Compassion & Empathy: A Response to Bullying

Cyndi Doyle, LPC-S, NCC, CDWF

How Compassion& Empathy Lead to Resilience, Empowerment and Healing

Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW

• Research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work

• Qualitative research

• 12 years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame

• 2010 TEDx Houston talk: “The Power of Vulnerability”

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability

• Two #1 New York Times bestsellers

www.thedaringway.com

www.brenebrown.com

Kristin Neff, PhD

• Research professor at the University of Texas at Austin

• Mindful Self-Compassion: 8 week course developed with Chris Germer

• Developed Self Compassion Scale

• 2013 TEDx Atlanta talk: “The Space Between Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion” received half a million views.

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Space-Between-Self-Esteem-a

#1 New York Times bestseller: Self Compassion

www.selfcompassion.org

Shame v. Humiliation

• Shame = I am bad.• About who we are

• Neocortex shuts down = Fight, flight, or freeze

• Correlated with negative outcomes

• Humiliation = Shame Undeserved

Shame

• Def: intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging

• Universal emotion

• Derives its power from being unspeakable.

• Byproducts = fear, blame, disconnection

• Scarcity – Gremlins!• I am not _____________ enough.

• Who do you think you are?

Shame Shields

Moving Away

Moving Toward

Moving Against

We are so mean to ourselves!

“Just like hate can’t conquer hate – but only strengthens and reinforces it – self judgement can’t stop self-judgement.

We must understand it, have compassion for it, and then replace it with a kinder response”

Kristen Neff

Mindfulness vs. Overidentification

Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to what is happening in the present moment as it’s happening and ACCEPTING the experience.

You can be in touch with the difficult emotion without running away with the storyline of the difficult emotion.

Common Humanity vs. Isolation

“Something has gone wrong”

“This shouldn’t be happening”

Comparison..

We compare other people’s successes to our failure reel.

Self Kindness vs. Self Judgement

Active Practice

Voice and Tone

Mammalian Caregiving and Biology

Kindness is being kind even in the midst of our imperfection.

Self Compassion

Name It & Tame It

• Label and note the feeling

Feel It & You Heal It

• Find the emotion in our body and stay in contact

Soften – Soothe – Allow

Working with Difficult Emotions

Self-Compassion

Kindness + Common Humanity + Mindfulness

=

Self Compassion

Self Judgement + Isolation + Overidentification

=

SHAME

Empathy

• The ability to perceive a situation from the other person’s perspective; to see, hear, and feel the unique world of the other

• Skill requiring practice, not intuitive

• Elements of empathy (Wiseman and Neff)1. Be able to see the world as others see it2. Be nonjudgmental3. Understand another person’s feelings4. Communicate your understanding of that person’s feelings5. Practicing mindfulness

• Shame happens between people, and it heals between people.

We are

Components of the Story

My emotions

My body

My thinking

My beliefs

My actions

Children & Empathy

“Children with secure attachment relationships with their caregivers know they can count on emotional and physical support which results in these children being more likely to empathize and offer help to people in distress.” (Dewer)

Teaching Empathy

• Seize the opportunity to model empathy for others and talk about how the person must feel. (video, life, books)

• Help kids discover what they have in common with other people.

• Foster Cognitive Empathy!

• Face reading skills