In the world of nonviolent communication where empathy is one of the central concept, empathy occurs when a person feels felt. When empathy occurs, the person

In the world of nonviolent communication where empathy is one of the central concept, empathy occurs when a person feels felt. When empathy occurs, the person who is experiencing the feelings, and now feels felt and understood on the level of the feeling, has the resources to digest / process, understand, and move forward / shift. Learning how to give empathy to others and self is one of the most important outcomes of the training. What makes it difficult to teach is that it is less of an intellectual process, it is closer to a felt presence experience, and very simple. I have an roleplay exercise called “not empathy” going through the standard cultural approaches like telling a similar story, or telling the feeling person that whoever wronged them is the bad guy/gal, or reminding them how valuable their experience is as learning or that soon they’ll be laughing from the distance of time. None of these is empathy and none provides the space needed for the shift.