Nancy Margulies
(nancymargulies.com)
joined this Empathy Circle and made some Mindscapes of the discussion.
"Nancy facilitates visioning sessions and presents ideas using her
unique form of graphic representation, Mindscaping. After decades of
visually recording she developed skills in event design and
facilitation."
Erika Harris: Empathic Diversity:
Models are a wonderful way to distill theory and implement practice. I
understand that our circle is focused on the Rogerian model of
reflective listening. When I pondered my self-critical "melt-down"
yesterday, I gleaned some insights:
(1) I am still astonished by how healing
and nurturing your genuinely empathic response was to me. Please hear
my heart's deep gratitude to you Lidewij, Alice and Edwin. Everyone
should be so blessed to have access to such a caring community (which, I
believe, is one of the outcomes/functions of the User Guide);
(2) The source of the hurt and shame I experienced yesterday came
from not only struggling within the confines of reflective listening,
but also that my own innate and practiced "style" of empathy is, a bit,
at odds with reflective listening.
What reflective listening calls "projection" is precisely the
thing clients pay me to provide them with... a 1:1 practice I've built
upon my strength and ability to "amplify"... to hear beyond and
underneath what is spoken.
The reflective listening model calls my gift a block. Can you
see my dilemma? A model that is designed to bar judgment has, in fact,
"judged" the good fruit I bring. It took me several weeks to get clear
enough to be able to articulate this realization. I tried so hard to
adapt to this model that I demeaned my own personal, and viable, form of
practiced empathy. Reflective listening is ONE of MANY modes of
empathic intelligence/listening/practice.
On behalf of those who do not naturally experience empathy as a
clinician or scholar, I think it's important that we not become overly
zealous with a single approach. It denigrates the legitimacy of more
metaphysically-oriented folks like myself. There is value in my
irrepressible tendency to grasp the sub-text and to hear beyond, above
and below what is spoken. It's been a great discipline for me to try to
restrain that tendency, but it comes at the cost of constantly wearing a
girdle that leashes a big part of who I am.
I don't know the useful application of this discovery, but still felt
the need to share it with you. The fact that I can do so, without fear,
is the very reason I have come to love each of you so much.
Thank you for expanding, challenging and accepting me.
