Alara

"Empathy is a subtle super power; just listening is enough."

Benefits of Empathy Circles by Alara

Written Comments (2017-03-28)

• 1. Skill building through experience.

  2. Ripple effect → Increased inner harmony, relationship harmony, family harmony, work harmony, world harmony.

  3. Meeting a deep human need to be safely heard and fully expressed.

  4. Meeting a human need to meaningfully contribute to another.

  5. In a culture of masculine “doing” as a value, people can experience that listening is a subtle superpower and start to value that.

  6. Experience the power of empathy and the rest of the world experience will teach through contrast that it has value, so there is a built in motivator.

  7. Develop community.

  8. No prior training needed.

  9. Easily duplicatable, especially if sticking close to what empathy is, rather than drifting into other listening patterns.

  10. Self connection.

  11. People can see another as capable of having all they need to solve their issue, to see them as the authority of their experience and respectfully show up with curiosity, but detach from problem solving.

Alara

I think empathy circles are a bit counter culture. And I really love that. Our society is focused on Do, Do, Do, Fix, Fix, Fix – where one needs something of material value to show their worth. Empathy Circles run contrary to all of that. Empathy is like this subtle super power, just being with another human in listening…that does something. Empathy affects the other person, it affects me, and it can affect the world.

And I really resonate with what Violetta said – “It is something that must be experienced.” Not hearing about it, not talking about it, no offense, not watching a video about it; it's doing the thing. And you don't need training to do it! We are each capable of reflection. Through that process, there is this trust that builds, knowing that listening is enough. It's more than enough. It's so enough that “doing” gets in the way. (I'm getting touched.) The “doing” of something different is less than what we can be for each other.

Eliza Reflects

So it's a very touching and moving experience that allows you to feel and know that just being in some ways, and being with somebody, which is something that we all naturally can do, it's like this hidden supper power we have, just tapping into the know of that is so powerful and profound. And you also love that it is counter culture, it makes us see, wow there is this value that is just right here, just right here and it's not like you have do any crazy things for it.

You just be with and reflect back and then the greatest kind of currency flows. Like a great currency than any currency, it just is right there, available to us and it's just really nourishing and cool and exciting and moving.

Alara

It is and thank you for getting that. The final thing I want to bring up about it right now is, I think there is also something that happens, a rewiring of sorts.

Other people have mentioned “a mattering.” Yes, I get a sense that I matter from others, but there is also a self-mattering because I am the authority on my experience; somebody is not trying to fix me, or solve me. They are just reflecting my brilliance back to me and saying that is enough. And I am doing the same for them. In a way, that's rewiring me to believe we are all enough, just as we are.

They have everything they need in them, I have everything I need in me. And the power to be able to relate like that, respectfully, curiously, sovereignly… I’m in awe of what that could do as it ripples out to my relationships, my family, my work, the world… eeuuaaaa!

"I’m in awe of what that could do as it ripples out to my relationships, my family, my work, the world… eeuuaaaa!"

Eliza Reflects

There is a self mattering that come into being and sovereignty of the self and then the retaliation that everyone has everything they need inside themselves already and you have everything inside of you. And it's your own brilliance reflected back to you from other people that makes you realize, like awwaah, look what I have to offer and then hearing that from other people. Then when that kind of rewiring, it rewires something in the brain because it is not something that your watching or observing, it's something that you are doing. And then that doing ripples out and the ripples are endless and the possibilities are amazing. And it feels so delicious and exciting and nourishing and fun.

Alara

Thank you, thank you. I loved your gestures, and your smiles. Thank you very much.