And now I have the joy of introducing Rosa zubi zaretta Ada. Rosa zubi. Zareta has a background as a practitioner in organization development and expertise in empathy based collaborative sense making practices. Roses research focuses on the facilitation of democratic innovations. So thank you, Rosa, look forward to hearing you.
Thank you so much for your introduction. Jana, thank you so much, Edwin, for having created all of this form of you know of the empathy circle and empathy, circle trainings and empathy, circle summits, etc. And thank you to all the folks who are working hard to make this happen. I know you've got quite a team with you. Edwin, so yeah, I want to begin by appreciating your talk. Edwin, I feels to me like when people are saying a lot of stuff about being against empathy, it's it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity for us to clarify. It's an opportunity for us to Yeah, say, hey, people are talking about empathy. Here's here's what we have to offer. So when Elon Musk made that statement about it being the fundamental weakness of Western society, I'm like, Oh, I hope that Edwin heard this, because I really do see it as an opportunity. So okay, I want to start by saying what I value most about empathy circles. And this may be a familiar thing for most of you, if you have experience with it, etc, but it's just, I think we also all have our own take on what particularly moves us. So I don't have a very good memory, and I don't recall anymore when I first met Edwin online or attended my first empathy circle. But I do remember one of the first things that Edwin said that resonated very deeply for me, and it was when he described empathy circles as a gateway practice that helped to lay the groundwork for other more complex practices, such as Human Centered Design, or nonviolent communication, or focusing, or others. And there were several reasons I was touched by this. One is, I think we need to create a movement of movements, and my first practice was focusing. And Eugene jenlin, who is no longer with us, who is the founder of focusing, and was a student of Carl Rogers, he would always say to his students, don't just learn focusing, learn a handful of practices, because we're all neighbors. And he saw it as we're all neighbors in the new kind of communities that we need to be building in the world for transformation so But the second reason I was so touched by Edwin's acknowledgement of the connection between these different practices is that I realized that this can also work in the other direction. It's not just that empathy circles are a gateway practice to others, but I practice and teach an advanced form of group facilitation that is deeply grounded in active listening. And so I realized that now I had a great place where I could send facilitators to go and develop this very basic and necessary foundational skill. So now, when I teach facilitation, I usually recommend that practitioners engage in empathy circle practice to deepen their skill in active listening. So let me delve into this for a moment. Because the reason this is that even though most therapists, mediators, facilitators, know about active listening. I want to make a very important distinction here. Knowing about active listening is very different, I find than having it deep in our muscle memory, than having it be a habit that we've created and built and strengthened. That means that it's something that we can fall back on, especially when we need it the most, right? So I really see it as a practice that we need to continually be developing and staying in shape with. So of course, there are other contexts where active listening is practiced, but empathy circles are one of the simplest basics, most easily available learning opportunities for people to develop this basic skill. And so then, at some point, if someone wants to become a highly skilled mediator or facilitator, they may want to add other real. Listening based practices to their repertoire, compassionate listening, nonviolent communication, focusing. But empathy circles are a great place to start. And before coming across empathy circles, I remember some of the challenges I had in attempting to teach active listening in my facilitation trainings. For one thing, it can be surprisingly difficult to persuade people to set aside their desire to coach to come up with a good question to ask someone who is exploring a challenging area in their life. And instead, what Carl Rogers taught is that if we are able to simply be present, to be with someone, to offer a reflection that helps them feel heard and seen in their current challenges, they themselves, will be able to find their own next steps forward, in fact, before coming across empathy circles when I First trained as a focusing teacher. This is not how everybody trains, because each trainer has their own way of teaching. But the person that I studied with for the whole first year that we were learning focusing he asked us to not say anything back to our focusing partners, not even a reflection back of what they had said, but to simply listen attentively and compassionately in order to break the habit of having to say something, and also as a way to experience how much people are able to shift on their own when receiving loving, caring presence from another person, even without any words being a change exchange. So it was very pretty radical. But back to empathy circles. We don't have to be silent. Instead, we are invited to simply reflect back what we have heard with the intention of helping the other person feel heard, and it's fine to say back some of their own words. It's no complicated instructions, just helping them feel heard. And we only have to do this during usually a five minute period where we are listening and reflecting back before we switch roles. And then we get to experience being on the other side of it, if we were the active listeners. Now we have a turn to speak and to be listened to by another person in this very special way where they are letting us know what they have heard just that, and the person who was speaking gets the chance to be a witness now observing others engaging in this deeply simple yet hugely powerful speaking and listening practice. So of course, I fell in love with empathy circles, even though I had already experienced several of these other more advanced practices, there can be a real gift to simplicity. So one of my favorite ways to introduce empathy circles to others has been as part of something I call OMA evenings. Oma is short for opening minds and hearts. These are introductory sessions where, in the course of two and a half hours, participants get to experience both a taste of empathy circles, something they can easily take home with them, as well as a taste of what it feels like to be part of a larger group conversation on a challenging topic, a conversation that is facilitated with Dynamic facilitation, where the facilitator is doing a great deal of active listening.
So there is a manual for dynamic facilitation that is freely available online. I will find the URL for it and post it in the chat in a little bit, and people are welcome to use the manual to explore on their own any practice they might have of doing facilitation work with larger groups, but that practice is a bit more challenging, and most people are not going to learn it in one evening. So that's why I'm so happy when I can offer this compact taster evening where participants have the opportunity to experience both of these practices, dynamic facilitation and empathy circles. We start out by introducing empathy circle in the large group, and then people get to practice empathy circles in small groups, and then when we come back together in a large group, we debrief their experience in the empathy circles. And that flows very smoothly, right into dynamic facilitation, because in empathy circles, people have been practicing reflecting back, being reflected and witnessing reflection, and now they get to be participants in a large group conversation where the facilitator is working hard to give empathic reflections back to each person's contribution. So anyway, as I mentioned earlier, when I'm teaching dynamic facilitation, I usually recommend empathy circles as a place where facilitators can strengthen their foundational skills and active listening. And that's almost it for what I want to say. I do want to mention that in Austria, dynamic facilitation is used to facilitate civic councils. We. Which are sortition based democratic innovations, somewhat similar to a citizens assembly, yet much smaller. And this format has a great track record as a way of helping groups explore super challenging issues in a constructive way. It's a bit similar to braver angels, format of braver braver debates. Has anyone here heard of braver angels? Is that something people have heard about awesome um, in both braver angels and dynamic facilitation participants direct their comments to the facilitator or the moderator instead of to each other. But the last I knew braver debates moderators were are not working with active listening to reflect back what each participant is sharing. And in contrast, that's a foundational part of dynamic facilitation. So as I mentioned, there's a dynamic facilitation manual freely available. There's also several articles on my website, www, diapraxis.net, I will put that in the chat in a minute, along with a dissertation I wrote on the facilitation of the Civic councils in Austria. And there's also a page on my website under the Resources section called empathy circles in action. And that page includes a link to a Google Doc with more info about the OMA format, and you're also welcome to email me if you'd like to explore more about any of this. In closing, I just want to say about the value of empathy, that especially in these really challenging times when the world can feel really shaky sometimes, and there's a lot of unknown and fear close to the surface. Empathy can really be a lifeline, because it lets us stay connected to one another, even when it seems like things are falling apart. And when we feel connected, we can co regulate. We can breathe together our nervous systems, which are wired for connection and interdependence, remember that we are not alone, and this kind of togetherness is what can help us move through stress, grief, even collapse with a little more steadiness and a little more breath. So thank you all for being empathy fans and for helping spread empathy in the world. You.
