Our Mission

By peace we mean the capacity to transform conflicts with empathy, without violence, and creatively — a never-ending process

Johann Galtung

We all know that our country is extremely polarized right now. The political arena is combative, and the media’s framing of stories is often divisive as well. Because politicians and ideological representatives spend so much time fighting to defeat each other, little or none of their energy is devoted to resolving differences, fueling increasing levels of anger, fear, cynicism, and disconnection in politics. This threatens the well being of us all. The one thing many of us agree on however: THIS IS A PROBLEM !

The Empathy Tent’s mission is to help people get beyond stereotypes, to experience our common humanity, to de-escalate, to empathize and connect. We offer a very simple structured dialogue format that we call an Empathy Circle. The process increases mutual understanding and connection by ensuring that each person feels fully heard to their satisfaction. Ideally, out of this newfound connection, the possibility of working creatively together towards positive solutions to our common problems can emerge. Many of our facilitated dialogues and meditations end in hugs between people on opposite sides of the political and social divide.