If you’re reading this blog, there’s a good chance you’re one of the 800 million Facebook users who log on to check out what your friends are up to.  Perhaps you’ve also once discovered – horrors! – a TERRIBLE picture of yourself posted for the world (“or at least friends of friends,”) to see.  What to do?  You can look for a little “X” to delete the photo, but you won’t find one. Instead you click a button that says, “report this photo.”  A dialogue box pops up asking you to identify the problem – nudity, spam, pornography, hate crime, personal attack…well, you’re already in this deep…check them all.  And so it goes, your headache now becomes one over at facebook where a worker huddles before a computer screen straining to see how this photo of you looking…well, not your very best….is a violation of policy.

This exact scenario, and the problems it creates for the staff as well as the entire Facebook community, was the topic of a featured talk at the Wisdom 2.0 Conference held in Silicon Valley last week. The conference brings together people from the fields of technology and spiritualty to discuss how to bring wisdom, compassion and awareness to social networks as well as the workplace. The speaker, Arturo Behar, is an engineering manager at Facebook with the job of  “supporting the people who support the people who “report” photographs that violate Facebook policy.”  Once customers report problems with photos, someone on Behar’s staff must review the photo and make a decision about pulling it down.   As described above, in too many situations, the reported violations and the photographs don’t match up. Instead, Behar’s staff reviews photos that have offended but not violated policy.  Even though few violations occur, lots of people are upset. As Behar points out, conflict exists in every community, even virtual ones.  Facebook doesn’t need a complaint squad as much as it needs mediators.  Rather than send an email saying no violation occurred, Behar describes choosing a strategy to promote understanding and compassion, while providing empowerment and learning to the Facebook user community.  His exemplary strategy teaches users to mediate their own conflicts.

To do this, Behar developed a sample text for the customer to send to the person who posted the picture. The text models for the sender how to explain why he or she is upset. It uses language like:  ”I felt ________ when I saw the photo.”  In essence, Facebook is modeling emotional literacy, while encouraging unhappy users to initiate a dialogue and mediate their own conflict. To management’s delight, this new strategy has worked.  When people asked that photos be removed in a manner that helped the posters of the photos to understand how the person making the request was feeling,  75% of the problem photos were removed.  Behar explained that most people don’t intend to hurt other’s feelings. When we understand what’s going on for the other person, our “compassion circuit” in the brain (yup, we have one!) kicks in.  We enjoy making other people feel better.

The takeaway is that when people reach out and ask for help, explain their situations and talk about their emotions, they bring about change.   Behar says that even when the requests aren’t honored, people feel empowered by their ability to ask for what they want while learning about themselves and others in the process.

It is a privilege to sit inside of a conflict, which is what I do as a mediator.  Or rather, on a GOOD day, it’s what I do.  A bad day for a mediator is when the conflict never shows up in all of its layers and complications.  I had two of these kinds of mediations recently.  Each one felt like a blow to the chest…or, more specifically, to my heart.  The first was a telephone mediation between divorced parents in different states.  With several children traveling back and forth between them, they needed to discuss a modification order filed by the parent who was now primary care giver to a child who had previously only visited. The parent had just told her side of the story when I asked the other parent to fill in more details.  “No thank you, “ came the response over the phone.  “I’m now exercising my right to terminate this mediation.  I want the record to show that I’ve met my court requirement to mediate.”  Boom.  Mediation over.

In the second mediation, both people were present in the room, but one refused to talk.  He said wasn’t talking because there was nothing new to say, nor was he interested in listening because he’d heard it all before.  This statement inflamed the other party, who started to vent  – loudly.  In return, the silent one stood up, “I’m outta here.”  Mediation is voluntary.  No one requires parties to stay and talk.  The only requirement is that people hear about mediation and choose whether to enter into it.  Sometimes, on bad days, they don’t enter – they exit.

But a longer conversation has much to offer to the parties who choose to mediate:  a moment of peaked curiosity that opens a pathway to insight.  Let me explain.  Frequently, both parties arrive discouraged about their prospects for finding resolution.  After all, would they be in mediation if they could solve their problems?  But then the moment comes. They hear the other person say something and they get curious.  That’s the moment when people shift from knowing (what’s wrong, what’s unfixable, what’s impossible) to learning. Let me demonstrate how this works by telling about a couple I met with recently.  (Their story has been altered to protect their privacy.)

Like the parents described above, these people divorced years ago, but a custody modification order brought them back to mediation.  One of the parents was seeking supervised visits because of the other parent’s newly revealed drug problem.  Concerned for the safety of her children, she was convinced that restricting the father’s access to the children was her only way to protect them.  The father listened intently to his ex-wife’s account, and vigorously attacked her portrayal of both his drug problem and the risk it posed to the children.  Each person felt threatened by the other’s position.  Each risked losing everything.

Things changed, however, when the attack and defend mode of the conversation shifted.  After the mother’s impassioned description of her fear for the children’s safety, her ex-husband agreed that she had a reason to be afraid.  This stopped the mother mid-sentence.   The father’s agreement was confusing.  Hadn’t he just been telling her she was wrong about the kids being in danger?  Her expression changed.  She was curious.   The father explained himself.  He offered a summary of the mistakes he’d made.  He filled in details about his treatment and rehabilitation that the mother hadn’t yet heard.  He took responsibility and asked for her help in keeping the kids in his life while conceding that she needed reassurance of their safety.   They came to an understanding

This couple’s agreement is a fragile one.  They crafted a two-month trial to see if daily drug tests can assuage the mother’s fears as the father rebuilds her trust and spends time with his children.   Rather than flee, they chose to stay in the room and have a courageous conversation.  The takeaway from this couple’s story is that mediation offers an opportunity to reassess what we think we know, in order to learn something new. This is when we trade misconceptions for insight. This is how a different path forward is forged.

The holiday season is just a week away.  It is late fall/early winter in Iowa.  Most trees have dropped their leaves.  The landscape is transformed.  Spaces have opened up and the neighborhood looks bigger.  The view through my window is expansive.  Even the landscape understands the lesson of letting go to get something new.   Today’s yoga class bonked me over the head with the same concept.  Relaxing into a stretch, I found that  letting go of tension at a tight spot in my body allowed me to go deeper.  In mindfulness meditation, the practice of watching my thoughts bubble up, without judgment, taps into the same wisdom of letting go; not attaching importance to my thoughts gives me the freedom to experience the moment as expansively as possible.   Of course, I filter all of this through my mediator role.  The shift in a mediation session occurs when parties loosen their grip on an idea…when they let go their attachment to a view to consider a new perspective or a creative compromise. I feel honored to observe this happening at the mediation table.  One couple, in particular, comes to mind.  Here’s their story:*

Married 10 years, this couple has four elementary school aged children, two boys and two girls.   At the start of the session, I could feel the tension between the parents, for both stated a single priority – to win primary care of the children.  Even more difficult, one of the parents planned to move out of state, taking all four children.  The other parent would have to see the children over holidays and school breaks. The parent staying in Iowa argued for primary care so that the children could be spared the disruption of relocation.   This was a classic standoff.

As a mediator aside, when both parties lay down agendas so far apart, I internally remind myself that all is okay…I’m not here to fix this for them.   The magic of my work is not in my attention to their problem or its potential solutions, rather it is in the magic of the mediation process itself.  My client’s mediation experience rests in their mediator’s skillful, mindful attention to the mediation process.

Back to this remarkable couple.   After each parent laid out a narrative of why they needed primary care, including complications like schooling plans, the support of parents back home, the poor economy and its limitations on job flexibility, real estate sales, etc. the parents were left facing the awful reality that if one parent won, the other would lose.  Without coaxing, they naturally drifted to a place of softness, observing aloud one another’s importance to the kids, one another’s sacrifice for the family, the kid’s need for access to both parents.  Aloud, the parent’s started offering up creative solutions.  What about one parent having the kids during the school year and the other having them over the summer and school breaks and holidays?  What about the girls living with their mother during the school year and the boys living with their father combined with connected family time on a regular basis, meeting up at a neutral vacation home owned by the grandparents?  Ideas were flying.  The emotional constriction of this couple at the beginning of the session was replaced by a lightness of banter, an expansiveness of perspective, a spaciousness of feeling.  They left the long session with a list of information they would need to make their final decision.  They scheduled another mediation session allowing themselves interim time for careful consideration.

I was grateful to observe this couple.  They remind me of a joke in the mindfulness meditation community:  “Do you know why Buddhists don’t vacuum corners?  They don’t have any attachments.”  This couple laid down their attachments to primary care of the children to consider other options.  They opened themselves to the other’s perspective and began to do the hard work to craft their own solution rather than let their lawyers or the courts make decisions for them.  Their example is today’s takeaway:  letting go of our attachment to our views lets the possibility of something new, a workable compromise, perhaps, bubble up. Let’s clink our glasses of holiday cheer to that.  See you in the new year!

*Some details have been changed to protect confidentiality.

My husband and I were lucky enough this summer to attend an adult version of “summer camp.” We accepted a gracious offer to stay in a family member’s vacant high rise condominium, overlooking all of downtown Portland, Oregon.  We stayed for 5 weeks and entertained 13 visitors.  Our adventures were of all types – physical (lots of hiking and crazy yoga with youngsters), emotional (you try being middle aged and plunking yourself down in a new city with few reference points) and spiritual (opportunities for deep connections with visiting friends and family).  One of the spiritual adventure days is a story worth telling.

We had expected our last visitors to come as a couple.  Instead, we got a phone call at the last minute from our friend saying she and her husband were having a marital crisis.  Our friend wondered if she could come alone.  This was a troublesome phone call for all the obvious reasons.   Our friends have been married for 25 years. They are the kind of couple who others look to with envy.  More than this, though, we didn’t want the husband at home to feel ganged up on.  Would this visit with one friend sabotage future opportunities to interact together as couples?  We love them both.

Our distraught friend arrived after having sat next to her husband’s vacant seat on the airplane.  She was exhausted after many sleepless nights, and in need of a break from endless talking with her spouse.  Her husband was having a mid-life crisis, she thought.  Both of our friends were experiencing emotional upheaval.   As medicine, we took our friend on hikes to the manicured gardens of Washington Park, to the wild forest on Bristlecone Trail and on her last day, to the beach.  The beach is several hours away from Portland, but Oregon’s starkly beautiful beaches are worth the drive.  At Rockaway Beach, about a mile out to sea, rigid against the crashing waves, two tall rocks, one with a distinct archway, stand side by side.  The beach is wide, with fine, white sand.  On this sunny day in early September there were few visitors.  We walked and walked, admiring the mist coming off of the sand, which cast a ghostly, surreal beauty over the landscape.

On our way back to the car we expressed our need for a bathroom before the two hour ride home to Portland.  My husband gamely approached a Porta-Potty, but my friend and I were choosier.  We walked up to a beautiful A-frame church overlooking the beach.  The doors were locked.  I turned around to tell my friend and noticed another couple approaching.  “Sorry” I told them, “it’s locked. “  I assumed they were searching for a restroom, too.  ‘Oh, it’s always locked between services.  Can we help you?” Apparently, they were locals.  I explained that we were looking for a restroom and had rejected the Porta-Potty.  The woman responded sympathetically, “Oh my goodness, I don’t blame you, but that’s really your only option, unless you come home and use our bathroom.”  We all laughed, feeling a mix of awkwardness (we were strangers, after all) and ease (this woman oozed folksy warmth). The woman grabbed my hand and started to pull me along, “We’re just six houses down.”  She pointed to a row of houses set back a street from the beach.  I looked at my friend who nodded her approval.  We knew this was an unusual invitation, and despite little voices telling us we might be crazy, we agreed.  My husband exited the Porta-Potty in time to follow along.

The house was beachy, informal and immaculate.  After directing us to two heavenly bathrooms, our new friends, Al and Becky, led us upstairs to meet their large family  - a grandma, teenaged children, nieces, nephews, a cousin – a group of ten gathered in a large room with a deck overlooking the street out front.  The only thing separating the view to the beach was a hotel.  Walking us out to our car, (serendipitously parked directly in front of Al and Becky’s – as if fate knew we’d be meeting!) Becky left us with one final story.  She told us that cousins visiting a few months ago from Australia weren’t much for walking the 80 steps to the beach.  They preferred the sunny deck upstairs, where for one whole day they had an ocean view! Becky explained that following a busy holiday weekend, hotel rooms 5, 6, and 7 – directly across from the deck and all in a row – were cleaned especially slowly: “they leave the doors wide open when they’re cleaning and you can see straight through to the ocean!  That day the rooms were open from 10 in the morning until 8 at night, giving them a view for the entire day!”  My husband, friend and I made meaningful eye contact – delighted by the absurdity of a pounding surf steps away and people sitting on the deck content with a sliver of a view.  Al and Becky shook their heads and laughed at the irony of it, too.  After exchanging email addresses with our new friends we drove off.

And we grinned all the way home.  Yes, our friend was still sad over her marriage troubles.  But we’d just had a chance encounter with strangers who generously shared their bathrooms, their home, and their hearts.  And their story, today’s takeaway, was not lost on us! As my friend grapples with the hard work of re-examining her marriage, as I revel in memories of a summer filled with adventures, we are committed to the truth that Becky’s Australian cousins missed: Never settle for the sliver view when a mere 80 extra steps take you to the beach. See you next year at summer camp…pinky promise.

A personal confession:  I let a lot of things slide before dealing with them.  For instance, on the wall going up my stairs, years of raising children have left black scuff marks.   They annoy the heck out of me.  They make the house look tired and dirty.  I haven’t repainted because I’ll have to either hire it done (expensive!) or rent scaffolding (scary!) to access the height of the second story wall.  You can’t paint part without painting all.  But I had a shift in my thinking that led me to solve the problem.  The shift came in two phases; first, on an episode of the HGTV show, “International House Hunters,” a New York tango dancer, ensconced in her new Argentinian apartment, looked into the camera and warned me to beware of Argentinian unwashable paint!  She had to repaint the entire place before moving in.  Too busy ogling her gourmet kitchen, I let her reminder that most paint is washable settle in the back of my mind.  Then came the second catalyst for my shift.  A friend and real estate agent called and asked if she could show our house to clients who think all colonials are stuffy and outdated. “They’ll see what you’ve done and it will change their minds!”  Ha.  I thought.  She hasn’t seen the inside of my house for 12 year  – not since I last updated!  (Remember, I am the one with the tired and dirty looking house.)  I reluctantly agreed, but asked for two days to throw the house into order.  I vacuumed, spritzed windows, straightened closets and yes, revisited the dreaded black scuff marks.

The threat of strangers looking at my dirty wall, mixed with the tango dancer reminding me that walls are washable was just the alchemy necessary to transform my old mindset and get me to drop to my knees, apply some elbow grease (and Comet) and restore the wall to its former pristine condition.  Why had I waited so long to deal with a problem so easily fixable? If I weren’t too sensible to buy it, I might reach for the silly bell from the office supply store that chirps when dinged, “That was easy!”

It occurs to me that my dirty wall is a lot like mediation. An old problem that feels unsolvable transforms when new information and the perspective of a stranger viewing from the outside mix together.  Most clients begin a mediation saying, “There is no hope that things are going to change.”  And then they start talking.  New information comes forward…a compromise not offered before, an expression of feelings, an admission of responsibility or an apology.  The effect of the mediator is more subtle.  The transformative model of mediation ensures that solutions come from my clients.  I am neutral.  And yet, there is measurable value for my clients sitting before an outsider – a stranger – a witness and speaking about old problems.  They hear and say things differently when someone else is listening.  They see things differently when viewed through the eyes of another.  Whether the mediator offers encouragement with a nod or creates a sense of safety so that difficult emotions can be expressed, the conversation is changed.  Suddenly, a shift.  Old perceptions, like annoying scuffs, are wiped clean.

Motivational speaker Wayne Dyer says, “Transformation literally means going beyond your form.”  Thoughts – scuff marks – are forms.  Over time these forms can feel stuck.  The takeaway is that new information and a different perspective offer up opportunities to change our thought forms, just as mediation offers up chances to transform old ways of seeing problems into new ways of solving problems.

Today I share one of my favorite mediation stories about clients whose success still makes me smile.  Theirs is an example of why mediation is the optimal way to resolve problems.  First the story, followed by the takeaway.

As a mediator, I rarely hear details about a conflict over the telephone before I meet clients. I prefer this “blind” approach because I enter mediations without preconceived notions.  Furthermore, I don’t want either party to feel like I’ve listened to complaints or judgments behind the other’s back.  Keeping the pre-mediation conversation to a minimum helps me maintain both real and perceived neutrality.   In the case of Jack and Marcy,* however, I noted special stress around the scheduling of the appointment.  Usually one person contacts me and lets the other know to call me, too.   Once I’ve heard from both parties, we set up an appointment.  Jack couldn’t do this because he didn’t have Marcy’s phone number.   In fact, he called hoping that Marcy had called first, since my name was listed on their court paperwork. When I told him she hadn’t, he answered, “Please give me a call if you hear from her.  I don’t have a car, and I don’t have much money, but whenever she wants to meet, let me know and I’ll be there.”  I made Jack’s day when I called him a few weeks later and told him Marcy called and agreed to mediate.

On the day of the mediation, Jack and Marcy made little eye contact when Marcy arrived a few minutes late and took a seat across from Jack.   After paperwork and my brief introduction, I asked who would like to start. Jack spoke first.  Moving forward in his seat, with his hands folded gently on his lap, he said quietly, “I’d like to start by saying I’m sorry.  Marcy, please forgive me.  Forgive me for being out of touch these last five years.  I’ve tried to contact you but your family wouldn’t give me your number.  Forgive me for acting irresponsibly and getting arrested just two weeks before our baby was born. Forgive me for leaving you to raise the baby by yourself, which I know hasn’t been easy.  Forgive me for screwing everything up and making it necessary to meet this way.  I want to make it up to our daughter.  I’m not asking you to let me off the hook, I’m just asking you for a chance to get to know our child.”

I doubt that a courtroom or even an attorney’s office would have provided Jack with the same opportunity to speak these words to Marcy.  Nor would Marcy, in either of those situations, have felt as free to respond.  She expressed feelings of hurt and anger, described the hardship she’d endured on her own, and amazingly, after a while, showed Jack a picture of their five year old child.  Jack had never laid eyes on her before.  Jack filled in parts of his story for her, his path back to employment and stability after addiction and prison.  Marcy needed to hear many times in different ways how he had changed.  She had spent five years protecting and raising their child on her own.  She didn’t expect that two hours of talk would change her feelings or her resolve to protect her daughter from a man she didn’t trust.

Neither Jack nor Marcy entered the mediation believing they had a chance to fix their problems outside of the courtroom. They arrived at the mediation without the expectation of finding an answer.  But, they came with questions. For Jack, the questions centered on what he could do to prove himself to Marcy.  For Marcy, the questions centered around her fears and concerns.  How could she leave her daughter with a stranger, for this was what Jack would be to their daughter?  How could she trust him again?  Question by question, they took apart and reassembled years of distance.  They devised a tentative agreement.  They exchanged phone numbers.  They set up a first play date between father and child.

The takeaway is bigger than words.  It is about the promise of their promise to work together for the sake of their daughter; it is about the possibility of getting beyond hurt to find happiness; it is about the hope of doing things better because they know more, now. Jack called after the mediation.  He left a message on my phone saying that things were going well and thanked me for making it possible.  I called him back to assure him that he and Marcy had done all the work.  I also thanked him for the honor of being present during their conversation.  And, for those days when life needs a little extra sweetness, I saved Jack’s message.  I hear the smile in his voice every time I listen.

*Names and details have been changed to protect privacy.

One of the great mediators of our time, Marshall Rosenberg, says that when someone speaks to us in an upsetting way, we have three choices:  we can take the words personally (ex: “He is out to get me!”); we can pass judgment on the speaker, (ex: “My boss isn’t nearly as smart as he thinks he is.”); or, we can listen empathically (ex: “This guy seems really rattled.  He must be getting pressure from above and that’s what I’m hearing.  I feel for him.  I think I’ll cut him some slack.”). When we hear with empathy, we recognize the other person’s feelings, which allows us to hear, speak and act with compassion.

Before a mediation, I never know what quality of communication to expect from people who come to my office.  Sometimes the pre-mediation interview gives me a hint of the intensity of the conflict, but not always.  More often than not, I am struck by how kind my clients are to one another. How is this possible, I wonder, when there is so much stress around the transitions that bring people to mediation?  Whether talking about dividing assets, sharing custody or modifying visitation schedules, couples in conflict can feel raw, addled and defensive.  Once they begin to talk about what’s going on, what Rosenberg calls “what is alive for them,” I often see couples move into “deep listening.”  Rather than respond defensively, they start to hear one another empathically.  This is when recognition happens.  Recognition is more than recognizing others for their attributes and contributions – though this is important, too.  Transformative recognition happens when participants recognize the other person’s perspective, which leads to understanding and the possibility for compromise.

A recent mediation I conducted illustrates the power of empathic listening.  A couple was trying to agree on a visitation schedule.  They had resolved all of their other issues.  The sticking point was how many weeks the dad would be able to spend over the summer with his son.   As an employee of a school district, the dad was hopeful that a certain number of non-congruent weeks would provide him with the parental bonding time he missed out on during the school year.   The mother was unrelenting in her decision to limit visits.  The dad didn’t personalize the mother’s resistance, nor did he express judgment.  Instead, the mediation process and his gentle questioning led her through an inquiry process that identified her biggest concern – the child’s exposure to a few people who she believed were potentially threatening to their son’s well-being.  Once this information came forward, the child’s father was able to meet her request by promising not to allow these people access to their son.  Once the father identified the mother’s fear about their son’s safety as the underlying issue, he was able to address her concern with compassion.  The conflict dissolved before all of our eyes.

As a mediator, I rejoice over these kinds of moments.  Compassionate interaction between people in conflict is heartening and inspiring.  The takeaway is that mediation can resolve conflict in a dignified, respectful exchange that is marked by open dialogue and compassionate communication. When these types of conversations take place, transformation is possible.  Shifts happen.

]]> http://www.peacewisemediation.com/2011/03/in-mediation-shifts-happen/feed/ 0 http://www.peacewisemediation.com/2011/01/reconneting-the-dots-through-telephone-mediation/ http://www.peacewisemediation.com/2011/01/reconneting-the-dots-through-telephone-mediation/#comments Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:09:57 +0000 Laura Melton Tucker http://www.peacewisemediation.com/?p=1068 Listen to this entry.

There is a saying that you can’t connect the dots until you collect the dots.  Mediation, in part, is about collecting dots.  Two people meet to hear one another’s story, (one dot), explain their version of the same story, (another dot),  problem solve possible solutions, (more dots), etc.  Once these dots are on the table, connections can be made.  Some connections are minuscule, a small detail cleared up.  Some are considerable, a softening of a position, perhaps.  Some are huge, veritable paradigm shifts, that allow warring factions to make peace.  Most dot connecting happens over time.  Mediation gets the dots rolling.

Every now and then, collecting dots becomes more difficult because the parties live in separate states or countries.  In these situations, I offer telephone mediation as a possible work around.  There are advantages and disadvantages to telephone conferencing, as illustrated in Dorothy and Doug’s story (with names and circumstances changed).

When Dorothy approached me about mediation, she was concerned about the court mandate to mediate when her husband lived several states away.  Because of work commitments, her husband Doug wouldn’t be able to travel to Iowa in time to meet the mediation deadline.  I asked her if she’d asked for a court waiver to mediation, since Doug’s unique geographic circumstances created a hardship.  As Dorothy explained to me, she didn’t want a waiver, she wanted a conversation with her absentee husband.  She asked for a telephone mediation.

I arranged Dorothy and Doug’s telephone mediation by setting an agreeable time (in both time zones) for each of us to call into a conference call phone number.  Our shared telephone line would provide a mediation space, if not an actual place.  As I explained to Dorothy and Doug, the advantages to phone mediation are obvious.  Convenience is at the top of the list.  Though most telephone conferences begin awkwardly with parties unsure of when to speak, how to interject, etc., in quick order we find a rhythm and the conversation progresses naturally.

But, of course, telephone conversations are limiting.  We can’t see each other’s faces.  We can’t read body language.  During a telephone mediation, it is especially incumbent on the mediator to check in frequently to see how the process is working for each participant in order to maximize transparency with a communication medium that favors opacity.

On the day of the mediation, Dorothy developed cold feet and asked if she might sit in my office and share the phone with me.  As a neutral mediator, I was cautious when Dorothy approached me asking for this change.  “I’ll have to check with Doug“ I told her, “to see if he is comfortable with the arrangement.  I don’t want him to feel like the two of us, sitting together in my office, are ganging up on him.”  With Doug’s permission, Dorothy came to my office for the phone call.  I spent extra time assuring Doug that I was acting on both of their behalves.  Frequently, I commented aloud, “Dorothy is showing some concern on her face. I’m going to ask her to explain her expression and see if she has any questions for you.”  I extended this same effort to Doug: “Now that Dorothy has given her side, I’m not able to see your reaction.  Can you tell us your thoughts?”  Despite these attempts to balance the experience for both participants, I wasn’t entirely successful.

When the call concluded, Doug asked me to stay on the line to answer a few questions.  I demurred.  “I would prefer to speak to you with Dorothy present,” I explained, “unless, of course, you have a question or comment about the mediation process.“ He did, he said, and we made arrangements to speak the next day.

When Doug and I spoke again, he explained that he wanted me to know a few things that Dorothy had left out.  He felt  she’d misrepresented him to me.  I stopped Doug before he was able to go into his retelling of the story, assuring him that it didn’t matter what I thought one way or the other.  What mattered was whether he felt he’d had an adequate opportunity to explain himself to Dorothy.  The process hadn’t worked over the phone for him as well as it might have if  we had met in person, I explained.  I promised to work harder next time to make sure he had adequate opportunity to give his side.

Doug’s follow up conversation with me was clarifying. While I could see Dorothy’s face and note a furrowed brow or shadow cross her eye, I couldn’t do the same for Doug.  Nor could he see me watching for his reaction to her words or nodding in understanding while he spoke.  The takeaway for me that day was that while telephone meetings are handy, they’re also problematic. They require extra diligence and attention.  While collecting and connecting dots across time and space is convenient, it is also a challenge without the added benefit of seeing one another’s face.

On this last day of the year, when the word resolution holds double meaning, it feels natural to look backward at changes in my practice over the last year, while also looking forward to mediation trends that may take hold in 2011.   Over the last year, more of my clients are choosing to mediate on their own, without getting a court order to do so.  Some are anticipating divorce, and want to have a preliminary conversation to begin the process. For them, mediation is an opportunity to make lists, set priorities, and check in with one another in order to grow more focused, calm and clear.   Some of my divorced clients mediate to fine tune a parenting plan that isn’t working.  Recently, two clients called to schedule mediation because their divorce decree specifies mediation before one party can take the other back to court.  Happily, just a few days before their appointment, they canceled.  The upcoming mediation appointment was enough to nudge the couple toward negotiating a compromise on their own.

An exciting trend afoot in our 6th Judicial District is collaborative law divorce, an open, non-adversarial process that offers a better way to do divorce. To understand collaborative divorce, picture the old approach, first:  two distraught people going to separate attorneys, paying for attorney time to go through the same family and financial history, and sending  their attorneys back to the other camp to do their bidding.  “He said/she said” defines the process, since everything is filtered through a second party.  The interaction mirrors the childhood game of telephone, but with higher stakes.  The process quickly becomes adversarial.

Collaborative divorce offers a different approach.  Agreeing from the outset not to go to court, the divorcing couple hires a team to see them through the process.   The team consists of lawyers, a financial adviser and sometimes a mental health expert who all meet at one table with the divorcing couple.  Information is shared freely.  The financial advisor helps the couple understand tax consequences and long term financial implications of dividing marital assets.  The mental health professional counsels the parents about how best to meet the childrens’ needs while drawing up a weekly and holiday parenting schedule. The attorneys empower their clients with legal information so that the divorcing couple can make informed decisions without the financial and emotional trauma of lengthy discovery and the usual court dates associated with an adversarial  divorce.  Collaborative law divorce  is a compassionate process – open, respectful, and intentional.  It is a breakthrough.

Mediation can play a valuable role in a collaborative law divorce. When so many interests are present at the table, a neutral, third party mediator can save time and money by balancing the power, checking in with the clients to see how the process is going and asking questions of all involved to ensure that enough and the right information is brought forward.  The takeaway is that the skills of a good mediator may grace and grease the collaborative divorce process. Wisdom is wisdom, no matter what the source.   If peace is a forest, mediation and collaborative law are sister trees.  Side by side, they share the same root system of empowerment and sheltering shade of understanding.

Wishing you peace and happiness in the new year!

On my way to a mediation services board meeting last night, I was trolling my mind for an answer to the night’s ice breaker question.  Our director emails the agenda before each meeting, and the meeting opener is usually a question that we all answer in turn.  The question last night was, “Tell one thing you’ve learned about conflict this month.”  Hmm.  Where to start?  I could go personal, and describe how emotionally draining conflict is.  We spent the weekend huddled with extended family.  They are dealing with the husband’s potential cancer.  A second opinion this week will decide if an operation is necessary.  Our weekend was an attempt to emotionally  shore up these people we love for the news ahead.  Scrap that idea. Too draining to talk about.  Hmm, I pondered.   I could go even more personal and talk about a conflict with one of my children.  Eeek.  No.  I might start crying.   Aha! Light bulb flash.  Bright idea!  I started to rehearse my answer in the car:  “I learned that conflict can be done well.  A couple came to mediation this last month, one year after their divorce.  They referred to themselves as having a “California Divorce.”  This, they explained, is a divorce that honors the children by keeping them in the family home, while the parents move in and out. While one parent is “in residence,” the other is “off campus.” There’s enough problematic overlapping time, however,  that this progressive couple was returning to mediation to iron out issues surrounding their unusual arrangement.  The conversation they held in my presence focused on how to have family dinner with ALL of the family present, how to do busy mornings with Dad showing up to help make lunches, how to share weekends so that the parent not on duty still feels included.  At one point, the ex-wife turned to me and said, ‘Please write that we’ll treat one another with compassion while in the presence of the children.’ Compassion?” I asked.  I’ve never written this into an agreement before. This family inspired me to pronounce, in my imaginary conversation to the board: “Conflict can be done well!”  Alas, a strict schedule didn’t let me deliver my car-rehearsed speech.  But here’s how I would have continued if given the chance:

Following that magical mediation moment when the ex-wife turned to me and asked me to use the word compassion in the agreement, I responded, “Say more about compassion.  Explain what you mean by that.”  The wife, who is a trained therapist, knew her emotional bearings and spoke with facility:  “I mean that when we’re together in the house in front of the kids we speak to one another with an awareness of the other’s feelings.  We show each other through our choice of words that we acknowledge one another’s sensitivities, needs, peculiarities, without judgment.  I don’t want to feel judged.  Especially in front of the children.”  There was some general talk about gender differences.  For some guys, the ex-husband maybe,  the subtleties of interpersonal interaction can be difficult to observe.   The ex-wife offered to model for her ex-husband compassionate interaction – she would give him a tutorial.  The feeling in the room was light, even warm.  This couple was here to do hard work, but they remained respectful.  They said aloud, several times, what a great parent the other was.  They expressed gratitude for their unusual divorce arrangement.

Later in the week after the mediation, one of them sent me a wonderful blog entry by Laurie David in the Huffington Post. It was as if the blogger had been sitting in on the mediation and weighed in with her two cents.  Her blog addresses one of the focuses of their mediation session – the value of having a family dinner with both divorced parents present. My clients were big fans of the idea, and were using mediation to iron out details to make the dining process work better.  In Laurie David’s blog, she describes the very same arrangement as that of my clients -  families who share one home with two shuttling divorced parents.  She calls this co-mingling, ambulatory, group dining prone kind of arrangement, a “loving divorce.”  Sit with that.  A loving divorce. I loved reading this because Laurie David helped me name what I observed about my clients.  Theirs is a loving divorce.

Conflict is draining.  It tends to bring forward our fears, and to bring out in each of us our protective armor.  We see things in black and white when we feel the cloud of conflict fogging our view.  We shut down.  We raise our voices. We enter power locks.  But sometimes (and here’s the takeaway), conflict helps us find new solutions, see things differently, feel the other person’s feelings, become compassionate. After my clients left that day I looked up the definition of compassion   Here’s what I read:  “Compassion is a strong desire to alleviate another’s suffering and to share in their happiness.”  Synonyms are commiseration, mercy, tenderness, heart.  This couple is on to something.  I hope I meet them again – in different bodies, with different stories, but the same mercy, tenderness, heart….compassion.