— Petra Johns & Jan Mayer, Institute for Compassion
The most important journey of
our lives is only 30 cm long:
From the head to the heart.
The most important journey of
our lives is only 30 cm long:
From the head to the heart.
Welcome to the Institute for Compassion in Heidelberg. We are a non-profit organization with the aim of encouraging people to get to know themselves better again - to achieve physiological, psychological and spiritual balance. As balanced and self-responsible people, we are then able to build harmonious and deep relationships with other people and the environment.
A wide variety of projects have now emerged from our ideas on how this can be achieved.
The projects initiated by us all have one thing in common at their core: people are invited and encouraged to get to know themselves better and, as a result, to encounter their environment in a new way.
In our culture, intelligence is attributed to the head or brain. That is how we are socialized, and hardly anyone would question it. What do we mean by the term “heart intelligence”? To what extent can a heart be “intelligent”?
AlleSeiten Media GmbH is an initiative that promotes an open and respectful culture of debate. Its goal is a constructive exchange based on arguments that makes diverse, socially relevant voices heard – without room for polemics or denigration.
Its ideal is defined by Habermas's discourse ethics – a lofty goal that they are striving to approach with a rigorous and conceptual approach.
Petra Johns and Phil Johns are contributing as experts.
www.alleseiten.de
In the rush of modern life, many of us have lost touch with our hearts, distracted by the daily demands that disconnect us from our inner peace and wisdom. Ren Xue, a profound life cultivation system rooted in ancient Chinese wisdom, offers a path to reconnecting with our true selves through the cultivation of five essential heart qualities: Trust, Openness, Love, Gratitude, and True Respect. The Institute for Compassion in Heidelberg is dedicated to sharing Ren Xue’s transformative teachings with the world, making them accessible through the 5XIN App—a new mobile application offering heart-focused audio reflections and daily meditations designed to restore balance, joy, and well-being. This app-based approach serves as a welcoming first step for newcomers to begin their inner journey, while also offering valuable practice for experienced practitioners.
Inspired by research on app-based mindfulness interventions , this pilot study explored how the 5XIN App can uplift and enrich one’s life. Through a combination of validated questionnaires and interviews, the study aimed to better understand the ways the 5XIN App may reduce stress, deepen mindfulness, and nurture self-compassion.
This time it's about the 5Xin app we developed.
At the Institute for Compassion in Heidelberg, we are dedicated to bridging Western scientific methodologies with Far Eastern wisdom-based practices. Inspired by HeartMath's pioneering research on heart coherence and global consciousness, we explored an intriguing question: Could the energy in a room -determined by the intensity of activity type held at our institue- produce measurable deviations in a random number generator (RNG), revealing a deeper energetic synchronization?
Our findings align with HeartMath’s research on how collective consciousness can influence our surrounding environment. Monitoring RNG activity may be a valuable tool for assessing shifts in group energy and coherence, providing valuable insights into the interaction between human consciousness and energetic fields.
From December 27, 2024 to January 3, 2025, we were once again able to accompany you through the Rauhnächte in the Room of Silence. The Rough Nights are the days between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6). They have been accorded special significance in various cultures and customs for many hundreds of years. We wanted to use the days at the turn of the year to invite people into silence and introspection and are very grateful that so many have taken up our offer!
On each of our 8 Rauhnächte days, our beautiful room in Kleinschmidtstraße was filled with people. Sitting on chairs or on meditation cushions, they listened to the respective impulse for the Rauhnacht. This was followed by a valuable exchange: everyone who wanted to was allowed to share with the group what had been so present in the silence or what had moved their inner selves through the reflection questions. So many interesting questions, impulses and thoughts came up and we are still very inspired by the openness, trust and depth with which all participants met.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who took part this year! We are already looking forward to further planned events in the Room of Silence and wish you a wonderful start to the new year!
(Feedback on the poster: Joy - Clarity - Trust - Peace - Coming to rest - Doubt - Gratitude - Love - Momentum in 2025 - Arriving - Contentment - Calm and collection - Light - Effort - I feel my inner voice)
27.12.2024 until 03.01.2025
daily 15-16 h
free of charge
The Global Consciousness Project was started in 1997 by Dr. Roger Nelson. They wanted to detect, quantify and study human consciousness at a deeper level.
The team distributed physical random number generators (RNG) on a global scale and measured the effects that large-scale, synchronized human emotions and attention focuses had on the random event.
Many thanks to Petra Dallmann, Brit Wilsdorf, Niklas Klever and Lilly Hollnagel for implementing the project.
The Room of Silence was introduced in the Heidelberg newspaper WeststadtPrint 04 | 2024.
Enjoy reading.
This time it is about compassion in the context of care and how software developed by the Institute for Compassion can make care more human.
The guide "Encounters at the Heart Level" published by the Institute for Compassion, which was developed for use in daycare centers, is finding its way to northern Germany.
Amongst the business of our lives, many of us have lost the connection to our hearts. Yet the heart is the most powerful organ we have, going well beyond the anatomical functions. The heart is the home of all life-enhancing qualities, but we need to work hard to restore our hearts to its natural, pure state.
Qi Gong has been practiced in individual groups at the daycare centres in Walldorf and St. Leon-Rot for several months now. The children and teachers are gaining more and more experience with the method. A publication on implementation instructions* was published in 2024 and is available from the Institute for Compassion.
Listen to our new podcast on the topic: "What compassion can achieve in journalism"
Have you ever heard the saying “what is your head telling you”, or “listen to your heart”? How about “trust your gut”? These familiar sayings subtly imply that each organ might hold a unique decision for you...
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