Page 50 - Demo

Empathy in Action
Ray Moos
Moos Holdings NSW Australia
There are four aspects to empathy that I think are essential to its viability. Empathy requires us to keep moving, keep improving, keep caring, and keep sharing. Empathy is an active and interactive process that starts with caring for yourself, so you have energy and motivation to help others.
In times of chaotic change, movement is critical to survival. If you are moving, you can alter direction easily. If you have stopped, you need to overcome inertia both mentally and physically to respond and move. Due to lockdowns, our contact with others is limited, and so is our movement. One creative way that a friend of mine sought to stay moving was to engage with out-of-work men who stopped to speak with him while he was busking (street performing). This led to the formation of an informal men’s gathering to provide support for each other. Sadly, it began with tragedy as one of the invited men took his life the night before the first meeting. But that served to steel our resolve to keep moving and do something to support the men we were encountering in our new limited interaction space.
Out of this experience, my wife and I have deliberately sought to improve our contact with others, both online and face-to-face (where permitted). We now have several intentional groups that we meet with informally to keep improving our empathy capacity. This has led to regular meetings to support each other in caring and sharing. Workers in all workplaces have been challenged through the changes the pandemic has brought. There are many workers who are silent and separated from others but urgently need support. We are aiming to increase our empathy by continuing to move, continuing to improve, continuing to care, and continuing to seek opportunities to share with others each day.
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