(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Building a Culture of Empathy [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-07-22 I think all the regular readers on Daily Kos have been following the discussion these last few weeks about naming and engaging with our political opposition. Please see PvtJarHead’s See: Some Of You Fu*kers Still Don't Fu*king Get It…, Meteo Blades’ Being politically tough is far from the same as talking tough, and should always avoid dehumanizing, and novapsyche’s Let me clear the air: thank you for the deep discussion. I'm listening but won't engage in flames for a sample of these discussions. One of the Daily Kos authors that advocated using pejorative descriptors did a “good bye cruel world” diary and left Daily Kos over the issue. I’m going to weigh-in on the controversy with my opinion on what was missed in all the discussion. The most important thing Democrats can be doing is “Get Out The Vote” for Democratic candidates. That means direct contact with individuals by canvassing, political tables, and public speaking. The above mentioned diaries tended to frame these conversations with the political opposition as “Fight or Flight. I’m recommending adding a third option to our communication toolkit option called “Reflective Listening.” Reflective listening arose from Carl Rogers' school of client-centered therapy in counseling theory. It is not just repeating back word for word what was said, but reflective listening is a practice of expressing with genuine understanding. Empathy is at the center of Rogers' approach. Reflective listening takes practice, and there must be a sincere interest while listening to the speaker in order for them to truly express themselves. From Wikipedia: Reflective Listening As noted in the Wikipedia article reflective listening takes practice. Though it is a simple idea to understand logically it takes time to learn it emotionally. That is were the “Building a Culture of Empathy” movement comes in. Jump the fold for more on my journey to learn how to be a more effective communicator and how you can train to be a reflective listener. Last year I started training to be a Empathy Circle Facilitator as chronicled in a series of six articles for Street Prophets: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6. These pieces documented my growth, challenges, and learning experiences as I ventured into the world of empathetic communication. Upon completion of my first Facilitator training class I resolved to sign up for next series of classes to become a Facilitator trainer. This was four more classes and I’m half way through these additional classes. It is through repeated practice that I have learned to be comfortable practicing Empathy Circle Facilitation. If you are interested there are a number of ways to get involved. The starting place is just attending a Zoom meet up and participating in one of the circles. Here is a link to the monthly schedule of sessions. (This is a Google document so one must be signed in to Google to see it.) Or, if you are like me and planning to do training of canvassers you can take the training classes that scheduled. The next 4 week training session is scheduled to start on August 5, 2023. Below is the link to the website with instructions for signing up. The only prerequisite is attending two circles prior to the training and these can be found on the monthly schedule. The training is free, but as always donations are welcome. Culture of Empathy News Screen grab from July 1, 2023 Empathy Summit. linkage the author of this article is pictured second row from the top and third over from the left. When I attended the July 1, 2023 Empathy Summit via Zoom I kinda woke up to the larger community and got a sense of how the smaller groups could become embedded in a larger group building a culture of empathy. This was the first virtual empathy summit and about 40 individuals attended. It was a 4 hour event and the first two hours were presentations from a number of organizations that have embedded reflective listening into their core operating practice. In future articles I will be highlighting the accomplishments of some of these organizations. The next Empathy Summit will be on September 2nd and 9th. After the presentations the whole group broke up into 4 or 5 person breakout groups. And because of my previous training I had the opportunity to be the facilitator for one of the breakouts. I will have to save a report on my experience for future articles but just let me say that engaging new like minded folks from around the world was a rewarding experience. Below the video from the July 1, 2203 summit. Regards, Jonathan Gordon [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/22/2181910/-Building-a-Culture-of-Empathy Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/