Edwin Rutsch 02

One to one Empathy Circle: Edwin and Tim - 2015-09-12

I did an empathy circle with Tim from empathy team 8.

It was a one to one empathy buddy approach. Same as a circle but with just 2 people.

We set the intention and lit the candle. At the end we forgot to blow our intention out into the world by blowing out the candle.

We went for almost 2 hours. Having a spaciousness of time helped get more deeply connected.

We didn't having speaking time limits. Ie, one person can talk until they feel fully heard.

Tim had a lot of stress and anxiety he was dealing with so he did the majority of speaking. This was fine with me.

For someone not as experienced as I am with empathic listening, I can imagine they may have needed more time to speak as well.

I felt the empathic listening went well and I enjoyed the insights Tim came up with. Some insights were;

  • we need to find ways to make the empathy circle feel relevant to all participants.

  • we need to let people know how the empathy circle is a space for people who may feel alone or socially unexpected to know hey can feel heard, seen.

  • how the empathy circle is a way of not just getting empathy for oneself but is a way of contributing to the well being of others. Of really supporting them and the satisfaction and sense of connection we can have of being able to do that. And of having a clear awareness that one is doing the empathy circle to contribute to the well-being of humanity.

  • We experimented with the Focusing process. A process that we can add as a tool to the basic empathy circle.

After doing the empathic listening in a reflective way for about and hour and a half, I found that I stopped just reflecting but added ideas into the reflection. There was a quality of the added ideas flow that seemed very positive.

We also talked about how understanding of problems, does not solve them. There needs to be a quality of going into them in felt way and that is when change and growth happens. I have been starting to learn the Focusing process which is all about the speaker connecting to the felt bodily sensations instead of detached ideas.

I find that doing a one to one empathic listening can be very supportive.

Empathy Circle Research Report Parameters

Length of time: 2 hr

# of Participants: 2

Outline of empathy circle:

  • ( x ) Intention setting

  • ( x ) Candle

  • (x ) Empathic listening

  • ( ) Mirrored

  • ( x) Blow out intention and candle

  • ( ) Others?

Participant Feedback:

Facilitators Insights:

Photo's taken: ( ) yes (x ) no