New Mediators and Positive Change
This week I spent five days in Kitchener, immersed in family mediation training. I’ve taken mediation training in the past and it’s always slightly different, but this time was unique primarily because of the group dynamics. This group was top notch.
There’s often a feeling of camaraderie during training, because you begin as strangers in an unfamiliar environment, and as the training progresses, you get to know the others while problem solving together. Learning, sharing and meeting goals as a team can create rapport that feels like friendship, but in my experience, may be fleeting; disappearing completely a few minutes after the class certificates are passed out.
This week, the personalities in our group were as diverse as eleven personalities could be (I’m including our trainer, Jennifer, because to me, she was at all times a participant in the training rather than just a facilitator - I mean this to be a huge compliment). Everyone had a different background. Six were lawyers, but no two lawyers had similar training or experience.
What we shared was a degree of curiosity, insight and respect that, in my opinion, made what we were learning magnify rather than constrict. Made time stretch instead of drag. I’m not exaggerating when I say that for one of the first times ever, no part of me was hoping to be let out early at the end of a day of “school”.
Skills come with practice and process is a set of steps. The law can be learned just like anything else. The part that is difficult or possibly impossible to teach, is openness to a way of thinking that might seem opposite to what you’ve always thought. My perception this week was that everyone in the room had this innate openness.
Rather than seeing this as some sort of happy coincidence, I choose to see this as a shift in our global thinking about separation and divorce. No one in the room this week was there for letters behind their names or to pay lip service to a process that they felt was necessary but secondary to their normal work. Everyone was there because they had had some sort of experience with the legal system and noticed a gap they wanted to help fill.
How the legal system manages families is not a secret, but it might as well be. The rules and processes are so complex and expensive that even the most wealthy don’t escape unscathed.
We can talk about who or what is to blame for this situation, or we can focus our energy on how to change it. The framework exists, and, after this week, I’m optimistic that there are more and more exceptionally caring people ready to empower families to survive separations without any casualties.
Stay tuned for my next post about Mediation and when it might be right for you. Hint: it’s probably right for you.