Konda

What are the needs for empathy at the HUB?

Interview: Konda Mason

HUB Oakland Co-Director/CEO

I’m a yoga teacher and I do teach meditation,

so compassion is one of my big things.

So the empathy that goes along with that.

It is absolutely at the core of my being...

If I think of empathy right now, I see the sky,

I'm seeing a million billion stars.

And the universe and all of it's magnificent

and it's mystery, and its beauty and connectivity

and the connections between it all.

That invisible connector that makes it all work,

could be empathy.

Edwin: I think that is what we are looking at is, transnational empathy. An empathy that is not just an transaction but it’s really about creating that empathic space.

Jeff: A place like this that is compassionate is rare in society, where as, it should be the norm. Whereever we go we should have the same kind of setting. I feel like this place seems like a safe haven.

Konda: I’m glad that you say that and feel that. Every HUB is very different. There are 50 HUBs around the world. They are all very different and they take on the personality of their city and founders. And crafting this team of founders was very intentional. The city of Oakland is .. love it.. love what is happening in this point and time. The good, bad the ugly. All of it, and how we are all in courageous conversations together. And this is that container for that. A container for those conversations, the transformation that needs to happen. It’s about developing the

Edwin: you have the space to hold those conversations and a safe space, the intention, to bring the people in. The mayoral launch.. bring the candidates together to talk about empathy. I interviewed Jean Quan twice about the role of empathy in her life.

Konda: We were talking about having them here and doing a panel. And have them talk about stuff.. That could be a good one. There’s a lot of intention here and I’m glad that it resonates. Did you see us on kickstart? We boldly asked for $100K, we raised 143K

I’m a filmmaker and we crafted the video and it kept not being right, and kept on not being right, and …. it was because I realized that it was not about brick and mortars, it’s about the why. Why are we here?

So we crafted it again and shot and shot. Still didn’t get it, but I keep hearing how people resonated with it, they felt something from it and that was the idea was just to feel and to understand that there is an intention here.

It'd not just about brick and mortar. Having the brick and mortar has allowed us to do a lot of things that we want to do and people need to do. So there is a lot behind it and a lot about what we want to do. Why we are here and who we are. The founders are just a great team, beautiful people, deep people who all have deep spiritual practice and that’s what it is about. That practice makes all the difference.

Edwin: Your choosing people who you felt would create that environment.

Konda: I’m at that point in my life I’m not going to do anything that is less than I know. You know what I mean. I’m going to put my all into this, then I need to put everything I know, I know what we need. I know what we need right now. What my vision of what we need is. And a lot of it is just love. And how that shows up.

Edwin: a foundation of love. and designing for love. And finding the team to find that love.

Konda: We have our issues and all teams do. We go in and out of our stuff but we always come back. it’s a good team. Everyone is working towards that self actualization.

Edwin: One thing we’re looking at is the level of empathy and can we with an appreciative inquiry, raise the level even more. The question is, How might we raise the level even more?

Konda: I’m interested in the conversation. I’m really interested in it. We’ll keep talking.

Interview Part 2 (58 min) Edwin and Konda

I feel human beings are naturally empathic.

Empathy is in our DNA and we are wired for empathy.

Edwin: We wanted to talk about empathy. We got the ball rolling last time a little bit. I made a mind map here about the things we had already talked about. The HUB is a beautiful container for courageous conversations. You're willing to go deep, and it was about empathy. It's the core of your being. I wanted to explore more the nature of empathy and the role of empathy at the HUB. We could start with a definition of how you use the word empathy?

Konda: It's interesting, I don't use it often. I mainly use the word compassion. I haven't even looked up the definition of what Webster calls empathy. When I think of somebody being empathic, I always think about how there, are different theories around empathy. I was just talking to somebody that said that teenagers lack empathy and that they have to learn this whole thing when they are so self absorbed. There are these books talking about they don't naturally have empathy, and that empathy is something that you have to teach teenagers. And I don't believe that, I don't believe that.

I feel human beings are naturally empathic. When you think about how we respond to a film. You're sitting in a theater and the next thing you know you are crying, that is what empathy is. Empathy is when you can put yourself in the shoes of another and feel them, and feel all of who they are and what they are going through. I don't know Websters definition, but when I think about our nature, it is empathic as beings and so I don't know what happened where we lose it along the line and where ever that has to be reinforced and reinstated. And then to me compassion is what leads from there, from empathy, compassion is more of an active state of awareness around that deep relatedness feeling that friendliness.

Empathy is in our DNA and we are wired for empathy. I don't think that we really lose it, I don't think you can lose it, I think you can cover it in instances. Sociopaths have lost empathy or something. That to me is when something has gone awry, some real screw has gone awry. People who don't have empathy or maybe some kind of a physiological problem or mental illness can absolutely block it. But short of that, yeah, we are empathetic beings, or how else can we feel something from somewhere else that hasn't really happened to us?

Then compassion is the action part and contributing to others?

And maybe even if it's not outward action, it can be inward action. Inward action of love, inward action of a feeling of acknowledgement of being in someone else's shoes. Compassion, unlike pity, compassion is not pity, compassion is mixed with, I don't know if you are familiar with Buddhism, the (bradahara) the divine abodes. You got compassion, you got loving kindness, and you got equanimity. I think compassion can go off the rails and go into pity unless you have equanimity. Equanimity gives it wisdom, it give compassion wisdom, because sometimes it is easy to fall off into pity. Empathy to me is the root of it, it's the DNA part. Empathy in my mind could be almost physiological. Now that I think about it, that's how it feels to me.

Edwin gives definition of empathy: self empathy, mirrored, imaginative and action.

How does that model resonate with you?

I think that resonates well. What is self empathy?

Feeling into your own experience, your own internal visceral feeling? I feel a little fogginess here in this part of my body, I feel a spaciousness in this part of my body. I still feel the echo of the warmth of your hug, for example. That sensory awareness.

Is it neutral? From what you said it's almost like an objective neutral thing. Versus something that is not neutral but is more subjective and has a positive tilt to it. Or is empathy neutral.

It's a visceral awareness, of what is going on inside of my myself, which seems like a positive quality to be attuned to my own feelings. So if I'm anxious, I can say, "I'm feeling some anxiousness". Acknowledging my own anxiousness seems to attune me, and calms me, especially being heard by someone else with what I am feeling is a calming connecting feeling. For me that is self empathy.

So self empathy is that field of awareness, where we are in touch deeply, with who we are, that is going on, moment to moment. A moment by moment awareness would be self empathy.

Yes, like mindfulness I suppose. That is the basic definitions to frame what we are talking about.

I find that metaphors help frame that, for me empathy is like a cornucopia. That if I can empathize with others there is flood of emotions, and it enriches my life to empathic with others. I wonder for you, do you have a metaphor what empathy would be like. And you can use the stand in someone else's shoes since everybody uses that.

I haven't thought about it. If I think of empathy right now, I see the sky, I'm seeing a million billion stars. And the universe and all of it's magnificent and it's mystery, and its beauty and connectivity and the connections between it all. That invisible connector that makes it all work, could be empathy.

Empathy is like in the universe, it's what connect all the parts together?

It's the harmony, empathy is the invisible thread that creates harmony. Because, I think that we have to play together, we are playing together. Even if we are acting like we are not playing together, we are playing together, because we are all here together, on this ride together. And as we play together there are rules and there are invisible rules, and there is rules. And I think that empathy may be part of that invisible rule that keeps the universe together. The orbits of every planet, and our personal orbits. That is the connective tissue.

How does that relate to the HUB? What is the role of empathy in the HUB?

If I were to take that same metaphor, again we got all these incredibly beautiful, satellites out here. If every person that ever touched this place was a constellation unto itself and what we are is that connective tissue. We are absolutely the connective tissue where it is safe to play. Where it is like going home, where it is touching home base and then you go back out again. It's being able to know that the soup is on for you, the light is on for you, it's your comfort food. I think that the HUB is exactly that, which makes people attracted to it because they feel that there is a place for them.

People come here and they feel at home, they feel like they belong. There are so many places where you don't feel that way, particularly the diversity that comes with walking through this door. I mean a door that accepts and warmly welcomes, just organically welcomes all the spirits that walk through it. Usually that is like a church or something, even that usually doesn't because there are so many people have religious issues, this that and the other. Is it a synagogue, a church, what kind of a church is it? There is none of that here, it just is. I think that we've been able to frame a internal dialogue that is just happening on the planet with people. We have just framed the conversation.

All we have done is called out what everybody else are already thinking and feeling and going through. That feels warm and inviting. When I think of the constellation metaphor, again I feel the energy of the universe and we are all just stardust, right.. in our complexities and the notion of gravity is almost like we are a certain type of gravity that brings people into our gravitational pull. People coming into our gravitational pull. Whether it is positive or negative ions or whatever it is that that is going on in peoples lives, we here at the Impact HUB Oakland to receive that and attract that and feed that and send it back out. Replenished and refreshed better.

Why is belonging important to you?

It is at the core of humanity, belonging. We are village people, we are just tribal. People are tribal and much as we have a different outward surface now, it's brick and mortar now, it's no longer Tepees and huts, we're still tribal. That means that we want to belong, we do belong to community. Community is at the basis. Home, community, family... no man is an island business. We are absolutely communal people. So that means belonging is something that is bigger than who you are and part of who you are. Like transcend and include who you are, and so I think that is the basic nature of this incarnation as human beings. You see it play out in other species and in nature. That belonging is what we yearn for. I think that when we are broken, those areas of humanity that have been broken, whether it is with mental illness, or whatever, people who don't feel that need to belong, there is a rewiring that happened. But the basic wiring is belonging.

I'm hearing that empathy, belonging and community is just a basic way that we are wired as human beings? So it's just speaking to that fundamental truth?

I think so. We build this place out of the need that all of us founders had and we are just as human as everybody else. We built it in a way that ,'What would satisfy me? What would make me happy? What is this kind of space that would fulfill the need that I have inside of me?' With all of us saying that, and then building that.

You had mentioned self actualization before. Does that relate to that?

yes,

And how does that relate to empathy?

Again, once when one is self actualized and awake, we understand our interconnection. We understand that we are interconnected, we are inexplicably interconnected with each other and that interconnection is at the bases and that separation is at the basis of all the ills that we suffer. Separation is at the base of all the ills that we suffer. And interconnection is what everyone is trying to get back to in my opinion. And there goes that empathy, that self actualization. Once we get that basic, I am as connected to you and that plant and that bird, sky and the rock and trees. All of it that awareness, is really a fundamental place that I believe we are all searching for. And that emptiness that we have, all of our isms that we have, all of our ills challenges problems I believe that at the root of all the problems is one problem and that is separation.

Is there a moment when you realized that? An actual incident where you saw that quality of connection and separation?

A peek experience of insight?

When I was a little girl, I was about 5 or 6. I will never forget where my bed was in my bedroom and outside of my bedroom. This was in San Bernardino there was this bush and right there was these night blooming jasmine and that was the flowers that we had. And hot summer day in the deserts, it's hot and I would go to bed and it was still early since I was a kid, you go to bed verily right, because I remember the sun in my mind. It's like just at dusk, and then it gets dark and I'd be in my bed and I could smell that smell, and I loved that smell. I would smell that smell and I would go into particles, my whole body went into particles and light energy as I was falling asleep.

Jasmine flower

I would buzz around and I would be part of the universe and I would buzz around and the smell of the night blooming jasmine was a part of that whole thing. I never was afraid of it and I would just come back, I would pull myself back together and just do it. I could just close my eyes and trip just like I was on drugs, of course I wasn't, I was a kid. I did do that later..

I would just travel and I believed deeply in god also, my family taught me all that stuff. I believed that all of what ever I was doing, had something to do with that. I didn't have the faculty to put all that together but I had enough to just go and then it stopped. It stopped as I got older and it stopped as life got harder. Like when I became more aware of issues and problems things like that and it stopped. I look back at that and I think that was the beginning for me, that was really the beginning for me. It was the smell and all my senses, the smell of the night blooming jasmine, me and the plant had this relationship and the universe, this god energy, the smell, and the universe with stars. Where I lived it was stars back then. You could see the stars at night, and I would just buzz around and I know that I started out like that and then it got covered and when I first got into yoga, I came to Cal in 1973 and discovered yoga, and the seats and the Kundalini yoga.

At my first Kundalini yoga class I was 18 and I remember I had build up the Kundalini and vipassana, and I came back to the buzzing. I hadn't had that since I was a kid. I was totally like, o-my-god, and just this familiarity, just hit over me like I've known this for ages. Like something very old, something that I knew. I've never let it go since then, I don't buzz around anything like that, don't get me wrong, but that awareness became... I knew that the connection between the yoga, the breath, the feeling of myself, self actualization, and all that stuff, there was a connection. It's stayed with me all my life. I don't know how to explain it any better that.

It's a real sense of connection..

I loved it when I was a kid, I was a happy kid.

Problems, issues and blocks then came in?

A lot of stuff, family drama with my dad, my parents ended up divorced. That came heavy, then growing up and seeing life, racism was a big one, big one. At 12 years old, we moved from from an all black and brown neighborhood, to a white neighborhood where we were the second black family in the entire city. Oh my god, I didn't' even know what racism was until we moved. Then all that piled on.. more separation, dampening, trying to dampen light.

Sounds like Yoga was a way of coming back to that sense of connection.

Yoga played a huge part in my life, it's been in my life since 1973 and this played a huge part in my life. I don't even know who I would be without yoga. That then let to meditation. It's my true self. It's the best ever. In all those cells of my body is the breath and all that happiness in the cells and the oneness.

It feels good?

It's fantastic,

How does the HUB fit in with the connection?

It's the same, it's the physical manifestation. It's just a big ass, 16,000 foot brick and mortar manifestation of everything I'm talking about, particularly about that union. Yoga means union, it's union of parts our bodies. That's the thing, you know, HUB's in general are about social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is about making a better world. People are the keys to making a better world, so the membership folks, the members come in, they are doing something great to make a better world. This movement to make a better world, and this movement to have a green economy and redo planet earth. We have done it with a lot of waste, we have to clean up waste, we have to have a no waste planet.

This world we have is based a lot on money and power, and that has been the driver by and large. Which has taken it's course as long as it can. What we want to make sure of here, at Impact HUB Oakland, is that this movement to make a better world, that everyone feels the calling is also doing the internal work of being a better person. Because I can see this whole movement becoming commodified, again, and turning into nothing but money as profit as it's driver. Because it's the next best thing to do. Because I can make money doing it. As apposed to "I'm a different person, I want to be a person who is connected", what we are doing here is bringing connection. So you may be working on an app that is going to save the world, great, do that. We'll support that and we're going to support you as a human being to make sure that hopefully you are also a person is transformed.

You have mentioned transformation before. I use the word transactional empathy and transformational empathy. Transactional empathy is that I just want what is good for me and you want for you and we need enough empathy just to negotiate to get what we want. That's just a transaction, the transformational empathy we really value the shared empathic space between us and the connection.

That's right, that's a good question. You have to model it and be it. If I'm in a space where people are talking about one thing and being another, I can feel that. Not that we are perfect at all, not at all, we have our issues, as human beings, we are just trying to do better. Right, we are on the path, of doing better, we are on the path of modeling real connection, real love, real compassion, empathy. We are as a group, people see us and they go, "Wow", they feel something. And it's authenticity, you know what I say to you I say to anybody, I say it to the men in the suites who I'm trying to get $1 million from. They don't get me.

As a mater of fact, they bet that I was going fail. That all of us were going to fail, that we couldn't pull this off, we didn't have the chops, we didn't have the white men in suites who make all the money and make all the rules. We didn't have any of that. Nor did we have any of that knowledge, we didn't have any of that access and yet...

I'm in Wahaca a month ago we had our global gathering of all out Hubs' at Wahaca, Mexico. Last day I'm in the back of a cab with the main person who owns the most Hubs' in the world, here in America, who is the top guy, who absolutely had no faith in us. Absolutely thought these women don't know what they are doing and they are going to fail. They are too touchy feely, they don't have enough of the hard sell stuff. They don't have enough of the business, they have too much other... I'm sitting in the back of a cab with him, and he turns to me drunk and said,

"Let me ask you something, you guys are suppose to fail, you didn't have this, you didn't have that, you didn't have any of this stuff and yet your the best HUB in the network how did you do it?"

And what he would like is a prescription, that you can just write down and say and give it to. As if it works like that. Lisa turned to him and said, "Love".

This is like mister, Venture Capitalist minded guy, he said, "love".. Yes "love".

Because it was and smarts. He completely underestimated us, but was I scared at times? Hell yeah, did I think we were going to make? All I knew is that HUB Oakland was a done deal. From the time I said yes, I said, this is a done deal. I felt it, oh yeah, this is done. How we are going to get there I have idea. But I knew it was done, in the hardest of moments, I still knew this was done. So there is deep, deep faith, in my path and yet I didn't have a lot of the skill set that said. He was absolutely right, I learned, I'm a quick learner. I had to do a self taught MBA in these last 2.5 years. I didn't know any of this stuff,

And now I can sit in a conversation with the best of them. It's like what kept us motivated is love and knowing our timing was right, our city was right, being here in Oakland at this time. And it's time for me, it's my path... all the magic with all the hard pieces. The magic is there that was undeniable.

There were moments, there were times, when I swear to god, when I would be in bed shaking like a leaf, like so scared, like I couldn't sleep that night, shaking like body. I'd get up and meditate, breath through it, ...is this going to work, I'm signing my name to personal guarantees, my personal guarantee. Me and Lisa are personally have guaranteed over 1 million dollars. Me, you know I just done with all my students loans, and cleared up all my debts, had this great place, now I'm back hock. It's "Why did I do this?" I did it because I believed and I know my path, I believe in my life, I know my life path when I fill it and hear it. I believe in my guides that guide me, I believe in all of that is me,, how I even ended up in Oakland. How that all happened, how it unfolded. It's just listening, just listening.

What are you listening too?

I listen to my inner voice, deeply, my whole life. I've never had a job, job. My whole life has been freelance listening to that inner voice on what moves to take, what move to take, and going with that and knowing that there is this special life unfolding. Because my life has been really cool, you know with a lot of hardship, with a lot of pain and suffering life everybody else. A whole lot of good stuff, because I listen and that is what I'm here to do this time, this life time is about Konda Mason listening to that inner voice and going for it.

That's maybe the self empathy I was talking about. Hearing what your voice is telling you and being able to tune into that.

That I do 100%.

Then there are all the things that separate us maybe from ourselves. I'm hearing this fear and anxiety, that can really disconnect one, and separate one from oneself.

That's all it is, is separation. That is it's whole point, is separation. The whole point is to separate you from yourself. That whole fear, that the mind just starts to chatter, about stuff that you don't even know. Fear is always in the future, afraid of something that hasn't happened yet. Right, and that mind set and that is part of our culture. It's just like, who do you think you are. As a mater of fact, I'm going to do a whole thing on fear here. I want to do a piece that I'm working on. I got to pick it up. I' going to do a workshop on fear and fear for entrepreneurs and what gets in our way. All all the voices in our head. Because I have been through fear to the biggest degree I could ever imagine fear doing this project. Fear doesn't grip me anymore.

What worked you through the fear?

My practice set the base. If I didn't have my Buddhism, my basic understanding of life from a Buddhist perspective, i don't know who I would be period. But I certainly couldn't have negotiated this.

Are you able to share those fears? I find that being heard by others about what the fear is helps. My mother used to say 'Sorrows shared are sorrows halved, joys shared are joys doubled."

People around me heard my fear. They certainly did. Lisa and I, there were days when she would be off the rocket,

"I can't do this."

I said, "We're going to do this."

And there were days when I'm saying it. "I can't do this,"

She said, "We're going to do this."

We were always the opposite for each other at that time.

We did this together, there is no way you can do this by yourself. I never would have even.. It was all about the team. It was all about looking at our team. You know it was the entire team.

It's interesting that we came from empathy into fear because I do a free style dance. And I was dancing on the floor and I noticed I feel this anxiety within myself. I thought what is that? I'm going to get close to it. I'm going to get as close to it as I can. I started dancing, always looking and being aware of that fear. I said, I want to get close to it. I want to touch it, I want it to fill my awareness. I did that and it felt like little ice cycles. As I got closer and close to it and it disappeared. It disappeared when I went into it. But then within 4 or 5 seconds, another whole new manifestation of fear came up. It was like a heavy cloud of anxiety came over the top of my head, . I thought, 'OK, I'm going to go to that'.

I danced and moved and got closer to that and it disappeared.. I then spent like hour going from one fear to the next. I was interacting with people. There was someone I would dance with that always turned and leave, and I'd feel anxiety about being rejected and left. I said to myself, I'm going to go to it. I'm going to get close to it, "It's like I can't take it, anymore, it's too much, but I'm going to do it." And then by going to towards the fear, and dealing with it, being present, we ended up having this great dance and connection.

At the end, of this hour dance I felt like I was in bliss. It's that sense of connection you were talking about, it was by continuously going toward the fear, and it seemed like fear had unlimited manifestations. Fear isn't just one felt experience, but seems to have unlimited manifestations, but the main thing I got was to go to it and get as close to it as possible. Let it fill my awareness, get to the granular quality of it, core essence of how it feels, and then it's like, where did it go.

You're making me think I need to have a kinesthetic part to my workshop. The dance part of it, I love that. This is great, information.

I'm looking how do we make the connection to empathy. Family mediation story of the fear in holding an empathic presence and mediating a conflict......

It was so scary to do that. And then they started calming down, and then the whole family gathered around and it became a big family empathy circle. And I was mediating and using empathic listening, with each other. And then at one point my sister in law, said, it came out one of the underlying issues, that she didn't feel accepted. My father got up and said, I love you, you contribute all this and they had this big. It took longer but then my mother and her finally got up and hugged, then they ended up sitting on the sofa, snuggled up. And holding hands, exactly like that.

Are you serious? Transformation. How useful right? Like real, real tangible, it changes things. It changes things, it changes things. Wow that is incredible.

It was the relationship between fear and empathy. Because it was like to be empathic in that environment was terrifying. Being empathic in some sense is a scary thing to do.

And yet it is the antidote to so much, and yeah, when you know, you are sitting there and you are knowing the answer. Your there knowing the answer, having seen it. You know it, you live it. Yet this was playing out. And it's like, do I bring it, and you brought it.

I joke, if you can bring peace to the family, world peace is easy.

I wonder if you have more thoughts about empathy and fear because it seems to be at the core. Overcoming fear and that separation, fear of separation, all the fears that we have.

I never talked about it like this, but that is the connection between fear and empathy is like the near opposite. the opposte of empathy would be fear. Any two sides of the coin are so close.

Empathy might be a natural biological quality but maybe fear is too. We're born and that's how it is and how do those play out.. How to create an environment that has that belonging and warmth?

I'm doing a workshop on it. And looking at how I'm going to do it. I'm really interested in putting my time into creating something that is transformational for people and is a lived experience.

It might be about having people be heard about their fears. If you an share it.

Yes, there would be dyads and sharing. And looking at the messages that we get and different people get different messages. Just around gender messages, race messages, class messages. You're not good enough, who do you think you are, why are you even attempting to do something because your not the right size, you don't' have the right hair, whatever it might be.

All the judgments, putdowns, and things that disconnect us. What can foster that sense of empathy and connection?

For me it's the practice. The dharma is just the dharma and it spells it all out. And the suffering, what is suffer, it's that gap between what is and what we want it to be. There's so much suffering that we do based on all the mental choices that we make.

I think that empathy is again at the core. If we go through the layers, all the layers and get to the deepest layer, of who we really are, and that's practice. It doesn't happen overnight. Everyone has their own. I think the key is finding your practice. I know that everyone has a practice of where they connect. Everybody has felt connected.

It's to make it conscious. Where have you felt connected? Go back to that. And you start discoverying that there might be a pattern of something that works for you.

Thank You.