Positive Empathy And 20 Tips to Cultivate Compersion

Chapter 2: Composting Competition Book Club Video Series

In this episode of our Composting Competition Book Club, we’re discussing Chapter 2, titled “Positive Empathy.”

Marie’s research found the two key components of compersion:

1. positive empathy

2. gratitude

This chapter focuses on the former, and empathy is defined as:

• “feeling into” (the German definition)

• the strong feeling-connection with another
  “I feel what you feel” or “I can imagine what you feel”

• Marie’s take is that compersion is a shared positive experience

In this video we discuss:

• How positive empathy of compersion shows up for us in the four areas that Marie’s research identifies (emotional, cognitive, attitudinal and behavioral ways)

• “Self-expansion theory” which she says means that “as people get closer emotionally, they begin to perceive the other as part of the self”

• How we experience the five themes that appeared in research participants’ accounts of positive empathy