2022-07-06 - Paul Gilbert
EEdwin RutschJul 6, 2022 at 9:19 pm1h 14min
E
00:00Edwin Rutsch
Pay. Okay, hi, everyone. I'm Edwin Rutsch, direct to the Center for building a culture of empathy. I'm here with Paul Gilbert. And we're going to be talking about the relationship of empathy and compassion. But before we do that, let's just introduce ourselves and our model that I'm, as I said, I'm Edwin Rutsch, from, I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area. And for about the past 14 years, I've been working on creating a more empathic society. So empathy is sort of the central organizing value that I'm working on. We could do all kinds of different projects, we have trainings, we have something called the empathy tent that we take out to public places to offer listening, and I just ran for Congress as the empathy candidate. It just was. So for six months is already in the primary, I didn't win. So anyway, I'll talk more about that later. But at all, would you like to introduce yourself?
P
01:00Paul Gilbert
Yeah. Well, Edwin, thank you. Wow. It's great that you're running for Congress. That's fantastic. And so firstly, thank you for inviting me. And we chatted about this some years ago. And I'm a great admirer of the work they're doing. I think it's absolutely wonderful, wonderful work. So I'm a clinical psychologist, and I did my PhD back in 1981. It was at Edinboro University, I got my PhD, remember. And I'm very interested in evolutionary approaches to mental health problems, the way that the mind has evolved, and have been studying compassion for quite a few years. Because many of the sites that we work with, find it very difficult to be compassionate to themselves, or sometimes compassionate to others, they're pretty hostile to other people.
P
01:41Paul Gilbert
So I'd be looking at them because empathy is a crucial element of compassion. Because if you don't have empathy, skills, compassion is very tricky. But we see compassion from a motivational point of view. We have a presentation, as Edwin mentioned, later called the compassionate mind Foundation, which is an international foundation to promote the science and implication implementation of compassionate science for the to create well being wellbeing, basically. And so you can go and see our website. So that's, that's me really, sort of a clinical psychologist who's been developing compassion and compassion. Rancors therapy. Yeah, so
E
02:19Edwin Rutsch
your big name and compassion, I mean, you're going to conferences, you're out there writing. So you're really advocating for I would say, compassion as a central organizing, cultural personal value. And I'm seeing empathy is that cultural value that we need, and trying to promote that even like I was saying, running for Congress to under the empathy as the empathy candidate, so it was about building an empathy movement. So we wanted to maybe talk about the relationship of empathy and compassion, you know, how are they similar? How are they overlap? What's the relationship? And you were before we just recorded, you're telling the story of how you got started? Did you want to continue with that story?
P
03:04Paul Gilbert
Yeah, a little bit, because so this might be interesting, because it's the runnings, you know, take me a minute or two, but basically, using cognitive therapy during the 80s and early 90s. And then that approach to therapy you help people identify thoughts are linked to their problems. So people who have depression tend to have depressing thoughts like I'm a failure, I'm no good. People are anxious, have anxious thoughts that the world is a dangerous place, or now I'm gonna have a heart attack and die or something. And so there's a link between thinking and feeling. And if you can help people balance their thoughts to to bring more evidence into their thoughts and break up the loop between thinking and feeling that can be helpful.
P
03:45Paul Gilbert
So and that is helpful for people. But sometimes, people will say, Well, look, I know that my thoughts aren't rational or real. And I know I'm not responsible for my abuse, or I know I'm not really affected, but I just feel that I am. So these are, these are sticking points. Sometimes people can do cognitive work, but they don't change emotionally. And so one day, one particular client, who had a very chronic depression, suicide attempt, many suicide attempts had been adopted. In fact, she shouldn't have been born and had a really deep sense of vulnerability, but it actually got a good relationship with a partner with her husband and three lovely children had held down a job. So she was able to step back from these negative views about herself as unlovable and say, well, actually, I do have people around me who care about me, including my children, my partner, but I still feel this real sense of loss and, and livability. And so, usually what you do is you just try to get into practice and have more evidence, but one day I decided to kind of explore it in a different way.
P
04:53Paul Gilbert
So I asked her so how do you hear those thoughts in your mind? You know, when you thinking well, you know, I've got have a family that care about me and has machismo? Can you say actually speak them out as you hear them. And we call this the first shock, the first shock of CBT. Because she said, she was quite embarrassed. But she said, Okay. And she said, Okay, this is how I hear them in my mind. Come on, you're doing ganglia therapy. And yeah, you got a husband, who really cares about you, you got some lovely children, you've held a job, you've got friends. And it was a sort of, so what have you got to be depressed about, which is in from your point of view, from my point of view, a complete lack of empathy. So that hostility, actually, it also showed this immense lack of empathy for the intense pain she was in because of a depression. And when even when she was trying to be helpful, she was very hostile to herself.
P
05:47Paul Gilbert
So we discovered that some of the problem wasn't being carried in the channel of cognition, it was in this really emotional attacking self, which completely wrecked me empathy for the damage and the harm and the hurt that That attack was doing. So that was the first shot. The second thing was then say, Okay, well, the obvious thing was, okay, can we warm it up? You know, can we help you do? more compassionate orientation, a softer tone, a kind of tone to your thoughts. And emotional tone is really focused in Caribbean with the real motivation to become more empathic to your distress to the pain you've carried out, carried for all these years of feeling lonely and unlovable? And she said, no,
P
06:33Paul Gilbert
sorry that why would I want to do that. And the third, so they saw is weak, it wouldn't help them. And the third thing was, when people did start to get empathy, for their distress, when that did happen, that opened a real can of problems, because all emotional or motivational systems that the carry system or the competitive system or the sexual system can carry their own trauma memory. So for example, if you like going on holidays, and you love holidays, and go on holidays, or motivate times, but then one year, you get badly beaten up. The following year, when you see things about holidays, that trauma will be retriggered. And you you won't remember all the wonderful holidays, you will be the trauma that was the same and the carrier system, that when you start people to kind of develop a caring orientation to themselves, they will then begin to stimulate the attachment systems and carry system, if they've got trauma in that, that's what starts to come out.
P
07:32Paul Gilbert
So what we found was that when people did begin to become more compassionate to themselves, and have more empathy to their pay, and more ability to be to be able to mentalize, the history and so on. So that actually then created quite a lot of that opened up a can of pain, basically, as one patient said to me, and then they had to do a lot of the grief work and and, and doing the grief work for the for the abuse or neglect for the lovely never had or the lesser becoming empathic to that pain. That was a real important process of recovery.
E
08:10Edwin Rutsch
Okay, so it sounds like that was sort of a pivotal moment for you, where you sort of had some deeper insight about and so how to, how do you work? How do you support people help people work through some kind of internal issues and judgments or in pain? And that was like, kind of an insight, the importance of empathy and compassion for doing that? Yeah, very much. Okay.
E
08:36Edwin Rutsch
Well, the work I'm doing is very much based on Carl Rogers, you know, with empathic listening, so Carl Rogers, use the empathic listening in his therapeutic process. So he would have this non directed approach that he would be, you know, people would come to me and we'd listen for basically for an hour and accompany them sort of an empathic, an accurate empathy, trying to really hear and be with them and, and accompany them on their internal mental journey kind of exploring these different issues. And from that point, you know, it's kind of where I've been building, working on, you know, looking at empathy, not just in the therapeutic context, but hey, how do we have it just in our families and our relationships and our society and, and how do we make empathy of primary social and cultural value?
E
09:36Edwin Rutsch
And, you know, politicians like Barack Obama have talked about, hey, we need you know, there's this empathy deficit in society. And so that's kind of been has been with the sort of the starting point for me, and also taking empathy from being like you're talking about empathy in a clinical context, you know, therapists listening to Client like Rogers listened to clients, but we've been working on how do we have mutual empathy? And taking it out of just, you know, the client therapist relationship, but how do we, you know, how does that woman that you're talking about? How does she have like an empathic relationship, more empathic relationship with her family, for example. And that's what we so I kind of focus on this process called the empathy circle, which is, you know, small groups, doing mutual empathic, listening with each other. So that's kind of where I'm coming from.
P
10:40Paul Gilbert
Yeah, I think that's amazing. I mean, one of the interesting things to ask you really, is that kind of what would motivate people to take an empathic journey because it's a journey. The other thing about empathy, which you made clear is that it's not necessarily automatic, that can be an automatic connection, what we call emotional contagion. But there can also be a lot of work thinking and imagining and practicing. One of the things like with racism, for example, rather than thinking about shame, and you know, white man's burden, and all the rest of it, is to take an empathic journey about imagine that was me imagine that was my wife, I sort of chained up imagine that was my Wi Fi sort of thrown over the boat because she was sick. Imagine that was me that was that ability to take an empathic journey into the pain of the other is absolutely crucial,
P
11:26Paul Gilbert
I think, but what I'm interested in, and you do that, you make this point, really, but what would motivate people to do that, because when you're empathic, you have to go into pain, you have to get, you know, you're not being empathic to people's winning the lottery, we need people to be empathic to the struggles and the pain of others. So how do you motivate them to do that?
E
11:46Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, so you're really looking like how do we get people prove thanks into the empathy circle, or valuing empathy to want to kind of make that central to their life or society and the Well, I would say that a lot of a lot of the differences, you know, empathy, compassion, I think comes down to like how we're defining our terms, because it's like, you look into the literature on on empathy, and the definitions are all over the place. And I've already heard you saying sort of different aspects of, of empathy. So I would start with maybe my definition that I see empathy as a way of being there's a paper by Carl Rogers, you know, one of his last papers was called empathic and unappreciated way of being where he sort of consolidated a lot of his thinking about empathy, into this paper, the benefits, how it works, his definition.
E
12:45Edwin Rutsch
And so building on that, I would say, there's an empathy for me as a way of being, you know, being as an individual are here together with you, how do we have a mutually empathic a way of being or in a group that we have an empathic way of being, and that means to be sensitive to the felt experience of others, which is not necessarily an imaginative, you know, part, it's just that listening, being present feeling into someone's their presence. And then that would be sort of the maybe the first step, like the you do an act of listening, accompanying someone being present with them not being judgmental, and, or doing all the blocks, that things that do block that sort of presence.
E
13:34Edwin Rutsch
And then there's the, what I would call imaginative empathy, which is what you'd sort of identified is that we can sort of do roleplay, we can step into any role, I can imagine myself in the future, I can imagine, you're going to a conference in you're concerned about COVID, I can imagine myself there, or I can imagine you being there, you know, and so the with I would say there's so there's, you know, the empathy sensing into there's imaginative empathy, which is often you know, sometimes a cognitive empathy, they use the term different aspects of cognitive empathy, are imagining yourself and in the other person's situation, or yourself in their situation.
E
14:20Edwin Rutsch
And you can, you can extrapolate imagination, you can imagine anything, right? I can imagine myself being a, what's it like to be a banana? Or, or just you name it your imagination, you know? I think it was, you know, you it's just, it's sort of unlimited what we can imagine so, I see that as a separate sort of a category of type of empathy sensing into something and then sensing feeling what what comes up, then there's self empathy, which is, you know, sensing into your own felt experience and, and so, Oh, and I define it within the context of the empathy circle. So we have an empathy circle process, there's usually four people in a circle, one person is the speaker, one person is the listener, the speaker shares, you know, it's alive for them, or on some topic, the listener reflects back their understanding, you know, accompanies the speaker on their journey. And then we have a time limit, you know, five minutes, six minutes, and then the listener becomes the speaker, and speaks to someone else in the circle.
E
15:33Edwin Rutsch
And we just keep going around for maybe a couple hours with this process. So, in that process, the the listener is sensing into the, what the speaker is saying, the silent listeners who are just sitting silently are also sensing into the dynamics there. And then the speaker is sort of exploring their own internal thoughts, and sensing into their thoughts, which I would consider to be self empathy. And that listening by others kind of helps them support them and feeling into their own self, you know, experiences that are arising. And then the imaginative empathy in that context is, I've done like conflict mediation, for example, where
E
16:23Edwin Rutsch
we use the empathy circle for conflict, mediation, and then one of the people maybe the father can't attend this, but you can have someone roleplay the father in this mediation, and you say, The Father is very introverted, very domineering. And the person role plays what the father is like, and more often than not, it's like the other people in the circle are saying, that is amazing. That's exactly how he is, you know. So that's sort of that imaginative empathy, where you can kind of do roleplay, or another roleplay is similar to what you're talking about, with your that woman, that story is we had someone in our circle, who would have creative thoughts, she would judge her thoughts.
E
17:11Edwin Rutsch
And then it was painful. So she didn't even want to do creativity anymore, because her creativity was always self judged. And then it was so painful. It's like, I don't want any ideas, new ideas. So we roleplay that I became her creativity, somebody else became her judgment. And you know, so he had, you can roleplay different, you know, scenario parts of a person, and then she could sit back and watch those parts, actually dialogue with each other and empathize with each other. So that would be what I would call imaginative empathy. So,
P
17:49Paul Gilbert
yeah, it's fascinating. It's like soccer drummers, and they do the kind of, you know, becoming the different bots and give me an opportunity to externalize. And then from that position, you can then empathize with the Yeah, that's right, we have a system in conventional therapy, which called audible cells, where we, we would invite somebody to take a situation of conflict, right, having a conflict with somebody that you care about. And then they would become the angry part, and then the anxious part and the sad part. And then the compassion would come in and empathize with the angry part and empathize. So that because these parts otherwise fight with each other all the time. So yeah, I mean, I think that's a really important part of the process of actually being able to stand back and then empathize these different parts. That's a really key key therapeutic maneuver. Yeah, that's a question I want to ask you, though, is, why bother?
E
18:43Edwin Rutsch
Oh, the motivation probably didn't answer your motivation part. Right. I was giving the context. And I didn't answer why. Why bother with it? Exactly. Yeah, that thanks for bringing me back to that I got so excited. So excited. It's a love Yeah, we in the empathy circle, and people take part. You know, we asked, you know, you know, How was the experience was, you hear a lot like, hey, this, this felt really good. You know, I felt heard, I felt seen. So it feels good to be held, felt and seen. And it feels good to have that sense of connection with with others. And, you know, you brought up the topic of racism, for example.
E
19:32Edwin Rutsch
So we have had empathy cafe with empathy Cafe is like, you know, 70 people come you divided into groups, you give a couple of words at the beginning, you divide into empathy circles, you know, four or five to a circle, and the topic was emphasizing with racism, what comes up for you with that? So, we did the we did that. Topic. And it's like people are saying, This is really great. Usually the topic is become so polarized, like you're a racist, or you're not, you're not a racist, you know, it becomes very polarized. And in this space, people had to listen to each other, and actually hear each other out and get into the nuances and not feel shut down.
E
20:19Edwin Rutsch
So that feeling of being heard and seen feels damn good. I mean, Carl Rogers talked about that empathy feels damn good. And I think it's that, that positive feeling that is one of the motivations. And then people also talk about, you know, going to their family and kind of using empathic listening. And it feels good to be able to listen and have some tools and processes for a constructive dialogue and for being heard and seen as well. So I would say those are some of the motivations.
P
20:53Paul Gilbert
Yes, as experienced creates the motive. Is that right?
E
20:58Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, I would say, people that maybe had some motivation that they have sort of problems are looking for solutions. So they come across this. So yeah, that would be the the experience deepens the motivation to continue. But how do you get people initially starting maybe, to be interested
P
21:18Paul Gilbert
in what you can do interested in addressing racism? How do you get them interested in doing the work? I mean, that's, I mean, that's the point, we have the same issue. How do you get people interested in compassion? Because they say, Why should I be compassionate? And why do I want to be compassionate to immigrants, all these people coming from Mexico? Why don't want to do that I came out, I don't want to bother. So getting people to be taken interest in the well being and the suffering of others. That is our first point. And that's, that's a tricky bit that thing, I'm not quite sure we're busy and see what your thoughts are.
E
21:53Edwin Rutsch
So that's what your sounds like, that's what you're working on. You're wanting to how do you get the general public even interested in this topic? And you're looking for ways? It's almost like, yeah, it's almost like what marketing would be like marketing's trying to bring people in and motivate them? And I mean, yeah, it's like, that's an ongoing, ongoing sort of question. There's, that's why I ran for Congress, it was I was the empathy candidate. And it was to get out in public, and say, Hey, we need a more empathic society, we need to make empathy of primary social value. And so I was just trying to raise the the awareness in, in the public, and you go to forums, I was with the other candidates, you know, they have, like, the debates or forums, and I'd be advocating for, for, you know, more empathic society.
E
22:50Edwin Rutsch
So that was one process, we have this empathy tent that I mentioned that before COVID, we would take it out to these demonstrations, where the political right would come to Berkeley, you know, she's very liberal place, and they would be demonstrating for free speech, etc. And then the political left would be coming to counter demonstrate, you know, Antifa, and they had these knockdown, drag out fights, and we would be there with a very public panel that says empathy, common will listen to you, and we mediated, you know, trying to mediate between the sides and got a lot of publicity there. So, it seems to be a lot of different, you know, sort of activities like that to kind of get the word out. Those are some processes, but what have you found? It's been? Yeah,
P
23:41Paul Gilbert
I mean, I think what you're talking is that you have been developing the process by which people can begin to break down barriers of misunderstanding and, you know, seek because a lot of the barriers have to do with strength, I see it as a threat. Maybe I see as a threat. I don't want to understand your business stop you control you. The extreme even harm you. And so that's the key issue, particularly on the right, particularly when, you know, the idea that people are the government's a threat, they're going to take away your money and your taxes are they want to take away your guns or they want to flood the country with them. Okay.
P
24:17Paul Gilbert
So threat threat threat we see. And so, part of compassion is to how do you deal with helping people feel less threatened, so that they can then become open to it. And so the key then is, then when they become open, then you can invite them to think about empathy, but there is, but it also works the other way around, in the sense that when people are forced into taking empathy, right, they are forced to kind of interact with immigrants or refugees or whatever, and they can form a relationship with them, then the compassion will grow from that is when they can keep the other out there. So don't have to remember those with you.
P
24:58Paul Gilbert
That's the problem, but the moment they form We are able to form a relationship, then the interest in empathy can begin to flourish and compassion can flourish. So our key issue is all the time, how do you deal with the threat system? Because that's the thing that constantly rocks people's motivation to be empathic or to have to care. You know?
E
25:19Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, that's, I mean, it's the same issue, you know, in terms of the vote, I got 3% of the votes, that tells you kind of the, the interest level in the society, it's like, Oh, when I was at the MPC tent, we'd have, you know, 200 on the right, two or 300, on the left, you know, battling it out in the parks here in Berkeley. And I mean, they're knockdown drag out fights for that. I mean, they're bloody people are beating, you know, physically beating each other up and fistfights and throwing, you know, explosives, meds, or cherry bombs at each other, and it's Total Mayhem.
E
25:56Edwin Rutsch
And there's, you know, we're talking about 500 people there, and in the empathy tent is four or five people, right? And I thought, oh, that's about a 1% of the people in this dynamic. And I thought, well, maybe there's a silent majority out there, he's just afraid to go to these conflicts. But that's, it seems to be about a 1%, you know, people who are really, you know, supporting this at a deeper level. So, I'm in the same question like, how to raise that, that sort of social awareness, and usually, you know, movements when they get started, like, you know, the Black Lives Matter, etcetera, there is a big social people being out on the streets, right. Like, they get out on the streets, there's demonstrations, and then it starts moving its way through the social through the social system, structures, you know, it kind of gets incorporated.
E
26:59Edwin Rutsch
So, maybe I thought maybe we need like an Occupy empathy, you know, encampments. You know, say we want empathy, and, you know, camping out and making sort of a social sort of a movement there. So, and that's the other thing I'm trying to do now is kind of focusing on the concept or idea of, it's an empathy movement that we need to build. So just like any other movement, you know, women's rights, voting rights, civil rights, etc. They've all been sort of movements. And so maybe we need a social movement to build that.
P
27:37Paul Gilbert
Yeah, I completely agree with you. I mean, in days gone by when we had religions, religions was, you know, we're all created by God, equally, all that stuff. And you would have thought that that would have that then been enough for people to say, Okay, so we're all the same. So we need to understand what together but they're even the religious views did not prevent people from behaving incredibly cruelly. I mean, slavery flourished in Christian societies, right? So even if you have a dictator, that we're all the same rule, even that from from a God even that doesn't work. So the question is, we are moving, as you say, to be much more interested in things like, you know, gender issues, and racism, and so forth. So we are moving to become more empathic. And it's kind of interesting, and how that is happening.
P
28:32Paul Gilbert
I think, obviously, people like yourself and others are kind of pushing this is a very important thing, but to try and capture the natural process within society that is moving us to become more empathic, because I think we are. I mean, it's two steps forward, one step back all the time. Of course, there were some terrible things as well. But I mean, what do you think's happening in society? So we are more empathic than we were, say, 100 years ago, when America was a very racist society, but it's still racist, but so is UK, but we are less so how has that happened? Do you think?
E
29:09Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, that's how did that overall arc? I mean, I see polarization actually growing at the moment. So I'm not sure I see. That's the one setback. It's kind of like two steps back almost, you know, it's Yeah, because it's like even people, you know, on the political left, ICC is becoming very polarized. I mean, people who I would consider to be sort of in the middle are kind of being pushed to the more towards the extremes, you know, seeing the seeing the political right is sort of almost like evil and vice versa. So yeah, I I'm not really sure it's, it's Uh, you know, what is? It one? Yeah, there's different sort of different levels, maybe you know it.
E
30:10Edwin Rutsch
At one level, you know, we go to the empathy tent, and we have the political rights and political left there, I can listen to both sides. And I enjoy listening to both sides, I enjoy, you know, bringing the sides together. But I see that sort of that fear, like you're talking about fear the other side kind of pulling people apart. I mean, even in my family, you know, it's like, I see that we have Trump supporters and liberals, and, you know, they're just kind of even getting more polarized, too. So yeah, I'm not really sure.
P
30:46Paul Gilbert
It's linked to Trump. I mean, what's interesting isn't it is, you know, after the Second World War in America had the New Deal. And we had, you know, we built it National Health Service, we built new universities, we bought all kinds of national services. You didn't have any money. We are the Americans lives, which is what all right. But we had this real psychology to build a better world to build a more equal world to build a world everybody wanted to live in. And that was a psychology that lasted for about 15 years.
P
31:22Paul Gilbert
And then came the 60s and the 60s, were interesting, because it was a big turning point. Because, yes, the 50s were really about setting building a community building the Saudi having a sense of responsibility for the other of the 60s then produce a new freedom, which was freedom, self expression. And that then became, yeah, but what about me, I want to hang out, I want to do what I want to do, you know, without the responsibility for now, that was a beginning, we started to loot, you know, we had this time flowers in your hair, and all you need is love.
P
31:54Paul Gilbert
But underneath that was very much this idea about self expression and the individual. And then of course, we as we moved into the 70s, and 80s, we had Reagan and Thatcher that brought in neoliberalism, which was then competitiveness is about yours, what you do, and it's about the tribe you belong to, well, you, your politicians, vote for your interests, and so, so it's all very much fragmented. And the problem that we've got, and you've got a media who really liked to stir it up and sell because they sell the blood on the carpet, and they, so they really do these things.
P
32:29Paul Gilbert
So you've got a lot of processes within society that are really pushing on the door of division, and really pushing people into the more extremes, the more tribal identities and all that stuff, which we've seen throughout history. And the question for both of us, as individuals who want to see a more compassionate world is how do you stop it? I mean, how do you bring people back to the idea, we, as a society, as a species, actually, we need to be working together, we got climate change, we got now the virus around the corner, we got so many issues, we've got wars going on all over the place, got so many issues that we can really only address if we come together and develop cooperative, caring solutions, we need to develop a caring solution, a solution that shows a caring interest to address the sources of suffering.
P
33:21Paul Gilbert
So that's what we're really interested in, address some of these other forces, which are about creating divisions and competition, and threat and so forth. So an empathy has to be a core part of that story. It has to be, you know, the people on the right are the same as, as me, you know, they have children, they want to see their children grow, they want to love the families, they want to have a future they want to, you know, all that stuff. So it's really helping people see what do we have in common? What are our common interests, not what are our compositions or compositions are in the tribes. But one of our common interests, or common interests is to create a society where people can be free, of course, that's important, where people can be free from violence, where people can be free from hunting, people can be free from disease. And in order to do that, we need to actually pull all of our resources and all of our intelligence and work cooperatively to do that we have to resist the tendency to be put into tribalism and create tribal hatred, tribal hatred is very easy to create.
P
34:27Paul Gilbert
And we've been doing it for 1000s of years, and some of the results have been absolutely horrific. So the compassionate position is how can we use empathy? How can we get people to be empathic to division? You know, so very well being empathic to people you like but how can you be empathic and reach out to people that maybe you don't like so much or uses different to you? So I think that's why you're all the work you're doing is so fundamental, is bridging the divide over the the the the individuals who have been seen as the outsider as soon as The other, whereas if you can empathically engage with them similar, they're not the other, they are another human being that just like you have needs and worries and fears and hopes and aspirations, meet how we can get to that bridge that as opposed to seeing them as the bad? No, no, they're a human being just like you.
E
35:21Edwin Rutsch
So you're looking at sort of the recent history, like, you know, the different values that have kind of gone through society, and to come to the point where we are now and now how do we kind of make this cultural shift, like, empathy, and you're saying compassion sort of is the central center Central is a central central value, and within the context of how the society has actually sort of been involved, have has been evolving, you know, different, different values sort of percolate through the, through the culture, to and, you know, and now, what do we do?
E
36:00Edwin Rutsch
And I guess for me, it's, yeah, it's creating the movement, like, we need to just, it's like everything, you know, women's vote came through a movement, and it was took a long time, civil rights took a movement. So I started saying, putting that front and center as like, Hey, we're part of a movement here. And create a sense of maybe identity that, you know, being part of others, a community that wants to create this movement? And, and, you know, what are the values of that movement? For me, it's just brilliant, willing, you know, we have free speech, which I'm a total proponent of, but what's missing is the free empathy, right? And saying, you we have to have everybody be able to express themselves be open, about where they are, but then somebody has to be able to listen, and can we mutually listen to each other, and, you know, raise that as, as a cultural value. And we, you know, needing a movement and to do that, so.
P
37:09Paul Gilbert
Yeah, and the other to the point, I think, where you and I join in, so we were in similar motivation, but Okay, so I'm motivated now. But why do I do? So? What are the skills now what are the skills are the skills of engaging empathically with the other empathy, that that they're, they're the skills that you need, otherwise, the other person remains a stranger to you. And this is why understanding that we, you know, this calm, the sense that this is a human being, just like me, and they didn't choose to be they just got born near their, this capacity to understand that people's minds are pretty much the same, you know, we all want pretty much to be free of suffering, we pretty much want to be ever meaningful life, we want to be loud rather than hated.
P
37:54Paul Gilbert
So how we have empathy for the commonality of what it is to be human being, the commonality of our fears, you know, most of us are frightened of dying, perhaps, or dying of cancer or something like that. So how do we develop that, because the point that you make, I think, repeatedly is that empathy is the way to connect to the other, you may want to connect to the other. But empathy is the bridge to do it. And so it's about having these two things together, the motivation why that's important. And also the competencies to do it.
E
38:27Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, yeah, in terms of motivation is your they say, it's usually a couple, they go seven years of sort of dysfunction, before they go to therapy, you know, relational therapy. So the motivation is, the pain becomes so great, that they say, Oh, I gotta find something else. So that that might be part of it is people just have to get into so much pain and dysfunction, that they, either they, you know, get a divorce and things get really bad, or they start looking for other solutions. So, I don't know, how does that resonate with you? No, I
P
39:04Paul Gilbert
think that's absolutely right. And as you get the same in war, you know, often bring people to the table. And it's to the point that they get exhausted, and they realize that actually, this is not a Navy's going to win. And then you can look at their mutual interests, because people often have positions then they this manager, but actually what is in your common interest, right? If you get people to what is your common interest? Now your position for this after this after this? Or maybe you are but what is your common interest? You know, are we interested in having a planet that we can live on? Are we interested in doing that, okay? Because if we're incident doing that, and addressing the issues of climate change, okay, there doesn't really matter if you're on the left or the right.
P
39:44Paul Gilbert
We need to know the science that we're doing. There's no point is making up ideas. Can we agree then, that we need to work out the best ways to address climate change? Can we agree that we need to work out ways in which we can deal with viruses as they begin to We've been lucky, you know, viruses very common, you know, they've been wiping out humans for many 1000s of years, we've been quite lucky to be free of them. COVID is a bit of a wake up call, actually. So there are so many common problems that we need to address. And it's getting people to kind of realize we have a common new measure, or the point I use, that I really, really like, is that people do like to belong to something. So starting a movement that people can belong to, that actually maps out values, maps out things people can do map maps are common activities that we can all share and agree to do.
P
40:39Paul Gilbert
When you get there, then you people will come in and join you. Because they want to be with like minded others, people who think like them behave like them will push for the same values. I personally believe that compassionate, empathic values is very common people really would like that, but there's no at the moment movement or group that they can join or feel part of, or share ideas when so starting a movement would be terrific.
E
41:05Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, we do. I mean, the empathy circles are the foundational practice. So it's, it's dialogic, like you're you're in relationship all the time, right, you're always talking to someone your family and, and so the empathy circles, you know, small groups use learning empathic listening skills being heard, I see as sort of this core part kind of a core foundational practice. So we offer these online, so anybody can drop in, take part in an empathy circle, they get heard, they get seen, they learn the skills of listening to others, it's then we have empathy circle facilitation training, so that's online as well. And people can, you know, learn to facilitate an empathy circle, it's easy, it's very easy practice that, you know, most people, you can just read the instructions and just do it, you know, you don't need like a lot of training.
E
42:08Edwin Rutsch
Because you're just learning active listening, and there's videos, and so forth. So it can be self replicating. There's people, like, you know, we're teaching people, I think we've done, you know, several 100, you know, people have taken the training, people take join as trainees, and they learn how to train to become a trainer of the process. So it's very scalable. And, you know, as people holding empathy circles, you know, all over the all over the world. So, I see that as sort of a first core practice, it's very scalable. And with that basic practice, the empathy circle, you pretty much can bring a conflict into it. And if people just have to actively listen to each other, you know, before you say, your piece, you have to be able to listen and understand the person to their satisfaction, you know, reflect back to their satisfaction before you can say, your peace and your peace, you're welcome to say your peace, anything you want total, free speech, any emotion.
E
43:11Edwin Rutsch
But first, you got to listen to the other person. And in return, they're gonna listen to you to your satisfaction. And so I just see that as like a core practice that we're of this movement, you know, so we can start, there's all kinds of stuff that can be built on that there's, you know, for conflict, mediation, we're doing restorative empathy circles, so kind of extra tools on that foundation for mediating conflict. If you look at I Know the compassion community, that's often saying, Oh, we, we do action. And empathy doesn't do action. But if you look at like human centered design, if you're familiar with human centered design, the design community, empathy is a core component of that process. You know, that process as if you wanted to design any solution, the first thing you do is you empathize with the needs, problems of the people you're designing for.
E
44:10Edwin Rutsch
And then you you know, find so that pain points go into a creativity mode, you create prototypes, you test those prototypes, and then you start the whole iterative process again. So I think there is there's, it can go in a lot of directions, but I just see this as sort of the kind of a first step that's very scalable.
P
44:31Paul Gilbert
Yeah, no, that's terrific. No, I mean, I completely agree with you. I mean, compassion is very keen on behavior. And there will be some models and said isn't but compassion is very important in there's no point say, I feel for your pain. But actually, I'm not going to do anything about it. That's a waste of time. So compassion drives action. That's the boy that drives compassionate courage and wisdom. You know, I mean, a firefighter entering into a burning house to save somebody. I mean, that's a compassionate that they're risking their lives to save somebody. Right? That section. So, so. So action is very, very important. And the point that you're saying we often say is like action has been based on wisdom because you can do things that are not. How do you get wisdom, we get wisdom through empathy.
P
45:19Paul Gilbert
That's how you get it. I mean, there isn't any other way to emotional wisdom comes from from empathy, you have to understand the other. And as you say, one of the ways of doing that is listening. Very, very important. How do you listen? How do you? And how can you listen in such a way that you're open? Not defensive? Because if you're listening to somebody say, and in a couples dispute, complaining about you, you know, you never come home at night, you're always working too hard, or whatever it is, how can you listen in such a way that you can really see it from their point of view, rather than just defending yourself against their annoyances? You know? So these are really important skills that you're talking about?
E
46:03Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, so it's the, the listening, learning those listening skills and disseminating those skills as widely as soon as possible. Yeah, is definitely core. And that's what the empathy circle is, it's sort of a practice space for doing that. So you're, you're constantly learning those skills, and then you can, you know, take that to your family, whole family empathy circles, you know, is. So there's something I want to say somehow, I can't quite remember what it was.
P
46:40Paul Gilbert
The other thing you were saying about starting maybe, I mean, one of the things we're interested in, I mean, we're got various ideas about this is how you form an interconnected network. I mean, for example, you've got empathy circles all over the world, but can they become part of the empathy circle? Organization? You know, do you have a internet? Do you have email, communication, this would be communicate with each other, they can feel part of this. Do you have that?
E
47:05Edwin Rutsch
We do. Yeah. And we have an email list. And I think that's really what I'm looking at, too, is what you're identifying is that you're part of this movement, you have, like you have, there's a feeling of connection, and you know, warmth, and it's like, oh, and maybe even trust, too, because I think you know, call it a trust is that you're talking about, you're talking about wisdom, and taking action, that it's like that sort of, you know, trust is a big part, knowing that you will be heard and seen. Right?
E
47:39Edwin Rutsch
It's like usually, and that's what builds trust is knowing that you're gonna listen to me at some, if we have conflict or something, you're going to be willing to listen and understand where I'm coming from, you know, we might not agree, but at least we're willing to sort of work it out. And I think that that builds a lot of trust. And the other part is the action component. I think the one thing with the definition of empathy, it gets defined in an individualistic term, you know, like therapy, is the therapist listens to the client. And empathy is sort of defined is just one person, this individual listening to others. Whereas What's needed is mutual empathy. If, like, if there's a problem, it's not like, Hey, I'm just going to feel sorry for you. And you know, my pain of maybe feeling sorry, I'm going to try to take some kind of actions, like, let's dialogue with each other in negotiate how we take action together.
E
48:36Edwin Rutsch
So it's a, it's a mutually negotiated and sort of agreed upon action. I'm sure you've seen that with those couples you're talking about, right? They're totally pissed off with each other. They start listening, you get them to listen to each other, hear each other, they start seeing, Oh, I started understanding why you're doing what you're doing. It kind of makes sense. They find some kind of core understanding or some values that they share. And then it's like, what do we do now? And they negotiate well, how about we do this? Now, that doesn't work for me, but how about this? How about that, and, and they come to some kind of a program of what they're going to do together. So it's a mutually negotiated thing? Like, it's not like, Hey, I'm just going to help you. But let's be sure that if I'm doing something, it's really what it is that you're wanting and needing and we have some kind of agreement around that.
P
49:29Paul Gilbert
Yeah, that's the compassionate part. Marshall says it's saying that you're wanting the meeting. So what we do in couples therapy is we do what you say. We're invite each partner to speak for two to three minutes about their issue, and then the other partner has to decide and they can't say anything and simply repeat back to share and then they change every but then they switch. So if it's a husband and wife, it's male viewer, then the wife becomes the Husband, husband as a wife, and then they have to go through the whole thing again and Then talk about that, whether they've experienced it. And then at some point, they move into their compassionate selves.
P
50:06Paul Gilbert
And then they have to say, you know, my comparison self wants to bring this into the relationship, my Compassionate self wants to offer this to you, my compassion itself wants to see you grow and flourish in this way, and I will help you. So they have to then do that compassionate part. And that can be that can sometimes be quite interesting. But it's very, very useful. There's switching constant switching around, you know, the husband becoming the Wi Fi becoming the husband and moving into different mind states. You can practice just being an angry state, we only want to talk to angry self, what is angry south, think about both of you. What is compassion itself? What is your greatest hope for the relationship? How would you like to see your partner grow or not grow? So all of those empathic steps, I think, are absolutely essential. They are the practices, the presses, you have to engage in them have to do them to be able to experience.
E
50:58Edwin Rutsch
So you're doing Imagine if the husband is imagining being the wife speaking from her point of view, or vice versa.
P
51:05Paul Gilbert
And they sit in opposite, okay?
E
51:08Edwin Rutsch
So you're kind of shifting, getting that different perspective taking. The other part is, you know, it's creating these skills and integrating these skills into the family. Like, it seems to me that, you know, when the couple before they even get married, or once they get married, that they're learning these empathic listening skills, maybe doing some empathy circles in the family, before the conflict happens, so that these skills are sort of integrated into the, into the family dynamics and, and, and how do you get it to stick I've done conflict mediation in my family, like, as I was mentioning, and you know, family members are at each other's throats, I listen to one side, listen to the other thing, get them to start doing empathic listening with each other.
E
51:58Edwin Rutsch
And it turns into a whole family empathy circle, and, you know, connection gets created. But unless things have recently kind of fallen apart, because you know, with COVID, I haven't gotten visiting, you know, my extended family so much, and it didn't need, I was just saying there needs to be some kind of integration and institutionalization of the skills you don't visit, the culture is kind of driving people apart. And unless there's some kind of structures, like every dinner every day, we're going to do some rounds of empathic listening, or we're going to have a weekly family empathy circle, or you're part of a religious institution that, you know, you go maybe, and do it at the church or something. Unless this kind of institutionalized and made on a regular ongoing basis, it seems like, things are kind of like falling apart without me being there.
E
52:56Edwin Rutsch
You know, it's been things that I've been, there's been sort of this conflict has been a rising without somebody there to kind of hold the space. I guess that's what you know, religious leaders are supposed to do, right? It's like, they're the ones out there, kind of hold the space, you know, for keeping people together.
P
53:14Paul Gilbert
Yeah. But you know, I mean, what's interesting is you didn't know with, you know, Tanya singer is very famous. And so she's been doing looking at changes in the brain when you do empathy training, when you do comparison training when you do mindfulness. And it's interesting that mindfulness, of course, has really become a big movement. And you can see it in schools and, and schools and businesses now, all of that sort of stuff. But I agree with Tony that that what we need is that mindfulness is okay.
P
53:43Paul Gilbert
But it needs to be combined with empathy training and compassion training, because they do different things. And mindfulness alone, in my view is great, but not sufficient. You know, and how do you get these different processes? How do you get them into the schools? How do you get children, practicing mindful empathy, be mindful, being empathic, and being compassionate orientated? Because one of the questions is often brought to people in empathy? Well, look, empathy is great, but you can use it for good or for bad, you know, empathy is isn't always used for the good empathy you can use to manipulate people. If you want to be a lie, or good at deceiving, you're going to be better at it if you're empathic. So it's really how these skills are used. And I can listen to you very carefully and be very friendly, but what I'm trying to do is to work out how to manipulate you. So you know, the motivation for using the skills for me really does become quite important. And so and mindfulness is also important that we are empathic mindfully we're aware we're paying attention on purpose, bah, bah, bah.
P
54:49Paul Gilbert
So I think bringing these three processes together is really very important and getting them into the schools I think is very important getting the With the businesses, and how we create a society that's interested in mind, awareness, you know, mind hygiene, an adaptive functioning mind, because a lot of our function particularly well, because we're all filled up with, you know, anger or whatever it is. So mind training, I think it's such an important process. Yeah,
E
55:24Edwin Rutsch
I talked to Tanya, I don't know, year ago or so had done an interview with her. And we're talking about empathy and compassion, there seems to be sort of, I see that the two, there's some kind of conflict between the the approaches. And, for example, we have authors like, you know, problem against empathy, you know, so like, hey, empathy, and I have a whole list of articles that are out there, of like, hey, empathy is terrible, you got to do compassion. So you just sort of these attacks, I would say, criticisms from the compassion community towards empathy.
E
55:59Edwin Rutsch
And, you know, a lot of the studies, I mean, a lot of the grounding of that is the studies by Tanya singer. So today, let's talk, you know, and instead, well, I think people are misunderstanding what I'm saying. And maybe we should have a dialogue with the compassion community and empathy community and having like, an empathy circle, where we talked about this, and so she was up for that, maybe we could do that, you know, you and I, and her and maybe one other person from the empathy community have a, you know, a couple, our empathy circle, where we talk about these, these things. So the, the part I wanted to address was, it a lot depends on how we look at this, like you're saying, in terms of the empathy can be used for good or bad. So, and I hear that sort of criticism a lot. And I kind of the way I've sort of addressed that is that we have lungs, right? And that the lungs, take in air, and, you know, keep our body going. So inherently, the lungs are a positive thing.
E
57:08Edwin Rutsch
You can't say, hey, lungs are bad. Or you could say, hey, lungs could be used for being a psychopath, you know, you know, concentration camp, guards or had lungs, and they killed people, or, you know, they had, the firefighter has the lungs, they're out there saving people. So that empathy can be good or bad? Well, it's inherently I see it as inherently positive, in the same way as lungs are inherently positive. And the things that are the sort of the, you know, causing pain or whatever, is a different process. It's not the empathy itself. If we stay in an empathic space, I think, for me, it's like an inherently constructive positive space as well as to not is to bring it into the mutuality. Like, a lot of times, you'll hear, like, you know, people come to the empathy circle says, you know, I do all the listening in the family, I list I do all the listening, nobody listens.
E
58:08Edwin Rutsch
To me. Empathy is terrible, I feel in pain, because nobody's listening to me. It's because people are seeing it from an individualistic point, they're not seeing the quality of the relationship. It's like we're in a relationship. One person is empathizing, another person is maybe not listening to the other person, it's not that the empathy is bad is that the relationship has empathy deficit. So when you when you're looking at that they can be used for positive or negative, I see, it's, I see it a bit differently, that what's what that person is doing, maybe the harm is not being empathic, that you can split your consciousness, you can be partially, you know, empathic and partially something else. And so the, the empathic part is not a negative, it's a positive. And what we do is expand it to be fill your consciousness, as well as to make it mutual that we feel that make it into a mutual consciousness. So that's kind of how I sort of see
P
59:15Paul Gilbert
it simply because we always distinguish motivation from competency, we would see empathy as a competency, some people are going to get some not so good at it. You know, people are on their spectrum, not severe. But they can be very motivated to be caring, but they're just not so good at the empathy side. So we would see it as these two. What is a competency that has evolved over a period of time and in humans is pretty amazing competency. And that's different from motivation. And we can plot the evolution of empathy.
P
59:48Paul Gilbert
Right back I mean, Pan SCAP and others have said, you know, empathy begins when we animals begin to recognize the cause of each other. in distress, what does this distress Go. So there's many interesting discussions about the origins of empathy. So we will see empathy as a competency that can be used. So, how would you? So what do you think happens when somebody is planning vengeance? What are they doing when they're? Are they not using some kind of empathic mind awareness to plot vengeance to work out how they can really hurt somebody that you don't think that's an empathic process, you think it's something else, what they're doing? Yeah,
E
01:00:30Edwin Rutsch
it's like, I would say, there's an empathic component to it, like, Hey, I'm wanting to understand where the other person is, but there's a motivation to create harm to create pain, the person has the motivation, and they're wanting to maybe balance the pain that they felt, right, it's like, it's I felt pain by this person. So I want to give them pain back, you know, for balance or for I'll feel better. So the the empathic would, so that I would say they're kind of split their personalities part is they're wanting to inflict pain. And then the other is that there, there is this empathic sense, and we're kind of swimming and empathy anyway, just seems like it.
E
01:01:17Edwin Rutsch
And that. So what would be the empathic space would be the empathy circle, again, is, is how I kind of use that as the container for defining empathy. So an empathic space would be, that person is listening to the person that they're wanting to harm, like, right? It's like, okay, tell me about yourself, like who you are, they're listening. They're empathizing. But then they, they, once that person speaks, that person is, has reflected back, you know, what that person is saying, then it's their turn to speak. And then when it's their turn to speak, they say, I really want to cause you pain, I want to harm you, because I felt really harmed and pained by, by by you. And then that person would say, Hey, I'm hearing you really want to cause harm and pain to me, because you felt that I was causing, I caused pain to you, and you're wanting to get some kind of revenge.
E
01:02:15Edwin Rutsch
So we're taking that that harm that they want to do that revenge and transforming it with empathy, it's being met with empathy, they met the other person with empathy. So we're, we're bringing, and sure enough, and people are you see it in mediation all the time, people want to do that kind of revenge, you bring them into a mutually empathic space, they can be honest about their hate for the other person, I really hate you, you've caused me so much pain, but they're met with empathy. They're met with being heard. And assertive starts, takes the edge off it like oh, that person is willing to listen to me, they're willing to hear me out. And it takes the edge off of of that. And then they kind of go back and forth. And yeah, it can be pretty intense. But they slowly start creating a sense of connections, a sense of trust, and that revenge that they want to do kind of can melt away to through through that process. So
P
01:03:16Paul Gilbert
that's very interesting. I mean, I think I'll come back to the point first, but that process of how do you deal with hatred through empathy, and it's very, just, we have a series called Creating a compassionate world. And I have been interviewing people who've been very involved in the South African Truth and Reconciliation, and the ability to bring sides together to listen to each other and focus on mutual interests. Because because there was some terrible bloodshed that went on between the Carta and the ANC and things like that. And beginning this sense of what what, what do we have that's in our interest to actually stop these cycles of violence and vengeance because most tribal violence is vengeful violence, you, you know, you killed my friends, I'm gonna kill your friends, you get this, I'm gonna do that.
P
01:04:03Paul Gilbert
So these patterns of vengeance are extremely important, finding ways to kind of bring them to close them some wonderful things and the Truth and Reconciliation and address those. So it was an empathy was part of it. And empathy is also part of what we call restorative justice. You know, when you bring people have committed crimes together with the victims of the crime, and they have an empathic dialogue. So these are all very, very important, but nonetheless, want to take you back to this idea that empathy is a skill and the motive is the crucial determining factor. Like you know, if you have a torture right, so an empathic torch and non empathic torture puts the gun to your head, but an empathic one puts it to your child's that you can only do that. If you understand that to see your child's shot may be very different from you, being experienced, to be sure that's an empathic awareness, or no other animal could do that.
P
01:04:57Paul Gilbert
No, no lion will say look, give Up Your Life, I'm angry, if you don't do that, I'm going to get your kids. So that that capacity, that awareness, you know, like housing torture victims, in the first days, in the sales where they can hear the screams of the I mean, all of that stuff, which is horrific really. But nevertheless, it's about an understanding of what is creates fear in humans, we don't understand that. So we would say that as empathy, but dreadful motivation, motivation is crucial. And what you talk a lot about is the motivation to create dialogues and motivation to reduce our motivation to create a sense of connectedness between people, rather than divisions between those. So you're all in what you're doing. Edwin is already rooted in a compassion orientation, you're, you're rooting that in a compassionate wish to bring people together in order to heal the divisions between.
E
01:05:54Edwin Rutsch
So you're saying like, how do you kind of transform the torture is like, what is the motivation is going to have the searcher change to an empathic mindset?
P
01:06:04Paul Gilbert
Well, he has an emphatic mindset, but not a compassionate.
E
01:06:07Edwin Rutsch
Yeah. So you're saying that the compassion would be what would keep them from harming the other person? Or yeah, yeah. And they empathy is more of a capacity as a
P
01:06:19Paul Gilbert
competency and competency. We will see it we see empathy as a competency. And that without it and compassion is very, almost impossible. Okay.
E
01:06:30Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, I guess I see the empathy as a way of being is you're seeing maybe compassion as a way of being there's a felt experience. And if you're in an empathic state, there's, there's skills, but there's also a way of being, there's also a felt experience to it, you know, a sense of spaciousness and openness or receptivity to it. And that has a felt experience, too. And so, I guess I see it is as, as more than just like a skill, you know, a technical skill, it has a felt experience to it. And it's like, you know, Carl Rogers says, It feels damn good, which is a pretty good motivation, if things feel good, if they feel relaxed, if you feel open, you feel connected, you feel warm, you feel like you're solving problems, you're moving ahead in a constructive way. That's a pretty good motivation. It just feels it feels good.
E
01:07:27Edwin Rutsch
You know, you're it's like, you're, you're functional, you're, you're dealing with less stress. And there's, you know, there's biological benefits to it, you know, more oxytocin, less cortisol, less cortisol, stress hormones, you know, burning up your body, you know, physically. So there, I guess I do see that as a is a felt experience, and there's a motivation to want to be in that space. So in terms of the Porcher, I would say that they have a split, where they see maybe the value of empathy for their family, right, they're probably having connecting connections with their family, that, again, I guess I see it, that it's like the lungs, the empathy that they're doing is, is the actual empathy part where they're being sensitive is constructive in and of itself. It's the part where they're when they're trying to inflict harm, that they're stepping outside. So you can be split personality.
E
01:08:34Edwin Rutsch
So the usually with people who are in conflict, or who are kind of, you know, wanting to attack me or something, like for example, I, you know, the, you know, I don't know if you know, Breitbart, the conservative paper that Steve Bannon, you know, with Trump with a supporter of Trump, you know, really wrote about, but then he they wrote an article about the empathy tent, that the empathy tent and they were very fair saying we're trying to mediate conflict, but there was probably about 400 comments posted like, oh, the empathy tents, but a bunch of wimps a bunch of lib. tardes you know, just all these criticisms. And and I said, Oh, great. I Thanks for your comments. I would like to listen to you and empathize with you about what your concerns are. Would you like to have an empathy circle dialogue about this? So in the same way, I guess you could say that torture right, you can say hey, I want to really hear what your why you're so angry.
E
01:09:38Edwin Rutsch
Why are you going to inflict harm? And torture is going to say is my world is being threatened you want to your, your movement that you're doing wants to hurt my family, it wants to hurt my society, so they kind of need some empathy to be to be heard and seen. So I guess, I guess my point is that the that the empathy, there's kind of this empathic space. And it's not like the empathy is the problem, the empathy needs to be expanded into more of the consciousness of the other person.
P
01:10:13Paul Gilbert
Oh, yeah, I mean, I agree entirely with you. Empathy is a solution. I don't, I don't have any problem that empathy is a solution. And it provides an opportunity for people to feel safe. That's key if you don't feel safe as an issue. And the process of feeling listened to and so forth, is an extremely important human experience, like feeling loved and cared about or valued or admired. Whatever. All of these experiences have very powerful effects on our brains and bodies and hormones were.
P
01:10:42Paul Gilbert
So there's no question about that. But what you are talking about is empathy is a healing process a healing and divisions, listening to people. So it has the way you present, it certainly does have at its core, a compassionate motivation. It's not a harmful motivation. You have at its core, a helpful motivation. Their whole reason for doing this is because it feels good, it does good, it brings people together, it ends conflict ends, all that stuff. So at the heart of what he's saying, is a compassion motivation. I would say,
E
01:11:17Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, I see it as an empathic motivation. I see. Because it depends, it all depends on how you're defining, we have some work cap starting here. So we might have to close be there doing some drilling, if you're able to hear that we can have, okay, so, but maybe we should, yeah, maybe we could continue this, you know, we've got about an hour and a half and continue this, or you also do that circle with Tanya singer, I can reach out to her if you're interested in it, because a lot of people,
P
01:11:46Paul Gilbert
but the most important thing, the most important thing, regardless, all those, whether it's a comedies, or a moment is this desperate wish for both of us have to cry to create a more empathic world, in my in your view in my world, and more compassionate view, to move the world to a different place. And the only way we're going to do that is to have an impact on the brains in the minds of people that live on this planet.
P
01:12:11Paul Gilbert
Because they are the sources of all good and all harm. And if they, if we are not able to reach individuals, and help them to come together, to work cooperatively as a species, really, and see the commonality that we all have, and our common interest in working together and supporting them. And then I think humanity is going to struggle. So you know, the mission that you're on, and so on, is absolutely vital. If we don't change the way people think about themselves, think about the relationships, think about the connection to the world, we're going to continue to struggle, we're going to continue to be divided, we're going to continue to have tribal conflicts, which will become more and more aggressive. You know, because that's how it works. So the way you do is absolutely wonderful. And I'm so delighted, you invited me to come and talk with you. It's brilliant.
E
01:13:03Edwin Rutsch
Yeah, I've really enjoyed the conversation, I really hear that you're really looking how to be sort of effective and getting compassion out there how to reach others, and what will be a way to kind of spread that message. Yeah, and you're really working hard to look for that. It's almost like you're looking in all the different corners. Like what's the solution? How do we do this? How do we
P
01:13:27Paul Gilbert
put empathy, what you're doing, it has to be a fundamental aspect of it, because without that, I don't think compassion gets very far. It just doesn't, you know, we doesn't even doesn't even really start if you unless you can make connections and have a sensitivity to the suffering and others, you wouldn't even stop. So empathy is a very fundamental aspect of compassion.
E
01:13:53Edwin Rutsch
We'd love to continue the conversation, you know, to go into just let your your thought process the details, you know, effective you know, just just the way you're really approaching this and all the work I mean, you've just, it's just totally amazing how productive you've been in total all of that so. Okay, well, we'll and we're doing electrical work here so the workers came in are starting to do drilling so loud, so Okay, well, great talking to you.
P
01:14:22Paul Gilbert
Lovely to catch up later and take care. Bye bye.
00:0000:00