Going Nowhere in Particular — Story of an Empathy Walk
The purposes of an “Empathy Walk” are:
To develop empathy for someone very different from yourself.
To develop some skill in establishing a relationship across a significant boundary.
Theory U
My Empathy Walk
This is a real story that took place in September 2015, while I was taking the MITx course, u.lab. Leading from the Emerging Future. That program requires that the participant opens his/her mind, heart, and will, to develop internal coherence. Within the course requirements, there are specific activities to build those capacities.
One of them is an “Empathy Walk,” which helps you open your heart to develop empathy. You are required to take an “Empathy Walk” with a person who is at the margin of your system, or with someone with whom you have a problematic relationship.
Walking To Nowhere with a Disabled Man
After a dental appointment, I was at a mall looking at the windows and thinking on the empathy walk that I had to complete that week, when somebody approached me from behind and said to me, “Excuse me, sir, could you help me? I am in need of some money” I automatically dismissed him with a gesture of my hand saying “No” without even looking at him. The man just walked away.
I stared at my reflection in the glass, and a thought came to my mind. “What have you done? Your empathy walk came right to you, and you turned it away! Where is your empathy now?” I turned my head around and saw a one-legged man with crutches going out of the mall. “Follow him,” I thought. And then not only did I feel remorse but also fear. Fear of what? I could not believe the thoughts that I was thinking and the feelings that I had.
I decided that if I let him go away, not only would I feel awful, but I would also lose my self-respect. I could not allow that to happen. So, I had to go out and get him. I did it and caught up with him one block away from the mall. I stood before him and apologized for my rude behavior. He was just too surprised to say anything. I introduced myself and began to walk with him to nowhere in particular.
He told me a heartbreaking story when I asked him what had happened to his leg. Javier is 38 years old, single man who lives with his mother. He lost his leg ten years ago when he was hit by a car. Before that accident, he was an athlete who practiced swimming and basketball. Now he is unemployed and moneyless because, according to him, no one would hire him because of his physical condition.
Nevertheless, a company had offered to hire him on one condition, that he could walk without crutches. He looked for and found a foundation that offered him to buy the prosthetic leg, but they required that he provided them with a quote. That was the reason for which he had come to the city, but he had spent the little cash that he had on the bus ticket. I invited him to breakfast and gave him the money that I had with me. When we were saying goodbye, he confessed that he never expected the day to end that way. To tell you the truth, neither did I.
Going Out of My Comfort Zone
That empathy walk assignment took me out of my comfort zone. Inside that zone, I am usually empathetic, caring, good listener, and attentive, with my family, friends, my peers at work, and with like-minded people like the ones I have met at u.lab. But, when I took that walk into the unknown, with a person that was totally out of my system, I felt that my emotional defenses came down, leaving my heart open and vulnerable. When I was walking back to my car, my thought was that somehow, without even realizing it, I had been thrown down to the bottom of the U.
The man that is walking in my shoes after that empathy walk is not the same man that had stepped into the course two weeks before. At that moment in time, I thought that to get the program certificate, all I had to do was to study Dr. Scharmer’s book and to practice the methodology and tools. After that “Empathy Walk,” I wondered what other surprises like this one had been prepared for us by Otto Scharmer and his team of collaborators. It turns out that every stage of the program has profoundly transformative experiences like the “Empathy walk.”
Taking an empathy walk with a disabled man was a turning point in my personal and professional life because it took me out of my comfort zone for good. Going out of your comfort zone is a habitual way of life when you are a Theory U practitioner.
A Life-Changing Experience
Now, I look back on my journey, and I can safely say that having done that program was a life-changing experience. And it continues to do so because today, I am a co-host of the Caracas ULab Hub, the local center for the knowledge and teaching of Theory U in Venezuela. In that role, I serve as a mentor, accompanying the new participants of the “u.lab. Leading From The Emerging Future” program, which Otto Scharmer facilitates every year from MITx.
Additionally, I co-direct an NGO, “Proyecto Hikola.” Our ONG adapted the MITx program to the Spanish language to empower change agents with the Theory U competencies, enabling them to lead complex change processes in their organizations and communities.
The Future
I will be operating in the Greater Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area since May of this year. Nevertheless, I will continue to be very active in the co-creation of Theory U based projects trough our ONG. Specifically, I am part of the core team that is responsible for the Proyecto Hikola’s participation in a worldwide initiative led by the Presencing Institute. Otto Scharmer’s think tank created the five months u.lab2X. Societal Transformation Lab program, to take 300 teams from 150 countries “From Prototype to Eco-System Impact.”
I have the opportunity to continuously interact with a very active worldwide community of more than 20,000 change agents who apply the tools and methods of Theory U in governments, organizations, and communities located in more than 180 countries.
