INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR EMPATHIC ACTION (IDEA): OCTOBER 2ND 2010

Here is a great IDEA by the www.worldempathy.org:

"7 days until October 2, 2010, All Day! All Around the World!

In every state, in every country, on every continent, people will gather in empathic listening, connecting, and action so that we may see all beings integrate suffering to become free, fully alive, and resolve differences peacefully.

International Day for Empathic Action (IDEA) Events and Activities will take place all over the world aware of each other to create unity, community, and a world-wide understanding of empathy."

So what's empathy?

• Empathy is famously known as: "...standing in someone else's shoes."
• Empathy is the state of being fully present to each other's feelings and needs.
• The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Empathy as:

1

: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2

: 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; also : the capacity for this

• Empathy is listening and understanding the feelings and values of another person’s perspective at any given moment in time.
• Empathy is the state of being fully present to each other's feelings and needs.

BUT Empathy is not...:

• agreeing...
• being politically corret...
• about being right or wrong!
• showing affection or love.
• passive but actually quite an active process. Listening, observing and internally opening to someone other than our selves requires active participation.

As parents of children of who live in a world where cultures meet not on the street but on TV screens, Internet pages, Facebook, Youtube, twitter and etc. at any given moment, we need EMPATHY more than ever!!! So this IDEA (INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR EMPATHIC ACTION) is very much needed. Please do share the link: http://www.worldempathy.org/ and give as much empathy as you can to your kids, family members, friends, colleagues, neighbours....

Enjoy this IDEA!!!

Sedef