Earth Empathy
Heart-to-Heart
A unique model of community-based learning for emerging leaders responding to the global ecological crisis.
Upcoming Class – Earth Circle
Heart-to-Heart seeks to help climate justice leaders in Massachusetts grow even more life-giving and courageous relationships with their themselves, one another, their communities, and the earth. We seek to disrupt and replace patterns of urgency, scarcity, division, and burnout, with an earth-centered circle that can hold and nurture leaders across age and geography for the long arc of the climate justice movement.
We will gather several times on Zoom and once in person to slow down and support each other’s deep speaking and listening. We will gather as a full circle, in small groups, and spend “solo” outdoor time in direct dialogue with our patch of earth. We will treat stillness and the earth as members of the group. We will use theEarth Circle Touchstones to ground and guide our interactions and group practice.
Building a Better Future
Building on decades of excellence in life-changing education and leadership development, Heart-to-Heart is bringing its unique model of community-based learning for personal and societal change to leaders in the movement responding to the global ecological crisis.
The Earth Empathy program seeks to address vital, urgent societal needs for healthy, constructive communication, conflict transformation, leadership development, inclusion, equity, and a sense of ecological belonging and oneness. By equipping leaders with the tools to listen deeply and respond empathetically to their own needs, the needs of others, and needs of the planet, we seek to make a meaningful and lasting impact on communities in the U.S. and throughout the world.
We will be offering a combination of in person and online training to leaders and potential leaders in the movement for a sustainable future. We envision growing a community of support for people seeking to: forge constructive local, regional and global change; come to embrace themselves and the emotions and needs that arise in the face of the ecological crisis; and cultivate a spiritual depth and sense of belonging.
We will draw on Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and Pope Francis’ vision of ecological conversion in offering a practice-based, leadership development program, fostering leaders’ capacities in four core, interrelated skills. These are the MEDC skills.
Mindfulness … expands our capacity to be present to the life in us and around us … helps us distinguish what is from interpretations of what is … opens to a deepening sense of connection and belonging to all of life in the present moment.
Empathy … expands our capacity to listen deeply to ourselves and others … helps us to translate the language of judgment into needs … cultivates compassion for others. self, and all of creation.
Decision making … enables us to shift from reactive-thinking and acting to receptive action … centers our needs and the needs of others in all choosing.
Conflict transformation … transforms our understanding of conflict from something to avoid to opportunity to connect … develops our capacities to forge win-win-win strategies to conflict … does not see conflicting needs, only conflicting strategies … allows strategies to emerge through bringing attention to the needs most alive in a situation.
Would You Like More Information?
Are you interested in learning more about our Earth Empathy program? Do you know someone or an organization working in response to the ecological crisis who may benefit from a full or partial scholarship for this program? Learners and interested parties are invited to use the form to receive more information about Heart-to-Heart’s Earth Empathy Program.