Welcome back after a week-long Thanksgiving hiatus! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

Let's jump right into some Self-Empathy. And then we have 2 podcasts for you this week since we skipped last week's WWU. The first is around how The Bigbie Method came to be and its connection to a tragic event involving one of Cindy's students. And the second, how Cindy and Heather view mistakes and ultimately use them to learn.

Self-Empathy

We just got done with a training session with a company we're working with and the lesson was on Self-Empathy. That got us thinking. The holidays can be a stressful time as you interact with family and loved ones. So what if we went through a quick Emergency Self-Empathy.

Can you think of an interaction you could use some empathy around, a troubling interaction you had over the last week. Ultimately we want to sit with and work through the experience to get to needs you are celebrating and/or mourning around it, as well as any requests you have to yourself or others around it.

But to get there let's do an emergency self-empathy exercises. Revisit the situation and talk through it with yourself. Feel free to jackal with awareness and really get it all out. I think it's important to jackal with awareness and get that story out there to see really how you feel about it, the story you're saying around it, and how intense the emotions are so you get that level of clarity of where you are with the situation and what it means to you.

So what happened in the situation and what did it bring up for you? Switch between observations, jackaling with awareness, and feelings you experienced to get a clear picture of everything going on for you around the situation. And then when you think you have it out there what needs are you mourning or celebrating around it? And are there any strategies you can ask of maybe the other person, or yourself or others around getting your needs met in the future.

I have thoughts that this could be hard to follow if you've never done it before so here is a guided video to follow that Cindy created.

Take that journey with yourself now. How do you feel afterwards? Do you notice a difference in yourself physically? Did you learn anything about the situation, yourself or your needs?

🎙️ Podcast Episode: In Memory of Trent

Episode 62 was recorded on November 17 - two years after the tragic shooting of Trent - one of Dr. Bigbie's students from her restorative justice program. This episode connects the dots between that very sad event and how The Bigbie Method came into being. The mission of The Bigbie Method is to help individuals create connection through their communication even in conflict. It is our hope that the more people learn and implement NVC, the less violence we are apt to see in the world.

Click here to listen to the podcast

🎙️ Podcast Episode: We Love Screwing Up!

"Mistakes" in the NVC process can actually be very informative and helpful. Listen to Heather and Dr. B in Episode 61 sharing about why screwing up can meet needs for learning, connection -and, ultimately - effectiveness.

Click here to listen to the podcast

In The Empathy Gym This Week

Upcoming Schedule

12/2 Thursday 12pm EST - Empathy Intensive with Cindy

12/3 Friday 10am EST - Routine Workout with Logan

12/5 Sunday 11am EST - Routine Workout with Logan

12/6 Monday 3pm EST - Routine Workout with Cindy

12/7 Tuesday 10am EST - Routine Workout with Saskiya

12/8 Wednesday 8pm EST - **Q&A Session with Cindy and Ryan

** We are coming up on the half-year mark since we launched the Empathy Gym and we would love to hear from you about how it’s going and/or give you a space to ask questions about EG logistics like the badge system or about future expansion of sessions, etc. Please join us at the Q&A Session to share!

Have an awesome day,

Ryan