Caleb
Interviewer: Christel - Face to Face
Interviewee 2: Caleb, 30 yrs, Rollformer, Raised with Empathy, My Eldest Son of 4, (Australia)
Transcribers
Name 1: Christel
Text below:
1. What is your definition of empathy?
It is life, it is everything
Empathy connects us to everything, spiritually, mentally, physically
It encompasses all energy
2. How does self-empathy enrich your life?
Allows me to connect with others in a different way, more peacefully
Allows you go to in deeper rather than just day to day talk which allows you to connect in ways that general chit chat doesn’t
Being able to help others when they least expect it and bring healing, a caring shoulder, sincerity
Makes me feel good when I can be there for others
2 way communication makes both parties involved feel validated because we’ve connected on that deeper level, are on the same wave length
3. What might be the results if we do not have an empathetic approach?
No love, no heart
We’d come up against brick walls all the time
No flow, no connectedness
Volatile, rude, arrogant, no care or regards for others
Wouldn’t enjoy each other’s presence
We would feel severed from each other
No effective communication and sharing
War, death, chaos, communism would be the norm
No order, respect
4. What has been your experience with empathy training?
Where does one start sharing experiences when I was raised with empathy since my birth by my mother (Christel)
Conscious of empathy, not a moment goes by where my life isn’t about empathy
It's challenging to pinpoint as it’s like been asked do you experience breathing
When you're raised with empathy, how do you define that
5. What tools or skills do you think are needed for someone to be empathetic?
Having an open mind and an open heart and being open to others
Love
Being able to listen well, listen to others before you speak, feel and understand before you guide them then share your experience
Effective communication skills.
Define Communication?
Being able to express yourself, assessing what is being said and feeling your way around it by guiding them with lead questions to know I am on the right path to confirm what I am sensing, enabling the person to go deeper and feel comfortable with connecting to that deeper side of self
6. How do you perceive empathy in your interactions? (or) How does empathy in interactions make you feel?
How do you perceive empathy when you just live and breathe it, just are in empathy all the time?!
Trying to pinpoint empathy is mind boggling and confusing!
What is it mind boggling and confusing?
Empathy is something I just do, it is not a perception.
If Empathy is not a perception what is it?
It is a deep connection to all things, people, animals, innate objects like a ring and connecting to its history, its wearer or past wearers
7. What motivates you to treat people the way you want to be treated?
If I treat people with animosity, I get animosity back, if I treat others with love and happiness than I receive love and happiness.
When I treat people with love, respect and courtesy, all these good feelings have a ripple effect and that motivates me to emanate these.
8. What motivates you to learn about empathy?
There are so many elements within empathy, but life in general motivates me to emanate empathy.
Strengthen the next generation by teaching them empathy from birth;
Benefit growing up with a life where they feel connected to everything
Prevent them from being aggressive, uncaring, selfish, ignorant, arrogant
They wouldn’t feel afraid of their spiritual self
Deep connection in feeling others and understanding
They wouldn’t think they were crazy by what they sense/feel, it would be accepted as normal to be in touch with the deeper aspects of self
9. How is empathy demonstrated in gestures and bodily language?
Body language speaks volumes of what a person is feeling without even having to hear what they are saying or know without them saying
Gives you cues on what to say or do, if anything at all.
They can look and act differently
A touch or hug can feel differently by the way it is given, it can be formal, or warm and loving
10. How could understanding empathy improve your relationships?
It would be the bee’s knees!
You would enhance each other in every aspect rather than bring each other down
It would be nothing short of amazing for without empathy, it can make or break you
11. How childhood impacts empathy? Relation between (i)maturity and empathy? brain vs heart in developing empathy
When we are born, our empathy is pure, natural, flowing but as you mature your life experiences affect your thoughts and alter you, you think more rather than come from a place of feeling connected to what you feel.
Society, your upbringing, education, keeping up with the joneses, these are all built upon thoughts, not feelings.
Trying to fit in yet not really feeling like you do and you begin to become someone you are not, not authentic or being true to who you are
Brain vs Heart. The brain stops you from feeling the empathic side of things if you are coming from a place of thought.
You try to analyse, make sense of your experiences and yet get further away from the truth. Like seeing a spirit, you know you saw it, or felt it, but your brain says there is nothing there! Much like science, if it can’t measure it then it doesn’t exist or is not validated, empathy is treated the same way
12. What keeps people from being empathic? What are sources of resistance?
Drugs, alcohol and medication, substances that numb your mind and body and suppress how you really feel
Being isolated, stuck in the house, even in suburbia and not getting out and interacting purposefully with others
Not being raised and taught from birth with empathy from your parents
Those around you not having empathy
People ignoring the true self
Religion, politics, war, terrorism kills people's empathy, killing your natural means to think for yourself, it destroys the spiritual self
Beliefs differing, not wanting to understand one another
Don’t know how to control their empathy
13. How do you believe empathy could improve humanity's global connection?
Firstly there would be no wars!
Connection between mankind and everything around us, it would be amazing
No destruction to Mother Earth because we would be more considerate of future generations. No Earth – No US!
Humanity would be caring of each other
Less struggles, no poverty and hunger because we wouldn’t tolerate such
14. What are the unspoken things that made you realize what others felt in certain situations?
Body gestures
Tones in their voice
Sensing their emotional energy
Being able to see, hear and/or sense that a person wants to say something but doesn’t
How could you make them feel comfortable to communicate with you in this situation?
Ease into the conversation gently, ask them roundabout questions, gradually, gently getting them to break it down what they are wanting to say but don’t know how too.
Example; I had a bad day! How, what happened? Then they start to describe their day until they get to the core of it, and when I sense they are struggling I will guide them with lead questions.
Some people like to offload, vent but not deal with their stuff, they just want sympathy but don’t actually want help
15. What is the underlying felt experience people value in empathy
Feeling connected with others
16. How self empathy skills support the trainer during a training in which you teach others about empathy.
n/a
17. Tell me about a time when you experienced a lack of empathy in a work situation?
When I got laid off late last year, the foreman was aggressive and ugly in his approach; he showed no feeling and had no heart/compassion. He didn’t think things through nor did he give me a chance to explain myself, totally lacked in communication skills and empathy. He came across as arrogant, authoritative.
How did that make you feel?
I am 30 years old and he made me feel like a kid being scolded! I felt stressed with no job to pay my bills and drained from the experience
He had no warranted reason to treat me like that when I am a hardworking loyal person
He had one of the worst levels of leadership I’d ever encountered
Evidentially I got my job back and he got fired!
18. How can we teach others about empathy without them knowing it?
Empathy is subtle, it is not in your face and forceful
Keep to the facts, the truth of a specific topic or situation
Remain calm and stay in a centred neutral space within you
Do not ride their boat/wave, don’t buy into their negative energy, what they are emanating, aggression etc
Continue to be aware of speaking calmly and be persistent in being calm with your responses this way it diffuses the aggression, they can potentially leave the situation and reflect on how they conducted themselves and acknowledge a lack of understanding, ignorance and how they could better handle themselves next time.
19. How are empathy, sympathy, apathy and compassion different?
20. Resistance against empathic development: self/ assumed vs societal/ involuntary
END (didn’t get to complete all questions)