Ingrid’s Empathy Circle 11/1/18
Below are notes from the Empathy Circle I hosted:
# People: 3 friends (including myself); they had some knowledge of active and reflective listening.
Where: My home
Time: 1.5 hours
Purpose: To introduce reflective listening, empathy, and the empathy circle; and to find out if they are interested in getting together every month to practice.
What Happened:
To introduce reflective listening and empathy, I showed 3 videos and then we talked about the videos. The videos helped everyone get on the same page as far as what is reflective listening and empathy, and they are a good stimulus for asking questions and discussion. I videos also helped demonstrate that reflective/empathic listening can be used in a variety of situations (work, personal, and family).
How Active and Reflective Listening Work (work situation) https://youtu.be/G-KLbryFQDY
Empathy Brene Brown (personal situation) https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw
Everybody Loves Raymond uses Active Listening (family situation) https://youtu.be/4VOubVB4CTU
This video was a little controversial - they thought that Raymond was too forceful and putting thoughts into his daughter’s head instead of just reflecting back. We then talked about how we sometimes have to make guesses about what is going on for the other person and how our guesses may be right or wrong; and even if it is wrong that is ok because it helps us and the speaker get more clarity on what is going on.
I thought about showing another video about reflective statements, but decided not to:
Build Your Active Listening Skills with Reflective Statements (work) (Thoughts, Feelings, Facts) https://youtu.be/5L8vNQJDIP8
One of the participants had something that was really alive in her and she wanted to share.
I offered to reflectively listen to her. Which worked but later she said she really wanted solutions and advice for her dilemma. In hindsight, I wish I would have reflectively listened when she said that because I could have said...You are a little disappointed that I didn’t give you any advice.
Something else that may have been going on is that when someone is not use to being heard, the first few times you are heard can feel a little uncomfortable. I know that this is what happened to me the first few times someone reflectively listened to me.
Her desire for wanting advice generated a lot of discussion about advice and problem solving. And, that it can be helpful to say upfront if you want advice or if you just want to be heard.
We decided to get together again in about a month.
Between now and our next meeting, we are suppose to try reflective listening and notice what happens. They both really like learning more about reflective/empathic listening and getting more practice.
I told them about the empathy circle process and that next time we would use that process. I didn’t want to introduce the empathy circle process at this first meeting because I felt it would be too overwhelming.