Oh, here’s a great book you’ve got to read: The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society. Primatologist Frans de Waal works with our cousins, the great apes, and has been able to identify empathy and emotional awareness in very helpful ways. Dr. de Waal sees empathy as an inheritance from our ancestors (primate and otherwise), and he sees empathy as the organizing center … Read More
Right now, I’m re-reading an amazing book by the historian, philosopher, poet, and funny kook Jennifer Michael Hecht. The Happiness Myth: Why What We Think is Right is Wrong. If you’re feeling troubled about the current state of the world, and confused by what seems like weekly changes to scientific theories about happiness, this book is just what the doctor ordered. There is so much to … Read More
Becoming accurate with your empathy The crucial second aspect of empathy, Empathic Accuracy, helps you identify and understand emotions in yourself and others. This skill can make your experience of empathy much more precise and workable! Let’s revisit the six aspects so that we can understand where Empathic Accuracy fits into the larger picture: Emotion Contagion: Before empathy can take place, you need to sense that … Read More
An empathic approach to empathy! In my book and audio learning program, The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life’s Most Essential Skill, I focus on my Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model, starting with the first, which has a strange name: Emotion Contagion. Because empathy is first and foremost an emotional skill. Before empathy can take place, you need to sense that an emotion … Read More
Your emotions are essential aspects of your awareness, your intelligence, your social skills, and your ability to communicate — and each one has a specific purpose. Every emotion has a specific function and a specific action for you to complete so that it can move back and make room for your next emotion, your next thought, and your next idea. As we explore emotions as distinct … Read More
Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
When I talk about The Language of Emotions, one of the central ideas I share is that all emotions are useful. If you can approach them with care and ask them the right questions, there aren’t any “negative” emotions. Every emotion has a specific function, and all of them are important and instructive Some emotions (such as hatred and panic), need to be handled with care, … Read More
It’s normal for emotions to work together One big misunderstanding happens regularly with anger – which many people misidentify as a “second-hand emotion.” People have a lot of mistaken ideas about anger, but this is one of the most unfortunate. This second-hand mistake is a very easy one to make if you don’t understand how anger will arise to protect you and your other emotions (and … Read More
Conscious Questioning for Anxiety A practice to help you work directly with your anxiety Anxiety has a purpose and a function, and it’s a really important one. Anxiety helps you prepare for the future, and it acts as your task-completion and deadline-focused emotion. Anxiety is an action-focused emotion, so expressing it when it’s intense can be pretty tricky — it can run you in five different … Read More
Art is a specific empathic healing practice Artistic expression is a wonderful and soul expanding thing for anyone, but it has a particular healing quality for anyone who wants to understand and work with emotions and empathy, because art helps you express and channel emotions intentionally. Empathy is first and foremost an emotional skill, and learning how to work with and understand emotions is a vital … Read More