Library Resources with empathy

Join CNVC Certified Trainer and Certified Focusing Teacher Shulamit Berlevtov in this brief exercise called the Wheel of Awareness. This exercise will help you become aware of how to distinguish and differentiate your life experience.

Ask the Trainer: "What guidance do you have for working with enemy images? Can you say some things about processes and/or exercises that can bring relief from this trap?"

Why is it so difficult to change our patterns even when we want to, even when we experience shame or despair about them? Arnina Kashtan offers some of the common pitfalls and concrete steps to overcome them in the future.

This exercise is most often the first activity in a beginning level workshop after the usual logistics/history/check-in. Penny Wassman experiences it as an opportunity for people to build connection with one another.

Use this interactive empathy exercise to track the relationship and shifting of body sensations, feelings and needs as you note them out loud.

Blame is opaque when we don’t reflect on it deeply. We blame when we don’t see ourselves as having power to shape things, and see others as the ones who can. Blame and how we respond to it, is both a symptom of inability to step into power, and an impediment to empowered relationships. Transforming blame requires self-responsibility. Read on for practices involving empathy, inner connection, power, preparation and engaging options.

When someone stimulates your pain, you may want them to express care and empathy for your experience. If they're unwilling, you may resent it. You may forget the power of many strategies to meet a need, and you lose your agency. This can lead to reactive habits in you -- such as pleading, demanding, or attacking. Here are reasons you may not be getting an apology or empathy, and what options you have in moving forward.

Empathy is a form of attunement. Empathy is giving your compassionate curiosity by guessing another’s feelings and needs. Consider how you live or relate to each of these 12 essential aspects of empathy. Some of them mention how we can offer empathy without abandoning ourselves, how empathy isn't always the best response, and how "Empathy can be offered when you disagree with another’s opinion, memory, or perspective."

Judgment is an attempt to protect from hopelessness or insecurity, at high cost. Instead, check in with fear, grief, or hurt. Then wonder what needs are at stake for everyone. This makes space for grief instead of anger, for negotiation rather than control, and for "calling in" rather than excluding. Wonder: “For whom would this be life-serving or not?”, “What strategies would care for all needs?” or, “What can I contribute now?”

Trainer Tip: Even if we don't agree, acknowledging others' realities can help demonstrate that we're including their feelings and needs in the conversation. Creating space for your reality and theirs can also bring a sense of connection, understanding, inclusion, abundance and fullness in life. Try it today. Read on for an example.