What's hard about giving yourself a little self-compassion? Here are 4 mythical beliefs that get in your way.
The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change. ~ Carl Rogers
I was privileged to spend a day last week at a seminar led by Dr. Kristin Neff, a pioneering researcher in the area of self-compassion.
During an exercise early in the day that taught us how to feel compassion for another person and compassion for oneself, I was surprised to notice how hard it was to be compassionate toward myself while feeling compassion toward my partner in the exercise was quite easy.
What Bastiat described in 19th century France is still seen today. He describes the demonization of those who oppose coercive force by those who are deemed as compassionate and caring. The dominant culture tells us that if something is good, then we must use the government to mandate it. Since government is force, they are saying that we must force people to do what we think is good and if you oppose this use of force, you are an enemy of the good.
Program Managers at Star Vista in Redwood City, CA came together on March 27 to learn more about how they can grow the practice of Empathy in their work and their programs
During three weeks in February and March, Dr. Gary Sweeten, co-author of the book “Listening for Heaven’s Sake,” talked about the importance of relationship skills along with Pastor Charlie McMahan for the UpsideDown message series at SouthBrook Christian Church in Miami Twp.
Volunteers from the audience came up and demonstrated the harsh effects of negative communication, and how empathy for others can turn interaction into a more positive experience
With an increasing reliance on technological advances to solve the world's problems, humanity also seeks the reassurance that only a spiritual quest can answer," said a March 29 statement by John M. Templeton Jr., foundation president and chairman.
"The Dalai Lama offers a universal voice of compassion underpinned by a love and respect for spiritually relevant scientific research that centers on every single human being."
I blog on my perspectives as a Restorative Justice practitioner and executive director of St. Croix Valley Restorative Justice Program. SCVRJP provides several programs and services to our local community. Additionally, SCVRJP provides contracted trainings and presentations, to help schools, agencies or communities that want to implement Restorative Justice.
'Empathy. A crucial emotional response to those around us. We are hard-wired to connect with others. From the book Born for Love which is about the: empathy that allows us to make social connections, and the power of human relationships to'
Several studies have tried to test whether 'yawn contagion' can spread from humans to our beloved canines -- and whether that means the dogs feel empathy.
This story starts with a 2008 paper in Biology Letters titled rather wonderfully, "Dogs catch human yawns." Well, actually it started when my cat yawned and then I yawned and I wondered if animals could pass a yawn to me like a fellow human could. Spoiler: there's no evidence that cats can cause you to yawn. My alternative yawn hypothesis for yesterday's false yawn contagion is that sleeping five hours a night causes me to yawn frequently and being a kitten causes my kitten to yawn frequently. Therefore, it is not surprising that we yawned in quick succession.
Even though she criticizes religious leaders for turning their backs on compassion, famed author Karen Armstrong stood up for Buddha, Jesus, Confucius and other luminaries during her extended visit to Metro Vancouver.
The author of many best-selling books, including The History of God, responded to complaints religion has been a source of violence by telling a Simon Fraser University audience this week to not forget secular movements have also been destructive.
“Let me put in a word for religion,” Armstrong said. Both Buddha and Jesus, she explained, responded to their chaotic times by bearing “witness to a different way of living” – to an ethos that counters selfishnes
Did you ever have that sensation where you’re watching someone do something—serve a tennis ball, say, or get pricked by a needle—and you can just feel exactly what they must be feeling, as if you were in their shoes?
Scientists have long wondered why we get that feeling, and more than two decades ago, a team of Italian researchers thought they stumbled on an answer. While observing monkeys’ brains, they noticed that certain cells activated both when a monkey performed an action and when that monkey watched another monkey perform the same action. “Mirror neurons” were discovered.
Sixteen years after her father was killed by an IRA bomb, Jo Berry had her first conversation with the man responsible. She had made a long journey, ‘walking the footsteps of the bombers’ as she put it, determined not to give in to anger and revenge but to try to understand his motivations and perspective. Her preparedness to meet Pat Magee opened up a path to empathy that developed through their conversations over the following years. This book studies their growing understandings of each other by focusing on the rich networks of metaphors that appear in their conversations, and how these evolve in the process of reconciliation.
Increasingly mobile and transient societies present increasing needs for people to understand others who they may find, not only very different from themselves, but also holding attitudes and beliefs which may be difficult to accept. This kind of understanding across difference and emotional ambivalence is 'empathy'. Positive empathy opens up possibilities for alternative responses to uncertainty than apathy, hardening of attitudes or violence.
Empathy is constructed, negotiated and resisted through discourse, including the everyday language of social interaction, the rhetoric of politicians, and the language of fiction, song, and news media. The programme of research into the dynamics of empathy will investigate the role of language, and in particular metaphor, in the construction and shifting of people's attitudes to others..
There are two major ways that we feel empathy. Physical empathy is when we feel things that other people are feeling but we feel them in our bodies. That means when you are picking up something from someone you feel it in your body. Often, touch is required for this, but sometimes just physical proximity will do it....
Empaths who have strong physical empathy and don't learn how to release that energy often end up sick, with a string of health problems that don't really belong to them.
When I was an FTO teaching new correction officers how to do their job in the jail I always gave them a lesson on empathy and sympathy because I sincerely believe that officers must know what those terms are and why they are so important in corrections and law enforcement.
Empathy simply stated is understanding what causes and inmate to be in jail or prison in the first place and to know where they are coming from when they are talking about issues to you as an officer.
A few simple words--or even just a silent, supportive presence--can do so much to bring peace to the seriously ill and dying.
The theme of the one-day event was “Providing ‘The Best Care Possible’ Through the End of Life.” Organized by Hospice of the Valley and Santa Clara University Department of Counseling Psychology, it featured top tier speakers and drew a sold out crowd of professionals and volunteers from the palliative care and hospice fields.
The Challenge of Caring: Putting Your Empathy to Work Without Burning Out - Dale G. Larson, PhD, Professor of Counseling Psychology, Coordinator, Health Psychology Emphasis Dr. Larson shared his immense wealth of experience in how to stay balanced in the end-of-life care field.
Jola et al. make the interesting observation that experienced viewers of ballet, even without physical training, covertly simulate the movements for which they have acquired visual experience, their empathic abilities heighten motor resonance during dance observation - activating the same brain motor pathways actually being used by the dancers:
'Child psychologists say one key to raising children who dont bully is to foster empathy in them, because people dont mistreat those with whom they empathize.
"Many children are very empathetic, and seem to come by it more naturally," Reynolds says. "(With) other children, you do need to educate about that, and model that behavior."
Sociologist Christine Carter of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center is author of the advice book "Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents" and teaches parenting classes. She says a first step to instilling empathy is to help children understand their own emotions, including giving them vocabulary for describing their feelings.'
Ira Liss co-founded and currently runs AOK, a “social game for social good” played online, on iOS and Android mobile devices and out in the real world. AOK converts player engagement into charitable donations, and offers virtual and real rewards to players that post, share, "like" and comment on Acts and Observations of Kindness.
Ashoka and Youth Venture have partnered with the Bully Project to show how young people can help put an end to bullying by advancing empathy.
Ashoka — a global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs – has launched a new initiative called Start Empathy. Start Empathy is a community of individuals and institutions dedicated to cultivating empathy in the 21st Century. Our premise is that empathy is a critical skill both for individual human development and for our collective ability to solve problems and build a stronger society.
Author, Teaching Empathy: A Blueprint for Caring, Compassion, and Community,
"Empathy education is one of the most critical educational issues of our time because it is only when students feel emotionally safe and secure in all areas of the school environment—in the classroom, hallway, or cafeteria; at recess; and on the bus—that they will begin to focus and tap into the unlimited potential that lies within each of them. "
As we use the tools of science to explore the nature of humanity, we are learning more and more about how our brains function and what motivates our behavior, built-in biases and blind spots.
These fresh insights are interesting scientifically, but they also evoke significant questions about our lived experience. These perspectives challenge our basic assumptions of who we are, both as individuals and as a society.
Empathy is a word that gets used a lot these days. What IS it really? I like Brené Brown’s (of TED talk fame) definition: “the skill or ability to tap into our own experiences in order to connect with an experience someone is relating to us.” Empathy is what helps us sense that we are not alone in the world. It connects us to others and, as Brené Brown reminds us, it is the “antidote” to shame.
The skill of empathy requires that we can, without judgment, see the world as another person sees it and that we can “get” another person’s feelings and communicate to the person that we understood.
I am a university researcher investigating how empathy works when people talk with each other and about each other. I have a large project with generous funding from the Econcomic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for three years. Now halfway through, I am beginning to see patterns and tendencies in what people do.
Posts by Lynne Cameron: Empathy and dyspathy Dyspathy: a dynamic complement to empathy Dyspathy Why do we feel empathy with non-humans? but not too much Empathy through action Remembering 9/11 responding to riots Deliberative empathy – the phrase that captures what I’m after Somatic markers and empathy The grounding of empathy in infancy
I never read this as an action movie or a thriller," Lawrence helpfully chimes in. "I read it as a drama, and one that was incredibly important for our generation. It has a powerful message that I'm proud to back.
It's important to see what happens to society when we lose touch with our humanity. When we lose our empathy, the result is we have this generation that's obsessed with reality television, eating popcorn while we watch people's lives fall apart. So the message is, don't lose touch with humanity.
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