Building a Culture of Empathy

[mariamma]

I am on a spiritual journey and have been for many years. I'm a nurse by training and have a spirit guide whom I have known since I was 4. My journey has taken me from plant medicine, healing, astrology and tarot to care-giving, motherhood, nursing and the intersection of science and spirituality.
Everything we think/emote/do is because of hormones, neurotransmitters or other trace protein structures. One needs a certain hormonal balance to feel well-being, happiness, empathy, love, anger, psychosis, depression, the need to eat or pee, have sex, avolution (feeling a lack of desire to do anything) shame, pride, etc., etc., etc. This journey has brought me to learning about how people experience the energy of an emotion, hormones, perceptions, etc. (perceptions run mostly via serotonergic and dopaminergic neural network). It is all seen in animals as well since they can have the same hormones and neurotransmitters as humans.
Neuroendocrinology, neurobiology is an exciting and new area of research. It is terribly complex and convoluted. Most of the research is available online or in recent books.
This link is to a non-profit in California working towards raising consciousness about empathy and building a culture of empathy. Because this is an emotional process involving oxytocin and vasopressin in the brain and body (vasopressin and oxytocin are molecularly similar and often work together) it ends up being deeply spiritual and communal. I know others follow spiritual paths. I am curious how others experience emotions, perception, etc. etc. and how empathy works in our lives as women who have bore children or worked with children, or with animals, or with communities at large.
I do believe genders work with feelings differently because of how nature (genetic expression of hormones and neurotransmitters) and nurture (how our emotions guided us and were guided by our environment) works with in the human body, subgroups, and the global community.
Thank you in advance for whatever wisdom you have to share.

[mariamma]

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/05...ync/39238.html
Went to facebook and a friend linked this to her page. Oxytocin in action!

[mariamma]

Another article on empathy. The author explains well how I feel most of the time.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...after-yourself

[Toughy]

Everything we think/emote/do is because of hormones, neurotransmitters or other trace protein structures.

I wish I knew why the above statement just irritates the bejesus out of me.

[mariamma]

Originally Posted by Toughy

I wish I knew why the above statement just irritates the bejesus out of me.

I do irritate people with my blanket statements. Here is some of the science behind what I say.
Your adrenals make about 50 hormones, some being stress hormones, water balance and mineral balance hormones, the gender inducing hormones, etc http://www.safemenopausesolutions.co...fficiency.html
If you feel like a woman, you will have more estrogen than testosterone and vice verse. If you feel like you are both male and female, you probably have high amounts of both hormones.
http://www.twinspirittribe.com/page/page/4580470.htm
If you are schizophrenic, you have too much dopamine. You can have temp. schizophrenia with meth use or a parasitic infection
http://blog.neura.edu.au/2012/08/07/...mmatory-topic/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0311085151.htm
If you are empathic, you are skilled at using oxytocin.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8WV1zAh9zU"]Mirror Neurons - YouTube[/nomedia]
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmEsGQ3JmKg"]mirror neurons part 2 - YouTube[/nomedia]
Serotonin engenders well-being and happiness.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/serotonin.shtml
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract
I can do a better job with explaining myself. I've just hear so much about this stuff on the radio that I assume everyone knows by now. There's a new study coming out every week on anxiety and GABA or ACTH, vasopressin and anxiety, etc., etc.
If you saw the previous links, they talk about oxytocin and empathy. Oxytocin also engenders bonding, trust, is a primary hormone involved with love, it is what you 'break' when you break a horse (as opposed to the more modern technique of gentle breaking). You break the horse's trust and get the horse to bond with the trainer (instead of dame or the herd). Dogs also have high oxytocin which is why dogs and horses are therapy animals. They help ADHD and autistic kids read and connect to others better.
I hope this answers anyone's questions. I know it's easier to believe I am a deluded crazy person. My lack of patience doesn't help. But there is a reason why I say and write about what I write about. I'm not pulling dreams out of thin air.

[Glenn]

Mariamma; I believe there are two roads we can go by to rewire and/or rebalance ourselves and our environment, and that is via meditation and medication. This faster paced industrial society creates much less empathy and utilizes more natural resources. We need to slow down. Deep meditation can slow down the breath and heart rate and help us to heal (along with medications)and consume less natural resources, and also raise the level of our spiritual energy. You know that the spiritual energy of one empath can raise the consciousness of many.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by mariamma

I do irritate people with my blanket statements. Here is some of the science behind what I say.
Your adrenals make about 50 hormones, some being stress hormones, water balance and mineral balance hormones, the gender inducing hormones, etc http://www.safemenopausesolutions.co...fficiency.html
If you feel like a woman, you will have more estrogen than testosterone and vice verse. If you feel like you are both male and female, you probably have high amounts of both hormones.
http://www.twinspirittribe.com/page/page/4580470.htm
If you are schizophrenic, you have too much dopamine. You can have temp. schizophrenia with meth use or a parasitic infection
http://blog.neura.edu.au/2012/08/07/...mmatory-topic/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0311085151.htm
If you are empathic, you are skilled at using oxytocin.
Mirror Neurons - YouTube
mirror neurons part 2 - YouTube
Serotonin engenders well-being and happiness.
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/serotonin.shtml
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...?dopt=Abstract
I can do a better job with explaining myself. I've just hear so much about this stuff on the radio that I assume everyone knows by now. There's a new study coming out every week on anxiety and GABA or ACTH, vasopressin and anxiety, etc., etc.
If you saw the previous links, they talk about oxytocin and empathy. Oxytocin also engenders bonding, trust, is a primary hormone involved with love, it is what you 'break' when you break a horse (as opposed to the more modern technique of gentle breaking). You break the horse's trust and get the horse to bond with the trainer (instead of dame or the herd). Dogs also have high oxytocin which is why dogs and horses are therapy animals. They help ADHD and autistic kids read and connect to others better.
I hope this answers anyone's questions. I know it's easier to believe I am a deluded crazy person. My lack of patience doesn't help. But there is a reason why I say and write about what I write about. I'm not pulling dreams out of thin air.

i dont think you're a deluded crazy person or pulling dreams outta the air, thin or not. i just grind my teeth at the idea that chemistry rules our lives. i believe 100% in the power of neurotransmitters. i'm not an idiot. i just cant get behind the whole if you have too much or not enough of xyz hormone you'll do this or be that. i think it's exactly the opposite: our lives rule our chemistry.

neurotransmitters are part of the human recipe. existential memory (experience, culture, self-talk, etc) is the other part. mix the two and people are capable of almost anything to a lesser or greater degree. add in a support system, trial and error experimentation, determination, passion and paradigm shift and the end result is a person who encourages certain behaviors in their neurotransmitters not neurotransmitters that encourage certain behaviors in a person. people become accustomed to the circumstances they create in themselves.

we feed what we need.

[Licious]

Mariamma,

My hat is off to you *okay my hair clip* for such an amazing thread topic!

Subscribing.

[mariamma]

Originally Posted by Licious

Mariamma,

My hat is off to you *okay my hair clip* for such an amazing thread topic!

Subscribing.

*curtseys* Thank you my sister from another mister