Benefits of Empathy > Peoples Comments

Eva Scherer 

• Empathic touch is a healing touch

• Touch if it is empathic, can heal

• Empathy is to understand!

Jonathan Yonty Friesem 

• Feel belonging 

• Feel Validated

•  empathy - acknowledging ours and another person's feeling

Raul de Velasco

• Empathy maintains social cohesiveness

• Empathy helps to build trust

• Empathy is the foundation of morality

• Empathy motivates altruism and caring

• Empathy is a main factor in the acquisition of knowledge about others

• Empathy is a main factor in the acquisition of knowledge in general.

• Empathy allows us to acquire knowledge in general.

•  a benefit of empathy is that it may foster a virtuous empathic spiral.  To increase the number of empathizers that is not what Carl Rogers is saying; it may do it indirectly though as the empathee may now empathize with either the empathizer or other persons. I also makes the empathizer feel good by seen the good feeling he created in the empathee.

• Benefits of empathy for the empathee

• Benefits of empathy for the empathizer

• Benefits of empathy in mutual empathy (your topic!)

Joyce

• the social glue for all relationships, important for wellbeing.

• It fosters connections, it makes people feel better.

• It is good for social connections,

• it promotes growth and collaboration.

• It makes people feel good, there are pleasure centers in the brain are activated

• It reduces stress and it can create a positive social change
   

Marieke Kingma - Empathy Training Manual

• In Short, Empathy is a building block for a better society.

• Edwin Rutsch is the founder and director of CBCEC and thinks fostering empathy is important because it helps to resolve conflicts and improve the connection between each other. Furthermore it leads to a broader awareness and more openness to new insights.

• research has shown that being empathic with each other and listen to each other leads to conflict resolution and a bigger connection between individuals (Davis & Oathout,1987; Long, Angera, Carter, Nakamoto, & Kalso, 1999). Moreover empathy leads to a broader awareness (Rogers, 1982).

• fostering empathy is important because it reduces bullying, prejudice and racism and increases the will of individuals to help others in need (Dixon, 2011; Gordon, 2012; Davis, 1980; Eisenberg & Miller, 1987).

Rhonda Morton  Fosters health and well-being
 

Facebook Questions on Empathy Benefits

Being empathic with each other and listening leads to conflict resolution
Empathy as personal value gives a sense of purpose and a way of being in the world
Is the social glue for all relationships,
Feel Deeper Connection
Empathy motivates altruism
Feel Deeper Intimacy
Feel Deeper Presence
Empathy is the key to collaboration
Feel authenticity
Is a main factor in the acquisition of knowledge about others
Empathy is the foundation of morality
Empathy helps to build trust
Feel healing
Feel Acceptance
Empathy is a tool to reach beyond right and wrong
Empathy is a path toward consciousness
Empathy is a foundation for personal growth
Empathy maintains social cohesiveness
Feel belonging
Feel aliveness
Feel Less Negative Feelings
Is a key in the practice of fostering learning in others
is a source of creativity and innovation
Feel my Identity
Feel More Happiness
Empathy is foundational to permaculture
Empathy allows us to acquire knowledge in general. of knowledge in general.
Feel More Calm & Relaxed
Feels Damn Good!!!
Empathy is a healer and truth seeker
Enables us to care for one another
Feel Seen

Jennifer Jessen Fosters change
I believe that ~EMPATHY~ is the ONE and only human resource that is required to create pathways in life and it's unlimited, immeasurable benefits have the potential to change those worldly issues that desperately, require change. JPJ

Scott Catamas  Healing agent for emotional pain,
EMPATHY is the healing agent for emotional pain, and for most relationships!
 

Bryan Wilson Bramlett   Feeling of community and togetherness

When someone really empathizes with me, I feel like he or she has my back and will be there if I really need them. It feels damn good to know there's support out there in a world where most people are out to do their own thing.

Edwin Rutsch
 I'm wondering how would you boil that down. I'm looking for some organizing heading. Is it that when people empathize with you that you feel support. So 'Feeling Supported' is the benefit..

Bryan Wilson Bramlett
Empathy builds a feeling of community and togetherness Edwin Rutsch that sorta boils it down lil differently than what I first said

Paula N Keith   We Feel a deep sense of coherence and well-being.

Empathy is the key ingredient for relational attunement and attachment. "Interpersonal relationships that are attuned promote the growth of integrative fibers in the brain. It is these regulatory fibers that enable the embodied brain to function well and for the mind to have a deep sense of coherence and well-being." Patty de Llosa, author, The Neurobiology of “We”, Parabola Magazine, 2011, Daniel Siegel, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center.

Robert Sornson We Feel connected and we are not alone.
When someone offers us empathy we are reminded that we are not alone. We are noticed by and connected to others. 
When we are internally calm and secure, and we are able to see beyond ourselves to observe the experience of others, we are connected by our choice. By choosing to notice the experience of others we are approaching the opportunity to serve.

Edwin Rutsch  Benefit of conflict resolution that leads to deep connection and love.
Has a benefit of heading off conflicts before they even happen.

Renu Garg empathy teaches self-empathy
I think the greatest benefits of empathy is teaching self-empathy to help individuals reparent themselves with empathy and compassion so that we can find ways to be empathetic to our children and others. if our children are raised with more empathy the lack of empathy and all of the strife and dysfunction and need to numb emotions and pain is not needed....it starts in the home and then in our communities and schools......most of us do not have self-compassion and empathy and thus empathy is hard to receive let alone give....to change the patterns which are engrained over decades from a shame based society takes enormous amounts of empathy but not impossible

Ian Reifowitz inspires selfless action of a kind that can make positive change.
Empathy is about understanding someone else's perspective, completely and fully, even though it is different from your own. It is about attempting to perceive a situation -- or life in general -- as that other person would perceive it. In short, it really is about putting yourself in someone else's shoes. That kind of empathy, hopefully, inspires selfless action of a kind that can make positive change.

Anna Gribova  it helps us to understand each other, aids communication
empathy is the only way to truly connect to everything live on the planet, not only to humans (and hopefully beyond our planet .
it helps us to understand each other, aids communication (with humans and non-humans).
it helps us to grow and expand through experiencing experiences of others as well as our own.
it promotes helping each other and changing world for the better because empaths suffer when others do.

Chloe Weaver  empathy removes the barriers of isolation

So I'd like to quickly say that as mentioned, empathy removes the barriers of isolation, and helps form a collective consciousness. Through this consciousness there is unlimited potential for healing, as well as growth. By joining the collective spirit we can gain understanding which removes us from our own narrow experience toward compassion for all living things. I believe this is how we can avoid most of the strife that we experience.

Vernon Huffman
Empathy is a rhythmic entrainment of the emotions. All mammals have the mental capacity for empathy, but it can be developed or suppressed in certain circumstances. Predators rarely feel empathy for their prey, for example.

Soldiers have to be trained not to empathize with the enemy, but that training can fail. This can lead to compassionate behavior which undermines the destructive intent of war, such as the Christmas Truce of WWI. It is also connected to PTSD and the high rate of suicide among veterans, police officers, and others engaged in state sanctioned violence.

When we appreciate and understand the feelings of others, we become compassionate, accepting their feelings as a motivation for action. In the best of all worlds, this leads to collaboration, working together for the best interests of all. This is the ultimate conflict resolution tool.

" When human interaction includes large doses of empathy, many desirable results occur: insight, stress and anxiety relief, feeling understood and valued, improvement in mood, equanimity, reduced impatience, increased capacity to be generous and understanding of others, renewed energy, and more". James R. Iberg

Wes Bertrand  - Feel Seen

Benefits For giving Empathy:
Builds trust, thus allows for transparency of oneself

• Allows authentic self to come forward (rather than defenses of self, or masks)

• Enables focus on what truly matters between human beings, i.e., honest expression of what's alive in them

• Takes one out of the realm of life-alienating communication (e.g., NVC's four Ds--Diagnoses, Demands, Deserve-oriented thinking, Denial of responsibility)

• Can gain real understanding of another

• Enables clear and helpful expressions of caring and concern

• Sends message to another of acceptance (rather than apathy or opposition)

• Enables remedies and solutions to arise naturally

• Can foster an intimate connection

Benefits For receiving Empathy:
Builds trust, thus allows for transparency of oneself

• Allows authentic self to come forward (rather than defenses of self, or masks)

• Enables one to feel accepted and understood--really heard (rather than being moralistically judged)

• Can gain a nourishing sense of visibility, i.e., being seen for who one wants to be and really is

• Can feel satisfaction about how one is being perceived and viewed

• Dissolves defenses and promotes attuned relaxation with self and others

• Can foster the practice of self-empathy

• Enables feeling cared for and even loved

• Can cultivate a deep appreciation for human connection and understanding

• Enables remedies and solutions to arise naturally

• Can foster intrinsic motivation

Benefits of Empathy for systems, when practiced consistently:
 Builds trust, thus allows for transparency of persons and reveals the systemic constraints on them Invites individuals to be fully real, genuine, rather than to wear masks and play roles

• Shifts focus from following rules and policies to identifying feelings and meeting human needs

• Enables systems to work for individuals, instead of demands that individuals work for systems

• Dissolves systemic barriers to understanding and intimacy about what's really alive in persons

• Makes coercion and punishment impossible

• Makes sacrifice of individuals impossible

• Enables win/win interactions, in which everyone feels heard, understood, and is respected

• Generates a functional system that enables everyone to flourish, which replaces a dysfunctional one that sacrifices human needs

• Fosters lasting systemic changes that ensure safety, security, and dignity for everyone

• Enables each person to be 100% responsible for themselves, their thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, and actions

Katie participated in an empathy circle last night in Michigan with some peace and freedom lovers, and here's her notes from what some in the group related about the benefits of empathy. It's clear that each person gets something special out of the experience, in addition to the overarching themes:

• "For those who were at the circle, I found tremendous value in our interactions last night. I felt heard and felt that I was able to hear others in a way that I've never known...and it felt amazing." -- First time practicing NVC in a group! :)

• "Sometimes I look at things and I immediately choose sides. If I can look in an empathetic way I am looking to more understanding, and see more clarity and choice."

• "The biggest benefit is the connection and feeling love, for me at least."

• "Connection/balance/centering/equanimity/communion."

• "Fewer resources and less time are utilized addressing disputes and struggles for clarification/understanding."

• Efficiency? This comment was made in relation to systems.