Why your unique brand of empathy is the healing the world needs

Have you ever found yourself secretly charmed by the little things in life—those moments that WOW you, or the tiny things that can sometimes seem like nothing special? 

The silly, goofy things that delight YOU are the healing the world needs — and the key to understanding yourself and your unique contributions to the world!

In this Thursday Thread episode, I pull a thread from Tuesday’s episode featuring Nirjary Desai, who has taken the brave step to come back home to herself, and reprioritize her entrepreneurial path. 

This episode is an invitation to do what Nirjary and I have done, and uncover the 'unicorn magic' within yourself and learn to harness it as a force of light in a world that often feels too dark. 

I take you through my own journey, and how the experiences I’ve had over the last few years have shown me the importance of celebrating the things that make us different and recognize that they are not just quirks, but actual pathways to a more empathetic and united existence. 

So come along, and let's spread a little unicorn magic together.

As always on Thursdays, we end the episode with a moment to breathe together. 

Chapters

• 0:05 Empathy
• 14:14 Spread Unicorn Magic Through Self-Empathy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

And welcome to Untethered with Jen Liss, the podcast that's here to help you break free, be you and unleash your inner brilliance. I'm your host, jen, and in this episode we're going to talk about why your unique brand of empathy is the healing the world needs. Let's dive in. Hey there, unicorn, it's Jen. Welcome back to the podcast for this Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. Are you singing it with me? I hope you raise your arms in the air and you clap.

Speaker 1: 0:44

My sister cannot stand when people clap at concerts, and so I always do it excessively when around her. Anytime I see a concert with my sister, which is less often because she's in Wichita, kansas, and I'm in Portland, oregon but we've had many concerts under our belts and I've clapped at many of them. That's too annoying. Are you a concert clapper? I need to know. These are things that I need to know about you. Are you somebody who loves to clap? Do you clap on an airplane, when the airplane lands? Are you one of those people? Do you clap after a movie? I'm not judging, I don't clap after movies or after the airplane lands, but I do clap at concerts. I'm that person. I'm snapping and I'm clapping and I'm singing and I'm dancing and I'm having a good time.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Thursday Thread is not about that at all, but these are important things. This is my unique breed of magic that I bring to the world is talking about really goofy, silly things. I love it, I love it. I think those kinds of conversations are the spice of life that we let go by us and we don't often call out these silly, goofy things that we do. The fact that they are silly and goofy and the fact that we also, simultaneously freaking, love them. Even sometimes, if you hate it, you can start to love it. My husband hates the song Love Shack with all of his might. Everybody knows it, and because we know that he hates that song so much, we play it around him all the time and it has actually become something that we love and that he loves, because we have played it so much around him that it's become a fun thing.

Speaker 1: 2:22

So even the things that annoy you the most, you can turn them into something that you love, which I found the segue to this Thursday thread, because what I want to talk about today this is a little piece pulled out of Tuesday's episode with Neirdre Desai, so she has a global events company. She makes these amazing, magical events for companies, big companies, big celebrities that she creates these events for, and she has done so well. She has done so well as a business owner and she's at a moment in her life, in her business, where she's stepping back and she's saying I just had a son. I'm looking at my business, I'm looking at what is this next level for me, and it's a really beautiful time and also can be a scary time for an entrepreneur. So I appreciated that she came on the podcast and she spoke about it so real, like in that. Just this is where I'm at and I think other women need to know about this as well and she's creating a community to support people in that too, and it's so important. And when you look at what she's doing because she's stepping back and she's looking and she's saying, okay, what do I need right now? What do I want in my life right now? And then she's seeing that there's an opportunity for her to bring more of that to other women, which is what's forging her path right now for creating community, for people to be more real, to have more real conversations, like what I had with her on Tuesday, and that comes down to what I titled this podcast like your unique brand of empathy is something the world needs.

Speaker 1: 4:12

What you feel like makes you weird. What you feel like makes you different. What feels funky to you in the world? The thing that you struggle the most with, the thing that you struggle the most with whether it's finding real friendship, maybe it's having really freaking good ice cream that's also dairy-free and gluten-free. Maybe it's music that you actually want to listen to. Whatever it is that you want in the world that you feel like you're not getting, you can create that for other people because you can empathize with them. You get it, you understand it, you know it. The same goes for me.

Speaker 1: 4:54

During the pandemic, I created this Facebook group called the Creative Commute because I was like this is really weird. This is such a weird time and it feels really bad and I need something to help me feel good. I need something to support me and to keep me feeling silly and light during this incredibly heavy time, and so I created something, and it's the same thing I do with breathwork. I have a hard time coming into my body. I have a hard time feeling my emotions and focusing on my emotions and giving myself the support that I need. I have trouble asking for it, so I'm going to create a breathwork membership that gives that to other people and in turn, I get to enjoy it too. This is what we do. So what is the thing that you need most in the world right now? Right now, I have so many business ideas. Because of all the things that I need, let me tell you I'm a needy SOB, dob, daughter of a bitch, okay. Anyway, I have a lot of needs. We all have a lot of needs.

Speaker 1: 6:00

What is one that really calls on your heart? What could you bring to the world? Where can you empathize with other people? Neirdre was saying that she has traveled all over the world. She's seen so many different kinds of people and seen people struggle, and around 9-11, she was one of those people. She felt called out for who she was. People didn't feel safe in her presence, and so one of the things that she wants to do is to help people feel safe and help other people know that other people are safe. That's really important to her because it's the life that she has lived. It's the experience that she has lived. Seth Godin says that marketing is radical empathy, and that's what this means. If you have felt hurt or harmed or needed something in some way, that's all that you need to bring to the world, and you just need to communicate to people that that's exactly what you're bringing.

Speaker 1: 7:07

I want people to know that it is possible for them to fuck around and get paid for them, to live a joyous and free and fun life and get paid for it and be successful. Even in this capitalistic society, you can get paid. That is my belief and, at the same time, it's not the belief that I grew up with. I grew up with feeling like work had to suck and so many of us did. That was just the way that it was. People were treated like cogs in the machine. But it's not true anymore. Spoiler alert it's not true. It's not true. And you get to be one of the people.

Speaker 1: 7:47

If you're listening to this podcast, you probably are one of the people who you love fun and you love silliness, and you have this light side of yourself where so many of us don't believe that we can make money, that we can actually create abundance, that we can have wealth from having fun, abundance, that we can have wealth from having fun. Well, we get to create that. So if there's more of us feeling like, oh my gosh, I could create fun in the world and get abundance from it, then you're having other people believe that too, and then we actually create a real world of that. Instead, what we have created is a world where we all feel like work has to suck and we have to work so freaking hard. That was created, that was manifested by, but we can use our empathy to create another way, to create new ways.

Speaker 1: 8:38

So that's my homework for you today is simply to rest on. Where do I really feel empathy for other people? What is the thing that I myself have struggled with most? Be really honest with yourself. What is that thing? Where have I struggled? Where could I use support? If you're feeling this and you're listening to this, you're a leader and you were called to lead on this thing. So pause and see what it was, see what it is, let it come to you, let it be seen, and then watch the magic that begins to happen as you start to have new creative ideas around it.

Speaker 1: 9:19

As we do on every Thursday Thread episode, I am going to invite you to a moment of presence, to a moment of breath of calm reflection, and we will invite it right here, on this topic, right here. What is the thing? And please do this with safety, we're going to keep this gentle. We're not judging, we're not going deep into hard emotions. We're simply saying and asking ourselves what is something that I myself have struggled with and how could I bring that support to myself and to the world and to the world?

Speaker 1: 9:59

So, taking a deep breath into your nose, exhaling through the mouth If you're capable and able, and in a place where you can, on your next exhale, closing down your eyes, feeling into the surface beneath your feet, feeling into the surface beneath your seat, recognizing that you are supported in the here and now. In fact, you are supported in every moment, breath by breath, beginning to gently rotate your breath into the nose and out through the mouth, nothing forced, letting that breath flow and calling to your awareness a place in your life where you could have used support, maybe a place where you might have felt alone or lonely, where you could have used a helping hand. Maybe you got one, maybe somebody did reach out as you breathe into the nose and out through the mouth and you remember even a tiny moment where you did get support on that thing, maybe a smile from another person, a helping hand, maybe even this moment, right now, feels like that little bit of support, holding you as you reflect on this place where you could have used some kind of help from someone else, recognizing that version of you that could have used support yesterday, weeks ago or years ago. Just saying to that version of you I see you, I hear you, I feel you, I feel you, I've got you.

Speaker 1: 12:51

Taking one last inhale in through the nose, exhaling out through the mouth, maybe wrapping your arms around one another, giving yourself a hug, reminding yourself that you are here for you, offering yourself that touch of empathy, your presence. I'm here for you when you're ready, releasing your arms, placing your hands back in your lap, returning your awareness to the seat beneath you, the floor beneath your feet, when, and only when, you're ready, fluttering your eyes open, coming back to the present. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Your presence and your empathy, especially toward yourself, will change the world. Even doing this exercise here with me today changed the world in a 1%, little tiny shift. Thank you for being willing to try it, to experience it and to go inward. Thank you again for listening.

Speaker 1: 14:14

If you enjoyed this episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend. Share it with somebody else who could use it, who needs it, who could use that little dose of self-empathy. Truly, you have so much unicorn magic inside of yourself. You just keep shining it out into the world for all to see. I'll see you next time. Bye.