Thinking and Feeling with April’s Two vibration

     One of the books that has been absorbed into my life is Daniel H Pink’s 2006 best-seller:  _A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future_.
     In it, Pink describes how the West is moving out of an information-based society, and into a time of concept and conceptualization. Pink explains Six Senses which he sees as vital and inevitable for any success in the Conceptual Age. These senses should be practiced in all avenues of life, and very specifically in our individual day-to-day activities.
Pink’s list is Design; Story; Symphony; Empathy; Play; and Meaning.
     Those who work with me know that many of my programs are based in one or more these six senses, and sometimes hung on a framework that is rooted in Pink’s thinking.
      This week, many stimuli have conspired to draw my attention to the concept of Empathy.
     April carries a Two energy, and that Two vibration informs our interpersonal relationships at every level. I am living, currently, with a six-year-old. At six, the human is a learning machine, and I have noted that at the age of six a great many of us seem to be totally without the concept of empathy. This is no doubt a good thing. When our ancestors needed to overcome life’s obstacles, a single-minded drive to self-preservation is a splendid model for survival.
Empathizing with the plight of someone else would weaken that instinct, and those empathetic children who live among us can have a difficult time processing their own experience as separate from environmental inputs.
     Empathy is the very basis for bonding with other people. It is not entirely necessary for the dependent child who has adults to care and protect. When children grow up, and move into adolescent and adult couple-relationships, they will re-enact the empathetic behaviours they have observed in the world.
     That thought underlines, for me, the importance of how I model empathy during these weeks with a six-year-old, because I see this kind of relationship empathy as a learnt behaviour. I want my little one to be an adult who has the ability to recognize the emotions and experiences of another person, and respond in a way that respects the individuality of all concerned.
     As I was thinking about this, I realized that this week I have also been reading and seeing stories about online bullying and trolls. The anonymous people who insult others, label them and diminish their worth, are surely without empathy.
     I find myself balanced on sword-edge as I recognize that the tormenters have been denied empathetic models, and know no better. I am called to be compassionate towards them, and I find it very difficult. They have been denied membership in an important aspect of life. Can I, in good conscience, support that continued exclusion?
     To remain kindhearted and empathetic in the face of hatefulness and social offense calls for a deep commitment to an over-arching philosophy of Spiritual Love, and I am challenged to find that depth in myself.
     I thought that the time I spent in the company of a six-year old would connect me with TV for children and assorted toys and games, and all of those are present, of course. I had not expected to find myself contemplating my ability -- or lack thereof -- to embrace the humanity of those who know not what they do. 
I wonder whether we can shift successfully into the Coming Age when so many among us are ill-equipped to embody the energy of Two vibration. April, and Two energy could be a simple place on the Cycle of Numbers. It is, in fact, a massive undertaking.

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     Jo Leath has been supporting clients through change and growth since the 1980s.
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