Empathy can be compared to surfing. The thrill of riding the wave is so exhilarating that you forget everything else. You live in the moment when nothing else matters. You are so intent on riding the wave perfectly that you and the wave become one. Pain and worry disappear, replaced by euphoria akin to flow. When engaging in self-empathy, you want to strive for this kind of total presence for yourself.
Self-empathy is being present to yourself. Pure presence to what is alive in you at this moment, bringing nothing in from the past. Not your mind chatter, but what you are feeling and needing at this moment. You can bring no thinking in from the past. If you surf, you’d be better at empathy because you will have built what it is about into your body. Being present and getting in with the energy that is coming through your body in the present moment. It is not a mental understanding.
The words you use are not empathy, they are the pointers toward empathy. Self-Empathy is when you feel the connection to what’s alive within yourself without judgment.
This training provides numerous experiences giving and receiving self-empathy by connecting to needs and thus coming to an enhanced self-understanding. This may be followed by a request to yourself or forming the intention to make a request of another.
- The benefits are relief from stress and the ability to understand what you really want.
- Clarity of action occurs.
- Growth then comes from every situation.
- This playshop is excellent for those with or without NVC experience.