Background

Empathy is the practice of ways that nourish the growth of self-mastery or awareness in ourselves and others.

Empathy is the sense that we are the same, we are all somewhere along the growth path to becoming continuously conscious.

With empathy we see everyone as equal. We know we are unable to judge our relative positions on the human growth path, so we accept what is right now.

The Empathy Practice

• the practice of relating to yourself and others with acceptance and compassion
• aspiring to experience the same caring and compassion for every person
• the understanding that we are all equally human
• arises from the understanding that the growth of every one of us is equally important and valuable for human evolution and happiness
• acknowledges the empathic centres of the human brain as the most precious structures on Earth, and  therefore we learn to become constant gardeners of these empathic structures.
• aspires to create a nourishing growth environment for every person we are with, no matter what their state or behavior
• doesn’t expect immediate change in the outer behaviour of others as a result of the practice
• comes from the understanding  that our empathy will nourish and heal others, and allows the effects to unfold in their own time.

Benefits of the Practice of Empathy

• we feel happy! Being a nourishing environment for ourselves and others releases our “happiness biochemistry”
• stress and fear reduce and disappear – we have less cortisol and adrenalin in our blood, our health improves, bad cholesterol drops, sugar balance improves, we have less mood swings
• our empathic brain grows and we find it easier and easier to feel empathy
• we like people more, and they like us better too
• we are less affected if people don’t like us
• we become less reactive to others misbehaviour; we feel less outrage, annoyance, irritation, anger
• we experience less criticism, pride, shame and guilt
• we have more energy
• we feel more freedom
• we have more energy for the actions that matter to us
• our work goes better
• we sleep better

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 7:05 am and is filed under The Practice of Empathy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.