Empathy Power Up

Once upon a time, the land belonged to the community of life thriving on it. Traditions like rituals, stories, and songs were passed down through generations, verbally. This knowledge was rarely written down, as it was shared by those within that community. 

Over time this land was taken by an invasive species of colonizers that tried to erase cultures off the map and impose their own traditions by putting a stake in the ground. They laid their claim through the written word, and what they thought was moral, right, and superior to what they found. Over time, the people who once thrived on the land were no longer part of this system and their rituals, stories, and songs faded away. The people were now owned by the colonizers. 

By the time the United States was founded, twenty percent of the population of the new United States, founded on the principles of liberty and equality, lived in bondage as slaves. Our forefathers called slavery a “moral depravity” yet profited directly off this institution. These forefathers wrote our founding documents, and the Constitution stands as a bastion of hope, of democracy, in a dark world. How did we get to revere these written words so much, when so many things have changed in today’s world? 

Today’s topic is “Worship of the Written Word” which has sent shockwaves through our system and says who belongs where, where our borders are, what we learn and how we live. “When we hold what is written above everything else,” says Tema Okun, “ we are unable or refuse to acknowledge information that is shared through stories, embodied knowing, intuition and the wide range of ways that we individually and collectively learn and know.” When we focus on what is written, we move away from what connects us, which is community. 

In this episode we’ll go deeper into the historical context, the types of knowing and learning that we miss, and possible ways to overcome our bias towards the written word in our lives. This episode can help us shift into what our bodies are telling us through intuition and sensing, and a collective knowing that can lead to a deeper feeling of empathy. 

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Note: “Worship of the Written Word”  is one of the characteristics outlined in Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, upon which this series of episodes are based on. 

Amy J. Wilson designs worlds where every person gets what they need, the power to achieve what they want, and the agency to do what they love. For nearly 20 years Amy has put empathy into action: she has built cultures that hold change so that organizations and the people within it can thrive. She has challenged the status quo and redesigned systems centered on compassion and equity at more than a dozen organizations and can both set and implement the vision. She is the bestselling author of Empathy for Change: How to Build a More Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World, a guide to create positive transformation where we work, live, and play. Grab a copy anywhere books are sold or the audiobook on Audible. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or Linktree: https://linktr.ee/empathyinaction 

Today we tackle the number one strategy that our culture uses to disconnect ourselves from ourselves and others: fear. It strips us of our power and ability to be seen, heard, and loved, while making us afraid of the humans around us. 

Fear as a physical and survival response. It lessens our ability to bounce back after we experience a setback and keeps us perpetually in a place of reacting to what’s around us. Because we fear the unknown, we are afraid to take action and don’t know how to be with each other. 

The antidote to fear is to connect and share with other humans–to step out of isolation, out of fear and into the light. It may be one of the hardest emotions to overcome but is so worth it. Cultivating a love for each other and humanity is central to creating a more compassionate world. When we choose love over fear we begin to see that we’re more alike than we are different. We begin to trust again and begin to take back control, being actors in our life instead of reacting in fear.

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Note: Fear is the foundational characteristic outlined in Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture. 

Amy J. Wilson designs worlds where every person gets what they need, the power to achieve what they want, and the agency to do what they love. For nearly 20 years Amy has put empathy into action: she has built cultures that hold change so that organizations and the people within it can thrive. She has challenged the status quo and redesigned systems centered on compassion and equity at more than a dozen organizations and can both set and implement the vision. She is the bestselling author of Empathy for Change: How to Build a More Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World, a guide to create positive transformation where we work, live, and play. Grab a copy anywhere books are sold or the audiobook on Audible. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or Linktree: https://linktr.ee/empathyinaction 

Black/White, Right/Wrong, Good/Bad, Democrat/Republican, Fat/Thin. These are all examples of binary thinking--that life is either this or that. We think that we have two choices, when there’s a whole spectrum of options we haven’t even considered or explored. 

Binary thinking is something that we’ve inherited from our ancestors, and is the way that many of us categorize the world. Fast forward to today, and this binary thinking and categorization no longer serves us in the way it once did. It is used to denote extremes, to polarize, to categorize each other with the haves and have nots, the us versus them. We see each other for our utility–what we can do for us and how we can relate, and also what we’re not for. Often, many of us define ourselves more about what we are against than what we are for. And in the most extreme circumstances, it’s been used to dehumanize people. 

Today’s conversation talks about our own journeys around binary thinking and the pitfalls that happen when we focus too much on them. We will also discuss how we might be able to snap out of our own binary thinking and be able to see the spectrum of life in front of us. 

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Note: Binary thinking is one of several characteristics as outlined in Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture. She writes this about Binary thinking: “Reduces the complexity of life and the nuance of our relationships with each other and all living things into either/or, yes or no, right or wrong in ways that reinforce urgency, one right way, perfectionist thinking, and abuse of power.

Amy J. Wilson lives to design a world where every person gets what they need, the power to achieve what they want, and the agency to do what they love. For nearly 20 years Amy has put empathy into action: she has built cultures that hold change so that organizations and the people within it can thrive. She has challenged the status quo and redesigned systems centered on compassion and equity at more than a dozen organizations and can both set and implement the vision. She is the bestselling author of Empathy for Change: How to Build a More Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World, a guide to create positive transformation where we work, live, and play. Grab a copy anywhere books are sold or the audiobook on Audible. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva

At the beginning of 2023 your Empathy Power Up co-host Amy Wilson flew across the country to attend a somatic healing retreat to help her reconnect with her body. But what she experienced was the opposite of what she expected, and it ended with a pretty big rupture in the community that she’s still processing.

Listen more to learn about what happened at the retreat, and how it illuminated two characteristics of our culture: the “right to comfort” and the “fear of conflict.” Co-hosts Kevin Shah and Amy break down these two topics that lead us to value logic over emotion, and avoid any type of conflict for fear that it will make us uncomfortable. They also discuss how we can overcome these well worn pathways once we’re responding with our automated responses. 

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Note: these two characteristics are based on Westernized ideas of white supremacy and colonialism that are pervasive in our culture, and outlined in Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture. 

Amy J. Wilson lives to design a world where every person gets what they need, the power to achieve what they want, and the agency to do what they love. For nearly 20 years Amy has put empathy into action: she has built cultures that hold change so that organizations and the people within it can thrive. She has challenged the status quo and redesigned systems centered on compassion and equity at more than a dozen organizations and can both set and implement the vision. She is the bestselling author of Empathy for Change: How to Build a More Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World, a guide to create positive transformation where we work, live, and play. Grab a copy anywhere books are sold or the audiobook on Audible. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva

When something we hold sacred like our beliefs and values are questioned, our first inclination is to defend them or live in denial that other alternatives exist. Often they show up as traditions that we carry on from generation to generation. At an organizational level, this same type of thinking might show up as “this is the way we’ve always done it.”

These are characteristics that have been baked into our culture, and we’ve become conditioned to hold fast to these values and traditions. We rarely sit back to question why we hold these traditions so closely or where they come from. 

In this episode of Empathy Power Up, we examine the two concepts of Defensiveness and Denial. These are  Characteristics of Our Culture, and are two huge blockers towards a more compassionate and empathetic world. Defensiveness is defined as “serving to defend or protect,” and Denial is the act of declaring something to be untrue. Both of these ideas discount other people’s beliefs and values system in favor of our own. 

Tema Okun, whose work inspired this series, says that “this type of thinking creates an oppressive culture where people are afraid to speak their truth.” It’s dangerous when we are afraid to speak up–we may not feel seen or heard, or worse yet, resentful. It creates a dysfunctional dynamic that prioritizes comfort over mental and emotional safety. 

Our first step is to come out of denial to recognize what we’re defending, to stop the cycle of dysfunction. It’s important as people with power that we loosen our grip on the values and beliefs we hold so tightly and realize we’re defending one way of looking at a scenario. Responding thoughtfully with both love and power. 

There’s many questions to ask ourselves: what are we defending or protecting? What is true and what is untrue? Who are our traditions unintentionally impacting? If it is working for me, who is it not working for? And finally, how might we prioritize safety over comfort? It is through answering these questions that we can truly begin to change an oppressive culture. 

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This episode is inspired by Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, which brings to light the water we swim in--of the dominant culture that acts as poisons that we’ve digested our whole lives and need to be examined. Today’s reflection question is - How might I prioritize rest over rush to the truly urgent things?

Amy J. Wilson is a change leader, community builder, movement maker, and an empathy advocate. She specializes in building and sustaining compassionate cultures that can hold change. She has challenged the status quo and redesigned systems centered on compassion and equity at more than a dozen organizations and can both set and implement the vision. The main topics in this podcast were first presented in Amy’s book: Empathy for Change: How to Create an Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World. Grab a copy or download the audiobook on Audible to learn more. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva

Several months ago, your Empathy Power Up co-host Amy had an unpopular opinion: could we move back a self imposed deadline when the whole client team was working nights and weekends to get the job done? 

This push towards exhaustion to reach a goal and moving onto the next thing is the conversation we’re having today. 

It comes from the assembly line of the past--that we have a short period of time to do the work, then we’re onto the next item on the line. In a way we’re repeating the same actions we did long ago, but the work has evolved. It is now showing up as “hustle culture” and “move fast and break things,” technology over people.

Producing leads to consumerism, which leads again to production. On and on it goes. This is progress despite impact, and reacting to what’s in front of us instead of responding with what we need. And what’s more is that the impact of this work is creating more harm than good. It’s not sustainable.

We can slow the fast progression of the work that we do, and make space to pause, rest, and take the time to understand the impact that we’re making in our lives and the world around us. Listen more to find out some of our thoughts on the matter. 

We are more than what we produce. 

This episode is inspired by Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, which brings to light the water we swim in--of the dominant culture that acts as poisons that we’ve digested our whole lives and need to be examined. Today’s reflection question is - How might I prioritize rest over rush to the truly urgent things?

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The main topics in this podcast were first presented in Amy’s book: Empathy for Change: How to Create an Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World. Grab a copy or download the audiobook on Audible to learn more. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva

Perfectionism is a “belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of blame, judgment, and shame.” (Dr. Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection). We’re fed this lie that perfection leads to success, and we’re constantly rewarded for this behavior. And we’re told that it’s our fault, and we are never good enough. None of us are perfect, yet we are held to that standard. It is destructive and addictive. 

As we look around the world today, many of us get stuck in the addictive nature of perfectionism which leads to a string of dysfunctions and blocks us from meaningful relationships in our lives. Once we have the epiphany that we no longer want to be perfect we spend most of our lives unpacking it and discovering our true identities so that we might lead more authentic lives. 

However, there is hope. Just like perfection is a concept we empower as a system and culture, we individually disempower that concept and remove it from our lives like a harmful tumor. In this episode, we’ll break down the idea of perfectionism, its addictive nature, and steps we can take to unlearn the hold it has on our lives. 

This episode is inspired by Tema Okun’s Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, which brings to light the water we swim in--of the dominant culture that acts as poisons that we’ve digested our whole lives and need to be examined. Today’s reflection question is - How might you overcome the grip of perfectionism?

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The main topics in this podcast were first presented in Amy’s book: Empathy for Change: How to Create an Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World. Grab a copy or download the audiobook on Audible to learn more. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva

We’re over it. Over the system that was set up to say who stays and who goes--that someone is “qualified” to be in a certain role, have a certain title, and to be in the “room where it happens.” There is not just one way to do anything--there are a million ways to do most things in life, so why are we saying that one way is the best way to be?

The use of the phrase “qualified” has been used to disqualify so many people from participating in our society. 

More than 20 years ago, Tema Okun authored the Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, which brought to light the water we swim in--of the dominant culture that acts as poisons that we’ve digested our whole lives and need to be examined. In this episode, Kevin and Amy examine the next characteristic of “Qualified,” or the belief there is one right way to do things, and that there is an objective "perfect" that is both attainable and desirable for everyone. 

The question we ask you to ponder is: “How does the concept of “Qualified” show up in your day to day life? How might we lean into curiosity over judgment?

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The main topics in this podcast were first presented in Amy’s book: Empathy for Change: How to Create an Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World. Grab a copy or download the audiobook on Audible to learn more. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva

Sources: Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture: https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/ 

It has been said that “history is written by the victors.” This quote is even more apparent in how our society and workplaces are structured. Those who hold the most power--the “victors” are the ones who write and design the world around us. We’ve inherited this dominant culture, which shapes our whole experience. 

It’s established norms, values, and preferences which has become the standard for an entire group of people, and has become the “water we swim in.” These preferences and norms are imposed regardless of whether they contradict what is usual for the other members of the group. It affects all of us, and we must build our awareness of it so that we can change it for the better.

Nearly 20 years ago, Tema Okun authored the Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture, which brought together a series of resources and thoughts that point to this dominant narrative of white supremacy, and shows up in our lives. One of these fourteen traits is “Individualism,”  which is: “our cultural story that we make it on our own, without help, while pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, is a toxic denial of our essential interdependence and the reality that we are all in this, literally, together.” 

Your co-hosts Amy and Kevin discuss their take on this topic of individualism, and we begin with: “We More than Me.” We’re quickly coming to a greater awakening that we cannot do it alone, and that we’re wired to connect to each other. We need to shift the narrative to the collective--the “we” over ourselves, or “me.”

Sources: Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture: https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/

Imagine a world where the concept of failure did not exist. What would that feel like? 

The good thing is that it CAN exist--and it does. It's about reframing your mindset to think of failure as learning, which is a natural part of being human. Being able to take on new challenges and make missteps along the way is what makes us who we are today. Without these missteps, we wouldn’t be able to be resilient creatures and learn from the past. It’s such a key component of having empathy for other people. It humbles us–we realize we can’t win every time, and that we’re still learning and growing, and can see other people as human beings as well. That we’re all flawed and also failing too. 

Fearing failure is a problem that we need to address. Failure is a natural consequence of learning something new. By insulating ourselves from failure, we stagnate our growth and stop changing. Most of us desperately prevent change from happening because we fear the unknown. And, the way we frame failure makes us anxious. We mainly fear mistakes and change because we have associated it with negative consequences. It generates anxiety within us, that if we don’t succeed that we will be looked down upon, demoted, or may lose our job or power. 

But since change is inevitable, we need to develop the mindset that allows us to let things happen when they unfold instead of approaching change from a place of denial, resistance, and avoidance.

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The main topics in this podcast were first presented in Amy’s book: Empathy for Change: How to Create an Understanding World: https://www.amazon.com/Empathy-Change-Create-Understanding-World. Grab a copy or download the audiobook on Audible to learn more. 

Kevin A.K.A Captain Empathy is the Founder and CEO of Jaago (means to wake-up in Hindi). Jaago’s vision is to create a world where people seek to understand one another by making empathy a daily habit. He is a tech leader and IOT (Internet of Things) pioneer and expert. He brings practical experience, lived experience, and his transparent growth journey to the podcast.

Follow:

• Kevin at @shahkevin or https://linktr.ee/shahkevin 
• Amy at @realamyjwilson or www.AmyJWilson.com

Cover Art Design: Amy J. Wilson with Canva