Picture credit - galeriakoganamaro
Day 38 - Empathy
17 May 2020
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sirurp@gmail.com
My learning for the day
Today I want to summarise two TED talks on Empathy. The first talk is about invisible superheroes. The second talk is about what the speaker learned about compassion in the face of death and dying
Talk 1 - Trash cart Superheroes
Speaker - Mundano, Graffiti artist and Activist
Summary -
Mundano is a Brazilian street artist and activist whose work makes people stop and think about the issues swirling around them everyday. His initiative is an example of empathy in action to build pride in garbage collectors.
Our world has many superheroes. Most of them are invisible. For example, the Catadores, workers who collect recyclable materials for a living.
Catadores from Brazil collect 90 percent of all the waste that's actually recycled. There are over 20 million Catadores worldwide.
In 2007, Mundano began using his graffiti skills to paint "carroças," the wooden and metal carts used by the trash collectors, to make these superheroes ‘visible’.
He started a collaborative movement called Pimp My Carroça, a large crowdfunded event to help Catadores. Catadores are assisted by well-being professionals from healthcare. They also receive safety shirts, gloves, raincoats and eyeglasses to see in high-definition the city, while their carroças are renovated by his incredible volunteers.
Carroças is an amazing mobile art exhibition.
In two years, over 170 catadores, 800 volunteers and 200 street artists and more than 1,000 donors have been involved in the Pimp My Carroça movement, whose actions have even been used in teaching recycling at a local school.
I am sure his act of empathy inspires you to use your talent to provide visibility to all the invisible superheroes.
Talk 2 - Compassion and the true meaning of empathy
Speaker - Joan Halifax
Summary -
Buddhist roshi (Spiritual Leader) Joan Halifax has been working, for the past 40 years, with people at the last stage of life. Every year, Joan takes clinicians into the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau to run clinics in these very remote regions where there's no medical care whatsoever.
Joan’s insights on compassion - Compassion is the capacity to see clearly into the nature of suffering; It is a realisation that I'm not separate from this suffering; it is an aspiration to transform suffering and at the same time it is about not getting attached to the outcome.
Pity, moral outrage and fear are Compassion’s enemies. Many of us think that compassion drains us, but it is something that truly enlivens us.
Compassion enhances our immune system.
Women have manifested for thousands of years the strength arising from compassion. They have infused societies with kindness all along. Women should lead the world in spreading the power of compassion.
What is Empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
This is a nice quote that explains the difference between Empathy and Sympathy -
“Empathy is walking a mile in somebody else's moccasins. Sympathy is being sorry their feet hurt.” ― Rebecca O'Donnell
This is what Webster Dictionary says -
Sympathy - an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other
Empathy - the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner
Compassion - sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it
My learning so far on this topic
Day 8 post - 5 People Who Changed the World By Taking Compassion to the Extreme
Day 18 post - How brands are using empathy to enhance marketing
Day 28 post - Types of unempathetic people
How to improve this skill?
Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of Empathy.
Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of Empathy.
Learn - Invest time in learning different frameworks/ models/ techniques of Empathy
Apply -
Identify a model suitable to you
Create a template to document the flow of the process
Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
Maintain record/ process flow of every important activities you did with respect to Empathy
Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts
Purpose of this document
I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day.
My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself.
This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends.
I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.
What are Life Skills?
UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three broad categories of skills
- cognitive skills for analyzing and using information,
- personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself,
- inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.
Which LifeSkills are covered?
The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures:
1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.
Some trivia
‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.
Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives
- Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
- Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
- United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
- USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
- South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.
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