Empathy and Life-serving Boundaries On December 3rd, 2020 (Video Conferencing or Self-Paced)

Thursday, December 3, 2020
6:00 PM 8:00 PM

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Is this for you?

When you can offer empathy to another, your own needs for contribution and connection are met. You appreciate the opportunity to care for another in this way. But sometimes, there are other needs alive for you and when someone asks for empathy you want to say “no” with connection.

Or, you have found that sometimes offering empathy crosses boundaries for the other person. They may not have wanted empathy or to be in contact with their emotions at that moment. Learning to respect implicit or explicit communication regarding another’s boundaries is an important part of offering empathy.

What's it all about?

Mindful Compassionate Dialogue naturally supports you in creating the relationships you want by integrating the wisdom and skills of three powerful modalities: Hakomi, Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and Mindfulness.

Hakomi offers clarity about reactivity and healing, NVC offers a means for self-responsibility, skillful communication, and agency, and Mindfulness adds the stable attention and the clear focus needed to continuously refine your understanding and skills.

MCD is a system meant to provide access to agency, compassion, and wisdom through transformation and practice with 12 Relationship Competencies, nine foundations, and the intention to connect.

Empathy is relationship competency two and Life-serving boundaries is relationship competency 8.

Overview

In this workshop, you will be introduced to Life-serving boundaries and how they apply in the context of offering or receiving empathy. You will have the opportunity to deepen your understanding of what it means to truly choose to offer empathy and to say ‘no’ with connection when you don’t choose to offer empathy.

Self-connection is an essential aspect of offering empathy and you will learn strategies to support you in maintaining it.

You will learn why it’s important to not offer empathy at time or to say no to receiving empathy. You will learn boundary setting phrases for saying ‘no’ to receiving empathy.

Lastly, you will practice attuning to and responding to nonverbal communication regarding empathy and boundaries.

What to expect:

You will engage in conceptual learning, group discussion, experiential learning, and skills practice. Practice exercises will be done individually, in pairs, and in small groups. You will apply examples that you choose from your own life in each exercise.

Wise Heart has many dedicated students. Any given class series will be a mix of students who are new to Wise Heart and students who know the trainers and each other from previous courses.

Understanding the online format

Students will be signing in from their own location in real time, at the same time. We will be able to see and hear each other in little boxes on the screen. For visibility, it's important to have a light in front of you, not behind you. The technology allows for breaking up into pairs or small groups, which I can visit and check in with just as I would do in an in-person course.

You will be able to review a recording of the workshop for a full week after it ends. Students won't be shown on the recording, but can be heard, you can participate in discussions via chat if you don’t want your voice recorded.

You can also opt to take the series only through the recording.

You will receive a detailed handout as a part of the workshop.

Details:

Live attendance means:

Arriving on time to the workshop (6:00 p.m. PDT).

Attending and participating for the duration of the class (6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m., with a 5-minute break in the middle). It is very disruptive to come in and out of the workshop; please plan to attend by recording if you cannot stay for the full two hours of the workshop.

Consistent access to internet speeds and connectivity that support video conferencing (600kbps/1.2Mbps (up/down) for HQ video; 1.5Mbps/1.5Mbps (up/down) for gallery view).