's our collaborative edge that has enabled us to inhabit all the continents and and spread far and wide so you want to move from sort of a focus on competition to a focus on collaboration but then collaborate with all of nature all of our environments is that fair yeah I think another one of those false separations that we carry in our storytelling is that nature and culture are somehow separate and culture is an epiphenomenon of biological processes an ecological processes and so so culture is just an expression of nature and and in its most like if you take that inside to do it to the end then then they isn't such a thing as something that isn't part of nature the the biophysical chemical cycles of the biosphere and and the cosmos are all interconnected and and that's really what what what nature isn't that that would mean that all our technologies are also part of nature it's just that we've created technologies in this mistaken view of separation under this illusion that we're the masters of nature rather than participants in it and we we even trained ourselves in order to create more manipulative and and controlling sciences and technologies we trained ourselves to not feel the empathy we have with with other species if you if you read the reports of the early Scientific Revolution and and and and like Descartes encouraging his students to do very sections on life animals and when when they wanted to stop when the animals started shrieking and and making horrible noises and due to the pain they were inflicting Descartes was telling them no these are just machines they don't have a soul they it might sound it's a it's it's a your senses are deceiving you I mean that that was his great thing that with the cogito ergo sum was that that you can't trust your senses you can only trust your rational analytical mind that dissects everything and separates everything and we we still carry that that Cartesian split between mind and body self and world culture and nature as a important underlying influence in our in our culture and unless we go upstream and and reposition those beliefs and and put them into context we're well unlikely to find solutions to the the huge problems we now face I think that's where the empathy comes in is like with Descartes saying I think therefore I am 'not actually I would say it's I feel I sense for I am so it's a hole and the thinking is sort of like a controlling it's like I it's it's sort of like actually I kind of control things therefore I am versus I sense and interrelate I

mean like for example if is a is a you know it being when you're still in the womb I don't know if you're really thinking about like the meaning of life you're but you're sensing warmth or tongue ger I don't know what senses I you know how but there's a felt you're sensing life and I think that's a kind of a core part of of empathy is that I sense I I said as I was saying you know I sense I myself my own feeling is as well as the feelings that you have and so there's a you know if I'm if I'm hungry or if I'm you know I'm needing you know to be food if I'm tired I feel the sensitive tiredness I need breast so there's all these different feelings that we have and I think that's what empathy kind of starts with this the premise experience that we sense and that we can sense our own sense into our own selves and sense into the cells of others and the same like that those animals that were being dissented that you can sense their experience their experience when they're screeching there's you know they're sensing pain we can be sensitive to that versus so just discounting dismissing the the senses that other that others have or other beings has yeah I mean basically we've created a suicidal culture that is wreaking havoc on the rest of life and we become somewhat numb to the science telling us that every day there's dozens of species disappearing and if you really sit with that that is the wealth of evolution that the inheritance of life that was on this planet when you and I were born is every day being eroded by the effects of our actions and and we were completely numb to it we don't understand that that because we're not separate from that community of life its biodiversity and its healthy ecosystems functions and and biospheric life support system is what is the very nature of the very ground of our being and and so yeah and unless we and I think that the nice thing about empathy as you say it it's a feeling we need to we need to re embody and feel as part of life like Joanna Macy's wonderful work on the work that reconnects is is really all structured around first being able to feel the grief for the loss and what we're doing and have done to life again and out of that connection with with the grief and the trauma to wake up to a point where we can actually allow ourselves again to be empathic with each other and and the tragedy that is happening right now and and out of that comes the the first position from which we can then act as as responsible in the sense of

able to response human being that that logically at that point you you you want to start healing the damage that we've inflicted and and that's really what regeneration is about to understand that part of the pattern of regeneration is is the death and the dying of structures that no longer serve so it nothing stays constant everything's keeps evolving into to celebrate the collapse that we now see all around us as a kind of freeing of systemic relationships and patterns dissolving that that we now have this unique opportunity to to reap our future to read we consider who we are how we are connected to each other to other human beings and to the rest of the community of life and how we may go forward with no guarantees because life has never had a guarantee um it's it's a complete and utter illusion that there's ever been any kind of certainty around whether our species was going to survive the next century or this next millennia and we never knew that and we sort of fooled ourselves into believing that we had that kind of certainty and now with with climate change and and cascading ecosystems collapse and all these other trends that are looking pretty grim it's it's the very confrontation with our own mortality and our the potential that we might not make it that I believe is beginning to wake us up to to life and it's beginning it's it's literally if you think of it in terms of indigenous cultures and all indigenous cultures have a point in the process of adolescence where youngsters go through a rite of passage to mark the transition from being nurtured by the tribe and fed and and supported with without many kind of responsibilities and roles because they're still kids and youngsters to that point where they become mature members of the community and and I inducted into the the reciprocity and co-creation of a healthy community and and the responsibility that comes with being a mature member of of the tribe and and literally I think we are as modern humans we've arrogantly dismissed our cultural heritage of indigeneity around the world as primitive with it we've we've lost those kind of rite of passage rituals and and in that connection and now it's it's the imminence of our of civilizational collapse that and and ecosystems collapse that that is is almost pushing us at the level of the entire species through a rite of passage that brings us back into a sense embodied felt survival mode around we are life and we can choose to make a positive difference or continue to make never- differences in then and since we've left it for so long again no guarantees and well I think we were challenged to do now is to to become healers of our societies and our ecosystems even if we have no guarantee or in the face of no guarantee that it will actually still be able to make a difference because we've done so much damage that that it will take at least 20 to 30 years before we can say with certainty well we turned this one around and it looks like things are definitely getting better and we might have another few millennia if we don't get hit by an asteroid and yes so I think that empathy is central to this this new rite of passage it's it's beginning to feel with a dying planet that can wake us up to become the midwives of birthing a healthier human presence and and and re-engaging with with life in a way that that we regenerate rather than continue to destroy okay so I was hearing there I mean see you are not talking about numbness that we're sort of have become numb to nature to is that correct okay there's a numbness and that we need to

wake up to or we are perhaps waking up now to the destruction that's happened in the planet and that that to make that it sounded like you're is that like a motivation of seer you think it's like fear it's like oh it's this fear of what what's happened what's happening in the world is going to kind of wake people up I don't know I think actually the other side I think it's it's the fear is keeping as numb and it's really yes there is there's the fear of death that runs through our culture but ultimately but what it flips us into once we once we recognize our grief for what's going on is actually more a sense of love and a in connection with empathy for all of life and and I also think that the pathway towards towards healing is motivated by that loving the world again much more deeply in in a sense of of admitting to ourselves that yes we might or might not be able to still make a difference and and turn this around but we can appreciate every single moment that we're given because life's really a miracle each one like this conversation is it's I think it's actually more than then I sense therefore I am or I feel therefore one of my mentors at ish Kumar has refreshed the Cartesian victim - you are therefore I am it's again this inter being of of that right now you are giving me like by the power of our mutual attention in this conversation we're helping each other to to automatically reproduce who we are and and and and create an expression of it and in this in the same sense I think we can do that with appreciating the beauty of the flower and the beauty of a of a healthy in forest ecosystem and and be with what what is still healthy and beautiful in that loving way and I think that from from that deeper connection will we find wise ways of becoming healers and gardeners and and and and guardians or stewards like that the notions of Guardians and stewards can still sound really kind of paternalistic and kind of down on nature kind of thing but I think the way that indigenous people have understood stewardship is a different one it's it's really understanding more deeply that and it's not like we have some sort of special dominion over the rest of life but because we have foresight and because of the kind of consciousness that that we have that that we can anticipate and see patterns and we do have the potential of

becoming a healing keystone species and and so so fear and lava in a weird dynamic there like that I don't think you can really motivate transformative action out of fear but sometimes it is the discomfort created by fear that makes us look more deeply and makes us try out different ways of being that can actually flip us back into into love and in connection and it's yeah ok so the fear you can have fear and it's that there's a discomfort in the fear that's kind of what makes you wake up in a sense and it's kind of what I was hearing there as well as that there's grief that and you're seeing that what I'm hearing is there sort of the grief of just a loss that we have of the connection maybe with nature and environment that's that grief that can sort of create a motivation to want to heal it that are the healers is that sort of buzz I'm hearing that correctly mm-hmm doesn't sound like it's not quite yeah it's just like I'm not sure whether it's I feel comfortable with calling fear the motivator and even if I might have done that just now well I think I can tell the experience that I had like I do this freestyle dance and and when I was dancing I was noticing sort of an anxiety within myself like I could feel visceral anxiety in my body and instead of just kind of ignoring it and dancing and you know I said you know why am I feeling this this anxiety and I said I want to get I want to instead of kind of avoid it or go do something else I want to get as close as I can to that feeling of fear and kind of I wanted to open it it's like you know when you have pixels in a picture if I said I thought well I want to get to the small pixels in the picture you know Zoot how you zoom in on a picture and you see like these the other pixels the individual picture pixels of the picture get kind of bigger and bigger I thought I want to zoom into that feeling of anxiety and get as close as I can to it so I started sensing into it and trying to kind of make it bigger inside myself and as I got closer to it it's like I didn't really want to do it it's like it looks like an anxiety and numbness of fear and I wanted to and what part of me wanted to sort of avoid it you know I was like because it's painful it's but I kept going into it and then it started turning into metaphors I found this little metaphor it's like thousands millions of little values kind of cutting into me and I kind of already get closer to it as I got really close to it it's sort of like dissolved and it's like I sort of like faced that fear I went into that fear and it dissolved and then but within about five six seconds I noticed another sort of discomfort and I was like a heaviness in my mind you know like a weight a cloudiness and sort of a numbness you know like mind I hit my head so it feels kind of like numb and so again I went in it's like okay I'm gonna get as close to this feeling as possible and it was the same thing is getting it you know feelings of the cloudiness it was like I just got closer and closer to it and then it's sort of like dissolved away and then it kind of got me interested in going towards my fears so I spent like an hour like dancing but kind of looking at the different fears and anxieties and within within my body and like some people I would dance with and there was like 100 and I would dance with you know she would always like after a few seconds turn and go away so I kind of felt this sense of rejection in my body you know I said okay I'm gonna go be present with that I'm gonna get really close to that feeling I'm not going to you know yeah I'm just gonna get really present like that and we had ended up having this really great you know connected dance there's something about it a sense of connection always was so interesting was that after an hour of going through each sort of fear I faced them I felt like I was like I was like floating like I was an oxytocin heaven you know it's like each of these fears that I went through it seemed like it was little bit of oxytocin as I was trend you know that I felt so calm so relaxed so sort of spacious after it so I don't know if that kind of fits in it it's sort of going into the feeling if I did not you know and sort of facing and sensing into the felt experience and I had also thought of Wow it'd be so nice to be able to talk with others about the felt experience we have in the moment and go into our deeper felt experience and it seemed to me I also remember just having an insight that this is so central to what's happening in our culture you know people are not kind of going into and moving through the fears that they have they're not sort of facing they're not facing and transitioning through the fears what you just said kind of triggered all sorts of things I mean the dancing relating it to dancing made me think of my own dance practice with five or five rhythms AIA and open floor and and how when you move from staccato into chaos it's it's really stuck how to is the patterns that we're stuck in repeating these kind of movements and then chaos is really the liberation of these patterns so so then lyrical and flow can can emerge but in terms of the facing the fears I think now I actually feel more more willing to look at here as a portal because you're right and in my framing I would say that if you really look at why am i fearful and very often what we ultimately come back to is fearful of death of the solution of the patterns that that we think we are dissolving to the point that we don't know who we are anymore and but as as you do that with life you are you can understand that actually we are part of that bigger nurturing process and I think that most of the wisdom traditions that have spoken or promised some form of eternal life and what they're actually promising is that life is eternal that that as life we cannot by because we dissolve back into those patterns the regenerative patterns of how life brings forth plenty of novelty and through evolution but it does so using death as it's kind of good to call that it's ingenious way to create plenty of life and the minute you move into the fears that are alternately driven of this this not wanting to let go of patterns that no longer serve em we can then dissolve the patterns and the last thing that I kept thinking is as wonderful science fiction book dune and you might have come across I've seen a lovey well the book is much better and in this Frank like the author was Frank Herbert and in the book there's this litany against fear of I shall face my fears and move through them and and turn the inward eye to see see my fears and then when fear is gone only I will remain and and and I think this this is speaks to that same process of really asking more deeply what is it that we're really fearful of what what is it that is triggering that response and and if you if you go deep enough it's not wanting to shift patterns it's not wanting to shift like let go of this particular embody the existence feel and but but by doing so we can fall in love with all of life again yeah yeah yeah I have that experience like I when I sense fear one sense of fear is a sense of kind of going into

nothingness like a losing my identity and sort of going into like not knowing who I am anymore that there's a sense of fear but there's also the sense of being able to step out of it the sense that I'm sensing that you know to sort of accept that lost a sense of self but there's a larger like a larger sense of self it seems like there's if I'm explained but you can always like expand awareness it seems like see out of a feeling that I'm in I can step into a feeling that's sort of bigger and more encompassing of that offf that makes any sense but it's it's like it takes some of the fear out of the loss of self I guess for me it's the sense of I can empathize I can feel into whatever is coming up I can feel into my fear right I can be sensitive to my fear so I'm constantly I can sense into whatever arising again I can feel into and it there's a there's a groundedness that comes in for me that comes in to that so if I'm in a really you know if I'm mediating a conflict you know I can I can feel into each of the parties I can try to bring the parties together to you know dialogue with each other and that I can sort of sense into my own whatever whatever I'm feeling I can sense you know be sense into that so yeah I'm not sure if that's coherent the desking what I'm noticing is that there's at least in my understanding of it there is this really strong connection between understanding that separation is ultimately an illusion and that interconnection and interdependence is what life creates diverse expressions of a of itself out of or through and and so that there is actually with the if empathy is about being able to feel with the suppose at other it is also the pathway to feel the interconnection and a non separation that underlies this perceived separation and yeah it very very fact that we can be empathic is is is almost a proof to the fact that that we're not separate but we we are much more connected than our current cultural story makes us believe well with in terms that sense the separation that I can be let's say if I walk into a room and I feel separated right I feel I feel like anxiety and I feel sort of a loneliness I feel you know like and it's painful right feeling separated feels lonely

but if I can share to someone I can say oh I feel separated I feel alone and they actually reflect back like oh I hear you're feeling separated and you're feeling alone then suddenly I feel within that contact I feel connected do you know I mean it's like that there's a yeah there's a quality of being able to name the feeling I have you know and then have it be shared by someone else that then I feel a sense of connection through that to that kid through that through that sharing and well was something that we do one of the practices we have for you know sort of building empathy as we call it empathy circle so in that it's a dialogue process where one person shares you know like I feel lowered I'm feeling kind of depressed that the listener too reflects back their understanding of what this person the speaker has said to the satisfaction of the speaker so the other person says oh I hear you feel lonely you're feeling depressed you know is there more and then you keep sharing and you keep getting a reflection on what it is that you're what you've been saying until you feel like you're heard if you know fully heard and understood so you know what you want to share in the moment and then if the listeners turn to become the speaker Alicia is with like groups of four so and then they select someone to speak to and that person reflects back their understanding you know that person shares and they get a reflection so to go around like that for the time allotted so that's it's it's sort of based on that empathic listening you know active listening but shared in a in a small group I think it's one of the so that corner the foundations of a culture of empathy it's the each side each person is being able to share who they are and then get a reflection on that and that's when you feel like you're heard and then you're stood by others you kind of become develop more trust that you can kind of go deeper into a deeper sense of honesty you know openness and transparency so I kind of see that sort of dynamic this sort of a core practice for you know empathy building and for me it creates a a sense of orientation in my life to have multiple points of empathy being emphasized with you know people from different you know wide variety of people when you said empathy even before you said that I was actually reminded of one of the practices I'm and trained in and that I always find extremely powerful in terms of shifting group process which is the way of counsel I mean basically talking stick circles of listening from the heart speaking from the heart and really being present with with watch it well this being said and and in in that truly being present not not going on too much and not pre formulating what you're gonna say but really listening deeply to when the other person is speaking what they're sharing and and I've seen that that process with with every every person that opens up sharing how they feel about a certain situation or whatever and gives permission to other people to go deeper and be more truthful and more transparent about where they're at with it and and also it is enormously healing because sometimes you he'll hear others reveal things that that you might not have ever dare to share with anybody because you thought it's only you who who feels depressed or sad or whatever about that particular thing and so yeah I mean that this kind of active listening and and and reflecting back is it's all part of building cultures of empathy which also I mean basically that's where there's a link cultures and cultures of empathy I don't think you can have a regenerative culture without also having a more empathic culture and and so there's wonderful techniques out there that the we've developed over the years that that can can help nurture this culture shift whether it's nonviolent communication or all these kind of active listening

exercises the ones that you just described them you know for me there's it's it's also very important that we in this conversation bring in the number understanding of that we're the privileged ones that can have these kind of conversations and how many people there are on the planet that that are not that privileged and an already facing extreme hardship as climate change gets worse and ecosystems breakdown gets worse and and in just the vast inequality that that we have on the planet it's it's kind of strange because our level of kind of white male educated probably university educated I don't know exactly your background but that's already quite quite a lot of privilege and and and we can look at reports and global inequality and and be outraged that there's whatever depending on what statistics you trust and but at ten or fifteen or twenty or fifty billionaires only as much as half of humanity and together but and the reality is that we us included are part of the upper 10% probably the upper five percent and and so forth that gives us even more responsibility I think to yes work on our own self and and work on our issues and what makes us feel sad or depressed or whatever but well I think we have responsibilities beyond that of becoming healers of our entire societies challenge the degenerative and destructive economic system in which we're currently operating and in naming the the structural violence that has created poverty that has created inequality that has created all these these degenerative patterns that that are now coming to two kind of a point yeah I mean it's it for me for me it's just like I need it I need empathy with myself sometimes too not on the one hand get like to disappear in feeling bad about my own privileges and and and wanting to only work for for others because the only way that you can really serve your community and serve the world is if you also serve yourself first and but not in an egotistical mimimi I want more but more in terms of I need to be healthy and and resilient and strong and and work on my own ability to hold all this and in order to then be of more effective service to others to community and to the wider world so what I'm hearing there is you may be sacrifice yourself in your own needs sometimes for just thinking about the larger society and you realize that you need to take care of your own needs as well as it's not you can't like self sac just totally self sacrifice I think it's a common pattern among among activists and environmentalists and all these kind of people who are trying to work for a greater good and I mean again in the in the indigenous practice of the way of counsel or this generally an indigenous wisdoms you normally ask this sort of threefold question doesn't serve and does it serve is a threefold question of does it serve me does it serve my community does it serve the planet or does it serve future generations and I always found the first of those questions really hard to ask because of this whole sense of - focused on the individual were too self-absorbed and this question of doesn't serve myself felt inappropriate or doing good work as an environmental educator or in in ecosystems restoration and regeneration and felt like it should have

priority over earning an income with it or meeting my own basic needs through it but over the years as I got older I realized that that really does those things are um traps of that that stop us from being more effective in our world and that there is actually wisdom to asking that question about um does it serve myself and I mean bringing it around to empathy that that means it's empathy isn't all about being empathic and compassionate with others it's also being empathic and and compassionate with yourself you know that to heal and through that healing be able to heal the world yeah that's why I call it a culture of empathy that a culture of embassies I want to be able to empathize with you or others in the in the in the environment but it's also I try to support people in empathizing with each other and me too so that it's it's a mutual it's a it's a mutual value of empathy between all parties involved that's what so for me that's why the empathy circle is sort of a microcosm of that there's no one that's sort of necessary the facilitator the person that's like sort of being controlled but once you kind of learn the process everyone can feel heard about what's going on for them equally you know theirs is the same thing for example one thing was like I think you've been involved in X our extinction rebellion we started some groups you know around that for around empathy and nxr is to you know kind of spread the empathy within xr2 where it's like the parties you know listen to each other empathic aliy as well as that have it demands that the you know the people in power have an empathy circle too you know with us so I guess it's I guess I'm kind of just yeah it's it's it what I was sort of hearing from you is that initially you maybe it felt guilty about putting focus on yourself you didn't say guilt but maybe it was a sense of guilt that oh I'm you know I'm thinking about myself I should be self sacrificing thinking of others and that you realize that if you're not taking care of yourself as well you're not being able to contribute to others either so you just see that you know this mutual empathy for yourself and for others having empathy for you and it's a total mutuality sort of Akko empathy in that that's what I'm actually calling a culture of empathy is seeing that everyone you know it means needs needs to be heard seen and there needs to be you know acknowledged to I mean in the context of exile and the kind of climate emergency and planetary emergency I think again I keep coming back to one of the real elders because there's a lot like with what Jen Ben delves deeper apt ation and there's a lot of stuff there has happened recently that is really just one or two individuals having an insight that other people might have had 10 15 20 years ago but of course we're now getting to a point of more critical mass with more people and also because of social media listening and being aware of of these these insights but basically I think that well I remember going for a walk with John I may see in 2003 talking about whether we actually still had a chance to turn this one around or whether it was already too late and we had triggered too many processes that would ultimately mean that higher life forms on planet Earth were but for a few million years not have a future and that would mean the end of our species eventually and and and unfortunately many other species with it and I remember that back then Jonah told me that it really does matter how we go out even if we go out it's about whether whether we are gonna make it and if we have guaranteed evidence that we're not gonna make it we might as well stop being empathic and we might as well stop trying to heal the planet because if we heal the

planet if we restore ecosystems if we restore our social cohesion and our communities we will and even if the system is already running down we will maybe have another five or six or seven generations of living in an increasingly impoverished planet but if we switch towards love rather than fear and we appreciate just the miracle of being a life and being with each other even if it is in increasingly catastrophic circumstances it's a very very different angle and and Jonah also has this framing that I think is really powerful of this dual role that we all have to play and that that we one in the same times a hospice workers of a dying system that is no longer fit for purpose and were midwife's offer of a new civilization I mean she frames it under the industrial growth society having to be hospice and the life sustaining society having to be Midwife but I very often use this framing and what was really interesting just just a few weeks back I was mentioning this framing in when while I was teaching some some students at Omaha college and one of the students had this real moment of wow this is really shifting something for me and shared what was shifting for her and I suddenly realized that while I had used the idea of hospice Inge many times I'd never thought of it the way that she explained in that moment and it's very much related to empathy she said wow that that frame of hospice Inge really helps me to see a corporate CEO Monsanto employee em in different eyes now if you if we are hospice in that system that these people have invested the entire life trying to in in a lot of them not out of militia a lot of them out of being so mistaken in terms of how things work in how life works that they actually thought they were doing a good thing driving the Green Revolution in all this madness yeah and so so shifting and I think that's something that exact could do a bit with is is to truly understand that if we are hospice in the destructive dying system Hospice is done in a way like you wouldn't sit by the bed of a dying person no matter who they were ya know and and just dig into them of saying you were such a bastard like the minute you know that they're dying that's where empathy and compassion comes in to the point of saying well you just another human being and I have to be with you and and make it easier for you to let go of patterns that no longer serve or even this existence so I thought that was really like for me that that that student really

gave me a whole nother angle on on being both compassionate and also empathic with what so many activists like to create yet yet another other and then and I see the same issue with what's happening now while on the one hand there was this massive spiraling of global awareness through Fridays for the future greater turn back and and X I and and all these these global demonstrations and and then immediately this wrong kind of green group comes in and and and creates like conspiracy theories of somebody being behind crater turn back and and mommio having been co-opted and all it does is create yet another other and I'm not saying that they might not be wrong right in the danger that even that conversation around climate change and being entirely focused on carbon and this carbon myopia and has the potential of being completely hijacked by the neoliberal lobbies and and under Doug and and and turned around but as long as we stay mindful that that is a possibility and that some people will actively work towards that it doesn't mean that that these blanket dismissals of greater turn back or blanket dismissals of of the all these other movements even that that blanket dismissal of the people who are trying to move in your country the green new deal and it's it's yet again like I'm holier than thou I'm writer than you it's it's yet again other ring rather than celebrating that there are more and more people who are beginning to see that it's high time and we need to make a difference and it's so much easier to walk with somebody a part of the way even if you know that their current aim destination is still a little bit mistaken but it's when you walk next to them imperfectly that you can say great that well aligned in trying to make a positive difference we both want to let's have another look at how we can do so even better and let's have an another look at how we might also be co-opted by others to to to be diverted from our higher intention and it's I find it really frustrating lately to see in social media some of the groups that I'm I'm I'm curating whether it's it's at Facebook regenerative cultures or ecological

consciousness which are pages where where I can curate the content but then you get this a regenerative consciousness community group and it's it's grown rapidly to over 8,000 members this year and and very quickly it started to be about arguments and about hate and about the group that was celebrating that the kids are going into the street and the other group saying auditor they just don't get it and and they're being they're just puppets of a orchestrated neoliberal coup and it's it's not how we're gonna create critical mass mask to make make this shift we need to give each other more more the benefit of the doubt without not naming the dangers and whether it's it's and I think that that's where empathy again is central and you you it's far too easy to other others and because the minute you do you create reasons why they're not as important or not as worth of love and feeling well and and all that as you are or you judge them for their past actions and therefore they deserve and all that kind of uttering and yeah but that that's just continuing the wheel destruction it's yes total destruction yeah it's it's really tough Anna in it and it drives me nuts when when when groups for example I really strongly felt that tone when when suddenly everybody was jumping on this Wednesday positive like initially was deep adaptation and then they sort of rebranded to positivity adaptation but but ultimately what they were doing to people who might have liked as an biologists an ecosystem scientist I understood twenty years ago that that our days were numbered if we didn't change things and and there were people who wrote reports in the late in the mid 70s that were warning of that so it's not a new insight that we were about to go over the cliff but but what I noticed was that suddenly a movement of people that had been like a confluence of different streams coming together like the more techie people in the in the in the circular economy movement suddenly connecting with transition town activists and and and all these different streams and suddenly what what this impulse brought in was another division another fisher of saying well you just you're just in denial you haven't got it yet and and it this this this this kind of somewhat high horse of if you don't accept that society is definitely collapsing of course it is but the collapse has been going on for 250 years it's nothing new and then then he then you know you're not

understanding what t-pod attention is all about and you're wrong and i'm and we're right and we're so better and I'd also what X I I I was really frustrated like it's not about naming but one of the one of the principles of X are is we need a regenerative culture a resilient healthy and adaptable culture is the that is a quote from my book but they never any of the X are people have never mentioned that there are people in X are activists in different local chapters that are saying why are we communicating a regenerative culture in a singular because there's a point why its regenerative cultures plural because the the singular of regenerative culture is a typical English colonialization of the mind approach again it's it's as if a bunch of middle-class activists from England have the right to come up with one culture the reason why I put the plural in there is that regenerative cultures have to come out of the uniqueness of place and culture in each different place on the planet and bioregion on the planet they will be different based on their their cultural history and the the uniqueness of their ecosystem and the uniqueness of how all of them work together over millennia in that place and so it's it's much more powerful to keep the plural now and then the other thing is that they've collapsed this idea of regenerative culture entirely on that level of of the kind of person care and how do we work together and are we empathic and are we are we regenerating our ability to be activists through good communications and mutual support all really important stuff I don't want to did say that this is more important but the notion of regenerative culture is the culture this is the is the okay we have an extinction emergency so what what we're going to do about it create regenerative cultures it's much much bigger than the way that XR has friended and I don't understand like again they did the key voices that they certainly drawn in in kind of headquarters in England white middle-class voices mainly male a

couple of women then it's not diverse enough and and again I I don't want to diss them I'm glad they're doing their work but since I part of it is a frustration because it's leading to sort of division vs. connection it's sort of yeah it's like and I was just deeply you know I could just feel a real sadness you know when you talked about the hospice quality that I've sided people you know at the deathbed of someone there's nothing you can do you can but you do have the care you do have the connection you do have that you know means that's all you can do right because but you have that it's immensely powerful it's like it gives meaning to life to have that sense of you know connection with others so and then there's just all the frustrations if you're trying to tell the person who's at their deathbed like no you should be doing this and all the things that cause disconnection and that's just adding more pain to you know it's already immensely painful you know situation you know dynamic at the hospice so it does seem to me the the part did for me that's missing with XR is the the empathy dialog the mutual dialogue so what I would love to see is with some of the people that you're talking about that we actually hold some empathy circles maybe some recorded empathy circles it seems to me that that's if it's a practice that you can we can bring you know small groups together and have those empathic dialogues to vent those frustrations and have others here but that's mutually hearing so it's like with those CEOs you're talking about it's not just we can bring them into an empathy circle it's like well what is your concerns you know what is what is it that's you know important to you and you have those mutual dialogue so it does seem to me that those empathic dialogues is central to the whole for you know for everything even those conflicts that are happening all those groups that have different you know visions that's bringing them together to have dialogue so it just seems very central that we have to have those dialogues and that has to be central it's to sitting with each other kind of on our deathbed you know basically we're sitting together and have that sense that we're all on our deathbed we're here with each other and we have to you know be there with each other and listen to each other and you know work through these these different issues and I think that's where the regenerative culture part come to regeneration comes that when people are depressed I mean this is a core of the whole therapeutic process right that you know it was Carl Rogers with empathic listening is you sit with someone there they have all manner of you know pain depression alienation that you know dysfunction and conflict you listen to them and just sue the listening

through the connection of feeling hurt it kind of you work through and you come up with a new energy there's like a new energy that comes forth out of that sense of empathic connection that and that it's for me that's kind of that's the there's like a new spirit the new energy so it's central to have that mutual listening mutual dialogue and that connection that's what I'm trying to bring into XR is can we get some of the leaders the spokespersons the co-founders to take part in empathy circles to model these dialogues the working title of my book didn't designing regenerative cultures was actually living the questions together and so it's also a dialogical process of who are we where we're going what are we here for and like one of the the triggers for me writing the book was me talking to form a mentor of mine called David Orr and asking him what the dimension of spirituality and the sacred was in the transition that we now have to make as a species and and he made this wonderful statement he said that and before we can find adequate answers to the question what we might have to do to be sustainable or regenerative and how we might get to that point and we would have to ask a much deeper question and that is the question why are we worth sustaining what is it about us human beings that is somehow worth it to be given another few thousand years or even ten thousand 100 thousand years to fully unfold into a mature membership in the community of life and and I think that you mentioned dancing I think dancing arts the poetry music there plenty of moments when you when you see a virtual performer or just somebody having fun doing their art it doesn't have to be world-class doing what they're doing that then I get that moment of saying that's worth sustaining that's that's but I I think we yeah we we just the strange thing is that the more we sit with the imminence of what is collapsing all around us an inadequate perception of reality and inadequate relationship to the rest of

humanity in inadequately any unequal world that we've created all of those things we need to just understand as patterns that no longer serve and that do need to dissolve and and yes possibly in the context of everything else dissolving around us and and they're they're not possibly dealing and I through like a way through the eye of the needle but but I think if the longer we sit with that and it's it's a shift in our way of being it stopped it's it's stopping the pattern of uttering it's it's connecting to feeling with and an understanding into being and that in that moment we actually bring forth a world differently that brings us back to the beginning of the conversation that ultimately I I'm kind of at a point now where the scientists I've got training in biology and complexity theory in climate science and those kind of things and in me is if I look at the data I'm not very hopeful like it looks like we're way past the point of no return but but to understand that with all its wealth and usefulness this kind of science that has created those data sets that make me see things in that way is only one way of seeing as well and that it and that even the cutting edge of that scientific understanding is beginning to come around with nonlocality and and and and and open entanglement and all those those kind of theories to to naturally develop bona fide II physics theories that are beginning to say consciousness is primary and and that that we were trapped in in an antiquated understanding of time and causality and that that causality isn't an axial reacts you're like a billiard ball universe and and that time isn't a journey from the past to the present and off into the future that all these things are Co present in the only one moment that there ever is anything which is the now the present and and when I'm getting to is that I think that if we sit within these empathy circles or with each other living the question of how do we live with this cataclysmic cathartic moment of the Greeks called it Kairos where everything changes in in the instant if we really deepen and not through what we do but how we are through changing the way we are with it our being that then the world will show up

differently and that that the the big healing like the the biggest chance against all scientific odds that we still could bring forth a different world is actually to make that mass experiment of trusting that if we stop uttering if we really turn into compassion and empathy and being with and really try to understand inter being like in that wonderful wrote a poem that Joanna Macy translated well dear darkening ground where the end he says give me just a little more time so I may love the things until they're real and right and worthy of you that's what he's asking time for time to love each other and what's still beautiful in the world and if we if we do that deeply and truly not just intellectually as a kind of exercise then maybe we can heal like maybe we can even turn back the clock on all the damage we've done because if we if we shift then the world shows up differently well that's that's certainly some of your listeners were trained in a scientific paradigm who would say that sounds whoo-hoo and and doesn't make any sense but since we're kind of running out of options and yeah I'm beginning to really believe that maybe that is possibly our saving grace yeah yeah that's what I see is it is these dialogues and people getting together valuing you know being present with each other and having that dialogue and so the nature of it I think that's part of what the empathy circle is is is the is a person speaks but you fully give them chances to share who they are what they are by reflecting back to their satisfaction that they feel heard to their satisfaction and then you'd only do it mutually so that's just it's it's like a simple practice that is very reproducible right we can we can you know it can be multiplied is a sort of a gateway step and then there's how do you deepen the you know how do we become more authentic you'll be able to you know trust and share more of our experience that have those dialogues so I am that's totally you know for me kind of word where I'm looking at twos is the empathy and that integrative quality and that it's it can be mass-produced right we can we can we can listen with the CEO or with the government officials sit down in an empathy circle even between the different you know tribes in this society and have those dialogues but it's very time consuming here people need to you know stop and take that time so I be open if you're interested in taking part in empathy circle there's some of the for example X art you know community or whoever that you're interesting we could reach out to them and have some small empathy circles you know for people and have these type of dialogues that are recorded and that others can watch and just see how it works if you wanted to try to bizarre thing these days is that we all have there's so much to do and and we all have to make choices of where to put the energy yeah the time it's not it's not not saying that I'd be open to it but but but right now like the next couple of months I'm rather already committed that's another thing in terms of what I've noticed so much is that people take willingness I'm all for

collaboration and collaborate constantly with lots of people but but then I also find myself lately very often saying no to invitations to collaborate or co-create and and then people see that as I sort of take it personal and sure and the reality is actually that it's it's just it's a sequence thing like somebody else who also had a valuable idea that is worth doing said let's do this together and I said yes to them and if I said yes to the next offer I'm actually um not staying in integrity with the first yes right and and and and I think like I'm I'm when I realized that that I started to look very differently at people who told me sorry don't have time for this right now first I used to always take that as a little bit of our okay I guess I'm not my proposal wasn't good enough or not important enough for them know and it might be a perfectly good and important proposal it's just that that person might already be committed to X Y Z other things that they have to in order to stay in integrity with their previous yeses - yes let's do this and they have to say no to my offer for the time being and in that kind of that's a lot about way of saying sure if you can line up some people from X are who would like to that conversation reach out to me and if we can make it happen let's make it happen I mean I almost 90 minutes yeah we got about five nothing we said 90 minutes so yeah six minutes left at least on my clock okay so if we kind of wrap things up well this is great yeah I really really enjoyed this because I think these are this whole cultural shift you know and how regenerative culture and empathy works together I think is really you know central and you know it's just to explore that and I really enjoyed it and really appreciate you

you know it has taken a time to you know have this conversation dialogue remember you have so many really interesting interviews on you on your website that that's another one of those things every time I I see in that another good podcast another good article like I kind of want to stop the world and just dive into all these these treasures and I guess there'll be a time for it right now I have you talked to Jeremy Rifkin I talked to him when he first brought his book out in fact I videotaped his very first talk that he did here in the Bay Area so yeah I had he was like one of the early big books on empathy yeah I also I was just at a at an event in Delphian Greece and where one of the people that was participating was a guy called Barry kurtsyn um who is the physician of the Dalai Lama and he has a whole like he's he's a medic but he's also Buddhist monk and and he set up a number of organizations of trying to teach empathy and and compassion to medical professionals and as a in order to deepen their the healing practice and might be interesting for you to look him up there's a whole community around that Dave and Cleveland Clinic which is for the second most well-known clinic in the United States you know like there's Mayo Clinic Cleveland they have a yearly conference called empathy and innovation and it's very much based on human Center design which is also actually didn't talk too much about the design which is central but there's empathic design you know there's human Center design is also called empathic design so they've been very much into it and there's a big community around you know empathy in health care definitely so we should to reach out to him to great conversation

[Music] we'll do be in our several days so thank you very much Danielle take care English (auto-generated) Up next