Chelsea

Chelsea Elizabeth

Interviewed by Jonathan,

note-taking by Edwin

Interviewed upstairs in HUB. Nov 2014

A bit about you?

A dancer, performing artist and does work around LGBT programming and arts based youth programming.

Awesome, Cool, What brings you to the HUB?

I'm here to meet with a really good friend. We're starting a business actually.

Can you tell us about that?

I can tell you a little bit, :-) It's basically... we are going to be doing consultant work around body based leadership.

Cool, cool. Can you describe your typical experience coming to the HUB?

You walk in if you are a member, I think you go through the side door overhear and wipe the card. If you are not a member you sign in. People greet you. There's usually some flyers on the table and there your usually free go the counter to see what up for that day.

Can you describe your level of interactions you take?

It varies, I come here for a weekly meeting with this person. I meet with that one person but then almost every time I'm here I end up getting into conversations with people and learning about projects people are working on. Learning about some of the events coming up, and being an artist I usually meet other artists in the space that are doing programs here. Are doing a show here or some sort of event..

Cool, cool, Would you way that is primarily the way the space is organized or do you think.. how do you meet people in those interactions.?

That's a good question, Sometimes it's because of whom I'm with. I'm friends with a lot of the members here. Or I'll be with some of the folks from U HUB and so they know everybody. and so it helps to be with somebody who is in the space a lot more and then you get introduced. and then other ways I end up seeing people is because of events I go to at the HUB. And then I'll see them later working here.

Would you say that this space generally has a good organization for those kind of interactions?

Yes definitely.. The more projects that you guys are doing with using this middle space here and doing stuff on this stage during just normal working hours is brilliant and that helps a lot.

Can you describe how that works?

sometimes person doing yogi, tia chi. It's an invitation for folks to stop what they are doing a participate, or if not it's pretty quiet.

So you can continue to go on working.

If I'm really in a time crunch, I'm like Ahh.. that was cool but I've got to keep working. And they also do some good networking opportunities, where in the middle of the day there will be - it's that time where you can get a chance to mingle and they facilitate an opportunity to for you to ask people questions about 'what are you working on?" and to actually problem solve. Oh you're doing that thing, I actually need that resource or could you help me with this thing. It gives people a lot of choices for how much they want to interact.

Can you describe or give your metaphor of what empathy is?

Let's see. Empathy in general? Empathy to me is being able to actually connect with another person enough so that you are able to feel somewhat of there experience is.

What activities here create more of that?

I think doing work that is centered around, not just creating spaces for people to talk to each other, but actually facilitating spaces where people

1.that they actually drop into themselves, weather it's doing some sort of centering exercise, or something that actually brings to the awareness of like connecting with their own body, their own spirit, their own mental well being. First you have to connect with yourself, and then inviting people into an activity where they are consciously interacting with other people in their bodies. A lot of team building stuff ends up being sort of verbal. I think it's important that there is the learning information about people just being with people in an active way too.

Can you give us a story of an experience where you had one of those activities, where you had to look into yourself and engage with your body and that allowed you to engage with others.

This is so funny because this is what my business is about. Great, I'm getting prepared for my meeting here. We could do a circle activity where we have everybody getting in the room for the first time and we could do a name with a movement. And everybody says their name and then does the movement and everyone repeats the movement. It's a silly, fun, low, pressure way to just get in the room and start to be just a person instead of just working at a table. And the we could pare up and if it was a multi generational crowed, where there were some younger folks too, I would do 2 truths and a lie. Something really simple. 2 things that are true and one thing that's not true and the person has to guess. I've done that in spaces where people have really shared some personal and intense things.

Can you describe an experience/time when the space tried to facilitate that kind of environment and didn't do so well? In general.

I was just in a meeting 2 days ago where there was a group of managers and no one really knew what everyone was doing so I was really excited, Oh I'm going to hear what everyone is up to and the exercise was. say your name and where you were born and then the facilitator didn't end up participating and it was sort of strange because we all knew that sort of basic information about each other. So just not thinking consciously about what comfort level is this group actually at instead of we're not a group of complete strangers so we probably could have done a higher intensity bonding activity.

...........

you have to be centered in yourself.. feel where you are at in the space right now. Now I can feel where other people are.

open my faculties to empathize and feel the other people in the space. We have to prime ourselves.. There is no one ... there's body language, facial expression, tone, ...the deeper you know yourself and make yourself present in the space the more available you are to other people.

What activates help you center yourself?

learning peoples stories...

What questions would you ask about empathy?

What does empathy feel like for you?

When do you feel most empathetic?

Describe empathy for a large group and when you felt it for a singular person level? pull exercises from people would be cool.

What does empathy feel like for you?

It's feeling connected, aware of my own self and having space to connect with an experience outside of myself which would be another persons experience.

In terms or values that are important to you, how does empathy relate in importance?

It is huge, I think that the ability to empathize, I think that is justice for me. Which is what I structure my life around. :-)

It's a basic practice of growing as a human being, when I look at what faculties are available when we have our basic needs meet, housing, food, safely... that's bottom line and then empathy is sort of like. That is the goal. If I can't empathize then I am doing a poor job with my privileges, because that is a first world privilege, and a skill set that we take for granted.

In the first world we have so many of our needs taken care of that it's almost like we get stuck on the materialism piece and that we forget that actually that once we get those needs met that should free us up to then really go deeper our emotional and intellectual capacities that a whole percentage of our planet doesn't have the space and time to actually find out where that can go.