World Empathy Day, Personal and Business Communication Skills Transforming the World and You
By Rick Goodfriend
World Empathy Day (WEday) is a day for increased consciousness of communication, compassion, forgiveness and healing. WEday is celebrated every Wednesday. Participants receive an empathy tip each week as a reminder to celebrate and for learning to practice Compassionate Communication. It is a gentle, fun and simple reminder of Compassionate Connection and how peace can begin with each of us by a simple change of your compassionate energy, a change of consciousness.
The first influence for World Empathy Day was Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, founder of Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Dr. Rosenberg was listening to me during a luncheon discussing my practice groups I had been working with. He looked at me with his focused eyes and said, “I would really enjoy you working on something global helping NVC reach the world”. I was astonished by this request, “I said to myself, how can I do something globally?”
A second influence was Rita Herzog, author, CNVC Past-President and Trainer. I forgot about what Dr. Rosenberg said until Rita informed me that CNVC certification candidates, which I am, would be requested to start a social activism project involving NVC.
Again, I hesitated when I heard that and I remembered that Marshall was requesting me to start a global project. As I was meditating one day, these thoughts about a project came into my consciousness. In about a minute of thinking of this project and what I may do, World Empathy Day came into my thoughts and became a reality.
I knew that this idea was not going to go away. Yet, how was I going to make this work? I barely slept for the next three days thinking about it. The first idea was to build a new e-mail list from my other lists hoping these people would be interested.
From this list, participants would receive a weekly e-mail empathy tip. I also built a Yahoo group to archive the tips, so people could go back and refer to past tips. There are close to 60 tips on this site.
Many of these tips come from my experiences of using Nonviolent Communication. This has been a great way to remember how I used NVC during the week. It also makes the tips real and authentic because they come from my life and show how I practice NVC. Being as vulnerable and transparent as possible, the tips sometimes show how I may be “very less than perfect.” Yet, they also show how I cleaned up being “less than perfect” practicing NVC.
It was interesting how the weekly event was selected as this started to be a yearly celebration. A yearly celebration seemed to be too sparse. So I thought maybe once a month would be adequate. That did not feel comfortable either and decided to do this once a week. Of course, most people would like WEday everyday. Maybe through participants own choice, it well.
Initially Mondays were chosen to celebrate World Empathy Day. I spoke to my advisors at World Empathy Day meetings and several people said Wednesday might be a more effective day for other reasons and since the abbreviation of World Empathy Day could be WEday. Soon it changed to WEday.
WEday has taken on its own movement as what started from a small e-mail list has transformed to worldwide, from California to Thailand to Australia to Germany. Really, all over the world, people are sending the tips to friends and this action alone has begun a new movement.
Participants express their gratitude and use of the tips, how the weekly tips come at the “right time” or how the reminders of daily intention development before leaving bed in the morning helps to make their day more proactive than reactive. Participants also gain knowlege of nonviolent options using empathy or self empathy practices instead of violent strategies
In the near future, WEday is planning to have teleconferences to help connect all World Empathy Day participants from around the world. If you would like weekly empathy tips or a reminder to celebrate World Empathy Day on Wednesdays, please e-mail rick660@cox.net or view the WEday website at http://empathyday.com/ .
About the author
Rick Goodfriend has been teaching Proactive communication skills for over 5 years. I not only teach these powerful skills, I really use them in my daily life. With this practical experience Rick Goodfriendhave made a difficult skill easier and fun to learn. I have been a member and officer in Toastmasters for 12 years and make workshops humorous with clear content and lots of interesting exercises that reinforce the skills. As you leave a workshop you are able to use the skills immediately and see the value of the time and money you have invested instantly.He is a frequent guest on television. His newest CD on Instant Calm is at http://www.walkyourtalk.org/indexCD1.htm . Visit http://www,empathyday.com for more powerful communication tips. from http://www.FreeArticlesAndContent.com
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