Embedded Files
Place brainstorming ideas related to the empathy circles here.
"Empathic design has proven useful in addressing increasingly large systemic challenges, such as education, healthcare, and organizational efficiency (Brown, 2009). "
Katja Battarbee+ Empathy_on_the_Edge
"Another study shows that empathic and analytical thinking are rival networks in the brain: the analytical network makes judgments independent of emotions, while the empathic network trusts blindly, at face value (Jack et al., 2012)." KatjaBattarbee+ Empathy_on_the_Edge
How might we nurture a deeper empathic relationship in the empathy circle?
How might we nurture a deeper empathic and creative relationship in the empathy circle?
What is a mutual deep empathic relationship?
What are challenges in taking part in or hosting empathy circles?
people were finding it a little difficult to actually control their emotions and not speak out of turn.
The effects of an empathy circle are brought into your daily life. The calmness, spaciousness, and sense of well-being carry into your daily interactions. Become less reactive to daily ???/
Reacting in conversation versus what?
Intention
not only to include everyone on the circle and also the world ....
==========================================
The goal is to develop a 'form' or process for empathic listening in small groups online using video conferencing software like Skype or in-person meetings. I already do this listening process with various people and groups that I work with online. The overall goal of the groups is to build a culture of empathy. It's to create the empathic lifestyle or way of being in the world.
To build a culture of empathy, we need to fill ourselves with empathy so that we have it to give. When we ourselves have not felt heard or listened to, it's difficult to be present, hear and listen to others. We need to have some format for creating an environment where we are each heard. A place were we each have a chance to speak about what is important to us. To have others empathize with our deeper feelings and for ourselves to be there to empathize with them.
Ideas
People feel better once they have been heard
Have the vision to Build a Culture of Empathy and these circles are for supporting that vision.
Action - there's needs to be an empathic action component. People are heard but they do something
be heard about how you are doing with deepening your empathic connection with yourself and others.
how to create the culture of empathy?
What are actual problems and experiences you are coming across and share those.
How to structure the meetings so that there's a step of going out into the world and actualizing empathy? When each person comes back to the meeting they can report on their experience with spreading empathy.
Need an outline and training video for how the groups work.
reflective listening - on what was heard
rephrasing - what was heard
reframing - what was heard
summarizing - what was heard
For the NVC based groups they add 'needs' (values) guessing
What are prerequisites for attending group?
I've held a session with people who were not familiar with reflective listening and people we unclear about what to do. There definitely needs to be a manual and a video of how the group works.
What is length of a meeting?
What is best number of people? 5 max on Skype I would think.
What are peoples stories of taking part in a group like this?
My story about taking a workshop with Dominic Barter and then having the deep empathy to take into my dance.
my story of the NVC fun Fest and empathy circle.
using shared Google doc for documenting the conversation.
The question? How can we build a culture of empathy?
Technical difficulties
These break the flow and disrupt the circle. Especially difficult is in mediation with difficult issues. Technical difficulties add to the stress level. Problems like.
dropped call
echo
do it with video
interruptions
people coming late of leaving earily
What questions might we ask empathy circle users to find out their experience and see how to make it more meaningful for them?
Make a list of questions.
“5 Whys?”
==================
For flyer, add: 'mutual and reciprocal' connection, empathy,
==================
The Problem
Conflict, disconnection, war, strife, polarization, hunger, environmental degradation,
The need?
way of dealing with these problems.
What is the larger vision?
Wanting to develop a more empathic culture. This will have many benefits.
What is the context for the empathy circle?
This is for general use. Different situations can have different instructions.
For first time participants.
What Topics that are energizing?
Emotional and deep feeling
Starter Circle list of topics
What is alive for you in the moment?
What was a recent positive peak experience?
What is a concern, anxiety of fear you are dealing with?
A meaningfull event in your life?
convey back your understanding of what they have said.
The time limit issue?
5 minutes, for the first time
================
Ideas for the meeting
Have team members write down their ideas
Interrupting the speaker to give a reflection
There are concerns on how to give a reflection.
Do you let the speaker go on until they feel like they have fully expressed themselves and then reflect.. However, in the meantime the listener may be feeling more and more tension since they feel they will not be able to reflect their understanding. 'They are full-up.' They may feel they are also loosing connection with the speaker. The reflection can create a feeling of involvement and connection for the listener.
Do you interrupt? By the listener maybe asking, "My I reflect my understanding on what I am hearing?"
Does the speaker give multiple pause, to let the listener reflect?
Do the speaker and listener stat attuned to each other and speak and reflect according to the energy and feeling of the relationship? The speaker may be sensitive to the listener starting to feel overwhelmed or disconnected.
The speaker may feel like they want to fully express themselves and a reflection will inhibit that. They may feel they are in a grove or flow and a reflection will disrupt the flow.
The circle, however, is about relational empathy.
That means we are trying to create a mutually empathic relationship. I've seen where the focus on the speaker being heard can become about by the speaker focusing on their own felt experience instead of the feeling of everyone involved and the relationship.
The Nature of Regular Conversations
Competition
In our regular conversations there may a be competition to be heard. Or a feeling that one person is getting heard more than them, the other may be dominating the conversation.
Fairness
Write up reports
At the end of the meeting. Have everyone write up a little report so that we have it in writing.
Is an empathy circle done by a facilitator or not?
The basic empathy circle can be started by anyone and needs minimal facilitation. We are designing material so that it can be easy for anyone to start a empathy circle and take part in it.
Having a facilitator can be helpful.
Describing Empathic Mindset or way of being.
How might we describe the Empathic Mindset, way of being or felt experience that is created by using empathic listening in a peer to peer or relational way?
On March 12, 2017 we set up the empathy tent with sidewalk talk in Berkeley.
1. We started with a round of empathic listening where everyone could check in.
2. Later we held an empathy circle with Edwin, 3 Sidewalk talk listeners, and 2 people who were new. It takes new people some getting used to the practice. Need to see how to make the process as easy and smooth as possible. One person, would say I heard you, and then
How might we make EC easy for new comers at the public empathy tent?
we are practicing a different way of communicating
here are the rules for the game
if you want to observe from the outside
Learn a lot by watching.
Facilitator is balancing the group energies.
A flyer this is what we are doing this is how to participate.
3. How might we bring empathic listening in a political activist groups?
I attended the Indivisible Berkeley group. I've been trying to see how to bring empathy circles into this community?
Problem :
In a couples empathy circle, they rotate weekly who initiates the circle. The wife feels the husband is not enthusiastic about initiating an circle. She wants to feel he is excited to do it.
Vision and Road Map to that Vision
Having a clear vision of where Circles lead emotionally and road map to get there could support and motivate people in getting involved in taking part in an empathy circle.
A road map could also put people at ease to know where they are headed. Part of our job in the design team is to document and design that road map.
What are the experiences you many encounter along the way?
What are the fearful feelings or road blocks that may arises and how can they be overcome?
Etc.
The empathy circle is like the car. It’s a container to drive and carry us into deeper and more meaningful felt experiences of life. We can make the car comfortable and supportive for the journey. Make sure it has a good music sound system, is well oiled and tuned, has comfortable seating and good company for the journey. Etc. Has its license and registration in order. Make sure it had 4 wheel drive so we can travel over the rocky parts of the road.
How to set up multi dimensional training
At the Indivisible Meetings it came up about how to bring in empathic training.
How do we bring in training?
How to implement the trainings?
Pre Circles - Empathy Buddy
What if An empathy buddy call to get some deep listening to any issues in your life that need to be heard.
What if An empathy buddy call to where everyone had a 30 minute to be heard about their feelings of the group.
Empathy Circle Outline.
Introduction
Write your personal Intention
Share personal Intentions
Set and agree on group Intention
Foster pracice and deepen relational empathy
means?
Light Candle
Read an empathy quote
Meditation, self connection to current feelings
Share feeling as a motion, mirror feelings
Empathic Listening Topic:
Current Feeling and motion, reflection
Write feedback about the experience.
Blow empathy intention out into the world
Post Circles - Empathy Buddy
Empathy Buddies
Container Metaphor
An Empathy Circle can be metaphorically be seen as a container. This container holds and develops a relational empathic way of being. We can have a basic container and keep making it stronger and stronger.
About listening to and feeling into the experience of ones own body, those of others and of the relationship. Also of taking actions.
About being heard,
And the secret is in empowering the speaker to be the one who keeps asking for the listening that they want specific to the kind of person they are, and until they feel heard.
Naming: Empathy Circles or Empathy Practice groups.
The question is; How might we name these groups in an appealing way?
I have called these small dialogue circles as empathy circles. They could also be called Empathy Practice groups.
Metaphors
bring in metaphors
A metaphor of How are you feeling?
A what is your metaphor of empathy?
A metaphor of what the group feels like?
Bring in poetry as a Metaphor
“Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper, unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being, to which we rarely penetrate; for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.” — T. S. Eliot
Thanks Kathy,
I’m good with keeping on task.
Intention: "How might we support each other in bringing empathy circles into the world?"
I’d like to know.
- What empathy circles projects is everyone working on?
- What support does everyone need?
I will say that I am working to bring Paul Bloom into an empathy circle. Just a one to one empathic listening circle. He actually mentioned it in his book that when he wrote his first Against Empathy article that he was invited to take part in an Empathy Circle. So it’s mentioned in his book. I think getting him to take part in an empathy circle will help get the word out about the circles. After the first circle, I then want to invite him and other academics who have responded to him into an empathy circle to discuss the topic. This would be Jamil Zaki from Stanford and Simon Baron Cohen from Cambridge.
One question I have about the circles is the framing of the intention?
Different framings will lead in different directions.
How might we frame the intention or topic of the Empathy Circle in the most empathy building, creative and effective way?
I’ve been thinking of how to bring more awareness and expression of feelings into the empathy circle. I imagine a circle were we go around and express what the group feeling is and how it’s evolving.
Also what if when each person starts speaking they express a feeling they have in the moment, share it as a physical motion and we get a group physical reflection of it?
Edwin said:
"I’ve been thinking of how to bring more awareness and expression of feelings into the empathy circle. I imagine a circle were we go around and express what the group feeling is and how it’s evolving.
Also what if when each person starts speaking they express a feeling they have in the moment, share it as a physical motion and we get a group physical reflection of it? "
I support you in your Paul Bloom and others initiative.
I personally would be more interested in offering a training program for academics who want to learn to incorporate empathy circles into their classroom teaching. The topic for discussion might be "what is the interface if any between academic research on empathy and the actual practice of empathic listening?"
In terms of our own empathy circle, I would like us perhaps to spend time focusing on why we are hesitant to charge money for empathy circles…
And , in terms of our own empathy circle continuing after January 9, given how much hesitation people seem to have about being in empathy circles or the power of empathy circles, I would see it as a committed exercise in exploring these discomforts as a way of learning about the resistance to empathy circles in the larger culture.
As Silent Listener (SL), I struggled. It was nice that google hangouts had a mute feature :). There were many points when I wanted to share something and as SL all I could do was be patient (I have often joked that I have tried being patient and it is a lot like WAITING) or say/ask something yet the process seemed to deny that ability. However there is a part of the SL that I was struggled to enter into I could hear the S and then the response of the AL, and I would think ”I would have said ‘….’” or was the AL actually listening. Yet as SL I would easily bet distracted by, for instance, a text on my phone or my printer beeping – or even a web page. It was hard to sit in the tension and be still.
Also, as silent listener, you can take notes of what is being said, and write out any thoughts as well.. that is what I do. These are the sort of tips we need to document.
Working in Empathy Teams
In the human centered design community there is a focus of creating design teams to work on projects together. The idea is that teams generate more creativity because members creatively can build on each others ideas. If we form Empathy Teams, these teams can move into human centered design process later as well. Team members also learn to work more effectively in a team.
Qualities of empathic Listening
Acceptance of feelings - being accepting of the feelings that arise.
revealing more and more feelings
Empathy and Authoritarianism.
There is a trend toward authoritarianism in the world. Countries like Russian and China are already very authoritarian and countries like Turkey and the USA are moving in that direction.
In authoritarianism, one person (group) suppresses the voice of others. They try to instill fear and control as a way of suppressing those voices. With an empathic way of being, all voices are heard, acknowledged and incorporated into the mutual actions that are taken. This way of being takes practice, training and learning. The empathy circle is a way of doing that practice.
The importance of being very clear on the purpose and structure of the empathy circle before the meetings.
Decision making process
Having a decision making process in place
What are the skills to learn in a circle?
reflective listening. - the levels of listening and how to improve it.
Intention of The Empathy Circle.
The intention is to develop the empathy circle as a container.
What is the need?
people need to be able to talk about what is important to them.
Why Are You Taking Part?
Personal Support
Develop the Empathy Circle Form
Develop Next Steps for Fostering Empathy
Foundation of this work is
Empathic listening, active listening
Awareness and expression of feelings
How To foster empathy in everyday relating?
If I have the agreement to do empathic listening I can do that and create a listening and empathic relationship. It puts me more at ease. But How to be empathic in every day iterations. That feels more award,
Empathic Listening as the Core
The foundational building block of the empathy circle is active listening or empathy listening. It see these as the same even though others say they are different.
The foundational work on empathic listening was done by Carl Rogers who used it as the primary process in his therapy work.
Empathic Listening and Circles Learning. Scaling it up and out.
Possible forms.
2 people, empathy buddies.
3 people
large groups. - Empathy Cafes
Scaling up/ scaling out
Bosses could use it with employees.
Families
etc
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse