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The Pentagon Model
– the innate competences
The Pentagon Model is a map of essential aspects of a human being. And it is a description of how it is possible to move inward towards deeper contact with oneself and outward towards better contact with one’s fellow human beings.The model is also called Gateways of Empathy.
These natural competences are consciousness of:
- THE BODY
- THE BREATH and the energetic movements associated with respiration.
- THE HEART, in the sense of empathic feelings reflected in the region around the physical heart, such as trust, love, sense of connectedness, compassion and gratitude.
- THE BASIC CREATIVITY, i.e. the fact that our environment, body and mind are experienced as being in uninterrupted creative movement.
- CONCIOUSNESS as such.
THE FIVE DOMAINS of the PENTAGON MODEL
The five areas represented in the model – awareness of the body, the empathic feelings of the heart, basic creativity, consciousness as such, and the breath – constitute a map of essential elements of the whole human being.
The darker arrows indicate the inward movements, the entire register of inner exercises. The lighter arrows represent the training of contact with other people which opens to greater depth, kindness and precision as the ability to communicate from an even deeper place within oneself develops.
These five domains are initially trained one at a time and subsequently in combination so that at least three are being activated simultaneously. Together the five competences constitute the most direct way inward, towards the essence of human being. And outward towards contact with others.
The idea is to practice both on your own and in contact with others. That you – ideally on a daily basis – create a kind of laboratory situation where you practice on your own moving towards your essence in the ways described below.
Essentially, this training does not aim at learning something new, but rather at discovering and giving more space to that which has not been learned. That each one has an innate possibility to be and to be capable of.
the basic
CREATIVITY
The fact that our environment, body and mind are experienced as being in uninterrupted creative movement
CONSCIOUSNESS
as such
Consciousness appears to us with a content from one or more of three sources: from the senses (the environment), from the mind, or from the body (mind and body together can be referred to as the inner world).
Consciousness as such, is experiences as naked, content-less awareness.
the BREATH
The energetic movements associated with respiration.
Consciousness of the breath is trained by simply sensing that you are actually breathing right now. And by dwelling with this for a moment.
THE BODY
Consciousness of the body consists simply of the ability to sense one’s entire body - from the core to the periferi. The ability to spread one’s attention evenly over and throughout the whole body.
the HEART
In the sense of empathic feelings reflected in the region around the physical heart, such as trust, love, sense of connectedness, compassion and gratitude.
Training Empathy
The Pentagon model has systematically been part of teachers training and capacity training for children in schools. See https://bornslivskundskab.dk/eng/
Empathy needed
The Pentagon Model
