Overview

Everything is energy. The conditions of our energy centres affect our behaviour and how we respond to challenging situations. Providing tools and quick measures to help people decompress in the moment and be more receptive to their environment and other people. Being empathic requires you to be grounded and open in order to communicate with empathy.

When our energy centres are running low, we're much like less likely to respond in empathic ways, so we need ways to refill our our empathy resources.

However, despite the wealth of tools and techniques available to enable more empathic responses, it's hard to find effective ones in the moment.

Understanding yourself and others requires effort to connect, to seek the truth and hold space to consider a different point of view and so reduces othering and separation, the fundamental challenge of humanity against each other and nature. it expands and creates space to open up new conversations and connections

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Bringing design to life

Love and connection are tightly intertwined. The willingness to hold space and understand another's pain, point of view and perspective is an act of love. Empathy expands connections and leads to a place of deeper love and regards for humanity reducing ‘otherness’ and encouraging unity.

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Empathy Hacks are high impact posters with links to simple, proven techniques from Pranic healing, breath work and other complimentary modalities to calm the nervous system, connect with others in more empathic ways building stronger relationships.

Posted in civic spaces and available as a free download, this is a low-cost, low effort and scalable tool to create more empathic responses to everyday situations - a first-aid course for the soul.

Key Insights

“It is only when you can really be open, clear and sensitive to the emotions and feelings of others, that authentic counselling begins. Empathy is a way of being, which is all about entering into the other person's private world and how they perceive it. It is about really understanding. To be with another in this way means that for the time being, you lay aside the views and values you hold for yourself in order to enter another's world without prejudice. In some sense it means that you lay aside yourself and this can only be done by a person who is secure enough in himself that he knows he will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and can comfortably return to his own world when he wishes. Perhaps this description makes clear that being empathic is a complex, demanding, strong yet subtle and gentle way of being.” Carl Rogers (1967) On becoming a person.

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Inspiration‍

• Most UK public spaces carry a Health & Safety poster displaying what could go wrong, what if we had a poster showing what could go right?
• Hacks inspired by energy modalities such as Pranic Healing and yoga and proven techniques for physical and mental wellbeing. There is a wealth of information however its hard to find when needed in the moment.

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Next Steps / Key Questions

Test the 12 hacks with a cohort of young people and get feedback to see if it improves their ability to be empathic over time. Iterate the hacks based on feedback.

Create an app to support the poster that can provide further empathy hacks and tools

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