Hello World. I have some exciting news and gratitudes I'd like to share with you today. First I want to say thanks to Ashoka who created Activating Empathy which held a contest we entered last year with our company Feeleez.
Yesterday, Ashoka hosted a live web event with panelists, including Natalie and I, discussing our work in teaching and promoting empathy. I very much appreciated the opportunity to speak about what we do with Feeleez in particular as well as with our other endeavors to support and empathize with parents (i.e. this blog, parent mentoring, etc..), but I also enjoyed getting to listen to other's thoughts, ideas, and questions about additional ways to increase the global EQ, and teach empathy.
One thing I was also grateful for was the burst of inspiration and positivity that Natalie and I felt from being involved with the discussion. We weren't even finished with the video panel before Natalie had scrawled a little note to me with the finishing touch to an idea we'd been batting around for 5 or so years.
I'm extremely pleased to present The Empathy Hotline 1.1. This is going to be an international community for the sole purpose of receiving and giving empathy. No sales pitches. No products. Just people coming together to share empathy with each other, both in times of triumph and times of upset or at any point between. 24 hours a day, any- and everywhere in the world, we'd like people to be able to join the group, post, and receive an empathetic response within the hour.
The rules are described on the About page of the group and are also currently pinned to the top of the group's post reel; but essentially the idea is that someone posts, and someone(s) else just offer them empathy in response. Empathy and empathy only. No advice, no opposing perspectives, no trying to fix it, no jokes, no distractions.
Here's the part that I'm most excited about: We'd like to invite you to get involved. No matter where in the world you are, we could use your help spreading the word about the group and, of course, posting!
Interested? Then here's what to do:
- Go to the group page on Facebook -- here.
- Share it on your timelines, google+ it, email the url to friends, and/or add people you know who would like to be involved. Remember, we want this to be a global service.
- Post when you want to, and respond to others often.
- Contact me via a comment here if you have an idea for a different platform we can use for free that will allow:
- Easy access and set-up of a profile for users with the ability to create an alias as well
- Original posters to choose when they post whether to post as themselves or their aliases
- Admin capabilities -- to remove inappropriate posts (whether they are ads or non-empathetic, etc.), or block rouge users if necessary, create sub-groups, etc.
- Sub-categories to form within the larger group -- e.g. Parents, Teachers, Bereavement, Russia etc.
- Users to control the scope of their involvement by timezone, country, religion, and/or sub-group(s)
Thank you friends and global neighbors. I sincerely appreciate any help you might be in this endeavor -- even it's just sending us your good thoughts.
I do hope you'll join us in the group!
∞
Be well.
