Episode 4: Empathy, Rest & Resistance

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Part 1
In Episode 4, I will be discussing ideas around Empathy, Rest and Resistance. In July of 2024, Suzanne Picard and I co-taught and create a class in Living in Health, Cultivating Parasympathetic and Rest. I will be interviewing Suzanne, who is a Rolf Movement educator and practitioner of Structural Integration under the trademark known as a “Rolfer”. Some of the inspirations for this course came from the Nap Ministry’s founder Tricia Hersey. Tricia’s book is described as, “rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action and manifesto for those who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.”
Part 2

Empathy comes from Greek for “affection” or “in suffering”. To be empathic has taken on all kinds of meanings in modern culture. For those of us who work in therapeutic realms it is a necessary skill we have to cultivate and/or organize in our work. I say this because many folks who enter into therapeutic fields are natural empaths. Being a natural empath has its advantages and can lead to burnout in working with people. It becomes incredibly important to practice rest as an act of liberation and selfcare within therapeutic fields. Natural empaths are often neurodivergent and have other complexities they have to regulate.