A belated Happy New Year’s greetings to you, dear reader…

I’ve been hibernating a bit more than usual, over these winter holidays. I feel like a bear that is taking a peep out of its winter cave!  In the last few months, the recent slew of tragedies in our larger world have inspired me to go inward, sit with the grief and other painful emotions that get stirred, in search for a deeper truth…

…and here’s what I’ve found: it feels to me like everything that is happening in our world today, is calling out to each of us, to discover new and creative ways to manifest our gifts, our love, our leadership. This doesn’t necessarily mean, taking on any new projects — it could simply mean, re-focusing and re-centering on what it is that truly inspires us, and tweaking whatever it is that we are already doing, so that it feels clearer and stronger and reflects more of, who we really are…

…and that’s what I’ve been doing, over the last few months — not just on my own, but also in several supportive contexts.

Now I’m stepping out a bit, to invite you to check out some  of the  “Empathy-to-Action” projects I’ve been working on… and also, to extend an invitation to some exciting on-line empathy salons that my friend Edwin Rutsch has been hosting.

But first, I’ll start with  an article I wrote recently on Linked In, highlighting the inspiring  participatory public policy processes that are being hosted in Voralberg, Austria. The most recent one was a Civic Council on how to respond to the growing influx of refugees.

That article is part of a larger effort I’m committed to, to spread the word about how empathy-based facilitation and hosting approaches are being used to positively influence larger social issues. If you are inspired, you too can help spread the word, by leaving a comment on the article, and/or forwarding it to others…

Also part of this larger  effort, was the  e-newsletter I sent out last summer, celebrating my friend and colleague Miki Kashtan, and her amazing work transforming polarized politics  in the Minnesota state legislature around child custody issues. This year, I will be helping spread the word about an upcoming facilitation workshop that Miki will be offering on the East Coast…

In addition to celebrating others’ great work, I will be continuing to offer my own workshops on “Creative Conversations Across Difference” featuring Dynamic Facilitation, the empathy-based approach used in Vorarlberg and elsewhere. One  upcoming public workshop will be a brief-yet-powerful day-long in Asheville, North Carolina on February 12th.  Part of what’s exciting about this upcoming trip to NC, is that in addition to the public workshop, I’ll be offering some local practitioners the opportunity to  witness and assist with work I’ll be doing with some local social service agencies.

If you’ve met me in person, you know that I love supporting others in developing their  group facilitation skills… and, having the opportunity to be part of a team effort, can be a key step in our growth. So I’m super excited to be able to share this project  with others…

One more celebration here, of another growing collaboration: thanks to the dedicated networking and movement-building efforts of Edwin Rutsch, founder of the Culture of Empathy website I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been meeting a number of wonderful practitioners and researchers. Edwin’s  latest project is a series of small, weekly salons for people who are experienced Empathy Trainers, Facilitators, Educators, and Researchers. If you are interested in participating, here is a Facebook event and also a Google doc where you can sign up…

I want to close by mentioning a third strand in my Empathy-to-Action projects… and that’s my deepening involvement with  Heart IQ work.  For a long time, I’ve recommended Focusing practice as a fabulous way that professional facilitators can deepen their one-on-one empathic listening skills (and I still recommend it!) And, there’s always a next step – for anyone who wants to deepen their capacity to hold Presence in a group context, Heart IQ is truly amazing stuff.

Well, that’s it for my “New Year’s blog post”… I’d love to hear from you below, about anything that has been inspiring in your world!

with much love,

Rosa