Coaching practices for Widening Who Counts as Us
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Widening Who Counts as Us, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- My care basically stops at the edge of my own small circle
- One named person with a face and a story wrecks me and I’ll give right away, but a statistic standing for thousands of people in the same plight barely registers
- I’ve noticed all my friends come from the same narrow slice of my life
- The few times I’ve been swept up in something huge in a crowd
- In the moments something vast cracks me open, I feel this soft pull toward everyone and everything
Practices that may help
- Extend your circle of concern deliberately
Systematically widen who counts as "us" — from close relationships outward to strangers.
Sympatheia — the Stoic Practice of Universal Interconnection - Resist the identifiable victim effect by keeping statistics in view
When you feel more moved by one identified case than by statistics about many, notice the disproportion.
Scope Insensitivity: Why Scale Doesn’t Change Your Feelings - Counteract propinquity bias in friend selection
Proximity is a powerful friendship filter — but it is not the same as fit.
The Propinquity Effect (Leon Festinger) - Seek awe in collective rituals and shared experience
Experience something vast alongside others to amplify both the awe and the connection.
Awe and the Small Self - Use awe to reconnect with something larger than yourself
When awe makes the self feel small, follow the natural impulse toward belonging — toward community, nature, or humanity at large.
Awe and Well-Being, Made Practical - Widening the circle of care
Extend the well-wishes outward in stages: loved one, neutral person, difficult person, all beings.
Loving-Kindness (Metta) Meditation - Seek out awe as a broadening and self-transcending emotion
Awe expands perceived time, reduces self-focused thought, and increases prosocial behavior — and it can be deliberately accessed.
Broaden-and-Build, Made Practical - Triage your outer layers to protect inner-layer capacity
You cannot expand your inner circle without something moving outward — the constraint is cognitive, not motivational.
Dunbar's Number - Practice speaking about the loss to people outside your immediate circle
Gradually widen the circle of people who know about the loss and can offer recognition.
Disenfranchised Grief, Made Practical - Practise including the other person in your self-concept
Close relationships develop when you genuinely incorporate the other’s perspectives and resources into how you think — not just spend time with them.
Self-Expansion Model: How Relationships Grow (and Stagnate) Us
Related concerns
- Arthur Aron Self Expansion
Arthur Aron’s self-expansion model proposes that people are motivated to grow — to expand their sense of self by incorporating new perspectives, skills, and resources — and that relationships are so motivating early on because they represent rapid self-expansion. The well-studied practical implication is that doing novel, challenging activities with a partner or close friend restores the expansion experience and revitalises closeness. The model has a substantial empirical base, primarily in romantic relationships.
- Awe And Belonging
When awe makes the self feel small, follow the natural impulse toward belonging — toward community, nature, or humanity at large.
Use awe to reconnect with something larger than yourself
- Awe And Social Bonding
Experience something vast alongside others to amplify both the awe and the connection.
Seek awe in collective rituals and shared experience
- Awe And The Small Self
Dacher Keltner’s research shows that awe — the response to something vast that exceeds our current frame — reliably produces the "small self": a felt diminishment of individual concerns that is experienced as expansive rather than deflating. This shift reduces self-focused rumination, increases prosocial behavior, and expands the sense of available time. The core effects are well replicated; the neural and downstream health claims are more preliminary.
- Awe And The Small Self During A Big Change
Dacher Keltner’s research shows that awe — the response to something vast that exceeds our current frame — reliably produces the "small self": a felt diminishment of individual concerns that is experienced as expansive rather than deflating. This shift reduces self-focused rumination, increases prosocial behavior, and expands the sense of available time. The core effects are well replicated; the neural and downstream health claims are more preliminary.
- Awe And The Small Self When Overwhelmed
Dacher Keltner’s research shows that awe — the response to something vast that exceeds our current frame — reliably produces the "small self": a felt diminishment of individual concerns that is experienced as expansive rather than deflating. This shift reduces self-focused rumination, increases prosocial behavior, and expands the sense of available time. The core effects are well replicated; the neural and downstream health claims are more preliminary.
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