Five finds of the fortnight: Edition 10

What is fierce self-compassion? A workshop on requests, and more...

Hello,The second wave seems to be receding in India; some cities and states have begun to ease lockdown restrictions. And many of us may still be holding sadness, anger grief, despair, or other emotions around what we’ve experienced.

Project Empathy’s listening circles are continuing, 8 weeks since they began, and we intend to keep going. If you would like to be heard for how the second wave of COVID has impacted you, please join us. We invite you to share in the group or one-on-one, and offer your presence to others who wish to be heard.Click here to know more and to register.

With warmth,Ranjitha

1. Quote of the week

In an oversimplified way, when flow is interrupted, we need to activate either the decision-making system or the conflict system...how do we know which system to activate? Again, to oversimplify: if there is enough trust to engage with the information, we activate the decision-making system. If even that little bit of trust isn’t there, we activate the conflict system. 

~ Miki Kashtan

2. Image of the week

We may associate self-compassion with tenderness and acceptance for ourselves; the other part of self-compassion is about showing up and taking action. Kristin Neff recently shared this image that shows what fierce self-compassion can look like, and why we need it to balance the tender aspect. You can download a hi-res version here. I’m waiting for her upcoming book on this topic!

3. Social media post of the week

I wrote about empathy and what I have learnt about listening over the last few years. Click to see the post.

4. Understanding and connecting with our emotions

Susan David, psychologist and author of the book Emotional Agility, Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life, writes: “We often hear tips and tricks for helping us to “control” our emotions, but that’s the wrong idea: strong emotions aren’t bad, and they don’t need to be pushed down or controlled; they are, in fact, data. Our emotions evolved as a signaling system, a way to help us communicate with each other and to better understand ourselves. What we need to do is learn to develop emotional agility, the capacity to mine even the most difficult emotions for data that can help us make better decisions.”

5. Upcoming event alert

Tomorrow, I’m offering a workshop on requests for enCOMPASSion’s Living Bridges initiative. Join us to understand how to deal with hesitations around asking, and how to make requests. This workshop is open to learners of all levels. More info in the post linked below, and on the Facebook event page.