Defining Wholistic Empathy
A Way of Being for a Better World
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Introduction

Over the past 15 years since I have come to recognize that mutual empathy is a fundamental human quality and value. It has the power to address many of the personal, social, cultural, and political challenges facing our world today and create greater wellbeing for all.

By Empathy, I mean the practice of whole-body listening—deeply sensing, understanding, and connecting with each other's experiences. It is the recognition of our shared humanity.

I believe we must build a movement to elevate empathy in society, with the goal of fostering greater well-being for all. I'd like to see mutual empathy as a core cultural value. By cultivating empathy on a societal level, we lay the foundation for deeper understanding, cooperation, and collective well-being. The first step in solving the world’s problems is to truly listen to and understand one another.

However, a major obstacle to developing an empathy movement is the widespread confusion about what empathy actually means. People are constantly talking past one another because they mean different things when they use the word empathy. This lack of clarity hinders our ability to advance the cause. To address this, we must establish clear and precise definitions.

Through this project, we aim to develop the Wholistic Empathy Definition Model, which will bring greater clarity to the concept of empathy and support the growth of the empathy movement.

What Makes This Model Unique?

1. 1. 1. It shifts empathy from an individualistic perspective to a more accurate relational, mutual, and wholistic framework.

      2. It grounds the definition of empathy in personal experience by mapping it onto the Empathy Circle practice. This approach provides a tangible, experiential foundation for understanding empathy at a deep and personal  feelings  level. Additionally, other definitions of empathy can be mapped onto this model and the Empathy Circle, creating a more comprehensive and integrative framework.

      3. It removes the Feeling versus Reason dichotomy often used to define empathy. The model that views feeling and reason as separate is incorrect because emotion and cognition are deeply interconnected rather than distinct, opposing forces. They are two sides of the same coin, constantly influencing and shaping each other. Recognizing this connection allows for a more accurate understanding of empathy, decision-making, and human behavior. 

Project Description 

This is a project website for working on developing Wholistic Empathy Definition Model.  We are just starting on this project and use this website to organize the material we come up with. 

Project Methodology

This definition project is unique in that we use a highly empathic approach to work on exploring and articulating the definitions. We use the Empathy Circle practice to discuss the definitions issues.  We are also mapping the definition to the experience of the Empathy Circle.  This allows people to experience the definition aspects  by taking part in an Empathy Circle.