Inner Empathy Spring Weekend Intensive

 

Description: The Inner Empathy Inquiry is an experiential work that is specifically designed for depth psycho-spiritual growth work using Mindfulness or Awareness work, Nonviolent Communication (NVC, also know as Compassionate Communication, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) parts work. It has been developed, implemented and refined for the last 6 years.

In this weekend, we will learn to support and hold empathy and compassion for different parts of ourselves that might emerge during the weekend and learn to support others in doing so. A dynamic safe format supports efficiency in connecting deep to the parts of us that hold core needs and beliefs that long for empathy and compassion. Come experience what I call the effortless self-corrections that occur from such deep inner connections. You will also get a deeper experiential sense of what it means to be in unconditionally presence to your inner parts.

We will start with a bit of instruction and then moved into the experiential part of the program. People can bring an intention to work with a specific part or approach the weekend with openness to work with whatever organically emerges. Working with parts in real time is powerful!

One of the things I really enjoyed as the facilitator is we had ample time and space for people to explore deeply and the inquiries are not cut short due to time limitations. This depth creates a more profound experience for everyone. When this depth is present, I am amaze at the sympathetic resonance that naturally occurs. This means that when one person does an inquiry and learns to hold compassion and empathy for a particular part or constellation of parts, they essentially are doing the work for the group because we all have similar parts operating in our lives.

The group work is dynamic and experiential. You'll either be participating in supporting another person with their inquiry, or feeling the support of the group yourself doing core growth work. Core growth work is being defined as revealing and empathetically connecting to the unconscious parts that hold self-judgments, beliefs, and painful feelings about ourselves and the world. These unconscious core unmet needs of parts, if not attended to in a skillful way, will perpetually reveal themselves in the form of intense triggers that show up as overt or covert limitations in all aspects of our daily lives.

Part of the Inner Empathy work is creating internal safety to allow these to organically emerge so we can empathetically tend to them. Unfortunately, what happens, all too often, is we unwittingly protect ourselves by intellectualizing core unconscious needs/beliefs and making them into stories, or we unknowingly become identified with them and lose our empathetic presence. The Inner Empathy inquiry gives us powerful new skills to stay experientially and emotionally present to these deeper core aspects of ourselves.

The Inner Empathy work was designed to efficiently negotiate inherent challenges of being compassionate and empathetic towards ourselves. These challenges are expressed in these question below:

♦ How can I know when I’m connecting to myself empathetically rather than analyzing or diagnosing myself? It is often an automatic response to begin to analyze and diagnose ourselves with personal growth labels. We will learn when, and the many ways, that happens.

♦ What part of me holds the space or capacity to empathize with parts that are in pain or are terrified? Does a part of you disassociate or become upset and react when intense pain is present, or is an empathetic presence active? We will learn to cultivate empathetic presence to make sure it is empathy that is engaging the pain.

♦ How can I get the separation I need to empathize with myself when I am overwhelmed with pain/terror caused by some internal part/voice hounding me? We will explore what it means to be identified with some aspect/part of yourself, and learn how to dis-identify while maintaining connection and feeling the feelings.

♦ What about the parts that want to protect me from feeling the pain from the unmet core needs and try to thwart efforts to give these vulnerable parts empathy? Any inquiry process that wants to go deep inevitably will emerge against aspects of ourselves that don’t want us to connect to our depths. We will learn to connect and honor the wisdom and needs of these parts, turning them into valuable allies in our intention to deeply connect.

♦ How can I empathize with core self-judgments representing core needs if they are unconscious or actively disowned? This has been a particularly powerful question for me. Developing skills to organically disclose and hold presence for unconscious core unfulfilled needs, the intense, survival-based feelings they hold, and their associated beliefs is one of the most powerful inner connections we can make.

♦ Who is the “I” that holds space for these internal critical voices/parts? Is it another critical voice/part or is it something outside the loop? How do I know? My response to this question has been to develop a methodology and set of skills to navigate the inner rapids and go inside deeply. I call it “Inner Empathy,” a different skill set that is distinct from self-empathy.

I invite you check inside to see if this weekend format would support your learning and growth. The group size will be limited so register soon. For more information about Inner Empathy work you can download the first chapter of the Inner Empathy book.