Facilitator’s Summary of Empathy Circle - Group A, 11/16/18
Below are notes from the 2nd empathy circle I hosted with Group A.
When: 11/16/18 at 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Where: My home
# People: 4 people (3 friends and myself); they all have prior knowledge about NVC and have participated in some NVC groups. One person was new to the group so this was her first empathy circle.
Time: 2 hours
Purpose: To practice reflective listening and to connect.
What Happened:
● Handed out the Empathy Circle instructions (Edwin’s original PDF document - 1 pager) as a reference.
● Process and ground rules:
○ I talked about one of the main reasons it is important to have just 1 person (instead of everyone in the group) reflectively listen/give empathy - it helps the observers practice not acting on the urge to say something. They all agreed this was something they really wanted to practice. However, we did establish a ground rule that if it is something that you feel is really important at that time - it is ok to say something but it should rarely happen.
○ We discussed what happened at the prior empathy circle and if we wanted to make any changes to the process this time. We decided that after each round of speaking/listening we would all spend some time discussing what happened during that round (for example, what did we observe, what worked well, what was challenging, and so on.).
○ I also spent some time clarifying the difference between “reflective listening” and “NVCs version of giving empathy” - because in the last circle the participants wanted to do more than just “reflective listen”.
● We started the circle process and we each spoke 1 time. Everyone really liked having some time after each round to discuss what happened for a variety of reasons (see below):
○ Helps bring closure to the round.
○ Facilitates learning because we talked about what worked and didn’t work during the round.
○ it helped bring the group closer by interacting through discussion.
● Everyone was extremely grateful for participating and we set the day and time for our next meeting, 12/7/18.
Notes Prepared by: Ingrid