Edwin, Okay, Hi Alan. I'm Edwin Rutsch, director of the empathy Center, and I'm here with Alan Rolfs, and we're Alan has a book out called when I listen people speak and come alive, and he's been working for, I mean, at least five decades on empathic listening, active listening. So you're like, like, you've been at this for a long time. You're one of the you're one of the grand daddies on this topic. Really looking forward to talking to you. I don't know you want to say more about by way of introduction. You know, you
say again, I didn't hear
that. Oh, do you have anything else to say about just introducing yourself? You know, just who you are, what you're, what you're doing.
Well, I've been, I have been a psychotherapist as well, but I became a psychotherapist in order to learn how to do empathic listening. And I was in Chicago at the time at where Carl Rogers had been at the University of Chicago from 1945 to 1957 and Carl Rogers founded Chicago's Counseling Center, which was a practicum and research arm of the clinical psychology program. After he left the program sustained itself for a few years, but then it became a not for profit agency, as opposed to a part of the university. So I, I come from, so I was around that, and I was taught by, particularly by Eugene jenlen, who was a student of Carl Rogers. Jenlin was a student in 1950 or so. And I met jenlen in 1969 1970 so that was my first experience with it. And as I say in my book, I had an encounter with gentleman in which he listened to me about something which was very, very disturbing and troubling for me, and it was mind blowing for me. I would and after that experience, and I can say more about that too, but after that experience, I went to him, after I figured out that it was empathic listening, that is what, how he responded to me. I went to him and asked him if he would teach me, and that was the beginning of what turns out to be my book. But my interest as a therapist was to I realized this was a learnable skill, or a learnable way of being with others that wasn't the province only of professionals that it could be learned by everyone. In fact, Thomas Gordon had taught it particularly and specifically to parents with his book parent effectiveness training, and in his other book, leader effectiveness training to business leaders and much more. I was interested because of my where I was at at the time in the late 1960s and early 70s, which was the Vietnam War, I was interested in what I could do to make a difference in society. I was just getting out of graduate school at the time, and when I read gentleman's article on community psychology, I saw that this was one thing that could be taught to lay persons that would then, as you well know, that would then increase the availability of a way of being with people when they were upset, that was expanded everywhere and across beyond what professionals could provide to people. So my interest in psychotherapy, which is a little bit more by introduction, as I was, as you were just asking me to, was that I started to learn how to do this and realize that the approach of Carl Rogers was doing this, not just for 10 minutes and not just for one hour, but for the next hour and the next hour and the next hour in the next hour. And I thought, Oh, well, I need to learn how to do this, not just for 10 minutes in order to teach it, but how you do it continuously, if that is, if that is ever
you mean as a way of being, as a way. That's a way of being Yes, yeah,
yes, yes. And in the variety of kind of situations that people present themselves regarding, and the variety of ways that people talk and the variety of kinds of problems that people speak about, which is what I got from learning how to learning psychotherapy. But my whole aim in doing that was to do this, my interest in social change and in providing this aspect, this way of being to people, to broaden what we can do for expanding mental health and what formally is called Community Psychology. I don't call it that, but that was the reason for my learning how to do therapy. So that's a little bit of my, yeah, my background.
Well, there's, you know, in terms of, there's Rogers, who is working with active listening in the 50s and 60s, and then sounds like you got, kind of got started in the late 60s and 70s. Is that correct, kind of into it,
really, in the early 70s,
early 70s. So there's sort of this arc of the development of, sort of this active listening, empathic listening, but it's more of a way of being like, hey. It's actually about a way of relating to each other. So you've been really early in this arc. I'm coming in, I guess, much later, like maybe 1516, years ago, to discovering it. But it's kind of the same arc, the same intention, same enthusiasm that you have, oh, yeah, just for seeing the bigger picture. Hey, this is really profound. This is really a whole cultural way. It sort of points at a whole cultural way of being
Yes, yes, yes, yeah. And is unfamiliar to most. And here is this little thing that we can do. It's actually quite a dramatic and radical change in responding to another person, but it is a in terms of just describing the behavior. It is a little thing that we can do which changes the interaction with the person in a way that is life giving life for the language that I use, anyhow is life forwarding for the other person, and as it is for the other person, I'm in it as The listener too. So it impacts me in the same way? Yes, so
you've your book is covering sort of that arc of your experience and going and you're going into some of the nuances of empathic listening or active listening, like, what are the you know? So the elements of it, what happens, and so it's a real exploration of this, of this whole topic of empathic listening from a long history. I mean, you know, long history of experiencing it, yeah,
yes, yeah, yes. I had, I mean, the process of writing the book is a story in itself, because I, I didn't know I had a book when I began writing, I was just writing an article, and it's about eight years in the writing or so, but what I realized is that there wasn't the I haven't come across in All the books that are out there on empathic listening, on active listening, I haven't come across something that really span attempts to go from beginner to to most advanced, so I spend a lot of time on that. As you know from from reading it a whole seven, eight chapters on how to do it and and to my knowledge, there's nothing else like that. So that was one aim of mine, was to have something that, for in my experience, is comprehensive, starting with beginner, the very first things that one can do, the real
contribution. Yeah, there's only one book that I know of that's more practical like that. It's by William Miller, who did he has a book called listening well, so it sort of goes into, you know, some of the nuts and bolts, but I have a hole behind me. Behind the green screen here, there's a whole bookshelf of books on empathy, but they're not like practical about active listening. It tends to be more theoretical and and exit and say, You should do this. But it's not like you know, how do you do. It. How does active listening work? How do we build on it? I think that the active listening and what was made, you know, Rogers, I think so influential is he had a real practice, a practical practice that you do as well as he was really good at the scientific theoretical part. So having both of those skills versus just the theoretical, which so much stuff out there is, is about that having a real practice, I think is so important, and that's what we try to do with the empathy circle. Because one thing that's of interest to me is, what, how do you see the arc of the development of active listening? I mean those you know, Rogers, you know. And then Gene genlin came in, kind of built on his work, which sounds like that's where you connected. And then Marshall Rosenberg, also, you know, built on his work, and it sounds like you were connected with him. Had personal, you know, relationship, friendship, or what have you, as well as Thomas Gordon, so you're teaching the parent effectiveness training I saw on your site. So I don't know if you met him, but there's this whole arc of the empathic listening, that whole empathic mindset. And I'm just wondering, you know, what insights do you have about how that arc is, how that has gone through? You know, it's a culture and kind of, where are we now? And where do you hope that it, that it goes?
Yeah, a wonderful question. Well, and I'm I specifically haven't gotten involved with your empathy circles because I was in the process of writing the book, and that really occupied me, and I didn't want to be influenced by what anybody else had been saying. So behind me is the top shelf of my book bookcase, which is all the books on empathy, too, and the one that you just mentioned, William Miller, listening. Well, although when I looked on your side, I saw there are 40 authors or so that you have,
oh, we had a book a book Summit, an empathy book Summit. We had speakers. They all had 10 minutes, and there was 44 book authors on, yeah, yeah. And I didn't know there were that many. Oh, yeah, there's more.
Have to pause just for a minute to switch my phones here, yes, so the arc of it, I haven't thought about that. What I did think was that had me wanting to write the book was to have something comprehensive in the way that I just said, but it's the case for instruction. But I haven't necessarily thought I haven't heard the kind of argument for doing it in the way that I presented it. Now it may be there in the other books, as you're alluding to is that. So I wanted to do that as well. My book is intended both for for professionals or for students who are learning in the professions and people are already using it, I found out in classrooms, but it's also for the general public. So I'm trying to make an argument for it, because this is so unfamiliar to so many people. Do
you want to make it available for anyone to sort of as a like here's why you should use it, and here's some steps for how to get involved so kind of reach out to a broader public? Yeah, yeah,
yes, yes. Here is something that is that makes a difference in daily living and in in the interactions that we have daily that is unknown. And it's not only the difference is always one in which people are, are, and then the language gets funny. Are, are better afterwards, and better is funny, because that doesn't quite say it what it is. But people are, are the differences, one in which they have they they feel better and they have more life at the end of speaking to somebody who is listening to them. So when I said earlier about life giving that. What that's really what I mean, although that's a whole big idea, and I mean it in a smaller way, just as when you a moment ago, said what you heard me saying, I felt that and that, and the feeling when you say that to me is one in which I go, Yeah, and I feel it in my body. It's like my body opens up,
yeah. So when somebody reflects back, is empathically present with you. You're you can feel it in your body that you have the sense of openness and yes and yeah, and you can Yeah, just it's a real felt experience. It
is a felt experience, and that's what, what I mean. And from jenlin, who was a philosopher as well as a psychologist, in fact, his main work is in philosophy about process. That's where I learned how our current language doesn't enable us to talk about this because of the way the language is constructed, we only have what I'm calling and others, many others have called thing language in which we have this thing and that thing and that thing, so there isn't a way to talk about process and what happens in the way that I was just saying, and you're just reflecting to me too, is we don't have the language to say, Well, what happens there? What is this thing that I feel, ah, we don't have a word for that, that after being in this interaction and you're reflecting me or me to you or whoever else it is, we each go away expanded that. That we don't
Yeah. So there's what I'm hearing there, if I just reflect back, yes please, when you empathically heard there is, there's experiences that happen, and in the culture, there's not a set of vocabulary of words to describe it, the the experience, and that, actually, I would say that in your book, you're sort of trying to find those words. You're, you're kind of, it's like trying to put vocabulary, other words, they're in to describe that experience,
yes, yes, yes, because we don't have a concept for because it's a process, and our language doesn't have process concepts. That's the idea that I get from from genlin here. So what? How? What do I do? Well, I say you experience more. Well, that's a funny word. It doesn't mean much, but that's the that's the best that I've got so far to say that at the end of the interaction, or just when another person empathizes with you, there is an opening within oneself in which more living, more experiencing, more feeling, more meaning is available to them. And,
yeah, yes, yeah. Well, I have that experience, you know, is well that, you know, I was, I was doing, you know, managing a retreat center a while back, and it was just very stressful. And every week I had someone who would just do empathic listening with me for half an hour about whatever was on my mind, you know. And there was lot of sharing. Oh, this, I have this stress, I have that stress, and all they would do is actively listen to me and I would share, and I can, I could feel my stress level, the tension in my body, go down. So I think there is a vocabulary to describe it as the felt experience of what's happening in, you know, in the body as that that happens. So there's a an expansion, like you're saying, of, of, uh, sort of an inner expansion. It's like more stress free expansion, and there's a sense of connection. There's more of a sense of being who I am too. It's like, Hey, I'm kind of being more authentic of who I am. And I think Rogers described it too. He said that. He said people who have maybe a poor sense of identity that helps them create a sense of who they are, as well as for him, when he has tentative ideas, and I find the same thing too, just an idea that's sort of at the tip of my consciousness, I'm. Is that by expressing, you know, at least trying to express what I can of it, that it kind of creates more space for new ideas to emerge and and come into existence just by being heard by someone else. So that's a really helpful, you know, practice process too, you know, for for your own creativity and growth. Yeah,
yes, yes, and and hard to describe, and when you were just a moment ago searching for words yourself, it's it that is that, for me, is an example of of how tricky this is, and how our present language doesn't focus on that and give us language for that, so we have to make new language for it, but, but You just were doing the process for me. Of, of, oh, well, how do I say this thing that's on the speaker's part, not on the listeners part? How do I say it? But it is in the it is in the interaction of empathizing that the speaker is enabled to stay with that tentative that you were just talking about the tentative idea that they have, or the tentative the opening that they have in which more is coming to them and they just faintly experience, but when they pay attention to the faintly experienced, it comes forth. It it blossoms. It emerges,
yeah, being able to describe that whole phenomenon and be put words to it and and, you know, we do the empathy circle, which is kind of a next level, like a lot of the you know, like genlin or Rogers, they as therapists, they would listen to someone, you know, for an hour, and it seems to me like a one way listening, right? And, you know, with the empathy circle, is kind of a focus on maybe four or five people in a group, and then there's sort of like mutual listening, so which is more into the relational and and then people describe, oh, in the circle, there's a whole quality of the felt experience changes in the in the circle, right? There's just more of a feeling of connection in the group, more sense of ease, and more It's like, Oh, I feel closer to everyone here than I do with my family. Sort of experience. There's a whole quality that happens when multiple people are sort of in this empathic state. And I mean, what our goal is with the empathy center, is to transform society, to make that sort of the cultural state. You know that the whole culture is more aligned with with that mutual listening and and it's so much healthier. I find it a healthier state and less stressful, more creative, more problems or or oriented towards problem solving. So, yeah, so that's like the good that's the active listening. Mutual active listening is like a starting point. I haven't seen that from, you know, even in the in those movement, I mean, they didn't talk that much about the mutuality of it. And I think that was something that was missing. Like Rogers went from active listening, you know, is a client therapist relationship. He went at the encounter groups, what I think are pretty horrible myself, because it's just like, you know, dog eat dog. It can be, whereas I'm surprised he didn't go into like create the empathy circle, because it seemed like the next logical step of his process of mutual listening. So I have some questions, I guess, about that. That difference why he didn't actually create the empathy circle himself, or focus on that, versus encounter groups, where everybody can just say whatever they want, and sometimes they get pretty brutal. From what I've I've seen. So I don't know if you have any thoughts insights about that, well,
not necessarily on his going to the encounter groups, although I do, I do, I mean, you're it's stimulating to hear that from you, and I'm thinking back, because I was in that whole era too, because that was the next thing that was happening in the culture, the Human Growth Movement, human potential movement and encounter groups is one of it. And. And so Rogers moved from from Chicago to the University of Wisconsin, where he was for about six or seven years, and then left academia and went to La Jolla, California, where he started this well, there were two things, the Western Behavioral Science Institute, which was a collection of behavioral scientists, and then after a while, I don't know how long, then he left that and formed the Center for the person, which was his group, and that that still exists. So I just speculate that he went with what was going on at the time, that encounter groups were the new thing, and that he did that now left behind was jenlin at the University of Chicago and the Vietnam War and the counter culture, and gentlemen, students who like me, wanted to figure out what they could do for an action of social change in the social change movement at the time. And gentlemen, students got together and thought that what they could do was to work to keep people out of mental hospitals, because mental hospitals were so horrendous for people. So they identified people on the street that they called the terminology that counterculture were called heavy people, which means that a lot is going on for them, and they're just on the verge of going into a mental institution to see if they could offer empathic listening to them to keep out of a mental hospital, and that group of students would Then meet once a week to support each other, and the supporting each other expanded so that they also invited the people who were the heavy people, or the people they were working with to come into the once a week, week meetings. And then it was decided, we'll teach listening to everyone in these meetings, whether you're a lay person or or somebody who is really troubled. That group was called changes, and that's where I also learned, and that's similar to, not exactly like you're talking with the empathy circle, but everybody changes each week. Meeting once a week, would break up into pairs or small groups and learn and practice active listening, empathic listening. I use those terms interchangeably now, and that went on, and there are still changes groups around the United States, but you're talking about something that is quite different, and I love it. And what you're saying that I'm getting from this is that it's support again. I again, I don't like this language necessarily. It supports everyone when the listening is in the same circle, in going back and forth, so that it deepens the sense of being with each other and then. And as that deepens, then the openness, or the both the feeling of connection, but the openness to oneself deepens as well. That's what I may
come yeah, there's an overlap with the changes. I had some little better work with Kathy McGuire. McGuire, McGuire, yeah, so we had done some videos and stuff together, and you know she was, I guess you probably know her, because very well, yeah. Founders, yeah.
Well, I haven't had a conversation with Kathy for 30 years or so. I know her very well. Yes, you work together
on these changes, yes, groups, yeah, and what was the process in those groups? For the empath, how did you practice with each other?
Well, it varied. At one point, jenlin came in and did a 10 week series in which he taught, and then he would teach, and then we would break down into small groups, and we would do a, what we called a round robin, and I don't know if that's what you do or not, where we just go around the circle. So that would happen every week.
And where would the active listening happen? In the round robin. In the round robin that somebody would speak and who is doing the listening,
and then the next person would listen. Oh, I. See, okay, and then that person would listen, and then that person and next person would listen. So it would go around the circle. Gentlemen did that in his classes as well. Didn't matter what the classes were, he would teach listening in his his classes, and from changes, we would go out, because we were evangelists, yeah, and offer our, whatever we knew, to organizations into staffs of organizations. And then we would do the round robin too. So that's, that's how it was practiced, in changes, and then changes went on from 1971 to 7677 78 in Chicago, and people left Chicago there. There were students at the university that was the core of it, and then they left and went elsewhere. So there are changes here and there, but that movement hasn't sustained itself. The
Empathy circle is very similar, except it's usually it's four, maybe five people in a circle. You have the active, I mean, the speaker, and then they select their listener. So it's not like just in a circle, but since we're doing it online, you say, well, you're I'll select, you know, Sam, to be my listener, and then you have timed turns, usually up to like five minutes or so, just so it keeps going around, and then the listener reflects back until the speaker feels heard to their satisfaction. Then it becomes the listener's turn to be a speaker, and then they select their listener, and it just kind of shifts like that for the time allotted. So very you know, there's a real overlap with the changes, you know, with that structure of making it a group event and everybody's equal versus the client therapist, you know, sort of the framework, and yeah, I'm just, yeah, had I just wonder what kind of happened with that, that it didn't take off more with changes, you know, kind of spread to as a practice. That's what we're trying to do, is kind of to to spread the practice as widely as possible. And and then we also have a facilitator training. So we have, like, a four or five week session where you learn how to facilitate. And there's all kinds of challenges of especially for new people who are learning to facilitate, you know, to facilitate a circle, because you have, when you have new people, you know, instead of just reflecting back their understanding, they're putting in their own ideas, or wanting to share and and just you have a space to learn how to become a facilitator. So that's and then we have you take that training like five times, and then you be can become a trainer, and then train others to, you know, to be, to be able to become facilitators, or do the training process so and so, yeah, it's like creating a whole kind of a structure for that, as well as having the intention that we want to create a, you know, a culture of empathy, which is to make This empathic, you know, this way of being that Roger is called, you know, empathic. If you know that paper, it was amino paper, I'm empathic and unappreciated way of being, yeah, we make this a cultural norm, yeah, yes. And the thing with the empathy circle, I think it could really spread widely if we get high profile people, you know, if you had like Trump and Biden, or, you know, any of these politicians who would do an empathy circle instead of a debate, you know, millions of people could see that, and the practice could spread, you know, very quickly, if we can kind of scale it up like that. So that's what we're looking at, is, how do we scale this? This up?
Yeah, yeah, yes, you have something that you know that is working, and the problem with it, or the challenge with it, is how to then make this? What do you do to spread this thing that you know that is working empathy circles? How does how? What? What? What do you do? What? How can you? How can you scale that? Yeah, because the words that you used right, how do you spread it. How do you, how can it become a part of their culture? But it's, it's the really in the scaling of it that you're talking about, exactly, yeah, and maybe your thought is, maybe it is leaders. If you could get high profile leaders that would. Be one way. That's what you're toying with or teasing, looking,
being open, being innovative, about all kinds of different ways. Yeah, this is just one possible way, and your book is like a contribution to that too, right? It's like, well, here's a whole body of work that kind of explains how, how this practice works, yes,
now I just have to, I'm sorry. I've got a phone here. I'm going to decline that. Okay, I don't know if you could hear that, but it was in my ears there. Yeah, yes, you're saying as well. You're not committed to this being the only way. The question is, how this is one way, but how?
What are other ways? Yeah, and your book is one, and yes, yes. And
my book, along with many others, my book is one, yeah, yes, yeah. And I haven't thought about that very much. My emphasis has just been, get this out there, pass along what I know my experience was wonderful and unique and very special. I was privileged to work with Gen Lund, and so I wanted to pass along what I knew so
you have a lot of learnings that you've developed over the years. You're just wanting to really focus on sharing all those learnings and insights and
have them in a form that is passed along. Because I do workshops, I have done workshops in the United States, yes, and Canada and Europe, in which I and they're very intensive workshops. They're for three or four days, and it's only with a small group of people, 12 people is a maximum there, in which I now there's another thing here. Have to wait through this. I just shut off my audio for a minute that I haven't turned off my speaker in the background for the for my landline. Now it's off in which I want to show people how to do this. And in my workshops, what I do is have each person be a speaker and a listener, as you do as well, for a short period of time, 810, minutes or so, and I sit right alongside the listener, and I coach them in doing it as they are doing it. And then afterwards, and I really learned this in changes, because we would do this there too. Then I listen to the listener to find out what their experience was in doing this, and then I add my comments if I have any comments to them, and then I open it up to the rest of the group to comment on the process. And each turn takes about 45 minutes or so with a person. And so that's my way of I have been doing that, but it's just me. So my book is hopeful. It was an intention to put all of this together and and see if I could be persuasive and influential to more than just those people. Or in my workshop,
let me see if I understand it. Yeah, we have a speaker and an active listener Yes, and then the active listener just reflects back with the speaker is saying yes. And then you're doing that for eight minutes, 10 minutes or so, and then you and you're sitting next to them, kind of coaching them, in case that they're not doing it properly. You might say, just reflect back, don't, you know, add your own material, or you're so you're really helping them to and that then you then you have a period where you're commenting on what, afterwards, on your thoughts about it, and then you're getting comments from the audience as well. So yes, quite a deep dive into for the listener. And
one more there is that when we get through with the listener, when the listener is turn is over with the Speaker, I spend almost as much time with the listener. Oh, right, I asked the listeners, so how was this for you?
Do you ask the speaker how it was for them to I
do not. The reason that I don't, although I could, is I say, when we break, when the whole group, then when we turn it open to the comments, to the whole group. I say. Will be no questions to the speaker here, because their process continues even after they've been listened to. So there's still much of the time they're still in it, and I don't want to interrupt that process with questions from you to them, I say, now they're free to speak if they want to speak, but the questions that I want are about the process, and the comments that I want are about the process of listening that you heard, so that now, in changes, we would ask the speaker how it was for them. But I've come to realize that people do a deep dive in this when they're speaking, and then so we stop at the end of eight minutes or nine minutes or 10 minutes, or it may go on for 12 minutes or 15 minutes, but we do find a stopping place for it, and they're still right there with it. So, and I don't want to interrupt that. I want to respect that. So that's why I I, I don't do the asking of the speaker. Much of the time in the large group when they're commenting, about half of the time the speaker does comment on how it was for them.
Yeah, if you recorded any of these, because it'd be interesting to see the process, maybe on Zoom or something, where you I
have, and I haven't put it on Zoom yet, and I'm attempting to, I mean, I've got a couple, I've never had a whole workshop recorded, which I would really like to do the whole four days so I could select things out from it and show that. But I have had some an hour long or two hour session. It usually takes at least two hours to for me to do that that I would like to upload. Oh,
okay, so you recorded them, but you haven't uploaded them to YouTube, right? Yeah, okay, it'd be interesting to see. I'd love to see that,
yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I could actually make that available to you. I think I could. I have to check with the people, because, all right, one that I've done recently, a month ago that was recorded by a professional video videographer that I haven't looked at sufficiently to decide whether I want to upload that. Yeah, yes, but it is I'm trying to do the same thing as you're you're doing exactly is. And I think that let me see I was going to say something else there too, but I may have interrupted
you. Oh, no, I was just following your thread. Oh, yeah,
yeah, that the reason this hasn't spread. Oh, I Oh, is maybe because there hasn't been a structure like you provide where you can say empathy circle, and empathy circle is this, whereas I just teach individuals, and hope that this will spread by the teaching of individuals, and now with my book and with other books that are out There, I hope that, but that's very different than having a set program, so to speak. Well,
it's very scary. I think it's very scalable, you know, it's and the other thing we wanted to do is create chapter based, you know, we have the empathy centers of 501, c3, and we want to create, like, a chapter based organization. We have, like, you know, here in the Bay Area, we have a group. There's a group in Phoenix and and in Santa Barbara and, you know, people hold empathy circles all over and we actually have an empathy Summit, which we've been having it, you know, people who have done the empathy circle. They can give, like, a 10 minute presentation about the experience, or some aspect of the experience, and then we also frame it in a bigger picture. Our intention is to create a culture of empathy. So it's that social transformation that you know you were talking about that kind of like consciously thinking about the big picture, that if we can get politicians to be doing empathy circles instead of debates, you know, it's just going to create better, better, you know, connection and we've had, when we were in Santa Barbara, we actually were doing, you know, had weekly empathy cafes there. And. We had a candidate, Republican candidate for Congress, you know, come and take part in say, This is great. I want to do empathy circles with my liberal friends or others too. So, and then you've got a structure that you can sort of implement. You just, you know, even when once you, once you've familiar with the empathy circle practice. You don't even need a facilitator, just someone to keep time and stuff. So it seems like it's a, it's a scalable practice, you know. So that's is, you know, yeah, just one way to kind of get the kind of make that cultural shift. Seems like we certainly need it. You know, the culture is just getting more and more polarized, more and more extreme. I think what we're doing is really sort of an antidote. I mean, both of us, you know, what we're trying to do is an antidote to the the cultural, you know, dysfunction, or whatever you want to call it,
yeah, yes. You're Yeah, just off the top of my head thinking with you on this. The what I'm liking about your empathy circle, and what I was just saying is that you've got a structure here. You've got a thing that you can say, Oh, well, let's do an empathy circle in which people are empathizing with each other that it isn't so it's identifiable in that way, whereas empathizing is not identifiable doesn't have a clear structure, or, yeah, people don't know know it. My attempt was trying to to say, look, this thing is out here, and it and it makes a difference, and you can do it, and here's how you can do it. And people change when you do it. That's what my kind of, the structure of my book for it, but it still doesn't have a name like yours does, or a set way of doing it.
And the cultural shift of the the I think that's the other part, is to have that intention, that vision. So, yes, yes, we've got the structure, we've got the vision, and we've got the tools and, you know, so it becomes more of a structure, and you seem like a very structured framework kind of person. Maybe, if I'm, I don't know that's my just an impression that you think of structures and systems, and
not necessarily, I know, but, but I do, but I'm in there. I mean, you got it right. It just that the language is a little bit different. I'm thinking of the when you say the cultural change there. I'm with you exactly, because that's, that's exactly what had me started with it, calling it community psychology doesn't really do it. I want this to be a part of society as a way of being that people have and are with each other. Yeah. So in that way I am and it I resonate exactly with, with, with what you're with, what you're saying, Yes, I can say,
for as an example, like we, I mean, just how that cultural aspect happens is, I mean, just somebody reported, oh, I was in an empathy circle, you know, you've been doing the training, and then they're traveling with their their son to, you know, around California somewhere, and they're in the car, and he starts talking about, you know, the fam, their family. And she gets defensive, and starts, oh no, you're not right. And, and then he said, Then he says, Oh, forget it. You're right. You're right. You know, just kind of acquiescing and, but in a way that, yeah, you're always, you know, you know, so critical of her, kind of being critical of him, or being defensive. And then she thinks, Oh, I know this act of listening, this empathic listening process, maybe I should be trying that. So she starts reflecting back, oh, so this is what your your experiences with the family. And then he says, Yeah, that's right. Then he starts sharing more, and she says, Oh, and that's what. So she starts going into the empathic listening, listening to what he has to say. And it kind of opened up him. And then it open and she didn't say, I'm doing active listening. She just did it. And then it she said, Oh, the whole rest of the day was really great. You know, we just had this really great relationship. We're listening to each other and and so this is the cultural impact, how it impacts the individual, inter relational, the interactions, you know, during the day that we have with with people
I and I'm totally in agreement. With that and and that is what I'm hoping will happen when people do it, and that's the report of people too. And what I was puzzling over with you, with expanding or scaling it up, or making this as a part of cultural change, was, well, I actually haven't thought about that for a long time. I mean, my focus has been just on getting the book out, as well as doing the workshops that I do in the hope that it would spread. I do a group twice a month. It's a drop in group online and in which I teach, and then we break up into breakout groups on Zoom, and everybody practices and and my thought has been, some people have been with me a long time. There's only one person from that group now who has said, I'm going to start one two. And I've been trying to think everybody is learning this, and it's going on in their life. And I have a time each week for people to tell me their stories, so I know they're doing it. So it's spreading in that way. But I'd also like to be teaching teachers who are teaching teachers who are teaching teachers. And for this to be going on, and I haven't figured out how to do that yet.
Well, Rosenberg, Marshall, Rosenberg seems to have done that with nonviolent communication. So that's kind of spread where there's people picked it up, and they're teaching it all over the place. So
yes, yes, and I'm in, I'm a senior member of that group. I met Marshall in 1972 and but I and I already knew empathic listening when I met Marshall. Marshall was a student you may know of Rogers at the University of Wisconsin. Yes, he's doing it all over, yeah, and people are getting it from that, and they're getting a particular kind way of doing empathy. So that I have some objections to it, because it has been, it has been talked about as in NBC circles, which I'm trying to change, as offering empathy. And I don't like that, because that makes it a thing, as opposed to a way of relating, or a way of being, so I But nonetheless, that's better than nothing.
Yeah, I'm in the same I have some discomfort with NBC to the there's, yeah, it would take a while to sort of unpack that. Yeah,
your discomfort? Yeah,
yeah. With NVC, kind of like, I don't know there was one. I guess it's just to focus on. With the empathy circle, it seems easier. It's just come in, listen to each other, learn empathic listening, this way of being. And with NBC, it's just the feelings and needs become so predominant that somehow it sort of, it's so complex, seems more complicated. And whereas we're with the empathy circle, it's very easy access to it, and you don't need a lot of training. You don't have to learn a whole sort of a philosophy of feelings needs, that the concepts, the feelings and the needs behind it, I think are, are helpful. But, and then there's another aspect I'm not so maybe has some thoughts that, you know, we have in the culture the political left, you know, the farther left went into sort of this woke culture stuff, which seems to me rather authoritarian. And I've seen that parts of NBC has kind of gone into that too, in that direction. So they've picked up on politically leftist ideology. And, you know, go into anti racism, anti this. And my thing is, you want to empathize with racism, you want to empathize with authoritarianism. So sort of the means are the end, versus that they're the enemy. And we have to something, you know, so and so there's just subtle differences there. And I've, I've actually mediated conflicts within the NBC community, where there people are objecting to the woke and then, and then there's sort of this kind of in a space where they can talk about, you know, the issues. And so anyway, those are just some concerns that I have about. And it tends to be, can be very into. Intellectual somehow. So I don't know, I don't know what your thoughts are. I mean, you were there. You've seen the whole trajectory of that movement.
Well, it the there is a divide in NBC now as to what NBC is, and the divide happened after Marshall died, when people with a particular some trainers with a particular emphasis upon social justice, introduced ideas that those of us who were trained, who were trained by Marshall, object to as not being part of NVC. And those ideas have been influential, because almost everybody in NVC is left political. Those ideas were very persuasive, so a lot of trainers have adopted those ideas. And then there's this other group of us who who are older and who were specifically with Marshall, who now object to any of that being a part of NVC, and see that as counter to actually counter to NVC, so that that's a conflict that's going on right right now within the NVC, yes, and I know it extremely well, and it's okay, and we're trying, we're trying to resolve it, and the group then, and there's a lot more that I could say About that, which I don't necessarily want to do at at this moment, but it this the the bylaws were changed to to allow everyone who all members, to be able to vote on this, and The people who were in the social justice we're able to persuade enough people to vote for a board of directors which which was aligned with this, with woke in with those ideas. So now the struggle is to how do how do we do this? And will they talk to us that? Will we talk to each other? My idea for for it to resolve this is to have every NVC trainer who is against this talk to another trainer who is for it, using our process to see whether, until we come to a resolution, whatever that resolution is, but, but that hasn't been adopted,
we're totally in alignment. I'm, I guess I'm in the camp. Oh yeah, you are, because I've seen and we've done, you know, we've also done what we call the empathy tent. I don't know if you saw any of that empathy. Yes, there we go. We've been out in public spaces so we have the political right would come to Berkeley and they're demonstrating for free speech. Then the political left comes out and they counter demonstrate, and there's only like four of us in an empathy tent holding that space that you're valuing and I'm valuing, and we're saying we're willing to listen to you on the political right, we're willing to listen to you on the political left, and how about we'll support you in dialoguing in an empathy circle about whatever these issues. And we've had people, you know, there's a was a documentary called Trump phobia, what both sides fear. And the filmmaker saw our work here in Berkeley at one of these rallies, and she invited us to LA where there was an impeached Trump rally. And during the day, I mediated six pairs of people from, you know, one person from the right, one from the left, sitting down in the empathy tent doing empathic listening, you know, I would first, first, I would listen to both sides. Then once they sort of got the hang of it, I'd ask them to do active listening, empathic listening with each other. And we'd go for, you know, 45 minutes or an hour. And at the end of the six pairs, I mediated. Five of them gave each other hugs. So it's like, that is the power of what we're talking about. And it's, and it's, you know, you know, empathizing with the, you know, the woke or the and, but also empathizing with the others. And, you know, kind of holding a space, but it's, it's a it's a sensitive space, right? It's not an easy space to hold and to even understand, I think, for a lot of people, but it's kind of like the space. I think that's the solution to the polarization that we have in the country or in the families or everywhere else. Yeah,
yes, in complete agreement, yes. And the focus, and I also want. Make this comment about nonviolent communication too. It has become feelings and needs. That isn't I surprise people who are new to NBC, new trainers, even in the last 20 years, by saying I knew Marshall before he had the concept of needs. There was an NBC before needs. Now, what is that? If, if needs wasn't there, how could there be NBC? And so what I wanted to say to you is, is, when I teach empathy, and I do it with when I go to Europe, it is with NBC trainers that I'm doing empathy. And I say I don't do feelings and needs. Rosenberg
was not using, I mean, he had a form of NVC before I imagine it was based on just active listening, yes,
yes, yes, yes, yes. That sometimes the concept of needs is very helpful, but to be listening only for needs to that category of it, you miss what is going on with the person, because you're always translating, and then the being with the other person never happens. So I'm trying to also say that that's those concepts were pointing to with Marshall, we're pointing to the kind of deeper space that one gets into when you empathize with somebody.
Yeah, that's why, with the empathy circle, we say just speak from any part of your body. There's no, you know, it's just whatever the person says. They can be judgmental, they can be anything. They can talk about their feelings. They can talk. Then all you do is listen and stay with them, with the with the sense that as people feel develop more trust in being heard, they kind of open up more. And that that that listening, that active listening, that empathic listening, is just going to open it up and and the relationship will get deeper just sort of naturally as well as you observe. Since you're in a group of four or five people, you're observing, you're learning from the others how they're doing it, and seeing what's happening. So it's, it's, it's very, very few rules, except staying with within that structure.
I love it. I love it. Yes, it makes perfect sense. I mean, it is in completely alignment with, or that's exactly what I'm hoping happens. Yeah,
yeah. So interesting. Your experience with NBCs, I've seen it from a different angle, where I did, as I mentioned, actually had some people who were sort of a good thing to the woke and and we sort of dialogued about that, and I'm seeing it pop up kind of all over it. I think, I think to, I don't know what we even call, sort of just the empathic way of being. Approach is, like needing vocabulary, right? How to describe it is, which is what you're trying to do. Because I'm getting a bit more conscious about writing about how to address these issues, to be more, you know, to explain them. And I think the one thing we do have is the empathy circle. Is a minimal viable product practice, right? This is, this is like the minimal basic structure that you know we anybody can sort of use and take part in, and then invite the different parties in the conflict into an empathy circle, which actually, in terms of NBC. I don't know what you think about this, but even Marshall objected to the Word and the term and nonviolent communication. He said, I don't really like it, but I kind of got stuck with it, and I thought, like Active list empathic listening would have been, you know, a better term for what, what it's about. So to be clear, that this is about empathy and empathic way of being. So might have helped to frame the that whole NBC, what's now? NBC, I don't know what you think about that.
Well, that's a different track somewhat, or attack Marshall, how I got into NVC. Well, let me think for a second. I want to see where I want to go with this. There is the there is a conscious way that one can attend to their experience when one is upset with the other person, which by one. Self transforms the experience so that one is not then blaming or speaking critically or judgmentally to the other other person. And that's one half of NVC is, how do you do that? If I'm thinking you're a jerk because you did this or that or something, or if I'm thinking with my wife, how self centered it is of her to be doing that, and she's done this a million times now, how do I get out of that? Because there is a kind of prison that happens for myself so that I'm reacting out of that judgment. And what Marshall found was a way that I can enter my own experience, which transforms that, and that's that's what he calls honesty, and which is one half of it, so that I can then do it and get out of the thing of, oh, she's doing that again. Well, let me see what is it? What's happening with me there, and then I can speak to her in a way which isn't blaming her or critical. So that's as important an aspect of nonviolent communication as is empathizing with it, so that saying that it would be an empathic way of being isn't doesn't cover that aspect. In fact, that's what Gordon found, was that Gordon left Rogers in order to spread this just as you're doing, but it was particularly what do you do? Because that wasn't in Rogers at all. What do you do when you're upset with the other person? How do you speak to them then in a way which is most conducive to their responding, non defensively. So that's what I would say, aspect to that, yes, yes. How
you are, how are you? How are you expressing yourself versus, you know, putting it on the other person, you're just saying what your own experience felt, experience is, and that's going to sort of deepen you're not putting it there. The to blame for whatever's happening is this. This is what's happening in me. And you're kind of sharing that felt experience and and Rose Marshall kind of focused on that, as well as Gordon, Thomas Gordon, and then you've also write about that in your book, too, about bringing it to your own experience and and I would say that that's that is part of the empathic way of being, right? It's like kind of being you can speak in an empathic way of being, which kind of helps, you, know, with getting to that deeper sense of an empathic way of being. It's like this. It there's a big role for the speaker too to contribute to that.
And what is unknown, and I like what you're you're saying there for me. So I'm trying to write about this in the NBC network right now, of what the difference is, what this divide is that that's a current thing. The phone call that I got interrupted with just that I put off is a meeting that I'm having with a colleague tomorrow, in which we're going to talk about this. But what I'm saying is that you get to, and it happens with empathy. And of course, you know that you get to what I'm going to call a deeper level of awareness, and you can feel it, and we don't have language for that. So since we don't have language for it, it isn't recognized or held up or or or appreciated. All that you just said there about the empathic way also works for oneself, because when you're there, you speak differently. You do the thing that you're saying. And I'm saying empathy creates that because people go deeper. They they speak angrily, judgmentally to begin with, and then the empathy does the thing that you're saying. I'd looked at what you were saying before, that it opens their own feelings open their own expands and the way that they talk is no longer blaming or judgmental. They are talking about their own. Experience, and when they talk about their own experience, then it makes it available, that the availability of the other to hear it increases dramatically,
and relationship becomes deeper, too deeper. Yeah,
yes, yes, yeah, yeah. So how to say that, how to promulgate that, how to disseminate that, how to bring recognition to it. That's what I'm attempting to do, and what and what I'm seeing is a common challenge right now with us, with what you're doing, and with what I and many, many other people are doing too,
yeah. And just, well, I guess I just see the empathy circle. I've kind of focused on the empathy circle as a starting point, is yes, and it's like, sort of the minimal viable for me, like practice that from here we can just keep improving, you know, finding other practices and other ways of doing it. And if everybody just learned empathic listening, or how to take part in an empathy circle of all 8 billion people just had that one skill, it'd be a big step, you know, in the right direction, is kind of what I'm seeing. And so, yeah, and so always looking at how to to kind of build and have, I don't know if we think about a movement, because we think in terms of movement building, do we want to build a movement for this and be bit more conscious about having a movement to and maybe people are more open to it now too, because of the political kind of chaos that's sort of happening. So I'm just sort of thinking,
Yeah, well, I'm being stimulated by what you're saying too. So here's my thoughts, may I? Is
that? Oh yeah, please. Okay.
See now, where were you? What you were just going with that. And what I was thinking was I empathy is interpreted by many people, including people who are critical of empathy as being soft, as being and empathy gets understood as agreeing that you don't have anything different than that you give over to the other person. It's being it's being understood as acquiescing. So that has to be countered in some way. And what was just coming to me was how to how to put words to how to say that something different happens when you empathize between the people that that's the thing. The idea that I'm having right now is that that's the thing to say and to broadcast in some way. So
you want to say there's something that's happening between people. There's a quality or something that's happening between people when they empathize and have a word, a term for that, a way of conveying that, a way of
conveying that, and even if not a word or something to to broadcast that, that something different happens when People empathize with another, they're both changed. It's like, it's, it's the thing, it's your experience with the six people.
Yes, there's a change that's happening when you emphasize yes, there's a change that happens in the relationship,
yes, yeah, uh huh, in both people, with both people. So empathy is not it is not empathizing is not acquiescing. Empathizing is not agreeing. Empathizing is changing what happens between people.
So you want to people are thinking that empathy is is sort of acquiescing or agreeing with people you're saying. It's not about that. It's about the quality of the relationship that that between people is, is that's, there's a change that happens there, and kind of trying to find the language to kind of express that, yes, yes, quality, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Yes, yeah. And it isn't exactly the change in the relationship, although that's correct, that's correct, without a doubt. It is that how to say, how to how to find words for how to say this that,
yeah, it's, well, I mean, you did say it, you did say it, it's the but it doesn't just confine to the relationship. The relationship changes is that people change.
So it's like more than the relationship. It's like deeper. It's about the way people change. In this state, there's a change that happens. You're trying to, like, address, name that change, yes,
yes. And the change that happens is that people and then that's where the words or don't have words. People expand. People are. People are in. People are increased. People are how do you say that it carries over and when somebody listens to it, the example you gave of somebody listening in the car earlier their whole day changes, yeah.
Like, how do you kind of name that change that happens in the quality, I don't know. And,
yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah,
yeah. Yeah. So what's, what are the words for describe science? Here it's kind of at the edge of trying Yes, yeah, find the the word yes, then it's not, it's not quite there, but you've got the experience, yes, you don't have the word to sort of describe the the experience. It's almost like a mystical experience, or Yes, or a communion, or something Yes, like yes,
it's a mystical experience, but we don't want to call it a mystical experience.
Mystical might be too for people to
airy fairy or somewhere, or or puts, puts off. But there is something, something dramatically different happens that you can feel, and it stays with you and changes you and changes how you are,
changing of the feeling like your your feelings change, and those feelings, those change feelings stay with you. So yes, it's kind of like naming the feelings. If you have a palette of feelings that kind of like openness, yes, a warmth, yeah, yes, yes. Soul opening, yes. Soul is opening to each other. It's like something,
yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah. Without saying, it's a change in feelings, because then we're into thing vocabulary, oh, Uh huh,
oh. So you're trying to transcend the feelings even that there's even a higher,
yeah, for quality, and when you said that you're more open and you're more alive. So that's why I was trying to go with a book is is, and the title of the book too. When I listen people speak and come alive, it's whatever aliveness is that happens as people are more alive. And maybe that's the word to focus on. I'm I'm brainstorming
here. You're alive. You're just feeling more alive.
Live, more vitality, more energy, but maybe just more alive. Well,
right Rosenberg like that, didn't he what? What's live in you? Or didn't He use that word?
He uses that yes, and I'm and he means it in exactly the way that I'm using it right now. So because that was one of the questions, you know, you ask, what's alive? What's alive for you? But that's a little bit different than the way that I'm using it. You become more alive, is what I'm saying, and that might be a point to use it, to point to it that when people empathize, they are different. They are changed in the empathizing, they are more connected. To their and each of them are more alive after the empathizing
and just sort of sitting with that space, you know, what's, what's in that space, yes,
yeah, what,
yeah.
Or there is sort of an openness, like, I just feel sort of an openness and, versus, you know, sort of the mind not right. The other part is more of a constriction feeling right. For every day, there's the feeling of constriction, all the stuff that needs to be done. And then there's, yeah, those are some of the experiences.
Yeah, and there's
sort of a healthiness to it too. Feels like healthy, like healthy. And
yes, I found the word salubrious, lubricious, salubrious, and I was going to call that and it means the, the meaning of it is more beneficial, healthy, beneficial. That's the, that's the meaning of the word. And I was wanting to expand that, but nobody knows what salubrious means, so I took it out of my book. I think I use it once to describe this, but yeah, there's a healthy, there's, that's, yeah, yeah.
So we're, you know, kind of shifting a little bit. Where are you? Where are you going next with, I mean, you with your with your work, you're doing workshops, you've got your book out now,
well, I'm finding that I have to mark it because I self published. So now it's two people immediately asked if they could translate it, one into Mandarin Chinese and one into Dutch, and then another has come forth, who wants to translate it into Japanese and and so I'm thinking, and I need to make a Kindle version of it, and then maybe I need to read it to do an auto audience, which is you suggested That too people who have been in my workshops can read my book and they can hear it because they are. They know what I am saying. So I'm thinking of that I need to put a YouTube out of my doing a workshop so that they can hear my voice, just as I'm speaking to you now and how I talk, and that may help them actually read the book to hear how I express things and how I say things. So I'm thinking of doing that. So that's where my emphasis is right now is, how do I get this out there, more my book out there, more into different languages, and I haven't embraced yet, because it's still new to me, the how to I join with other people who are doing it, like you, to expand it. So that's, that's where I am presently. Yeah,
have I did, you know, a YouTube search? I didn't. I saw a few things from you, but there wasn't a lot on YouTube. There was something so you'd been interviewed about your experiences with Marshall Rosenberg. I think that was the main thing. So that was that. So now that I've got to get this other round there, yeah, like your workshops, having some of those out there would be good. I mean, I would love to see it like, Yeah, always looking for ideas
and yes, and that may be the first thing, because I did well that'll be right there. At the top of my list is that this one was video, was recorded that I did in March, and it's two hours, so I might put that up. I have to get permission from everybody. I have to look at the whole thing to see if I like it for one and then I thought of I record my Monday night meetings as well, the drop in thing that goes on twice a week or twice a month. And I've also thought of putting one of those up. It's not two hours. The whole meeting is two hours. But when people go into breakouts, then those are not recorded. So it's you. It is an hour, hour and a half or so of me talking and I do a demonstration almost each time I have about 18 people who are coming. Used to be a group of about eight or so, but it's expanded. So that's what I'm puzzling over now, is what? What's the best way to use my energy now doing
these dialogs, you know, just recording, we can long form, yes, yes, expanded exploration, like we're doing, yes, yes, yeah. And nowadays, with ai, ai actually will harvest this. Yes, it'll go into the public record too, that when people do an AI search, it'll actually reference, Oh, wonderful. Yeah,
wonderful. And if you, I mean doing this with you, and you post some of this, or all of this, I
put it on YouTube. I'll put the whole thing on YouTube. Put it on, you know, my website, and I put it on my LinkedIn and on my Facebook pages. So, yeah, I spread it all over,
yeah, yes, yes, yes. And I'm hoping to to to if, if I can get my book into other, to other people's hands, that who will interview me to you know, I, I had this wonderful thing with a an interaction with a local anchor at CBS, la anchor who I used in My book. I used examples of her, because she does it when she interviews people. She wasn't an anchor at that time, she was a national correspondent, so I contacted her, and I said, jamie yuccas is her name, and she's now a CBS local la local anchor in the morning. I said, Jamie, how did you learn this? Did you learn it from Rogers? Because that's how I imagined everybody learned. And she said, No, I learned it from by necessity. Growing up in my family, it was a defensive thing that I learned how to do. And so then I asked her, when I published the book, I asked her if she would be interested in reading it, and she said yes, and she gave me her home address, and I sent her a copy of it, as I did with you too. Could I get an interview with would she be up for an interview at some point? You know, that's the kind of thing that I'm hoping for. A single interview there, then that really goes a long way.
Yeah, there's also a book club. I've done book clubs, empathy circle book club, somebody reads a chapter, and then you have a discussion about, we would do an empathy circle on the top of the we actually did that with Will William Miller's book, you know, we, I think we did one, you'd read a chapter, and then we had an empathy circle to discuss it, and then the next chapter, the next week. And we've also done it with some other books, couple other books too, using the empathy circle as the discussion.
That's a wonderful idea. I know of at least one book group who are reading my book, and maybe another one is starting, but I hadn't had the idea of my coming in then or after a chapter and doing and doing an empathy circle with it.
Yeah, we'd be glad to help you with, you know, setting that up. We have, we just were part of the seventh international conference, empathy conference, and it's, and, you know, we, they, they were interested in the empathy circle practice. So they had, it was an all day conference, but they had an hour and a half for doing the empathy circle. And I just put out a call to our facilitators. We had, you know, 1215, facilitators come so we could break into breakout rooms and hold, you know, circles. So, you know, our group is always glad to kind of help. Wow. You know, it's nice to have a facilitator the first couple times, but, but then once you do it, you don't need, you know, everybody knows how to do it. And, yeah, you just need a timekeeper. And yes, and it's so with Zoom, it's so easy to record. You can record a whole series, right? You just hit the record button and it's easy to upload it to YouTube. Glad to help out in any way like Thank you. Thank you. Yes, if your group is interested in doing some empathy circles to see how it works or even train them to we have in July, we have that free or by donation. An online, you know, four week training to this. Really, that's the and we're also doing, oh, maybe you'd like to speak in October 4, we have the empathy Summit. And it's the topic is, how do we build an empathy movement? So I'd like to get people just, you know, for 15 minutes, 1015, minutes, you just talk about your ideas of what we can do to build a movement. And I just try to get people to think in those terms of movement building, you know, to say there's a bigger picture here, and we need to be thinking of the organizational structures to, you know, create the, you know, make sort of a cultural transformation. You I can email you that just
you, you did originally, and I hadn't responded to it yet, because I was waiting for this to happen, but I'd be glad to to participate in that in October. Oh, great, yes, yeah. So keep we'll keep in touch regarding regarding that, because that, that is my whole, my whole thing has been with my book right now, but it is toward what you're saying, and to do the brainstorming about developing, and we could call that an empathy culture. Maybe that's the word to
so we call, yeah, culture of empathy is just where it's just empathy mutual. You're making it it's mutual. Empathy is just a core cultural value. You know? It's like, Oh, of course, we're the country has mutual empathy. I do see it as the way out of this polarization, you know, that we've got in the country so and maybe, maybe now, because I think there's sort of a space open, maybe for new, sort of, philosophically, it's it the political the political left sort of dominated the cultural space for the past, you know, decade or so, and now, with the right kind of bashing them, that there's sort of this, like, what do we do now, right, right? This is, how about trying this, you know, how about trying to bring all the sides together to have dialog, you know, using empathy. Yes, maybe, maybe there's a space and openness for this now.
So, you know, I had this wonderful trip to Washington, DC in at the end of September, our son, we married late in life, so our son is just in his 30s right now, and went to high school in Chicago, where civics is no longer taught. So I said, we need to have a week and go to Washington, DC. And we did, and it was a wonderful experience. So we went to the White House, and we went to the Congress, and we went to the memorials, and we sat in the Senate while they were debating and voting on extension the debt limit. This was in September, and it was incredibly exciting to see them do that. But what's coming to my mind? That's a background for they talk to each other sometimes. Now, who could I get in the Senate? Who could we get in the Senate available to learn how to do this and then introduce it among senators.
I love this brainstorms. I thought about that too. In fact, yeah, I'm thinking in terms of, we create a chapter based empathy movement, those chapters using these practices and one of the and they can each have an empathy tent, so you can set up local listening in your community, yes, and then also we build momentum, and then we go to the the Capitol Mall, and we set up the empathy tents, and we say, we want a bill that, you Know, Senators and Representatives have to have a week, a monthly empathy circle with the other side to talk about how to bridge the divide so that and then, and I've also, you know, we have the governor here of California, Gavin Newsom. So when he was running for office, I met him at a, you know, at one of the functions. And I said, Gavin, would you do an empathy circle with John Cox, who is the candidate? And he says, John Cox, the Republican candidate, says John Cox has no empathy, right? And I said, Well, if he would do it, would he would you take part in an empathy circle? He said, Oh, he he wouldn't take part. I said, Well, what if I did get him, you know, to take part on would you do it? And he kind of hemmed and hawed. And I did reach out to the other to the other side, and they were, it was right at almost the election time, and he was willing to do it and and then it was just not enough time to really get an empathy circle going. So it's like that. And I had thought of, you know, we have taken our empathy tent to the state capitol and set up on the Capitol, you know, lawn, and then empathy circles and stuff. So if we could get, like the governor, or, you know, even the local, you know, legislatures, to take part somewhere to get it started, exactly what you're saying. And if you have a contact in the Senate, that would be great. Because in, you know, in Barack Obama, he talked about empathy, you know, a lot in his campaign, and he said that he would choose a Supreme Court justice who had, you know, all these skills and was empathic. And it just a whole shit storm kind of got started in the Senate, and it was a whole debate about empathy, which, and, you know, Jeff Sessions was sort of leading this anti empathy, you know, campaign, because they're confusing it with sympathy, feeling sorry for people, yes, yes. And the whole debate was like they're talking past each other, you know? And I find if Republicans or conservatives know what we're talking about, there's just everybody having a voice, everyone feeling heard. They're much more open to the practice. It's just this a total misunderstanding. So yeah. So if you have any contacts in the Senate, it'd be great to, you know, get them involved. That's the kind of ideas we need, right? It's like, how do we bring it into the political and I ran for Congress. Is the empathy candidate here. If you go Edwin for Congress, you know.com, you'll see my campaign. And so I ran into Bay Area, I got 3% of the vote,
wow, wow. It
was against establishment. You know, yeah, what district it was? District eight. Eight. We had redistricting the last time, and kind of opened up always the time before last actually, I think we've so, yeah,
out of that, yes, but I do have, I have a contact, which I can't I'm not free to disclose that I'm trying to make connections with and so now that's putting that at the forefront of my mind too, that my intermediary, I want to contact the intermediary and see If I can give that person a boost to make the contact with the other person?
Yeah, it would be great. Yeah. I think that's that's what we need. Is just time to be thinking and strategizing and brainstorming and see where's the energy? How much time people have energy for taking on different projects and initiatives. So, you know, I'm all for that we do. So, yeah, and so anyway, for doing, you know, promoting your work and getting, I think these dialogs is good for to do more of I'm glad to, you know, talk more in the future too, if you have like, kind of specific areas, just to get the ideas, you know, and the experiences, is out there, and it's so easy to do now with Zoom. With
zoom, yes, yeah, yes. I'm glad to, if things come up for in your mind as well. I'm glad to, yeah, I think the thing that, well, it comes back to, I think what I want to point to and and want to work on and want to offer is, is What I'm now just going to call the mystery is, is the that something happens when you empathize with another that and the something happens that we don't have words for, in which people change and and change in a way in which they're more right now, just say more alive and and that isn't it, isn't it? Is something that they. Feel, and because we don't have words for it, and it is something that we feel, it doesn't get recognized, but it happens every time.
That's what I want to say, too. Yeah, so you're really wanting to focus on this aspect of naming the experience of what happens, and you're sort of just being in that space, kind of looking for the vocabulary and exploring that, yes, yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that experience, yes.
I was meaning to say that's the thing that I think one of the things that I contribute is attempting to bring awareness to that, and to then uplift it. So then,
so you bring your awareness to it, and then you can kind of uplift it. And
if we, if, if I, if I can introduce that, if I can introduce that so that it becomes a thing I mean, and I don't mean it in the thing way that, so that it becomes real for more people, that, Oh, the recognition. Oh, yeah, yes, this does happen. Oh, I've never had that before in my life, or when it does happen. Oh, this is different, and it isn't just subjective. It isn't just a soft feeling. It isn't just something that is a random occurrence. And, oh yes, I like it. But well, you know, it happens, and, no, it is something that is actually can be created and instilled in your life, yeah.
So this experience is something you can instill in your life, and it doesn't just randomly happen. You can do it by using empathic listening, yes, yeah. And you have a choice to Yes To do this,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes. Well, one
idea would be is, how about we hold an empathy circle on that topic, so we have, like, a two hour, even a three hour empathy circle. And the whole question is, is, what is the experience of what happens in in the when, in the empathy circle itself? Let's do it. Okay. Well, we can. I'm glad to schedule it whenever you want. Yeah, yeah, but I've been thinking about that too. I even thought of doing like an empathy circle marathon, where it'd be like an eight hour empathy circle. You could go off, go the bathroom and stuff, right? Have your food, but it would be a constant exploration of what is happening in this space, yes, and describing it, yeah, it could be recorded, to be recorded, but what is happening? You know what is happening. And especially as longer as we do it like, into the third or fourth or fifth hour, you know what is happening in our awareness and our consciousness is like, how is that changing, and what are you experiencing now in the present moment? And, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yes. Do you
have a couple of people that might like to take part? I mean, it's easy to organize. We just set a date and time. You know, I can invite people. Or if you have some people you want to invite, we just do that. I have, I think about that. But yes, we just need two or three more people and, you know, and I can do the recording and technical stuff, because I do a lot of it so good, and take part of the back end, you know, uploading it and stuff,
yes, and then I want to go to another idea, okay, and the other I mean, because what I would like to see as well, is a recording of the two people who are opposites, With the empathizing the six that you talked about who were on the other side, and then we don't have to do all doesn't have to be all six, but to have visible two people with who are diametrically opposed to each other, empathize and have that recorded that would be a piece that had for me, would be very, extremely valuable. I
do have a recording of a pro life pro choice group. Wow. There is an empathy circle with that I can I. Uh, but it could be, you know, yeah, it can set up any of those I had recorded too. There was a conflict in or what group it was, was always in extinction rebellion in Santa Cruz. So they, it was a group was in conflict with each other. So I would I for conflict, for deeper conflict. I'm familiar with the restorative circles by Dominic barter. So we do restorative empathy circles. I kind of, you know, sort of a modification, where the people in all the people who were in the conflict, we did a pre circle with them, where I just listened to their conflict, you know, and gave them 30 minutes, up to an hour, to talk about the conflict. Then we had an empathy circle where all the participants could come together and they use the empathy circle practice. And I recorded the pre circles. Were all recorded, but they didn't want a recording of this of the circle itself. So that was another, yeah,
yes, yes, yes, yes, right, yeah,
yeah, oh, I know what I'm going to try to do is, there's, I just did a I saw you looking at the time, but we're going for quite a while this, if you're just let me know anytime you need to stop. I can usually go for hours, so I have no limit. Is there was a an article about radical empathy in the Chicago times. I was writing about it, and he's talking, actually, about the woke kind of that NBC, they're using empathy, bringing people into a woke culture using empathy. And he's like, kind of objecting to that saying, you know, it's shutting down free speech and so forth. And I hadn't heard so much about people actually doing that. And just a couple days ago in that conference, I did hear someone who was taking that woke empathy, radical empathy concept, you know, using empathy to that well, if you empathize with people, you have to, you know, address the the victims of, you know, some, and that's what Empathy means, is you have to take the side of the victims, and which is not what I see, but I wanted to, I wanted to bring some of those people together too, and also in the NBC community. If you know any of the people who are on that two sides of the views of of empathy, you know the woke NBC and the other empathy based NBC holding empathy circles with them, if they're willing to have those recorded too, would be, would
be wonderful. And so I'm glad to know that,
yes, yes, I just offer that we're Yes, yeah, I'm glad to keep this going. Just send me an email with some dates and times, and that can be our next project is to do that empathy circle explanation even leave three hours, you know, for a deep dive to be the first time around, and just let me know dates and times and love to take part and support that
yes, yes, yes, yes, then I can invite you as well to if you would Like to see how my Monday night thing goes. You're welcome to drop in any time. I do that twice a month, on the second and the fourth Monday of each month, and I would have you let me know and I'll Okay,
yeah, they send me the invite, and you got a Zoom Room and dates and times and glad to we'd love to take part in that, to learn your practice, yeah,
to see how it goes anyhow, and what I do,
yeah,
well, good. Well, maybe I was
just gonna say, well, good. And you said, well, good,
yeah, bring up McDonald's two hours, which is a good amount of time to Yeah, yeah. This is a lot of fun. I just it's a real pleasure to be, you know, talking to someone who's been thinking about this for so long, yeah.
Well, and likewise, that you really have done what I have done what we were attempting to do in changes that kind of died out, and you've made it happen. So I'm, I'm admiring of what you've done, and yes, so it's my pleasure as well.
Okay, we'll keep that going. Just the next thing is, is just let me know, send me the info and the dates for that empathy circle. I think that would be really great. And we'd need to introduce them how to do the empathy circle, and I can send you the how tos for the exact structure. Too good. Okay. Well, I will say goodbye with. That. Yeah, Ellen, so it's great to talk to you. Likewise, See you. Bye.
