EMPATHY, LOVE IN ACTION

Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication, describes empathy as, “one of the most precious gifts one human being can give to another; our full presence to what is alive in another person when they are speaking to us.” Empathy is choosing to put your own thoughts aside allowing all your attention to receive with your heart and mind another’s soul feeling songs and cherished values.  This means we curb our natural reaction to give advice, offer reassurance, analyze, or try to find a solution until the other person confirms that what has been communicated has been completely and compassionately received. Usually it is evident in how people carry themselves, or if you are sensitive to energy you’ll notice a shift once they truly feel seen, heard, and understood.

If more and more of us learned to offer this to each other the global rise in compassion would create an incredible formidable force of love! Many agree, the first step, is gifting ourselves with this quality of presence to cultivate inner peace. Filling up our own cup of love, by nurturing ourselves with a compassionate inner voice helps us so much in being able to show up in life and offer this presence to those around us.  The more love, compassion, pleasure, attention, and care we give ourselves, the more we have to share.

Empathy given to ourselves is self-love in action, an applicable method of self-care for the present and also preventative medicine against future negative self- talk.  It’s giving ourselves the time and space to fully connect with our heart, so we can more accurately perceive what is alive in us. Allowing your mind a pause to fully sense our bodily sensations and feelings. We feel emotions through out our entire body because our brain is not just contained in our skull, it extends as our nervous system branching across our entire body.

We can allow the full expression of our feelings, whether they surround a need of ours that we are mourning because it is not met or celebrating because it is met.  It’s a self-acknowledgement of the fact that” I HAVE NEEDS!” I choose to honor them by mourning their loss or celebrating their presence.

How often do we pause and celebrate a met need, even for a moment? We so often are on to the next experience, back to compulsive mental evaluation. Why not revel in the enrichment of a need fulfilled and fully feel the positive emotions??

Empathy can be done within ourselves at any time so there is no possibility of feeling self-conscious or worrying that we are expressing our feelings more than other people would appreciate hearing.  Unfortunately we usually censor our feelings according to what we think others will accept.

EMPATHY:

FREEDOM TO FEEL

To take an empathetic interlude from your mind’s monotonous meandering monologue

Release yourself from your rambling rants of re-action

We are trained to think, think, think. Our learned language doesn’t allow ourselves time to feel, because our mind is so addicted to our thoughts.  Practicing self -empathy increases our capacity to focus on the feelings, the language of our soul rather than our thoughts, the language of our mind. It was from reading “Conversations with God,” by Neale Donald Walsch, where I was introduced to the concept of ‘soul language’ and when I started studying Nonviolent Communication I was so excited to integrate their ideas, which both resonated true for me.

We are trained to re-act when we encounter similar stimulating experiences, like when someone makes an assumption about us, “She only cares about money.” It is possible to re-route our very practiced response of defense, “who the hell are you to say that?” and self deprecation, “they’re right, I’m greedy!” towards empathy, which could sound like this, “wow I really want to be seen as caring deeply about my clients and also making a living wage to support my family and I feel really hurt when I hear someone make an assumption about me.

I want cut the cord of re-action and re-wire myself to re-empathize with every new experience to connect with how I feel and what I am needing.

We RE everything in life….re-experience, rediscover,

re-learn, respond, retell, receive, reawaken, re-live, relapse, regret,

recover, remember, realign, redecorate, redistribute, redesign

The more we do this the easier we begin to connect feelings to needs and the more likely we’ll be in a space to allow for inspiration and guidance to find ways to meet our needs.  Empathy leads to SHIFTS in our consciousness …an AHHHH moment of Clarity!! Waiting and allowing these shifts to naturally evolve is important for empathy to be effective and complete. You’ll know as they are quite noticeable in your physical awareness of your body.

Release from fear…. feel the relief from your Care ….and then relax into the moment.

From this space of acceptance and peace, I am now way more likely to find creative ways to meet my needs. Many times I’ve tried to jump to a solution, feeling frantic for resolution and not at all connected to the energy my need. I think your soul will appreciate the nourishment of loving on yourself with empathy!! It’s a filling of your cup with unconditional acceptance and love and understanding. We so often operate without a full cup, not feeling secure, accepted and loved, with our emotions bubbling out chaotically creating more stress or conflict.  Empathy soothes and gives compassionate comfort to these painful feelings and helps us show up for life with a full cup of love.

When we re-act we can pretty much predict how it’s going to work out for us. When we re-empathize we open new pathways for CHANGE!! Empathy can create a change that leads to enriching your life and having your needs met. The more I practice and the more my cup is filled, the more likely I can give the gift of empathy to another, participate in nurturing the flow of love and empathy going around the world, and live out a person passionate about practicing Peace!!