• We don’t give any advice
• We don’t tell our own stories
• We aren’t trying to fix or change anyone
• You can talk about anything
• The service is completely free
• Everything shared is confidential

Not only did our signs serve as great photo-fodder, but our empathic services were also put to good use. People told us things about their love lives, their professional challenges, even their bad haircut angst!  We also collected at least a dozen more email addresses for our list. If you are not already on our email list, and would like to be, send your address to connectionaction@gmail.com with the subject line “add to CAP list.” You’ll then be kept apprised of our upcoming deployments and any trainings we have in store.

Research indicates that health is correlated to whether you have someone to turn to for support at 4:00 in the morning.

Study after study shows that social connections are critical arbiters of overall health and well-being, again backed up by research described a post by Adam Taggart called The Importance of Supportive Relationships.  People’s longevity is correlated to whether there’s someone they feel they can turn to for support at 4:00 am. I am reminded of a dear friend and NVC trainer who used to quip about how it’s easier to find a sex partner in the middle of the night via craigslist.com, than to find a listening ear. Connection Action Project has no stand on people satisfying their late night sex urges through craigslist. We are concerned with satisfying our less carnal needs that require slowing down and being present for one another.  The Empathetic Listening Street Team is on a mission to raise the availability of empathy in today’s siloed, busy, technologically congested society.

Join us at one of our next Deep Listening Posts. One is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 28th from 2:30-4:00 pm at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market near the corner of Adeline and Alcatraz. The other is Saturday, June 1 at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market on Center Street, starting at 11am.

The Empathetic Listening Street Team a/k/a the Deep Listening Street Team will be deploying Tuesday, May 28th at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market from 2:30 to 4:00 pm, AND Saturday, June 1 starting at 11:00 am. Contact connectionaction@gmail.com for more details.

When we can say to each other, “Help me.  I’m struggling.  I’m scared. I want to care for myself, and I don’t know how to do it,” people on both sides of every war will lay down their arms in an effort to move toward one another and lend a helping hand. That is how I can hear the Zionist message. I hear her saying, “I am so scared that my people are alone and unloved, and I want support and safety for us all.”

Marina Smerling, www.empathiclistening.com 

Our first “customer” was an older woman. She stood looking at us and our sign for a minute. Then, she came over and started talking with one of my colleagues. The two of them ended up sitting together for a long time in the back of the tent.  She had dreamt about a post like ours the night previous.

Over the course of the rest of the morning, several other people stopped by to ask us what we were doing. The conversations that ensued touched on subjects as diverse as meditation, parenting, and the relationship of apathy to acceptance. We gave out copies of the “Conversation Café Menu,” which listed choices such as “One Mirroring $0; One Paraphrase $0; One Complete Empathic Guess (feelings and needs) $0.”

We’ve talked about deploying somewhere where there’s a more diverse population, as well as in more politically conservative areas. We’d like to connect with people at all points on the socio-political spectrum. But for the time being, the Berkeley Farmers’ Market is where we’re at. Our next “deployment” will be at the Thursday market near Rose and Shattuck on May 24^th between 3:30 and 6pm. Join us!

We practice a reverence for the mystery of life and the universe as we interact with it. We offer presence in the streets, at protests, and through meditations, facilitated empathy circles, restorative justice processes, and educational events with thought-leaders, we share tools and principles which support personal healing, interpersonal connection, and social unity.

Do you feel? Overwhelmed, shocked, outraged, baffled, and fearful when you think about our economy, our environment, and the challenges of a society that is based on a competitive work ethic? At the same time, do you feel some of those same things in addition to gratitude, excitement, hope, and maybe even awe when you think about the Occupy Wall Street movement?

Are you wanting? Shared reality, safety, sustainability, and community in these uncertain, rapidly-changing times?

Possible actions

• Develop our empathy skills – skills for identifying feelings and needs (our own, those of others, those of life, those of Earth) so that we are able to understand each other and collaborate effectively to actualize our visions.
• Create intuitive spaces where we spend at least five minutes of quiet time each day to explore new possibilities for change.
• Talk with our friends, families, co-workers, and neighbors about what we see and experience without judging, blaming, accusing, or criticizing.
• Stand up and speak at community action events.
• Make concrete doable requests of ourselves and others to organize new ways of doing things, like how we spend our time, where we shop, what kind of work we do (and for whom), how we move about and travel, how we manage our finances (and the nature of those finances), etc.