At The Empathy Institute we believe that speech can be violent. We also believe that given the BIG three exceptions to the 1st amendment (obscene words, fighting words & subversive words), violent speech is therefore not protected speech!

Growing up as a post civil-rights baby to pre civil-rights african-american parents, I had the optimism of the american dream (& the confidence of a butterfly having no memory of the chrysalis). I also had a freedom my parents didn’t have growing up, and that was to be goofy AF whenever I wanted to be.

Having the freedom TO BE ME also came with embracing my physical awkwardness. I was one of those kids who would trip over their feet (out of nowhere). But because I was also very athletic (I know strange combo), I was usually the 1st one picked for games & sports. That dichotomy protected me from getting bullied. My friends who were awkward (but not athletic), were not so lucky, and I’ve never forgotten their anxiety, their grief or their terror, EVER!

So when I talk about ‘ViBE With Tony’, I’m talking about deconstructing violence & bullying, while introducing empathy as a bridge of transport between one’s head & one’s heart. Wanna ViBE with Tony?

In this playshop we get into the daily verbal-violence used:

•feel like/feel that
•should/have to
•bad/wrong

We talk about re-languaging:

•enslavement/enslavers/enslaved people
•americans of african-ancestry/human-variation
•radical caucasian extremism/terrorism

We explore bully TRIX (not the ones for kids):

•change & reframe
•debate tricks (like paralepsis & ‘the Q is’)
•’speaking confident nonsense’

…and the whole time we get our EMPATHY on (self-empathy, silent-empathy & mindful-empathy). How does that sound, spirit-sibling?

‘If violence is painful energy turned into attacking force, then immersive-empathy (or nonviolence for communication), is the active, protective awareness that attacking force comes from painful energy’ ~SiMBa

ViBE With Tony (on set, in the classroom, in the boardroom & on ZOOM😎)

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