2024-11-02 - Janna Weiss - Empathy Summit On Empathy Circles_2

9:08PM Dec 3, 2024

Speakers:

Keywords:

empathy circles

social justice

global community

empathic listening

peace building

Scientific American

empathy training

book clubs

conflict transformation

universal values

facilitator training

active listening

police to peace

international listening

empathy summit

So our next speaker is Jana Weiss. Jana has a PhD in ethnobotany and a deep commitment to social justice. Jana Weiss brings a unique perspective to the empathy summit as a skilled facilitator and trainer Jana, guides participants in building stronger, more compassionate communities. Over to you. Jana, thank you. Thank you. Ruth,

thank you everyone. Thank you. Edwin, thank you the whole empathy Summit. Bill, Lou, Carol, Jonathan, everyone, all the wonderful facilitators and participants. So my presentation is basically just gratitude and joy and a celebration of just some of the reach of this global empathic listening community. So building empathic community and empathy circles superpower. Martin Luther King spoke of building a beloved community. I love this quote, Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war. War and Peace don't look anything alike. Peace looks like empathy circles, and the more we do them, the more peace there will be in the world. But we're not stopping and we're not leaving out those who love war. We hope to reach 8 billion people, like Edwin said, is for everyone, 100% he said, in his empathy tent. And I cannot sum up over a decade of work of so many people, but recently, in October, we had this beautiful science of empathy article that came out in Scientific American highlighting and featuring the empathy circle, mentioning Edwin and Lou and here's some quotes from it. Empathy is a socially motivated process. Upholding empathy is a social norm motivates people to make the effort. In other words, if we are intending, motivated, have the goal or the purpose to be empathic and to be kind, we will create that world, and we can support each other in doing that. And the more we practice, the better we get at it. And if we don't support each other and we don't value empathy, then it's more difficult. And the empathy circle is, of course, the heart of this whole empathy movement, if we're building a culture of empathy. Edwin used to hold cafes empathy circle. Cafes open circles where people can just talk freely. And now bill and Jonathan are holding that space once a week on Thursday, where also new facilitators can practice their new skills. And there are all kinds of ways to introduce topics that I've experimented a little bit with, and I haven't noticed cards, but with books, videos and cards. So empathy circles are very versatile. And the first book club that I participated in with Edwin and Joan his partner was the democracy circle, where we did 10 weeks for the 20 short chapters in on tyranny by Timothy Snyder. And there was a suggested topic for each of the chapters. So there were two topics, and whatever is alive in you, and DJ Chandler and Larry Lawson and law horn and I did this together in January when Marian was still running for president. Marianne Williamson's book of politics, of love, we chose excerpts for each of nine weeks, the book has nine chapters, so people didn't have to read the book to participate in the empathy circle. You could just come read the excerpt together. We had a question for each of the circles, and then and whatever is alive in you, whatever is on your heart and mind. And Larry is currently doing this reading group. It's not he doesn't choose excerpts, but they're actually reading the whole book together. So part of the circle is reading the book, and then the empathy circle part is discussing whatever comes up for people as they're reading internal family systems with Schwartz Larry and I did this together, an empathy circle, altruism. Empathy circle, using video. This video is 16 minutes long, so we chopped it up into four minute chunks. How to let altruism be your guide. By Matu Bucha, card has at least 2.4 million views online, and we shared the transcript as well as watched the four minutes at the beginning of the circle. Felicia, I would love to do this with her. I don't know how she's using the cards, but she's doing empathy and change. It's her book, and she has a conversation deck, and she's using that, she says, powered by empathy circles. And there's also in person. Now this is a breakout room in Santa Barbara. Is just gorgeous. And the before and the after of empathy circles and the empathy circle facilitator training that Edwin mentioned, and we're reaching further into all kinds of communities. Tibetan monks made this beautiful sandal San mandala at the empathy center, and did an empathy circle with Edwin. And you can watch the video, and also tupton tepo toco invited Edwin and the empathy TED team to set up an empathy tent at the Dalai Lama's birthday in Santa Barbara and extinction rebellion is has embraced empathy circles and offers empathy circles on the empathy circle calendar. Let's see. And when I saw that you could just put different content into empathy circles, I thought it would be really great to use with the 16 guidelines. I'm also an empathy 16 guidelines facilitator, and this is another global community of facilitators that practices universal human values. Wendy Whitley put together this PDF, and she suggested, instead of using the book 16 guidelines, to use this free PDF that the foundation for developing compassion and wisdom offers freely. And so we just read the excerpt for each of different values, like kindness, respect, patience, honesty, and then the conversation starters that we choose from those for the topics, and I want to thank Larry and Ruth, who have been doing these circles with me for the last year and a half. Empathy matters. Larry has some circles that are not on the Google Calendar, on the empathy circle calendar. So I'll just share that. If you want to find out more about what he's doing, you can go to empathy matters.org, he's starting a Middle East situation circle, empathy circle, with Valerie, and he's got red and blue concerns. And then Cathy and Edwin started organizing these large cafes, these events that are precursors to the empathy Summit. And the first one that I participated in was police to peace with Lisa Broderick, who is the founder and director of police to peace and talk with the cops. And that is the empathy cafe, or circle, that was featured in the Scientific American article, and then the next one that was at the end of 2022 is with copase, the largest network of conflict transformation, peace building and security experts worldwide, with 46,000 LinkedIn members. And is Pascal Gampo, the he also presented at another summit on empathy. Trainings around the world that I'm not featuring here and other organizations have joined, and recently, international listening Association invited Edwin, I know Jonathan, went to participate the National Coalition on dialog and deliberation, listening first part, like action have all been spoke sponsors. So the first empathy summit was a creation, a co creation, of the foundation for developing compassion and wisdom. Those are the 16 guidelines, folks with Edwin and Kathy from the peace Alliance. And I'd also like to acknowledge there were many speakers, and it's impossible to acknowledge them all here you can check out. So Liz Gannon Graydon is the president of the the board chair of the peace Alliance. So these were these invited speakers. So I'll just flip through these beautiful empathy summits that we've had. 44 authors, a series of four empathy circles, Empath, empathy, empathy summit, the DJ is continued in the empathy empathy circle, and Serafino siniso has an empathy circle. All these are on the calendar, and I hope that we hear from them in the future. And please join us if you like empathy circles. For the empathy circle facilitator training online. I think that's Do I have time that also features a buddy call once a week. We do one on one active listening with buddies. So in the course of several, several trainings, or many trainings, you get to actually grow and meet a lot of people. And it's very, very precious. So thank you so much to everyone. Good.