CIIS Public Programs Podcast

 TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

Empathy is so much more than feeling deeply—it holds transformative power to heal ourselves, strengthen our relationships, and amplify our purpose. Psychiatrist and bestselling author Judith Orloff presents empathy as a daily healing practice and a form of emotional intelligence accessible to all. Drawing on insights from neuroscience, psychology, and energy medicine, Dr. Orloff’s newest book, The Genius of Empathy, shows us how to access our sensitivities, soothe our nervous systems, and stop absorbing the emotions of others.

In this episode, Dr. Orloff is joined by empath, spiritual seeker, and intuitive healer Laura Rowe for a conversation about igniting empathy as a superpower for transformative personal healing, deeper relationships, and more potent work in the world. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on April 24th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Laura Rowe: Hello and welcome to this conversation. I am thrilled to be here to talk to you today, Judith. And as she said, I have been following your work for a long time and you are the, to me, the original empath and really helped guide a difficult journey at the beginning of my experience of seeing myself this way. And I first want to ask you, this book is not directed to specifically to empaths, it's to everybody. And I love it. This is a, I didn't know what to expect from the book, but it was more than I expected. And I love thinking about empathy in this way. And I'm curious what, how this came about, how you chose to do this book. What was the impetus? What made you want to

Dr. Judith Orloff: Oh, I want to say, I'm so glad that, you know, I've had a positive influence on your life and helped you awaken as an empath. It's the more of us around better.

Laura Rowe: Amen. 


Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. That's everybody listening.


Laura Rowe: Yes.


Dr. Judith Orloff: And then I wrote the empath survival guide about empaths. And then I was feeling that I wanted to write another book about empaths and people who are not empaths and everyone else in the world. So that they could develop empathy. Maybe they're not an empath, nor do they have to be. Those of you who are empaths will benefit by deepening your empathy and learning to protect yourself and center yourself in even greater ways, given all the stresses in our world. And that's important to me that you feel protected and that I'm protected and not absorbing all the negative energy that's around. And so that I would feel confident in myself and you would feel confident in yourselves to deal with most of it, most of the time. You know, it's pretty intense now. But I wanted to write a book. It's called The Genius of Empathy. And the word, you know, it was interesting, the title, it was called Radical Empathy for a really long time, the whole time I wrote it. And you know, my publisher was saying, there's two, every book, there's radical, this radical that you have to come up with something different. And I'm going, ah, there's nothing.


Laura Rowe: Right.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Absolutely. I've lived with this for three years writing the book.


Laura Rowe: Yeah.


Dr. Judith Orloff: And it was the very last minute before I pushed the button and said, you know, keeping the old title, The Genius of Empathy came through in a whisper.


Laura Rowe: Love it.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. I know. Oh, my God. So they came in something else. Thank goodness. So anyway, now the title of the book came in and I was just waiting, waiting. And sometimes it doesn't come until the last minute.


Laura Rowe: True story. Yeah. Very true story. But I, you know, it's the right title. It is what you have laid out here to me is genius because it in many ways can level the playing field. It can bring us together in a way that we aren't right now as a, as a society, as a world.


Dr. Judith Orloff: That's, that's true. And I'm very interested in communication and effective communication. It's really important that all types of people, we're all humans, so we're not all that different, but on, so we're all one family. We're all the same package as my, my teacher says, you know, everybody's the same basically, but we have all these supposed differences, but to bring, to find a good reason to bring us together and not stay entrenched in old habits of us versus them and not feeling empathy for people we don't like, or having empathy reserved for only people we approve of, you know, or, I mean, that's just not going to work anymore. We need to learn to have bigger hearts. That's what this book is about is how to shift from the mind, which will argue, may argue you out of empathy. It doesn't always, but it gives you a lot of good reasons. You have no good reason to have empathy for so-and-so. That, it will tell you that over and over again. You could listen and live that way. That's fine. Or you can go to a different place and listen from your heart. Empathy, when I feel for you.


Laura Rowe: Yeah.


Dr. Judith Orloff: When I feel for something about you, my heart opens and that's where we want to go. We don't want to go to this tiny little crowded head. We want to go to this heart that opens so wide and gives us solutions we never even thought of. And so empathy, when you feel empathy for, let's say an animal, a lot of times people, it's easier for people to feel empathy for animals, but they can't bear it when animals get hurt. I mean, I can't either. It's easier. The empathy is in, just in the market, people, I could talk to people. I can talk to people's dogs first before I talk to them because I'm shy. And it's easier for me to talk to, hi, little one. But my heart's opening and I'm having empathy for that little being. And then the, well, you don't want to call it an owner, but whatever the person is, it's walking on the companion, the companion starts talking and it breaks the ice. So it's just a way to, empathy can open the heart. So it's easier to have a lot of us to have it for animals. But for people too, and in your relationships in your life, there's a whole, the book is divided into three parts. One is yourself. The second part is relationships. So the third part is the world. And so the first step is having empathy for yourself, which is really hard for a lot of people and including myself, where I had to train and I continue to train myself so I don't get into that, whatever it is, catastrophic thinking or feeling fearful, whatever we have, it's about being empathic with ourselves and our struggles and our joys. So to begin to shower ourselves with the kind of energy that comes when you can have empathy, just by simply saying, you know, today was really hard and you got through it and bravo, you know, fantastic. It wasn't perfect, but it doesn't have to. And that kind of really beautiful talk or in meditation, you can put your hand on your heart and just focus on the love within you. And when you do that, you're healing yourself. When you can give yourself these gifts as opposed to like what happens with so many people I know in all my patients practically is beat, beat, beat, beat, you know, it just goes on.


Laura Rowe: It's true. And it's easier to have it for other people. As an empath, it's really easy for me to feel for other people. Easy feeling for myself. It's more challenging. I'm hypercritical. And I think a lot of people are, I think that's what we've learned.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Everyone is, don't help, please. You know, this is revealing, you know, the reveal, you know, we're human.


Laura Rowe: Yep.


Dr. Judith Orloff: And that's, that's the path, the path of empathy as the human, like you're saying, you know, the honesty and then the growth because the growth happens. And then you do learn how to show empathy for yourself in the midst of whatever life brings you.


Laura Rowe: Yeah.


Dr. Judith Orloff: And that's a big gift.


Laura Rowe: It is.


Dr. Judith Orloff: It's a big gift. It changes how you deal with things, but how you get there. You know, there's a whole chapter on how to get there and find empathy. And there's strategies and practices. It's something that humans have to be educated about how to get there, you know, because we don't really have a book that tells us how to get to these places. 


Laura Rowe: It's true. And you know, until you wrote this book, until I read this book, I thought I knew what empathy was. I thought, oh, it's feeling for someone and being in their shoes and being able to relate to what they're telling me. And it is that, but what you've laid out here is a practice, is a way of interacting with yourself and others that is bigger than it's, I don't know, it's the word is escaping me. Fuller than just understanding. It's not mental. It's not a mental process. It is a feeling and a heart process and a compassion process.


Dr. Judith Orloff: It is. And I want to say that Dalai Lama wrote the foreword to my book and honor. I will never, yeah, I will always be so appreciative. I mean, it's like a highlight of my life to have him offer that. So it's meaningful for me, but his whole existence, his whole life is based on empathy and compassion and teaching it and also relating science to it, which I do in the book. I think the science is really interesting. We're in these human bodies and I think it's a spiritual existence, but in the human experience, which is so true. That's why the science is so fascinating because while we're here in this body, we can begin to harness our biology through the acts of empathy. I could just give you one example.


Laura Rowe: Please do.


Dr. Judith Orloff: My mind, it just blows my mind. It's called the Mother Teresa effect where if you're walking down the street and you see somebody who is being empathic to another person and you're witnessing this, you can see the love, you can see the kindness, you can feel the energy of that. It's really beautiful when you witness it. But if I were to draw your blood right at that point, what would happen would be your immunity would go up, your blood indices would get stronger, your stress hormones would go down, your vagus nerve would start firing more, which is the relaxation nerve. All of that just from witnessing it.


Laura Rowe: Witnessing it.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Imagine if you're initiating it and living it and having to be a practice in your everyday life, whatever you're going through, physical challenges, emotional challenges, the empathy can only neuroscience wise make it better for you so you can heal more speedily. 


Laura Rowe: Yeah. How would you, what kind of a practice would you invite someone into to feel it in their own body?


Dr. Judith Orloff: There are so many different practices of looking at nature, gazing, not going so fast, slowing down and gazing at nature, looking at the wind and the trees. The thing with empathy is you slow everything down, you don't speed it up. In our world where everybody is so rushed, this isn't the same. It's like intuition. You have to slow it down in order to really listen and get the signs that come in. Same as with empathy and the same intuition and empathy are married to me.


Laura Rowe: That makes sense to me. They feel like similar practices or processes.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Yes, but if you want to feel either, you want to get more in touch with your intuition, which I talk about also everywhere. It's such a big thing for me. It's in everything I write, everything I do because it's how I operate into it. It's just like my operating system and I've developed it. It's part of being an empath and it's part of honing your power in a humble way, in a nice humility. You don't want to get impressed with yourself, overly impressed with yourself, but you do want to acknowledge if you've made strides. It's important. If you slow everything down with empathy and you just look outside or look at your hand or look at a flower or look at a candle or look at the books in front of me, look at the book, if you slow it down, what happens is the heart opens when you slow down. When you go fast and you're rushed and busy, you go up to your head. That's what happens. When you slow things down, you come more into your heart, which wants to become like a waterfall that's going inside of you and just flowing everywhere in your body to cleanse and purify. Slowing things down is one technique. Practicing with other people is essential to develop empathy. One practice is trying to see the other person's point of view and not always needing to be right and not making it a point you have to be right, even if you are right. Sometimes I know I'm right, but I'm not going to get where I want to go if that's my stopping place. If my goal is to communicate with this person and I'm right about something, that's fine, I'm right, but I want to communicate. I want to find out what's important to that person so we can speak to it and get to the bottom of what the block is. I don't belabor if I was right or wrong. That's not my interest. My interest in writing a book about empathy and being with people in an empathic way is to connect. It's like the beauty of connection and so many people are lonely and disconnected and don't know what they're doing, what they're going, but this connection is what will bring you back. Empathic communication will help you find the connection. If your ego and mind could just step aside for one minute and let you do it to experience what it's like and how the other person responds.


Laura Rowe: Yes. They talk about connection being one of the most important needs of humans. I think the world that we're living in right now isn't capable of allowing us to drop into the heart. We're too busy. It's too fast. It's too whatever. I love seeing that this is really about connection. This is really about how can you be in a room full of people and be lonely? It's because nobody's in their heart space. Right?


Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah, that's so true. And also it's now for empaths, particularly, it's sometimes scary to be with people that sometimes feels like it's too much trouble or there's so much energy around everywhere that instead of embracing it and staying centered, which is my hope for empaths to be able to be anywhere and stay centered, but even small, small situations to center yourself and know that you can be like a tree with roots and gain some confidence in your abilities, then the energy is not so threatening anymore because it doesn't have the power to blow you up because you're like, no, and you know that and you know what gives you that is the heart. It gives you empathy will give you that because it will give you a very good value to live by and about values are important to keep us centered when we yes, you're like love, empathy and intuition. For me, I stay true to those. And I don't keep me.


Laura Rowe: Straight on the straight narrow.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah, right.


Laura Rowe: Indeed. Yeah, well, empathic listening, and we were talking about connection. And I think empathic listening is a very different process than what most of us were taught or brought up with. I'm not sure anyone taught you how to listen. It's more something you picked up from experience being around your family. Talk a little bit about that.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Unfortunately, I think it should be part of our education. I agree. It's the high I call the chapter the high art of intuitive listener of empathic listening, because it's a high art. Yeah, it's like in the priestess realm. It's like I'm listening to you. I'm present for you. I'm listening to you. And you matter to me. And I'm listening and I'm sharing my heart energy with you as I listen, as opposed to checking your phone, or, oh, excuse me, I have to go to this I'll be right back, you Know,


Laura Rowe: Or preparing your own answer to their.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah, 

Laura Rowe: They're saying, yeah.


Dr. Judith Orloff: you're, you're more into your own anxiety or whatever it is, rather than being present for other people. And one thing I've learned as a physician, you know, over many years is how to set my problems aside and have the patient be 100% of my universe. Learn how to do that. Or I literally say, you worry about this later, you know, do it. Let just be you bring it bring Judith, you know, holy center, you know, with you. Sit there doesn't look like much probably but you know, I was there. And I listen. And where I got that the empathic listening, I learned that from my mother. My mother was a physician. And she had her a lot of a price of house calls. And when they took me in her car, we've wind up the hills and Beverly Hills and go there to her patients and I would watch her listening to the heart. No one closing listening to a patient's heart. Yes, like I told a story, and then listening to the stomach and listening to the patient's words. And I just sat on a couch and I watched her do all this. I think she really thought about it. I think it was instinctual.


Laura Rowe: Yeah.


Dr. Judith Orloff: But that was a model for me for listening to people. And that's why in this chapter, the high art of empathic listening is so important. You know, part of this whole healing is listening.


Laura Rowe: Right.


Dr. Judith Orloff: Listen to it's a great gift when someone actually listens to you, rather than interjecting their own stuff into it.


Laura Rowe: Absolutely.


Dr. Judith Orloff: As empathic listening is about holding space for someone else. And just a few of the guidelines I talked about in the book, as you said, a time you don't have open end of time, as it could go on forever, people don't like it. But it's too tiring, at least for me. But in general, I would set a time like five minutes or 10 minutes, where you're just going to sit somewhere, you have a place, you sit and you listen. And you stick to one subject, only one subject at a time, because otherwise, what happens is people get excited, and they want to share everything. And then if lost, you can't absorb all of it.


Laura Rowe: Right.


Dr. Judith Orloff: So you have to just do one issue at a time. And the other person you let's say, will sit and listen. And you listen quietly, you might say a few words here and there, you hold your eye contact, very gentle and loving, but not probing, you know, make someone uncomfortable, 


Laura Rowe: Right? 


Dr. Judith Orloff: Diving into the dark,


Laura Rowe: You don't want to scare them.


Dr. Judith Orloff: And your tone needs to be a nice tone, like you're friendly, you have to look friendly, you can look friendly, but don't overdo it. And just let the person talk. And then you just take it in. And then, you know, at the end, if you want to have some kind of sharing about it, you know, limited sharing, that's fine. But, that's the next subject is how do you communicate impassively. But the listening, I want people to start with the listening, and not cut off other people and not drift in your mind when they're talking. Which you know, if they're boring, then it's, you know, it's understandable. But it's important to when you bring it back to one issue, if you're just talking about one issue that will help with that, that will help the center. Yeah, and but you have a goal, you don't just sit there and listen to somebody complain. That's not helpful.

Laura Rowe: Yes, Right?

Dr. Judith Orloff: I mean, maybe once one session for five minutes. But you don't want to encourage complaining too much.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Yeah, I imagine it's about just taking in somebody's perspective of whatever it is talking about.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Right. Right. And just saying, Yes, I know what you mean. Without shaming without blaming, without judging. You're not sitting there going, I can't believe that he feels that way. You know, you're not I mean, maybe you are but you don't want to come from you want to come from the heart. Yeah, that's the mind. You know, the judgment. So try and just stay in the loving space so that somebody can feel safe to express themselves and then if you want to talk about solutions, maybe you can have another session, you know, to sit down or a tea or something with somebody and just talk about if are you interested in solutions? And if they said, Oh, yeah, you know, and some people say no, because they are good with solutions. I just need someone to listen to me.

Laura Rowe: Right. Exactly. Yeah, being heard is the most common thing I, I hear from my clients is that they really don't feel heard.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Right.

Laura Rowe: And by anybody and not because they don't have relationships. It's just that we're not good at listening anymore. 

Dr. Judith Orloff: Right, that's true. And that's why we can model being a good listener. And you know, you look at somebody and you hold your energy in a certain way where your heart is open and you're not. One issue with empath is that they empathize so much that they jump into somebody's body and then they feel all the suffering in there. And then come out, you know, be dragged a 

Laura Rowe: Weak. Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Judith Orloff: From the situation.

Laura Rowe: Exactly.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But with it, but but with the two with empathic listening, what I'm suggesting is that you don't jump into somebody's body and path that you stay in your own body embodied, and you listen with your energy field. You listen, but you don't jump.

There's a empath just love to merge with others.

Laura Rowe: Yes, we do.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It's a training process to learn one step back, stay within your own body and listen with your energy, not everything you have. You don't want to do that. That's too much. And this is something if you're if you're empathic, but maybe you were brought up in a household and you got the message that in order to really be compassionate, you have to be available for people all the time, no matter what, if someone's in need, you're the one right go to. And I'll tell you if that you know, if I live that way, I could never do what I do. And you feel the same way.

Laura Rowe: I absolutely feel the same way. Before I learned the intuitive healing practice that I do and worked with an empath, I couldn't or a counselor who was an empath, I couldn't imagine doing this work that I do now. I was told as a kid forever as you'd be such a good counselor. And at the time, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I'm a mess. I can't handle my own emotions. How do I handle anybody else's emotions? And figuring out how to have that separation and to sit in your own and be present for somebody and be open to somebody but not be in them was life changing. It really helped me navigate the world easier, feel more confident, have you understand what was mine, what wasn't mine.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It's liberating.

Laura Rowe: Yes.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And part of being of having empathy and being empowered with your empathy is to learn how to set boundaries and say no. And that is part of healing. And that is part of empathy. And any of you who are listening and you have a question about that or are torn with that, because people take boundaries in different ways. Like some people can say, I hear you, thanks for expressing it. And others will get enraged if you set a boundary. Enraged. So it can go the whole spectrum. You still want, you have to do it.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. I always feel like the ones who get enraged are the very reason that we need the boundaries to begin with.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It's somewhat surprising to me what people get enraged about.

Laura Rowe: Agreed.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It's somewhat surprising, but it's their feeling. One of the blocks to empathy is being triggered emotionally. And so I encourage people in the book to find what your emotional triggers are and begin to heal them so that you're not sparked with rage when somebody sets a boundary. Is that being sparked with rage over maybe a little boundary, not a big boundary? That comes from childhood and that comes from upbringing. So you do have to take a visit back there and see what happened, why that triggers you so much. And once you begin to heal that a little bit, you're not as triggered by people. And then if somebody sets a boundary with you, you're able to say, let me think about it. You know, I hear what you're saying. At least let me think about it. What most people don't know is they don't want to answer on the spot. You can say, let me just go think about it. I'll get back to you. If you feel you're going to blow or if you feel you're not able to have the kind of response you'd like to have, you can put it off. That's fine. I mean, that's being empathic with yourself.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Yeah. And I am not someone who in an argument for sure thinks on my feet. My brain can just kind of shut down. So learning that I could say, I need a minute. I'll get back to you again. And the thing that I was never taught, I never saw anybody do around me. We think we have to answer right away. And it typically doesn't go well in that case because we're too in our trigger, in our defensiveness to actually communicate effectively. Yeah. So you have a whole section or a whole chapter in the healing your relationships about empath deficient disorders. And I would love to talk a little bit about where the book is about employing empathy more. And this is an area that empaths have a lot of experience with typically. So speak to us about the narcissists and the sociopaths. How do you manage that?

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. There's a chapter on identifying narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths. As people who have empathy deficient disorder. And that means that they don't have empathy. They're not wired to have empathy and they don't want to have empathy. And this is something that's so hard for empaths to grasp. And they often get involved with the narcissist and just want to change them, want to heal them, wait years and years for this unexpected healing to occur. And it never happens. It never happens. And so, you know, you want to be careful of people deserving your empathy. You don't want to, you know, really wasted on people who don't appreciate it. What narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths are into is power. They're not into love. So that's a big distinction you need to know. Power turns them on. And I hope you all know what I mean by that. What is it? Think of examples where you've had power, but love is something different. It's not power. It's wanting to connect with somebody's heart, you know, and power is not wanting to connect with somebody's heart is wanting to have power over the person. So they feel better.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Control.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. Control. Right. So it's important. I wrote this chapter so you can identify who the narcissists are in your life, who are the sociopaths, who are the psychopaths, because they can seem really nice at first and really seductive.

Laura Rowe: Yep.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You know, all the classic psychopaths were, you know, can just, you know, so charming and can reel you in and, you know, and sociopaths and get you to do all these things financially that you've never think of before because they're so charming. And so as empathic people, you want to be wise. You want to be able to see the light and dark side of people. You don't want to just see the rosy side as well. You know, we have incredible compassion and we're also quite brutal. Humanity is quite brutal.

Laura Rowe: Very much So.

Dr. Judith Orloff: We all have that, whether you want to admit it or not. And the freedom comes from being able to just not let the darker side rule us. That doesn't mean we don't have it. And so where empathy comes in with empathy deficient disorder people is that you don't want to give too much to these people. You don't want to marry them if you can in any way help it. I always try to deter people from that. They don't always listen.

Laura Rowe: Nope.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You know, don't want to marry them. If you can get a new job, if you have a narcissistic boss, just try to be, you know, that's how to show yourself self empathy because they're not going to get that much better. Now you can do maneuvers, which I'll teach you about, you know, expressing things in a way that will serve them. And then they're more likely to give you what you want, but it's not the way you want to live. You know, it's a very tedious form of communication that only works, that works with narcissists, but that's only if you have to stay there.

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But I, you know, I, what I want for people is to have connection and love and a better life than that. It's not a good life with a narcissist. It's not, I mean, you might get the crumbs here and again, these magical crumbs from them and feel, oh, you know, but that's all you get.

Laura Rowe: Yup. Yup.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And not a good life.

Laura Rowe: And they, and they won't change, correct? That's not something that's healing doesn't really happen with narcissists and sociopaths.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Well, you know, if, if there are a malignant full blown narcissists and most likely, unless a miracle happens, which can't do people with one woman and one simple, can you expect a miracle? Yeah, sure. Go ahead. But I didn't, you know, I doubt it, but go ahead. Who am I to splash cold water on miracles, you know?

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But if they just have traits, some people just are self absorbed or they, you know, then they have the chance to change a little bit and they could work in psychotherapy with somebody and listen to their partner. But narcissists can't listen to their partner. They always say it's your fault.

Laura Rowe: Yup.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And there's nowhere you can go with that. So all this is to say for people listening, oh, you empaths out there, you empathic loving people, you know, learn how to diagnose the narcissist, look in the book, see the signs and symptoms and look for them. Cause they're all basically the same, you know, different bodies, different people. Different sexist, different, you know, different everything, but same, you know, they're just, they have the same qualities and don't get taken away so much by seductive charismatic people. You know, be suspicious. They might be a narcissist. They might not. They might be just a very nice person who's charismatic. That can happen too.

Laura Rowe: It can.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You know, I, when I see that super charisma happening in the, I just like, you know, I want to slow it down.

Laura Rowe: Exactly. Yeah. That was my tip, the love bombing and not necessarily in just romantic relationships, but all the, you know, I just want to be your best friend. I want to know everything about you. And there's so much attentiveness and nowadays it's, it's a red flag. If there ever was a red flag,

Dr. Judith Orloff: It was, but it might be different. I mean, I think leave that crack open.

Laura Rowe: Yes.

Dr. Judith Orloff: So that people can prove to you that they're not narcissists. And one way you can get that going, you see the proof, you know, earlier on is to just provoke some kind of a conflict with them, little conflict. So you don't do something their way and see how they react. Just do it as an experiment.

Laura Rowe: I love that. Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Just see if they're, Oh honey, of course you could go. You don't have to come with me that night. Of course you should take care of your, your children or whatever, as opposed to you don't value our relationship. We can see where your allegiances lie. You know, you're just putting me on this whole, you know, that kind of tone, which is someone, you know, so now it is really nasty. You can see the difference. Like you have to test out how people react. If you suspect they might be narcissists.

Laura Rowe: Yep. Yep. I never thought to do that. That's a great idea. And I think it can, you do it early enough. You can use the red flag as a warning and probe. Yeah. Discernment is important. Being able to not make a judgment right away. That's that empath heart too. Just being able to discern somebody's intentions rather than sum it up as a judgment against or for.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. And for an empath and all people who develop empathy is to come into your power with it and to see where you get weak. What are the situations that make you feel weak or run over and begin to look at those specifically like do some journaling on that in this particular situation, I lose all my power and what happens there? What, you know, did they remind me of my father? Do I not trust myself? Do I not have confidence in myself? Why am I buying into what they're saying about me when I know it's not true? You know, you begin to journal about that and then you work with that. And I had a friend, she's passed over now to the other side, that she was my very best friend for years and she's so opinionated and she was offered unsolicited advice all the time and it would just, you know, make me so mad. But I learned through years of loving her and being with her and having conflict with her as we had, it wasn't like easy relationship to not take people's opinions so seriously. You know, if they offer it and it's inappropriate. No, but I just, I learned from her. She was a tough, tough broad really, you know, and I learned from her all those years of being her friend taught me to not be so triggered by unsolicited advice or be able to set boundaries saying I like my partner says, did I make a request?

Laura Rowe: That's good.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Oh no.

Laura Rowe: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I like this, this, your example of your friend brings me, brings up the idea that I think has been widespread since the pandemic of, of how do we communicate with people who are challenging to us? They either disagree with us or they, they trigger their beliefs don't align with our beliefs. And I think over the years it's been, there's less and less listening happening.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Oh, and more and more fighting.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Oh, well, human beings clearly can't get along with one another most of the time. And especially if they're, they're different, I'm just looking for that, for the chapter on that in terms of how to express empathy for someone that you may not agree with or like.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And this is a kind of a nuanced conversation, but to keep it simple is that you do want to have empathy for people who have beliefs that are different than yours. And the empathy isn't necessarily for their beliefs, but it's, you know, if they believe in murdering people, your empathy is for the part of them that's so lost that they think that that's right.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. it's helpful.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You want to see that. And the reason you want to see that is so you could keep a distance from their energy, you know, and that's really important because if you're judging them and you're, you know, I can't stand that belief system, you're bringing them towards you.

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You know, you have that much emotional charge on it. But if you could find one thing that could lessen the emotional charge, like what happens to them that their hearts are so crippled, they believe in murdering people, you know, it's not a good thing. But they do believe it is. And some people, you know, are misguided. And I don't mean that in a judgmental sense, it's just, they've gotten off the path of goodness.

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But you don't want them to be attached to your energy. If you're around people like that, you don't want to have extended conversations with them. You don't want to have debates about their belief system at all. You don't want to even go there. But you could give them something, you could give them a gift, you know, and say, I hear what you had to say, you know, and I'll give it some thought. It's not something I agree with, but I'm really going to give it some thought. And why do you want to give them anything if you don't like them? No, that's the old belief.

Laura Rowe: Always.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Because you want to shift that energy. You don't want to keep doing that. No. And, you know, I really glorify the power of the individual in this book. You know, I believe the individual has tremendous power. And when people say to me, what can I do just as one person, I feel so powerless. Your actions, just if you can show a little bit of empathy with somebody that you don't like their beliefs, but you have empathy for something about them, you're changing the energy.

Laura Rowe: Exactly.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And one person changing the energy is not insignificant.

Laura Rowe: No.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And see, that's where the mind gets confused. It thinks it's just one person. We need a million people doing this. Well, you know, maybe, maybe not. But I do believe in the goodness of one person doing it, it has the power. Maybe you don't understand what it can do to change things. But it can.

Laura Rowe: Right. Right. Yeah, it's the ripple effect. You know, it's, it is important. That's what I talk to my clients about a lot is you, each client that chooses to do this work to heal themselves and live this intuitive empathic way. It is exponentially rippling out. And the effect is huge. Even though it doesn't feel it every day. You don't notice it, but it is.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But what I suggest is there's a chapter that I agree with you. There's a chapter at the end of each chapter, there's empathy and action section, but what you can do each day to put your empathy into action. And when you begin to feel, literally feel what I'm talking about, you know, if you, if you meditate, and I'm a big believer in meditation, and I have different meditations in the book for you to try. But meditation is basically shifting out of the mind and into the heart the way I meditate. You know, I have more of a Daoist kind of meditation, there are different kinds of meditation that might be suitable for you, but you have to find out. But the more you do that, the stronger you get. And the more intuitive knowing you have is the power of goodness that is everything, you know, and you begin to really believe in it. You know, the belief in that, in the power of goodness and kindness and empathy and compassion, that cannot steer you wrong. But at the same time, you're no pushover. And that's what I talk about in the book, you're not this little flower just wilting every two seconds. You know, you know, I'm quiet, maybe, but I'm strong. We not even but and I'm strong.

Laura Rowe: And yeah, there's this fallacy that we've created, or that's been playing out where being emotional is weak, or be having empathy is a sign of weakness. And I always try to help people remember that it's actually the opposite. It is very it is profound strength, you are it's a muscle you build to have empathy and to have kindness and goodness all the time, because it's not an easy world out there. And if you're trying to do that, it takes strength and there it is empowering for you, but also everyone you come in contact with.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It is and you feel your strength. I mean, you when I was little, I'm sure you were a lot of people were told, Oh, dear, you're overly sensitive. Oh, yeah, thicker skin. Oh, dear you know, you need to not show that to society because they're not going to approve of your intuition or your dreams. You know, so I grew up with that. And so I became ashamed of my abilities. And I had to grow into them and the power of them. But when you feel your intuition, and when you feel your heart open, this is a sign of strength. And I want everyone to know that. And the more you practice that the more you can meditate, put your hand on your heart and wish somebody well. Maybe someone you don't even like that's really nice, which then well, it's hard for the mind easy for the heart.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: All right. So just remember, there's the mind that doesn't want to do it. But you ask your heart and the heart will go, Oh, good idea.

Laura Rowe: Exactly. Well, on that topic, I want to talk a little bit about forgiveness, because this is, you know, been a topic among a lot of thought leaders and spiritual people, psychologists, psychiatrists for a long time. And at the moment, it's a mixed bag review that I find.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah.

Laura Rowe: So tell me about it. What's your own experience? What do you see in your clients? How does forgiveness work? And is it necessary?

Dr. Judith Orloff: Forgiveness and empathy are, you know, sisters, or brothers, or married, whatever you want to call them, they're joined. And in chapter 10, it's the healing grace of forgiveness, releasing resentments and building empathy. So that's the goal.

Laura Rowe: Nice.

Dr. Judith Orloff: I'll just read you the first couple sentences. “An ingenious healing gift of empathy is that it can help you to forgive someone and release bitterness and resentments. So these feelings don't deplete you. Now you will have a way out of suffering from past hurts if you choose it. Picture the lightness of being and creativity that you will liberate when the weight of resentment is lifted. What is forgiveness? It's an emotional cleansing and self healing process where you compassionately release smaller and larger resentments to clear unwanted negativity. Resentments can be directed towards others or yourself. They can include staying angry or vengeful when you've been harmed, or when love or life or human beings have let you down. By forgiving, you can release a resentment, an empathy centered practice that doesn't involve emotionally bypassing your real feelings.” So that's key. And the problem I've seen that people get into with forgiveness is they have this horrible breakup and suddenly they're forgiving and they're all over it in the next day. And of course they're not over it. And it's just, you're just trying to avoid the pain of the great loss. There has to be a process. If you're harmed in some way, you were harmed. You are right. You don't have to forgive anybody ever. That's my, my feeling. You don't have to, but then you get all those resentments build up around you. So you can't get rid of them. And so it's really hard to age gracefully with all these resentments bogging you down. So you have your choice. You can hold on to them or not, but it will really benefit you if you choose, if you do some of the techniques in the book to, to let them go.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Could you, you know, what were you going to say?

Laura Rowe: Yeah. It's, it's not about the other person. It's not about giving them another chance or, you know, it isn't the, I think the forgiveness is about your heart, not what you'll take in the future from somebody.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. And that's what people think. If you have a conversation with them and forgive them, they think you want to get back together with them. I had, I wrote about it. One of my, my, my first boyfriend who dropped me for a cheerleader in high school and it was the most painful wrenching thing at that point I've ever experienced. And then later on in life, he called me and said, let's, and he just dumped me and he wouldn't talk about it. And so later on in life, he calls me and we get together for cheese. He says, oh, it's the stupidest thing I ever did. You know, dropping you like that. And I was just like, how did you do it?

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Why? Tell me that's all I wanted to know is why. And he said, because I wanted to be popular and you weren't popular. And you know, and, and I understood that state. I understood that state and I forgave that adolescent part of him. But when he wanted to start writing me letters again, which he did, and you know, maybe I maybe resume something.

Laura Rowe: No.

Dr. Judith Orloff: No.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: No.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: So, but for everyone who's listening, you might get somebody who, when you're clearing the resentment or listening and wanting to forgive, they might want to start up the relationship. And like you said, you don't have to do that.

And it's usually, you don't do it.

Laura Rowe: Right. Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But sometimes you do it. It's not an one size fits all for forgive.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And you don't want to forgive too quickly. You will have to suffer, you know, and people want to run from suffering and it's hard to run from suffering. I don't know if it's possible, but when you're going to suffer a little bit. So just, you know, feel the love, the self empathy, your animals, your people around you who can love you through or whoever nature. To accept that suffering does come with loving and you will get hurt at times. And then there will come a point where you will consider forgiveness.

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And when it's not forgiving. I don't forgive that boyfriend for being with the, you know, being with another woman and hurting me. I don't forgive that, but I do forgive the adolescent who wanted to be popular. And I understood, you know, I get it.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It's powerful. It's not that it isn't that trying.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think that that is a really great example of, we, we don't know what somebody's motivations are. And this is what empathy and empathic listening gives us is understanding what motivated them to do that. It doesn't mean that what the action they did was right, but it can help us understand where they're coming from, forgive the part of them that did it. And we do get to hold people accountable for the mistakes that they make, but we don't have to hang them out to dry or cancel them. As they say, we can, you know, understand it from a different perspective.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. And we don't never have to talk to them again.

Laura Rowe: Yes.

Dr. Judith Orloff: It’s necessary. And forgiveness comes from your own heart. And I forgive them for being an adolescent who didn't have a clue and was just, and afterwards, you know, with this particular person, he became a heroin addict and had a very difficult life and then chronic pain. And so he, he didn't have a great life. But that's neither here nor there. I was forgiving the adolescent. I didn't know the adult.

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And so,

Laura Rowe: Right.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And I just, it's interesting because he read my book and he read this account of him because a strange coincidence, my friend was, he was, he's an accountant. My friend had him as an accountant.

Laura Rowe: Wow. That's wild.

Dr. Judith Orloff: After all of these years.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You know, Judith didn't get it right.

Laura Rowe: Of course. Well, isn't that the truth? Everyone has their version of things, right?

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah.

Laura Rowe: That doesn't look the same.

Dr. Judith Orloff: That's right.

Laura Rowe: Well, we,

Dr. Judith Orloff: I could laugh at it. You know,

Laura Rowe: Good. Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: When it was happening, it felt like my life was destroyed.

Laura Rowe: I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. I want to talk about the last chapter, the last section, the healing the world. Because this is why I'm jazzed about the book because we're talking about this, what feels I think overwhelming to a lot of people, the chaos around us, the divide amongst us. And how does this, how does empathic play into leadership, play into, you know, a bigger world?

Dr. Judith Orloff: Well, if you're in a leadership position, you want to be empathic, you want to listen to your employees, let's say, or your team, you want to, you don't want to cut someone off or say my way or the highway. No, and you want to bring the creativity and talent of a team out. And when the team has the empathic leader, their philosophy, when teams have an authoritarian leader, they're frightened and they don't want to go the extra mile at all. So it's a different format. And you want that kind of love and respect in a team and love and respect in leadership. And for leaders to feel free to show their empathy and show their strength. And so that's what the empathic leadership, but in terms of global empathy, it's important to learn the power of the individual to sit, let's say your meditation space and send empathy to a war torn region. If you don't want to, what empaths do is they just get into the misery of the war torn region and become dysfunctional.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: That's not going to help the war torn region, right? So what you need to know that in case you're insistent on continuing that pattern, won't help.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But if you want to help, you can send empathy. You can feel the people of a land and you could send empathy to them. And that empathy expands and grows bigger and bigger as it travels. And it knows exactly where to go. And even someone has lost faith and that empathy will reach that person. And suddenly, ah, they get a new lease on life, you know, or, ah, they get some energy when they're so been so exhausted. You never know those moments. And we've all had them where all of a sudden just things get better.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: A little teensy bit better. And you've turned the corner.

Laura Rowe: Exactly.

Dr. Judith Orloff: That's what this invisible empathy, I'm giving myself chills.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But that invisible empathy can do that to someone you don't even know. And I call it the power of prayer. I've been criticized by some for doing that. But I feel that it's prayer. It doesn't have to be prayer. It can be simply the sending of goodwill through your heart.

Laura Rowe: Yeah. Yeah. And I think every empath I know wants to make a difference. And this is not a small thing. And yet it's built in. We know how to do this. We just need to be encouraged to do it.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And sometimes it's nice in small groups to do it together. So you can feel the support of each other. But you don't have to do much. It's sending out this kind of love. It's just setting your intention and letting it go. And it knows where to go. You don't push it away or anything.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Just let it go and trust and hold the energy for it as it's going and sit in meditation in your comfort and your blessings that you have in your life that you're not in a war-torn region for those who aren't. That you're able to sit and just have quiet in your house and not hear bombs going off. And be able to send the connection and the empathy to our brethren who are over there.

Laura Rowe: Yep.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And it's a very nice thing to do. And it's called global empathy where you can have… I was trained as a remote viewer early on, which is a form of intuitive reading.

Laura Rowe: Yep.

Dr. Judith Orloff: So I learned early on in my intuitive training that you can see way beyond, far away. Distance is not a problem when you're looking with your intuition.

Laura Rowe: Yep.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And the same is true with sending empathy. Distance is not a problem. This energy works differently. So you don't want to logically analyze it too much. You just want to do it. And you can feel in your own body that warmth, but then it grows.

Laura Rowe: Yep.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And then you hear these stories in the newspaper or wherever reported of this or that wonderful thing happening. And you think, who did that? Well, maybe I contributed a little bit to it. And I believe that.

Laura Rowe: I do too. Yeah. It's a powerful force. And it is a load off of all of our minds that we don't have to be in charge of it. We just have it. We send it out. Nobody has to manage it.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah, exactly. Once you send it out, it knows what to do. And with traditional medicine, they kind of don't know about this. If they feel that the mind controls everything and that everything is logical, everything isn't logical.

Laura Rowe: Nope, it's not. Oh, thank you.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Some things are.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: But some things aren't. And that's where energy and empathy and love and why are we doing this anyways? And why are we trying to rise up and shift the energy of the earth? Because we care about this beautiful planet and the civilization and we don't want it to be destroyed. And you never give up hope. No, never.

Laura Rowe: Agreed. And we don't understand the power of empathy and love and miracles. And it's not logical. And we get to believe in something that isn't logical. It makes it makes our lives better and we can witness and watch it happen in action.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Well, if you if you're listening to this, if you can truly imagine believing this is real and that this is something that is true and real, it changes your belief system and your life and you'll have a much wider perspective of what a human on his or her own can do.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And we're powerful. Each one of us has a lot of power.

Laura Rowe: A lot.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And once you learn how to set the boundaries and don't absorb the energy from other people or the world and you could begin to be the giver that you wanted to be without being afraid of being destroyed by the energy that you're contacting.

Laura Rowe: Exactly.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And that's what global empathy is. And I don't want it to sound too abstract because it's really very simple and powerful.

Laura Rowe: Yep.

Dr. Judith Orloff: And don't ever underestimate yourself and think you can't do what we're talking about. You might need a little guidance and hopefully the book can offer you that. And you can look at it and go, OK, this is what I do next, which is fine, which is fine. But feeling the power, that's my goal in the gift I want to offer.

Laura Rowe: Yeah.

Dr. Judith Orloff: You know, if you can feel that power, it's a different world to navigate.

Laura Rowe: Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you. This has been wonderful.

Dr. Judith Orloff: I just thank you so much for your beautiful hosting and flowing with me in this interview. It's very nice and easy and you're really sensitive.

Laura Rowe: Thank you very much. This has been an honor and a pleasure and until next time. Thank you.

Dr. Judith Orloff: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you everybody for sharing this time with us and I hope it inspired you to explore empathy.

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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