Hello from guest blogger, Lisa Robinson! In this Mindful Path post, let’s explore empathy. Through empathy, we walk in another person’s shoes to gain understanding of their feelings and perceptions. But that’s just the beginning.
The video, “What is Empathy? Q & A with Dr. Susan Stillman” provides more details to further explain empathy. Click on this link to view it: https://youtu.be/NYnnZ5X4ydA
Ashoka is an organization dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurs around the world. They found that for someone to be an effective problem-solver, team player, and leader, a central ingredient is empathy. To enable the development of empathy skills that can be sustained, they have created an Empathy Initiative. It serves as a collaborative platform for social entrepreneurs and others who share the vision of a world where every child masters empathy.
Here’s a video about Ashoka’s “Start Empathy Initiative:” https://youtu.be/bfEJBFr5Vxc
This post is just scratching the surface on the importance of empathy. It’s an integral part of the competencies that make up both Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in education, and also Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in non-educational settings.
More Resources
Ashoka’s empathy site is here: https://empathy.ashoka.org/
The site https://startempathy.org/ is powered by Ashoka and includes much more information, including “A Toolkit for Promoting Empathy in Schools” which you can obtain from the main web page linked above or download it from this link: https://ow.ly/wXQOI
What Action Can You Take?
I hope that this information will encourage you to consider how you can effectively use empathy in both personal and professional life. If you are a parent or teacher, you have an excellent opportunity to greatly influence children to choose daily actions that reflect empathy.
If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to comment here or to contact me directly at mindfulpath@outlook.com
I look forward to sharing more Mindful Path resources with you soon.
