Holistic Empathy Development (HED) is a framework for developing empathy for all beings in all aspects of life through the 7 Steps to Empathy and skill-building activities. We are all interconnected and need empathy to survive and thrive.

HED Focus Areas

• Self Empathy

• Human Empathy

• Animal Empathy

• Earth Empathy

• Spiritual Empathy

Empathy =

1. Cognitive Empathy: Recognizing suffering

2. Emotional Empathy: Feeling suffering through the heart and mirror neurons in the brain

3. Compassionate Empathy: Taking effective action to alleviate suffering

When we experience empathy, we feel joy, elation, euphoria, bliss and unity. We are united through our diversity and need each other and empathy to survive and thrive. Neurobiology shows us that the heart, brain and lungs are the primary organs involved in empathy, so HED focuses on improving the health of these organs.

The science of empathy shows us that we are compassionate, loving beings at our core, and that we need connection to be balanced. Unconditional lovingkindness, compassion, emotional intelligence, nervous system regulation, vagus/vagal nerve healing, and intercultural communication are essential skills of Holistic Empathy Development (HED). HED also incorporates skills to remove blockages to empathy such as trauma and intergenerational trauma. Healing emotional trauma heals the rest of the self and is often the root cause of empathy imbalances. Trauma is the feeling of too much unwanted aloneness and a disconnection from the self for the sake of survival. Intergenerational trauma is unprocessed emotions passed down through the DNA for 3-4 generations. It’s not our fault that we inherited intergenerational trauma, but it is our responsibility to heal it and create peace within ourselves and the world.