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Exercise 1: What is your metaphor of empathy?
Also explain how and why it is a metaphor of empathy.
Also you can watch this video Metaphors of Empathy
to get inspiration. Add an image from the internet the looks like your metaphor so we have a visual representation of it. You can use Google image search for example.
Sample video: Metaphors of Empathy
Watch for sample metaphors.
Why this question?
Metaphors help us get closer to our felt experience. Using a metaphor can therefore deepen our experience and understanding of empathy.
Exercise 2
What is your metaphor for the opposite of empathy?
Also explain how and why it is a metaphor for the opposite of empathy.
Also you can watch this video Metaphors of Empathy to get inspiration.
Add an image from the internet the looks like your metaphor so we have a visual representation of it. You can use Google image search for example.
Exercise 3
Hold an empathic dialogue between the 'metaphor of empathy' and the 'opposite' using empathic listening.opposite
(sample video: see ice cube tray and holding hands)
One person in the team takes on the role of the empathy metaphor
another person takes on the role of the opposite of empathy
The two dialog with each other using empathic listening.
What is your metaphor of empathy and why is it like that?
Also, look on the internet to find an image to represent the metaphor. Copy it to the work page here.
I have a lot of metaphors, but one was that empathy is like a room full of disco balls. Each person is like a disco ball that has hundreds of mirrors and reflects the others around it. When we are highly empathic all the mirrors are open and reflecting. When we lose empathy, the mirrors start closing up. So a culture of empathy is everyone has their mirrors open.
Empathy is shaped like a double helix because the expression of empathy is the expression of natural, harmonious creativity.
I got into trouble for this one once (and maybe I will again) - Empathy is like good sex. It’s a naturally flowing, passionate, energizing, spontaneously amplifying attraction between yourself and the other in a way that just works and keeps working until a climax of energy is reached. When done well, empathy gives you that same craving to know more, to touch the inner soul of someone, which in most cultures is only attributed to sexual liberation with that person.
Open Arms
I’m not super confident about this metaphor but I see the process of empathising as sort of “clearing out cobwebs”. So basically, when people first begin a discussion, or maybe an argument, there’s just a lot of stuff in between them that’s kind of clogging up the view and the connection.
You or the other person might not be expressing yourself very clearly - you might be expressing your feelings with very indirect queues, like, fear might be expressed as a judgemental statement about someone. And also, if people are triggered they may have a lot of thoughts and emotions coming up that sort of cloud their ability to hear the other person.
So in my metaphor, the misdirection people use to hide how they’re truly feeling and the emotions from triggers are the “cobwebs”. And emphasizing is the process of clearing them out, and getting to a point where both people are more honestly revealed to each other and have a connection to one another with less baggage attached.
Others
Empathy is like a surgeon’s scalpel.
Cutting away the layers to get to a deeper truth, that is below the surface of people.
Empathy is like peeling an onion
Peeling away the layers to get to a deeper truth, that is below the surface.
Empathy is like an excavator
Digging away the layers to get to a deeper truth, that is below the surface.
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