Empathy is the bedrock of our relationships with others, says Rick Hanson. Here's how to practice it.
This post’s practice—empathy—knits human beings together, and is at the heart of healthy relationships. You were born with this capability—consider that babies cry when they hear other babies cry, but not at recordings of their own crying—and you can get better at it with practice.
Why? Imagine a world in which people interacted with each other like ants or fish. Imagine a day at work like this, or in your family, aware of the surface behavior of the people around you but oblivious to their inner life, while they remain unmoved by your own. That’s a world without empathy. To me, it sounds like a horror film.
Emotions of love and compassion give meaning and purpose to life. The brain is wired with circuitry for caring and empathic connection...
You want happiness? The best option is to grow your ability to empathically connect to your self and partner, in present moments of awareness. It’s a way of knowing, understand your self, and life around you that is connected to your compassion, and that allows you to best understand and empathically connect to your partner. Athena Staik
Lowe: I think that artists build their art around empathy. I think that liberal politics is built on empathy. I think conservative politics, from my opinion is built on-
Hannity: Common sense?
Lowe: Logic. Logic and empathy it's like left brain, right brain stuff. So I just think naturally empathetic artists are drawn to that.
An inspirational presentation celebrating compassion through science art and music with Dr. Richardson Davidson, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds (UW-Madison), Appleton North Choir, and singer-songwriter Cory Chisel. Free general admission; tickets are available at The Trout Museum of Art, the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, and the Appleton Education Foundation. http://www.troutmuseum.org/compassion-live.htm
Tuesday's celebration was presented by the Appleton Education Foundation in partnership with Trout and the Appleton Area School District as part of AEF's 2011 Community Education Program.
Dr. Richard Davidson toured the Trout Museum of Art on Tuesday, drinking in the spectacle of row upon row of 6-by-6-inch panels —more than 10,000 of them.
All had been contributed by Appleton school children for the Compassion Project, and on those tiles were the students' drawings and paintings of what compassion means to them.
Speaking at the National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast on May 12th 2011 Obama said that empathy is a source of morality in the immigration reform debate. According to Edwin Rutsch, writing to Members in Let's Find 1 Million People Who Want to Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion, Obama has been talking about empathy and compassion more lately and Edwin thinks it will be central to his 2012 election campaign.
Here is the video posted up as part of Edwin Rutsch’s empathy documentary project. where you will find links to many other videos from Obama and others on the importance of empathy.
As you watch your six-year-old daughter having a tantrum because she lost her favourite hair slide, it's easy to wonder: where does that rage come from? And where might it lead? Equally, when you watch her blithely crush snails underfoot or deliberately pinch her little brother, you find yourself thinking: how come she is so apparently unfeeling? Is it something we, as parents, have done?
Rare is the parent with a child so saintly that she has never asked herself these questions. But there is little need to worry. Young children get angry. They jump on snails and squash flies
The Dark Side of Empathy by Barbara Oakley, the author of Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping that Hurts.
Empathy, altruism, and caring for others has become the mantra of modern American culture, but as the Greg Mortenson scandal over his three cups of deceit has revealed—empathy has a dark side that has remained unexplored...
Empathy’s dark side has been too long neglected. To truly help others, it’s time to shine a light into the darkness. Barbara Oakley
Nonetheless there is troubling evidence. Scientific American recently reported on research by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan. She looked at surveys in which students were asked to rate their own empathy. She found that self-reported empathy has declined sharply over the past decade. Almost 75 percent of the students today rate themselves as less empathetic than the average student 30 years ago.
The crucial question in evaluating a potential Supreme Court justice, therefore, is not whether she relies on empathy or emotion, but how she does so. First, can she process multiple streams of emotion? Reason is weak and emotions are strong, but emotions can be balanced off each other. Sonia Sotomayor will be a good justice if she can empathize with the many types of people and actions involved in a case, but a bad justice if she can only empathize with one type, one ethnic group or one social class.
Second, does she have a love for the institutions of the law themselves? For some lawyers, the law is not only a bunch of statutes but a code of chivalry. The good judges seem to derive a profound emotional satisfaction from the faithful execution of time-tested precedents and traditions.
It’s not whether judges rely on emotion and empathy, it’s how they educate their sentiments within the discipline of manners and morals, tradition and practice. David Brooks
Bishop Sheen on False and True Compassion. [I try to show all different views of compassion and empathy here. Fulton does a good job of articulating this point of view which is more of the conservative view.]
A study published last month in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science found that someone with a permanent poker face caused by Botox can't mirror a joyful smile or a furrowed brow -and this mimicry, research suggests, is essential to our capacity to empathize with others.
A frozen face begets frozen feelings. This got us thinking about empathy. We can't afford to forfeit it for taut skin. It takes about 40 muscles to frown -and we'd like to preserve every one of them.
Cambridge University psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen writes that empathy is already in short supply in this warring world.
Andrew Marr explores how far empathy, or the lack of it, can explain cruelty. Simon Baron-Cohen proposes turning the focus away from evil and says we should understand human behaviour by studying the 'empathy circuit' in the brain.
Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychotherapist at Broadmoor Hospital and the crime writer Val McDermid question whether this would help in their line of work, and the philosopher Julian Baggini tries to pin down what we mean when we talk about the self.
Simon Baron-Cohen: Empathy Expert Page: http://bit.ly/jlHrf7 with transcripts of this show.
The Empathy Symbol stands for reaching out to the “other” and then opening up to truly understand each other. Use the empathy symbol to indicate your support for a world in which we all can get along.
Your presence has power. You have a built-in ability to create happiness in your life and relationships, and the quality of your presence is the substance that builds trust.
Actions that stem from being present convey a sense of connection to your self and those you love. Perhaps more importantly, presence sends a message that affirms your commitment in key relationships, energizing good feelings that cause your brains to release Oxytocin, a hormone linked to felt sense of safety, love and connection.
The world is changing—faster than ever before—from a society run by elites to one in which everyone can be a changemaker. Ashoka has come to believe that empathy is one of the most important issues of our time: the 21st Century skill fundamental to all the rest, from innovation and teamwork to leadership and changemaking. Empathy is the heart of the future of growing up.
That's why we're committing historic resources to building a world in which every child masters empathy – and in which all institutions, from elementary schools to large corporations to entire countries, integrate empathy as a core principle and practice. Ashoka imagines the day that all children will be empathic – but it will take an energetic team to make this powerful vision a reality in our time.
My interview with the noted primateologist and author of Age of Empathy, Frans de Waal. I asked. "How can we build a culture of empathy?"
I think it is important in society, especially at the moment. Now that we have come out of this period where greed was so good. I think it is important to emphasize that there are alternative ways of looking at society. A society where solidarity is important and caring about others is important.
The other things, that I'm not an expert on, is education and culture of course. A cultural and educational change that emphasizes empathy more. I would also warn that empathy is not invariably positive. People think that empathy is automatically a positive characteristic. Empathy can be used for bad purposes also.
Do you sigh for a world without evil? A place where criminals are conscience-stricken and altruistic folk of all nations sit down together to make peace? ..
And what about people whose flamboyant empathy is in truth a form of self-gratification? What of pop stars who are keen on giving foreign aid to countries where the money ends up in the bank accounts of ministers almost as rich as the (occasionally tax-dodging) performers themselves?
No Responsibility? More seriously, what happens when the notion of human responsibility for evil goes out of the window, along with the very concept of evil? In Baron-Cohen’s world, murderers, rapists and villainous statesmen lack empathy for genetic and environmental reasons.
This, I believe, is empathy (though, as I’ve recently discovered, scientists can’t seem to agree on their own definition). We’ve all "felt" for someone else, whether that person is a stranger getting slapped in public or a close friend suffering through the loss of a pet. The empathy we experience can feel as real as if the pain were our own.
But empathy is failing on a pretty mass scale. It fails between Christians and Muslims. It fails between Israelis and Palestinians. Between Democrats and Republicans. Between Red Sox and Yankees fans. When it comes to conflict groups, empathy largely goes offline.
I ask this question not because I think that libertarians are lacking a basic human emotion (I don’t believe you are), but because politically, I think it needs explanation if libertarian thought is going to be able to reach a larger audience.
Let me explain….when reading a recent interview that Brian Dougherty from Reason did with Ron Paul, Paul said: The biggest challenge for conservatives and libertarians is to convince people who think being libertarian means you have no compassion, and in politics you better have compassion.
Developments in the study of evolution suggest that the survival of the fittest depends as much on cooperation as it does on a competition between self-interests.
These are books about sympathy, empathy, cooperation and collaboration, written by scientists, evolutionary psychologists, neuroscientists and others. It seems there’s been a shift among those who study this ground, yielding a more nuanced, and often gentler picture of our nature.
The use of reconciliation threatens to destroy the humanizing function of the Senate.
Human beings, the philosophers tell us, are social animals. We emerge into the world ready to connect with mom and dad. We go through life jibbering and jabbering with each other, grouping and regrouping. When you get a crowd of people in a room, the problem is not getting them to talk to each other; the problem is getting them to shut up.
To help us in this social world, God, nature and culture have equipped us with a spirit of sympathy. We instinctively feel a tinge of pain when we observe another in pain DAVID BROOKS
Acclaimed New York Times columnist David Brooks explores new insights into human nature and the forces that shape our choices and actions
1. 98% of experience is unconsciousness 2. emotions is the foundation of reason. it assigns value to experience. 3. not individual creatures but tightly interpenetrated with others We are primarily social creatures an not rational creatures
This changes our view of politics
Important traits; 1. Mindsite - see into other peoples minds and download what they have to offer. We learn by mimicry. 2. Equipoise - able to see into ones self and correct for bias's 3. Metas - look at environment and see patterns sympathy - scan a social environment
Bishop Sheen on False and True Compassion. [I try to show all different views of compassion and empathy here. Fulton does a good job of articulating this point of view.]
Everywhere I turn these days I see paeans to empathy. Books are being written about its civilizing powers — The Empathic Civilization, Empathy and Democracy, Empathy in a Global World — and conferences and websites are being devoted to the concept as well.
In his bid for the presidency, Barack Obama literally ran his campaign on the value of being emotionally open, telling Americans they had, in fact, an "empathy deficit," which he urged they rectify, first by electing him.
Empathy, of course, is the ability to experience the feelings of another person. Humans do it, so do other mammals, according to many primatologists, including Frans de Waal, author of Our Inner Ape and The Age of Empathy.
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