Western thinking tends to divide cognition and affect, as though these are two separate and individual processes. Computational models grew out of this divide. Our computers are designed to be information-processing machines. As such, in our exchanges with computers, Westerners behave as though information-processing consumers.

In social networking today, we have the capacity to process not just information but emotions, and the emotions of many, many people simultaneously.

This is very overwhelming.

And our emotions are intense. The world has some deep, dark, and dire issues that we have struggled, together, to overcome, and we’re still coming of age with all of these issues, together. We are learning how to be emotionally literate, together, and while we may not yet be quite skilled in it, the efforts are important.

Emotional regulation is the concept that we can acknowledge how to sit with our emotions calmly before they overtake us. This does not mean that we do not feel the emotions or reflect upon them, but that we are able to breathe and stay present to ourselves (and to one another) as we feel our way through.

One of the biggest challenges, I believe, for empathy today is that we do not know how to process the intense emotions of others while regulating our own emotions. Moreover, we struggle to be simultaneously aware of our common humanity, what we all share, and what makes us distinct. We get lost in identity politics because we are trying to figure out how to uniquely acknowledge the suffering of another person or group of people, but we forget that to be seen is the greatest sense of acknowledgement. I believe that if we exchange real presence to one another (creating space, being heard, opening up, remaining calm), then this level of engagement will spread and start transforming larger networks and systems.

For a long time after moving to Australia, I was very upset and resentful. I felt like an outsider here, and was upset to leave a really great life that I had built in Europe. In Denmark I had learned that if you ask someone how they are doing, they will pause for awhile, think about it, reflect and give an honest answer. That level of authenticity is something that I really miss. And then one day I thought of the Ghandi quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Rather than getting upset about everything that was lacking in my social interactions, I decided to bring these practices into being and be as compassionate as I could be.