Learning About Ourselves Through Outrospection and Empathy

Roman Krznaric suggests that instead of improving our lives by observing and analyzing ourselves (introspection), that we should practice what he calls outrospection, or an awareness of others. You might even call it empathy ...

Empathy can include both emotional (affective) empathy or perspective (cognitive) empathy. One way to improve our empathy is to "nurture our curiosity".

In essence, "to know thyself is something that can also be achieved by stepping outside yourself, by discovering other people's lives."

 

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Please share your thoughts about outrospection and empathy in the reply area below.

Three Aspects of Compassion

In this video interview, Kristin Neff talks about self compassion. In it, she mentions three aspects of compassion:

  1. Noticing
  2. Being Supportive
  3. Realizing everyone has problems

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Please share your thoughts about compassion and self-compassion in the reply area below.

What You Know About Addiction Might Be Wrong

In this TED talk, Journalist Johann Hari questions the real cause of addiction.  Having a family history of addiction, he realized that he lacked answers to questions like:   "What really causes addiction?  Why do we carry on with this approach that doesn't seem to be working? Is there a better way out there that we can try instead?" So he went in search of answers, travelling thousands of miles and talking to a variety of people.  What was his conculsion?  "Almost everything we think we know about addiction is wrong."

 

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Please share your thoughts about Johann Hari's talk in the comments below.