Larry Lawhorn

Active Listening in Empathy Circles 
Speaker: Larry Lawhorn  (10 min)

Overview

Larry Lawhorn, an Empathy Circle facilitator, discussed the importance of active listening and empathy, emphasizing its role in building empathy and strengthening the prefrontal cortex while calming the amygdala. He highlighted Carl Rogers' 1957 concept of active listening and its impact on emotional regulation. Lawhorn noted that authoritarian-trained brains can hijack empathy, turning it into disgust. He stressed that empathy begins with listening and calm curiosity, referencing quotes from Marshall Rosenberg and Krishnamurti. The discussion concluded with a focus on the transformative power of empathy in fostering supportive relationships and addressing environmental issues like selfishness and greed.

Outline

Introduction of Larry Lawhorn and Empathy Matters

• Speaker 1 introduces Larry Lawhorn, highlighting his role as an Empathy Circle facilitator and trainer.

• Larry Lawhorn expresses his joy in being part of the Empathy Matters community and compares empathy to planting seeds in the mind.

• Larry mentions the importance of sharing authentic empathy and introduces the topic of active listening and empathy.

• Larry Lawhorn shares that he has been working on the slides since December and that they are available on the Empathy Matters website.

Active Listening and Empathy

• Larry Lawhorn explains that Carl Rogers coined the term "active listening" in 1957, focusing on validating another person's perspective.

• Active listening helps build empathy and strengthens the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in reasoning and emotional regulation.

• Larry emphasizes the importance of focusing empathically on another person to calm the amygdala, which is responsible for the fight or flight response.

• Larry Lawhorn uses the metaphor of a seesaw to illustrate the balance between the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala.

Challenges in Authoritarian-Trained Brains

• Larry Lawhorn discusses how authoritarian-trained brains can hijack the region of the brain responsible for empathy, turning it into feelings of disgust.

• Larry encourages everyone to explore this concept further on the Empathy Matters website.

• Larry Lawhorn transitions to the next slide, emphasizing that most people listen with the intent to reply rather than to understand.

• Larry highlights the importance of empathy beginning with listening and calm curiosity, referencing quotes from Marshall Rosenberg and Krishnamurti.

Empathy and Brain Science

• Larry Lawhorn shares a quote by Gus Speth, emphasizing that the top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, which require a spiritual and cultural transformation.

• Larry Lawhorn asks if there are any concerns about the seeds being planted in the garden of the mind.

• Speaker 1 expresses their love for empathy circles and the concept of active listening as a life skill.

• Speaker 1 uses the analogy of the frontal cortex working with the amygdala to illustrate the power of empathy in creating supportive relationships within the brain.

Transcript 

Speaker 1  0:00  

It is now my pleasure to bring on Larry Walhorn. Larry is an Empathy Circle facilitator and trainer, and a long-term host of the Empathy Weekly Empathy Circle series at Empathy matters.org Say that again, Empathy matters.org And today Larry is going to talk on active listening and empathy, all

Larry Lawhorn  0:24  

right, hoping I was able to post something into the chat, sure, if it works, enter, I think that works, I'm glad to be here, glad to see all the wonderful people who have been bringing empathy circles to the world, so to speak, and I kind of think of empathy like planting seeds, like we're all gardeners, we're all planting seeds of empathy, and the seeds we're planting are in the neurons that fire together and wire together. We're all planting seeds in our mind that we can happily share. I heard that said today. Someone was so happy to bring empathy circles, empathy to share. It's a joyful feeling to share something that you yourself value as authentic. Alright, so I'm going to share the slides. I actually started working on these slides way back in December, and of course they've grown like seeds over the years, so I'm just going to cover a few of the slides, and they're on the website. All of the slides are on the website, the Empathy matters.org/a L, for active listening. I know it looks like AI, but it's actually a L, so active listening as a way of life. Carl Rogers coined the term active listening in 1957 by focusing on and validating another person's perspective. Active listening helps build empathy simultaneously. This focused empathic process strengthens the prefrontal cortex role in the in reasoning and emotional regulation, while also diminishing the amygdalas fight or flight response. Now that's a lot, right? That's a lot. The takeaway message that I want to leave is as we practice focusing empathically on a human being, we're using our prefrontal cortex, and as we do that, our amygdala automatically relaxes, and vice versa. It's like a seesaw. If the amygdala hijack goes up, prefrontal cortex automatically goes down. So, there you can see where your agency is. is what seeds are you planting in your garden, and each of us is a gardener of our own reality. Active listening allows for a shared understanding of another person's thoughts and feelings, which builds empathy and validates their experience. This can help calm the amygdala, however, and it's a big however in authoritarian-trained brains. brains think of a world at war since Babylon, as Marshall Rosenberg pointed out, in authoritarian-trained brains the same region of our brain that produces empathy is actually overlapped neurologically with a completely different response, and that response is the one we commonly know as disgust. I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to check this out. It was amazing to me when I read about this a few months ago, that our brain can literally be hijacked by our culture, by our environment, so that our empathy by authoritarian control literally turns to feelings of disgust. So I'm not going to go deep into this. There it's in the slides, it's on the website Active Listening on Empathy Matters. I'm going to jump now to move this screen, so I can see where I'm going to jump to 11. most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. Empathy does not begin with speaking. Empathy begins with listening. Empathy begins with calm curiosity. Empathy begins when someone quietly wonders, what is it like to be you? and I love this quote by Marshall Rosenberg. He did what I call flipping the script, where he took the old saying that's used to make people feel guilty in order to motivate them, hey, don't just stand there, do something, and he flipped it. He says, hey, don't just do something, stand there, and that is the episode, that is the essence of empathy is being willing to be still to listen, right. Krishnamurti, observation is the highest form of human intelligence, without judgment, without evaluation. And then I'll wrap it up with one of my favorite quotes by Gus Speth. I used to think that top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these, we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don't know how to do that. Guess that a scientist. So, am I hearing you have any concerns about the seeds you are planting in your garden? Thank you.

Speaker 1  8:00  

Thank you, Larry. One of my favorite things of doing empathy circles with Larry is that Larry says, I love empathy circles, almost the end of every single one of them. And you know what, Larry, we love you. Yeah, that's a thing. I heard active listening as a life skill with empathy and a built-in empathy practice in there. I'm going to do the science in a weird, twisted way. This is what I heard: there is that the adult in your brain, the frontal cortex, gets to work with that internal teenager, the amygdala, rather than at them. And anybody who has ever worked with or at teenagers can understand exactly what the difference in that is, and the power of that of looking at the brain science and what empathy can do internally is it supports creating a relationship of support and agency within your own brain and

Unknown Speaker  8:57  

Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai