Tag Archives: Empathy

Visions worthy of our attention for shifting focus towards Global Unity

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Poster supporting Global Visions created by Renee Lindstrom to feature and bring awareness to creating global change that begins with personal awareness.

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TOPIC’S IN PARENTING WITH COMPASSION AND EMPATHY ~ Nonviolence Literacy Series

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About Parenting Approach with Compassion and Empathy ~ Nonviolence Literacy Series

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Understanding Ego mind through getting in touch with your own thinking and speaking

Our last workshop in a series of six and the individual workshops have  evolved into a deeper focus of  practice and understanding empathy.  The areas that came up for exploring included self-empathy, empathy in relationships and group empathy.  The purpose was to support group members to recognize their own  stories inside their mind that did not allow them to be present with what was actually happening in their relationship.  How we have done this it by developing skills for learning to recognize and identify their thoughts and behavior as a result of their thinking.

The last exercise involved having a volunteer demonstrate a process while sharing a personal life event and transforming what they had been telling themselves about it into a connection that included the rest of body functions,  outside of the frontal lobe of their brain!

At the beginning of the practice this participant shared their resistance at  connecting to another person in their life.  In the process ego dropped away as the mind stories became silent and what was real began to emerge.  As the stories of their mind became less interesting , what was real was their new self-connection to what was being experienced in the moment.  When the participant connected to what was real in them they expressed how they had a growing awareness of  what was going on for the other person that went beyond their original resistance.

You couldn’t ask for more!  The beauty that was visible in the participant and those in the group supporting this persons process was tangible through relaxed faces and the feelings of a group connection.    Through the practice other  participants began to recognizing their own stories and habits in experiencing how  they supported the process.  Did they become present to what they were hearing or did it stimulate their own stories or need to fix it by coming up with solutions.  If so, all these participants witnessed how this breaks the emphatic connection and experienced the effects of  disconnection of it becoming about them and their ego mind and no longer the person going through the exercise.

Beautiful! The participants having a practice of learning a language of connection demonstrated the ability to go beyond the disruption and carry the process back to the original speaker while holding empathy for the interrupter’s!

This brings up the question – Is empathy the absence (quieting) of ego?

For more information on these workshops with Renee Lindstrom go to relationships link

Empty Mind in Action ~ Growing Relationships

Tibetan Buddhism

Chogum Trungpa Rinpoche, originally from Tibet, taught North Americans  a structure to experience mindfulness in meditation.  A structure to occupy the mind and body with focus of attention in a particular way to encourage the mind to slow down to have freedom from thought driven action.

The structure in meditation is particular.  You enter into a room with reverence, sit on a cushion that has a mat between it and floor.  You have a choice of sitting in two or three positions.  When you sit you notice your thoughts and practice labeling them, “thinking.”  You follow your breath outwards counting for cycles of 10 breathes.  As you sit you notice when your thoughts wander off and then as soon as you notice this you simply bring yourself back to the pattern of breathing and observing your breath.  Your eyes are aimed 6 feet in front of you down towards the floor and an you begin to sense the environment.   Sitting begins at a cycle of 20 minutes, walking mediation for 10 and back to sitting for 20 minutes.  For a retreat the 20 minutes stretches into longer periods of time.  The purpose is to begin to have an experience of empty space between the thoughts.  An experience quite unlike a mind driven experience.

Sharing Awareness through Communication workshops based on world recognized models for communicating and development, a dawning realization is for the need of a similar structure.  Chogyam was sharing that the mind needs attention and a structured system of focusing it to participate, not dominate.  Our series of classes has evolved into realizing this same need for structure with a purpose of giving the mind space between thoughts and allowing it room for participating, not dominating.    This then deepens the quality.  Therefore it isn’t the quantity of thoughts and filling up the silence that matters, it’s the quality that becomes recognizable.  Therefore a growing mindfulness can come from learning while developing a lite quality of  curiosity  in studying one’s own behavior.

A recent comment, “When I hold onto the thoughts in my mind that want to jump out and only share back what I am hearing from my friend, my friend shares more.  I am getting to know more about this person and  I thought I already knew everything about  them.  They are also speaking from a deeper place.”

Learning opportunities to discover for yourself how to improve your relationships with clarity and developing mindfulness, western style, are available.  For more explore the classes listed, inquire about presentations, workshops and coaching.  There are organized group classes, classes designed with your needs in mind, online classes and private sessions for coaching and improving your relationships.

 

The only way to change is action


by Renee Lindstrom

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by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP @ Inside Awareness,  Living in Natures Love Blog
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For a healthy society ~ on labeling, diagnosis and perscribing

An article caught my attention that originated from  a parent’s question.  It included responses from the community.

Reading the responses I found myself surprised and then shocked as the replies to the questions did not connect with the original letter writer.  Those responding talked at her and identified her actions as problems in a way that  did not  meet my need for consideration.  What I read was generalizations and identification of the parents actions as being  problems through the letter writers personal opinions including;  judgement, diagnosing, prescribing and giving advise.

For me, what was missing was the piece that made sense on a behavioral   level that would create a feeling of  relief  on all levels of my understanding not just my mind.  Therefore rather than deepening into a shared connection to what I was reading,  I was struggling with what it was bringing up for me.

I felt frustrated and annoyed reading these letters as all I took away from it was my thought that they were meeting their needs for expressing and sharing their professional opinions.  I felt a deep sadness at the same time imagining the experience of the questioner reading these answers that sounded like a lecture and being told what to do.  I recognize how I would like   the support to be simpler, personal and emphatic.  I would have enjoyed reading was how both the parent and child had different and conflicting needs.  I didn’t read any steps and examples for sharing how to identify these two sets of needs  and move forward with the child hearing back they where deeply cared for.

Imagine the personal power for the parent to connect in to was was important to them, not the action they themselves took.   Let’s give  parents tools to relax and guide their children not rules to break themselves!    Followed by the gift of knowing what need the child was meeting so the parent could realize the child’s action was to meet that need.

For a healthy society ~ on Bullying for teaching the teachers

Which came first the chicken or the egg?  Really? Does it matter?  Who cares about identifying who should be responsible for teaching children about bullying and the outcomes when each one of us is a bully!  Yes, you have read this correctly.  If  we cannot identify our own needs and give ourselves empathy, what happens when talking to another person?  Can you then hear and identify their needs and  respond back to them in a way to connect to what is important to them?  If not, in fact it is bullying them!  Why, well think about it, if you hear someone and begin trying to fix it based upon your opinions, do you think they feel witnessed and valued or do they feel invisible and lonely?  If you start to hear them, identify with their story and jump in to tell yours to let them know you know exactly how they feel, do you think they feel seen or heard or has the conversation become about you?   Therefore, if it is about you and what you know and your experience,  you cannot identify their needs and acknowledge them as having any value.  Why?, they do not have the same needs as you in that moment.  Frankly,  it is not about you when you are listening to someone else which brings up the question of, “How do you think they are going to respond?”

I would like to generalize and say that I believe we all do this  and it is these little incidents that we are not aware of that become big issues for others who then take it out on others that grows and grows.   Therefore in my opinion it is a societal issue and one that needs societal solutions that begin with acknowledgement and training.   Unlearning through learning new skills that begin with individuals in ALL communities, networks and families.  It’s not a parental issue in my opinion as parents need the support of educators.  Educators needs the support of administrators and administrators need the support of government and government need support of who? YOU!