Empathy Circle Café Online - We Listen and Speak Freely

What is An Empathy Circle?

An Empathy Circle is a structured dialogue process that effectively supports meaningful and constructive dialogue. The basic process can be fairly easily learned in about 15 minutes and it is a lifelong practice to deepen. An Empathy Circle increases mutual understanding and connection by ensuring that each person feels fully heard to their satisfaction. The practice is the most effective gateway practice for learning, practicing and deepening listening and empathy skills, as well as, nurturing an empathic way of being.

Benefits of the Empathy Circle Practice

Implementation

• Easy to DoDo it anywhere and anytime. No requirements or prerequisites.
• Free It requires no money investments whatsoever.
• Easy to Learn and Teach
  the basic practice is easily learnable. With a short instruction, 2 or more people can begin within a few minutes.
• Multiple Purpose
  it can be used for personal goals like solving a conflict in families, or it can be a facilitation tool for trainers, etc.
• Most benefit for Least Amount of Effort get significant results in the minimal amount of time.
• Multiple Contexts
  A circle can be started quickly in any context: family, friends, work, community, school, churches, book clubs, politics, etc.
• Anyone Can Do It
  no need for a PhD in psychology to get to the core of important issues.
• Easy to ReproduceEmpathy circles can be easily learned and implemented which means they can spread rapidly.
• A Gateway Practice
• This practice is a gateway or foundation for many other practices and processes.
• For example practices like: Counseling, Nonviolent Communication, Focusing, Motivational Interviewing, Mediation, Conflict Resolution, Marriage & Family Therapy, Human Centered Design, etc
• Expandable
• The basic empathy circle can be expanded on. Like a container it can strengthened.
• For example, you can build on the basic empathy circle by adding different exercises such as intention setting, check in, at the beginning of a circle.

Personal Benefits

• It Feels Good It feels good to take part in meaningful and constructive dialogue. It feels good to be able to fully express oneself and feel heard. It feels good to listen to someone else and feel one is contributing to their well being by listening to them.
• Nurture an Empathic Way of BeingYou become more open, authentic, caring, trusting, grounded, stronger, and able to see the humanity of everyone. It enhances quality of life and overall well-being.
• Build Empathy and Other Skills
• Empathy skill: Empathy is a skill that can be learned and needs to be practiced, an Empathy Circle gives you a structure to do it.
• Other skills: communication, reflective listening, empathic listening, cognitive, conflict management, emotional intelligence, etc.
• Build Closer RelationshipsDevelop trustful and deep relationships with empathy circle participants and others.
• Brings ClarityGet a clear understanding of your own and others perspectives.
• Clarify Your Thinking It's an opportunity to express your thoughts and have then reflected to you. It get's the thoughts out of your head. You see how they are taken in by others, which helps test them. Also having this reflecting by another, is like having 2 eyes on the thoughts, which gives a sort of binocular vision and depth perception. This helps clarify and deepen your thoughts.
• Share and Purge in a Safe SpaceA place to safely 'purge' your pent up feelings. When participants come into a circle, they often have pent frustrations and up need to express themselves and feel heard and seen. The circle offers a space for that.
• Allow Space for Creative SolutionsOnce participants feel heard and seen, they feel more space for creative thought. They are able to create they own solutions.