Trauma & Art

A drawing, an exercise and a review from a podcast on empathy

“Without expanding empathy beyond our in-groups and borders, civilization as we know it will not survive. Empathy training is the key transformative education” (Dr Helen Reiss, The Empathy Effect)

Signing a vision contract

All animals have primitive purposes and directionality, but we humans also seem to have what one may call a soul purpose, a deeper desire that is connected to our individual signature and what we came here to be and do. One way of remembering our deeper soul longings is maybe to create our own vision contract, a contact with ourself, and as Kerry Tepedino suggests sign it and put it up where we can see it each morning. It is perhaps more important than contracts we sign with others, like with our employers, who may not remember the terms or even their signing and maybe the fact that often they delegate others to sign their contracts….. Yet many of us live our lives bound by roles and agreements that do not serve or protect us…. So, as the year comes to an end perhaps writing out our statement can increase our agency and clarity and inspire action for change

On empathy from Insights at the Edge. Sounds True, December 18^th, 2018)

I really look forward to Insights at the Edge series, and this week one of the talks was about empathy. Dr Helen Reiss has created a process to help people regulate or tap into their empathic capacity. She and Tami Simon discuss the importance of the training of empathy in education, the medical community and other fields, emphasizing why these skills are necessary for the survival of human civilization. She talks about how important empathy training is in schools for young children, especially when it comes to developing empathy for children who are different and to teaching children to “connect across differences.” Dr Reiss notes that the neuroscience of empathy suggests that humans are wired for empathy and hardwired to appreciate emotions, and also, that the suffering of others and their emotions ‘land on our own brains through specialized neurons and mirror circuits and shared neural circuits in our brains’. The process she has developed uses the acronym EMPATHY. Briefly, “E” stands for “eye contact and discerning of eye colour”. She says that from the moment an infant opens its eyes and can see its mother the bonding hormone, oxytocin, is released when the two gaze at each other and that this physiologic hormonal response doesn’t end at infancy. So, through eye contact and meeting someone’s gaze, we actually, first of all, show that we’ve actually met that person, and also, findings from scientific research suggest that oxytocin is released, Then “M” stands for “Muscles of facial expression.”, which suggests that peoples’ faces are roadmaps of emotions, and therefore, it is important to look people in the face when we are talking to them to detect their feelings and respond in an attuned way. “P” stands for “Posture.” Dr Reiss suggests that the most important thing is to be at eye level when talking to someone, not looking down or up to them to avoid a mismatch in our ability to connect. “A” is for “Affect” and T is for “Tone of voice.” She notes that we convey much more than 85 percent of what we’re saying to our tone of voice. We can use the same exact words, but they can mean different things, depending on our tone. “H” stands for “Hearing the whole person” because as she explains, for instance, ‘in healthcare, if we were just listening to a patient talking about their ailment or their injury or their disease, we might lose a focus on hearing them as a whole person; what’s going on in their lives….. so we don’t lose sight of the bigger picture’. Finally, “Y” stands for “Your response, which has to do with asking questions like: “Are you comfortable with this person? Are you in tune? Does it feel like everything is going well?” Because most feelings are mutual, and if you’re feeling good, chances are the other person is. But if you’re……just feeling a little out of sorts, you might be picking that up from the other person’. Finally, they touched on the state of incivility, bullying, taunting others, lack of sensitivity to difference and the corrosive effects of these kinds of deeply troubling norms that can escalate to hate crimes. She concluded that ‘I think many people recognize these tactics as being not just offensive, but really morally challenged, and we need to have an answer to these kinds of new norms that we’re seeing every day on television and in the news, and a call for people to unite as one humanity’.  (https://www.soundstrue.com/store/weeklywisdom?page=single&category=IA)

(Edited)

I have just come back from a short, but seemingly long trip that involved a lot of travelling and things to do, all crammed in the span of a few days. With a sigh of relief the first thing I saw on my return was all five adolescent cats, snuggling in the basket next to our front door. Our cat also appeared several hours later, a bit thinner but in good shape. I went back to my father’s hometown to visit my mother’s grave, and also, sort out matters that I had not tended to after her death two years ago. Apart from the running around from office to office and place to place I visited the burial site and places I had existed in my early adolescence and youth. I re-embraced grief and the permancy of her death and other things, and I also encountered the very younger me in the same spatial contexts, but from the place of where I stand and what I know today. And it felt as some letting go, integration or / and expansion were taking place. Had I known in previous times what I know now I would probably have done a lot of things differently, but we often don’t just know when we are in the midst of something that there are probably more options and that dynamics are way more complex and things are more interconnected than we imagine.

I am posting some photos that I took from a mobile phone. I had planned on taking more, especially from the burial site, which has a stunning view of the town and the sea, but it was rainy and we encountered mist as we drove further up. The bridge, designed by a famous architect, which joins one part of the mainland to the other is awe inspiring. Whereas, on the island where I live it is common to see stray cats everywhere, here we met a lot of stray dogs instead, especially, in certain beach areas, and maybe because it’s the Xmas season they reminded me of Jack London’s story of White Fang and the metaphor of the white dog of goodness and the black dog of badness, a story I have referred to in other posts. Anyway, on returning home and after reorganizing my files and PDFs on my computer screen, which had been kind of scrambled and mixed up (hopefully nothing too important has been lost since I had remembered to back up the important stuff and what I was writing thanks to a very recent podcast I had listened to by Kelly Notaras about the necessity to engage in backing up one’s work often…. just in case…). As I was reading emails and newsletters I came across the story of the wolf of love and the wolf of hate in Rick Hanson’s newsletter, Just One Thing. He writes: ‘I once heard a teaching story in which an elder, a grandmother, was asked what she had done to become so happy, so wise, so loved and respected. She replied: “It’s because I know that there are two wolves in my heart, a wolf of love and a wolf of hate. And I know that everything depends on which one I feed each day’. We all have both wolves in our hearts and how we are in the world depends on which one we are nourishing more at any given time. He writes that we all have these dogs because we evolved them, since both wolves were necessary to keep our ancestors alive. He explains how ‘until just 10,000 years ago, for millions of years primates, hominids, and early humans lived in hunter-gatherer groups that bred mainly within the band while competing intensely with other bands for scarce resources. Therefore, genes got passed on that promoted better cooperation inside a band and better aggression between bands…..’ and that ‘researchers have found that about 12-15% of hunter-gatherer men died in conflicts between bands – compared to “just” the 1% of men who died in the many bloody wars of the 20th century’. In many ways it is natural to fear those different than ourselves or those that belong to other groups. Rick Hanson mentions that ‘it’s natural to fear the stranger – who, back in the Stone Age with no police around, was often a lethal threat. The related impulse to dehumanize and attack “them” also worked well (in terms of passing on genes) for millions of years. Today, you can observe the wolf of hate all around us, in acts of thought, word, and deed. For example, as soon as we see others as “not my tribe,” ……. And then if we feel at all threatened or mistreated or desperate, the wolf of hate jumps up and looks for someone to howl at or bite…..’ but, ‘while the wolf of hate was vital back in the Serengeti, today it breeds alienation and anger, ulcers and heart disease, and conflicts with others at home and work’.

Moreover, today, we are more interconnected than ever through the interdependency of our economies, technology, extensive travelling and via the internet. As Rick Hanson writes ‘when a flu mutation in Hong Kong can become a worldwide epidemic, when bank problems in Greece roil the global economy, when carbon emissions in one country heat up the whole world – when we fear or dehumanize or attack “them,” it usually comes back to harm “us.”  So what are we to do? Well, maybe we can start by allowing space for others perceived as different from us to exist in peace. Viewing diversity as interesting rather than threatening can bring about more harmony. Sitting with our fears and anger is another huge thing. Recognising that we feel these things and exploring causality or the origins of these fears and tendencies is a huge step. Could it be our early experiences and conditioning or ignorance that makes us judgmental, fearful, hateful, aggressive and even lethal? Once we become aware and present there is a higher chance of responding in more effective and less aggressive ways. During the trip something came up that required of me to set boundaries and speak my truth, but because I was feeling indignant and hurt and because I was shouted at, and as we all know shouting can often trigger underlying fear in us, I resorted to a more aggressive stance than I had intended to when I had entered the funeral home. If I had allowed a little time before responding I would have felt more centred and less threatened, which then could have allowed me to speak my truth, set boundaries and respond in a firm, but less confrontational way. For instance, in another context, while I was getting papers sorted out the employee assisting me made some inappropriate comment even though she was a stranger to me, but because I was calm and centred I focused on the good, the fact that she was also doing her work, and so I allowed the indiscretion or insensitivity to pass.

We also need to feed the wolf of love to fend against our aggression, impatience, resentment or anger, and in order to increase our patience, centeredness, kindness, courage, sense of safety, inner strength and resilience.  Rick Hanson suggests some ways of feeding the wolf of love like ‘taking in the good of everyday experiences of feeling seen, appreciated, cared about, even cherished and loved…… by practicing compassion for ourselves and others….. by recognizing the good in other people,,,, by sensing the goodness inside our own heart, and by letting that sense of truly being a good person – not a perfect person, but a good person – also sink in’. Finally, we can take in the tons of good that is happening in the world instead of being defeated by the darkness and the hate that we witness or the depressing News we are bombarded with.  Quoting Rick Hanson ‘ we need to hold on to what we know to be true in spite of the brain’s tendency to focus on threats and losses, and in spite of the age-old manipulations of various groups that play on fear and anger – that feed the wolf of hate – to gain or hold onto wealth and power’. For it is only through connection, respect for each other’s right to exist authentically, and honoring the qualities that Creation has endowed each one of us with that we can be strong, healthy and happy, As, J.K. Rowling writes: ‘we are as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided’. Aggression, competition, violence, segregation, greed, control and manipulation, but also, ignorance, at a mass level have brought us as a species and the planet we are part of to a very precarious place. Maybe then the healthiest and most intelligent thing to do is to explore a different and more advanced way of being and doing. Maybe we need to re-examine cultural practices and values we take for granted and cultivate our capacity for empathy. And maybe we need to honor our authenticity and take a stance and stand up in any way we can against the massive bullying and misleading. I will end this longish post with a quote from Van Jones. He says that “I don’t think an authentic stand comes from your head. I think an authentic stand comes from your heart. If your child is sick, right? Something happens in you to make a miracle, to make a miracle. It has nothing to do with the facts. And that’s all that’s required is your child my child your grandchild, your child’s child’s child – they’re in peril. And if you start thinking about it, you’ll sit down. But if you feel it you’ll stand up! That’s the amazing thing about this thing. It’s that it’s when you stand up you license other people to stand up. Now you standing up by yourself don’t make a dad-gum bit of difference in the rational world. You’re just one fool standing up. But if you’ve ever seen a standing ovation, it starts with one fool standing up. And then pretty soon the whole stadium is standing up. And it’s a different moment!”