Empathy Injection

The Empathy Injection  workshop series is influenced by Dan Siegel’s work on Mindsight, which he defines as the way we see and shape the mind to make it stronger.

Wellbeing depends on the ability of one person to be available to the internal world of another, whether that’s a parent to a child, one friend to another, or on a wider scale, of organisations and authorities seeing and recognising the internal world of the people.

This is the ability to be empathic. Those who don’t look to the internal world of someone else, tend not to look at it in themselves. They don’t have the ability to see themselves with empathy, to have compassion for themselves in times of hardship. They can be just as harsh on themselves as they seem to be on other people.

When you empower your mind to focus your mind in a certain way, you can strategically change the structure of the brain. Fifteen years ago, this was heresy in the field of neuroscience. Now we know the brain is constantly forming. It never stops. This is neuroplasticity. The mind can change the brain.

This is all very well, but how do we marry this with a focus for social change that attempts to stop the suffering and inequality raging over the globe. How can we sharpen and focus our minds not only to see the internal world of the other but also to stand in the way of systems that don’t?

The focus of Empathy Injection is on interpersonal relationships but with the acknowledgement that we are all part of a bigger picture and that interpersonal relationships become very tricky because of inequality between men and women, different economic and racial backgrounds, amongst other factors, as well as attendant trauma related to this inequality.

If you are interested in the issues here, I wholeheartedly welcome you to come to Coffee, Cake and Kisses beginning on 21st March 2016 6.30 – 9pm and / or to share the upcoming writings here to help me publicise these events.
Sending warmth from my inner world to your inner world.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/empathy-injection-tickets-19820155619