“Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person. You can call it compassionate listening. You listen with only one purpose: to help them empty their heart.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
Empathy is about being with, rather than doing something.
“Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position and feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our own mind and listen to others with our whole being.”
~Marshall B. Rosenberg
Much of what we understand about empathy today is attributed to Carl Rogers, an American Psychologist who developed client-centered therapy focusing on congruency, empathy, and respect (unconditional positive regard).
Carl Rogers’ short definition of empathy is the ability to
understand another person’s experience in the world.
Here is a more detailed description from a Carl Rogers lecture on Empathy:
“I’d like to attempt a description of empathy that would seem satisfactory to me today. I would no longer be terming it a state of empathy which was in my earlier definition because I believe it to be a process rather than a state, and perhaps I can capture that quality. The way of being with another person which is termed empathic has several facets. It means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it.
It involves being sensitive moment to moment to the changing felt meanings that flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever that he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in their life moving about in it delicately without making judgments, sensing meanings of which they are scarcely aware but not trying to uncover feelings of which they are totally unaware since this would be too threatening.
It includes communicating your sensing of their world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which they are fearful. It means frequently checking with them as to the accuracy of your sensing and being guided by their responses. You are a confident companion to them in their world by pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of his or her experiencing, you help them to focus on this useful type of referent to experience their meanings more fully and to move forward in his or her experiencing.” ~ Carl Rogers, 1974 lecture
Host an Empathy Cafe for your group or organization
An Empathy Cafe will help you develop empathic listening habits. You will experience one of the most valuable gifts we possess as humans — the ability to listen deeply to others and to be deeply heard and understood.
This is what we call empathy- listening for understanding, without judgment, or trying to offer advice or fix anything. A space to connect deeply to your feelings and needs.
Ultimately, you will learn to cultivate a genuine interest in the people around you, a necessary condition for living in a world of peace and positive change.
Participants engaged in an Empathy Cafe
