A Handbook for Inconvienient Hearts

The Educated Empath

Christopher G. Miller

This book will show you how to:

What people are saying about Chris

"I found my experience with Chris Miller as a Compassionate Communication teacher and practitioner extremely helpful. His teaching, deep listening skills and empathy assisted me in clarifying my own approaches to connection to myself and others in thoughts and feelings. As a result I felt calmer emotionally and clearer in my thinking."

"I came to Chris Miller and Compassionate Communication after decades of inner work — two rounds of analysis, hundreds of hours of therapy, dozens of retreats and years of spiritual work. Yet I was still fighting the old demons. After training and just a few sessions with Chris, I found the source, the core trigger that makes me lash back at people to defend myself. Chris and Compassionate Communication gave me an alternative way to react: to take a break and get calm, then listen to the other with compassion, with no need to defend, apologize or justify myself."

Chris is more than a teacher of communications skills. He is a mediator, a counselor and a healer. He is compassionate and his demeanor is calming and peaceful, and he truly understands the connection between mind, body and spirit

When it comes to empathic listening support, Chris Miller's ability to help those in emotional pain borders on the miraculous. I've both seen and experienced his skills and been amazed by what he is able to accomplish by listening deeply and asking questions.

This Compassionate Communication class was an unexpected gift! This learning has been life altering and the most valuable learning I've had to date

We are all interconnected in a most fundamental way, and empathy is our way of experiencing and expressing that deep connection with each other. In this book, Chris speaks not only to the hearts of gifted Empaths, but to everyone who aspires to cultivate greater empathy in their daily lives in healthy ways. The Educated Empath guides us to honor and trust our emotional sensitivities and to use them in ways that truly serve ourselves and others.

Excerpts

Science is catching up. It has demonstrated that empathy is a real experience visible in brain activity through fMRI imaging. In research published in Brain and Behavior, Stony Brook University psychologists Arthur and Elaine Aron and their colleagues showed that roughly 20 percent of the population has an elevated capacity for empathy — a trait they named Sensory Processing Sensitivity, or SPS.6

People with higher SPS are more aware of and responsive to environmental and social stimuli. Not only do Empaths understand what they see, but they feel it in their own bodies and nervous systems. This is where it can get tricky, because some Empaths lose the sense of “What is mine and what is yours.”

Empathy is not unique to humans. In Kenya, researchers have watched elephant mothers and other adult females help babies climb muddy banks, find safe paths into swamps, and break through electrified fences. Scientists have observed elephants assisting injured herd members, plucking out tranquilizing darts from their fellows, and spraying dust on others’ wounds. On at least one occasion, researchers watched an elephant struggle to help a dying friend, lifting her with tusks and trunk while calling out in distress.

Recent research at Georgetown University demonstrated that even humans’ ability to recognize individual dolphins correlates with higher empathy scores and greater conservation motivation — suggesting that empathy bridges species boundaries in both directions.13

If you are an Empath, boundaries are a living, breathing force — like gravity — in your life. You have flexible or permeable boundaries, able to observe, recognize, and absorb the emotional energy of others. The challenge: boundaries respond to energy input at the speed of light.