Sri Ram Timilsina

Edwin Rutsch13min

Cara Wilson

00:00

I It is now my pleasure to bring up Sri Ram. Shri, RAM, I do not want to absolutely butcher this last name, so I would love when you come up for you to say your whole name so I can get it better. Is a non Hello, welcome. Shri, Ram is at works in non violent communications. NLP and CBT practitioner, a trainer in neuroscience and motivational interviewing, dedicated to cultivating emotional intelligence with empathy as its foundation, speaking today on empathy circles, building emotional intelligence through deep listening. Please take it away. Wow.

Speaker 1

00:42

Thank you. What amazing introduction. So good morning, good evening and good night. It's a good night in Nepal, actually, it's 1115 so I'm deeply honored to be here among people who live and breathe empathy, and I see a lot of commonality here, and which I have been talking about a lot with my groups and with people I meet so advocating about oneness, how we all are connected together. And so I feel privileged to be here. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. So today, actually, we are talking about this empathy is the heart of emotional intelligence. And actually this reminds me of the beautiful quote from Aristotle, and that is what has been the guiding line for me during my sessions, educating the heart with the Educating the mind without educating the heart, is no education at all. So this is what we are trying to do. Actually educating the heart and coming about the topic of empathy is the heart of emotional intelligence. So here in Nepal actually, having gone through lot of challenges, like a different natural disaster and the political protest, all the things, lot of beautiful things happening, lot of challenges also, and despite all the challenges, we are still trying to incubate, trying to practice the culture of to set up the culture of empathy, to listen, to be there, to be present. And coming back to the roots of this practice in Nepal, actually. And as we all know that brother Edwin and the team, the empathy movement, has been always inspirational to me and many people, not only in Nepal, I guess, all around the world. And let's just imagine a teacher who goes to the school and all the students turn around the getting scared of the teacher and not trying to face him, just running away from him. And suddenly the students starts to change, like starting to share their problems and coming together with the teacher and just needing an inter like a intervention from principal to create some boundaries, some space between the teacher and his students. And that is one of the teacher that I am talking about is me myself back in 2009 when I was starting my journey in the field of non violent communication, in the practice of empathy. So I have found this empathy practice as an elixir for connection, just to connect with people around and since then, we have been working with different groups, different students. And right now, for the last couple of years, we have been visiting in different schools, different communities, and doing some circles there, just listening, just being there and giving some steps of a like not the very difficult, very challenging things like it will give you like this or not, but Just being there, being present and listening their stories and and getting just offering the support if they need that's okay, please count me in. Or is there anything I can do so our students, the groups that I'm working with, at least by now, most of them, they can just listen, be there, and support each other. So talking about all these things again, coming back to the emotional intelligence and the practice of empathy. So it's not an easy thing, but it's a very important thing. Am that I feel, and coming back to the schools, and even with the every human beings I meet, so we have a deeper longing to be hard and from the practice of empathy in the circles we hold so people, they often receive that they come there. There is listening. You speak, we listen. We put a big boards, and then just we stay there, listening, just like our previous speaker, Priyanka, she was sharing about silence, just like a meditation, listening, and once they feel complete, so we just offer them. Is there anything we can do to support them, and not only this, so we often practice the practice of self empathy. Also, are we really willing, really open, really able, at this moment, to support so it doesn't mean that we are practicing the circles. We are holding the circles, and we have to do it, but we check with ourselves also. So a part of self connection, a part of self regulation also, because regulating my own emotions before I start, I'm open for supporting others. So being connecting, connected with myself, being present with myself, so that I can be present with another person. So the little practices that we do and we share with lung, and it has been like a play, and there are some of the pictures that I just wanted to share here with. Maybe a little reflections from my leaders that I have been working with. I might be a little inspiration also. So let's have a look. I have shared it in the chat so people can have a look. This is what our leaders say about the practice. And having said this so empathy circles are not just the practices here. It's are the living spaces for human connection. And that's reminds us that being heard without judgment, without the urge to support, without the urge to heal. At the moment, we just maintain that connection, maintain that presence, where people can wholeheartedly express themselves without being scared, without being worried about what people might think, and it's it has turned out to be the deeply healing mechanism where people can support themselves. And not only this, our leaders, the groups that we are holding here, we are working with. We go through the little steps. We just listen in silence. We listen to them, and then we paraphrase their story, and then we guess their feelings and needs. So we just try to make them clear. It's just like holding a mirror and then letting them know, letting them see, letting them hear their story so that they can decide what helps for them, what will works. And this is how the things are happening here. This circle has become, as I already mentioned, like a mirror, so that allows us to understand ourselves and also hold other persons, the people who are connected, who are there with us, with care, with love, with compassion, with kindness. So here, by this practice, the my intention, and the thing that I have been advocating since a long time here in Nepal, is that at least, if we cannot do a lot of things, let's set up empathy corners in all the schools. And so far, we have been working in more than 1200 schools visiting there, and then the students are setting up empathy corners for themselves. So everybody can go there just to connect with themselves. Or if I have some challenges, if I am a little bit

Speaker 1

09:31

overwhelmed, or I have very strong emotions that I have, I am feeling difficult to connect with. So I can also jump there. I can go there, I can connect. So for the teachers, also, for the parents also, and nowadays these are growing the roots a little stronger. And in every empathy circle we practice these two pillars of emotional intelligence. One is all about the self awareness the. Me Myself. How am I at this moment? Am I fully aware? Am I able to connect, be present? If not, we can always look out for others. And then that's the space that we create for the empath, also the person who is supporting there, and another one is self regulation. Rather than getting carried away with their emotions, we just try to regulate our emotions, just be very neutral, and then try to be there fully, not just like an act of listening or something being present, and even when emotions arise, our leaders and we, with the roots of this emotional intelligence, we try to regulate our own emotions before we tend to support another person's emotions. And this practice has been very transformative, as per my observation, yeah. And it has been very healing. I know there is a lot to learn and lot to practice, but whatever we have been doing here, and the credit goes to the empathy team, the empathy circles all around the world in one or another way, we all are learning, and that's what I feel, very strong inside my heart, how we all are connected to each other, and how we are creating this global consciousness, like radiating the energy and creating a culture of empathy and in a old field with a resistance, the tension, and what I have noticed so far is empathy is giving that resilience, and that's what we want to create. Yeah, and and having said that, when you meet the pain with presence and resilience has been grown naturally. And thank you. Thank you. That's all. I know. The time is limited, and I really appreciate this presence. And I know I have been talking about empathy, and we have been practicing, and I am really seeing the practice here from you all, my dear mates a year. So just listening, being present, I appreciate Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,

Cara Wilson

12:29

Sriram, this was amazing. And good night. It's very late. There for you. I heard Educating the mind and the heart. I heard practice the culture of empathy, especially in crisis, I heard empathy, listen be dear, support each other. It's not easy. It's important for every person, from self regulation to supporting and leading others, connection with care and kindness and compassion, if all we can do is just set up empathy. Tim, how powerful is that? Because we are connected and learning in a global consciousness building a culture of empathy. Thank you. Thank.

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