Connecting with YOUR SELF- Taking responsibility for how you communicate in mediation.

If you are really serious about using mediation as a positive opportunity to communicate and reach quality decisions together, you will need to be clear about and be firmly ‘connected with’ your own core values and needs which will, in turn, open up a space in you to connect with others, at the same level, in mediation.

If you are willing to go through a process of self-examination, self-understanding, clarifying and connecting with the core values and needs motivating you (a process of self empathy), it will naturally follow that you will open yourself up to a greater willingness and capacity to explore, connect with and talk about, the values and unmet needs driving/influencing the other person’s behaviour, in mediation, and any strong feelings being expressed.

Please have a look at the list of needs and the list of feelings I am referring to, taken from the Compassionate or Non-violent communication model. If you are trying to identify what it is you are feeling and needing, at any point, it helps to develop your emotional vocabulary in these areas. So, if you wish to increase your chances of being successful in mediation, please become familiar with these lists, I refer to

Beginning with a self-examination of your own feelings and unmet needs in any given situation, should open up and begin a positive cycle of behaviour, empowering you and others, in mediation, to communicate at a deeper value and needs level, responding to each other in an open, honest, authentic way, building a mutual understanding of the needs motivating each of you and what you need from each other.

Only then will you begin to construct robust mediated outcomes which you and others feel willing to commit to and, which will stand the test of time.

This is the case whether you are two parents trying to build your parenting relationship and agree long lasting practical arrangements OR two work colleagues trying to get to the bottom of why you keep arguing so that you can feel part of a functional team, OR perhaps a board of Directors, trying to make decisions more effectively.

So, how do you do this?

What do you need to do to begin the process of examining, understanding, clarifying and connecting with the core values and unmet needs motivating and driving YOUR OWN behaviour BEFORE going go on to frame some requests you are going to make of the others, in mediation.

In this article, I will give you some questions to ask yourself which should go some way to helping you clarify what YOU may need from the other person or people in mediation and what, perhaps, you can work on for yourselves, without needing to ask anything from other.

I also refer you to the Self-reflective questionnaire which you will find as part of the series on our website- creating a parenting plan.

This questionnaire is designed to help you think differently about the things you normally argue about, with the people you are going into mediation with, and can easily be adapted to the context of your situation.

By the time you have completed the questionnaire and finished reading this article, hopefully you will understand the importance of what I am talking about, and the importance of preparing yourself for the likely conversations you are going to have.

Clarifying you own unmet needs

You are likely to have a history with the other person (see my article- what is in a conflict story) and therefore have certain beliefs and expectations about how they might behave and treat you, in mediation and perhaps worries about your own ability to communicate with them in a way you would like (with self restraint), aligned with your values.

Your concerns might be something like this;

When X does A, B or says C it makes me so mad and I am afraid that I will not be able to control myself in mediation and look a fool to everyone, including myself. I don’t trust myself to be in the same room as him/her

When you say ‘mad’, can you be more precise about your feelings, in these circumstances. Is it frustration, is it anger and how intense is it? Do your best to get in touch with and describe the feelings. Is it is anger and frustration, for example?

These feelings and their intensity will be indicators of which core values and needs are not being met/threatened/Challenged and how important these are to you and whether this is something you need to discuss with X (or work on for yourself).

What is it about A, B, C that causes you to feel so angry and frustrated? What core needs are not being met?

Is it that you feel angry because you think he doesn’t respect what you have to say. Is it because you believe that he doesn’t trust you and questions your integrity or is it because you think he doesn’t appreciate how difficult it is for you? Or is there some other reason? What else might it be?

Keep going with this exercise until you have connected any judgements about yourself, of the other person and/or the situation, with core needs in you that are not being met such as lack of understanding, appreciation, respect and so on which are in italics above.

Communicating unmet needs

Having identified and clarified what you will need to so that you feel better able and prepared to communicate with the others in mediation , you should decide whether this is something you are going to ask them to help you with or whether it is something you can deal with for yourself or both.

If it is something you think you will need the others to help you with, you will now need to prepare yourself to be able to explain this to them and ask them to do something that will meet your unmet need and to do so in a way that will not be perceived as a demand.

We can do this by indicating a desire that they only do so, if they are willing to. If the others perceive that they will be judged, punished or blamed if they do not comply, they are likely to perceive what you say as a demand and some people are particularly sensitive to feeling this way, especially given the particular context.

Also, let’s face it, others are no different to you in the sense that they are only likely to be co-operative if they think that there is good reason to be and feel that you are not you are not judging or demanding of them.

This is particularly the case where one person has complained of feeling controlled (whether or not you accept this assertion) and is therefore particularly sensitive to hearing anything that might be perceived by them as an attempt to control or co-erce them.

So, try this approach

Let’s assume for the moment that X has turned up late for the last 3 meetings and you say to him

When we have agreed a time to meet and you turn up late, I feel really angry because I think that you cannot be bothered to turn up on time because you just don’t care.

I am sure that this is not the case because I know that it is also important to you that we are able to work together and respect each other, so I am just wondering whether you can help me understand why you have been late on the last 3 occasions to see whether there are any changes we can make to help you be on time.

I know that recently we have not had the easiest of relationships and that there may be something I am doing which you are finding hard. If there is, I would really like to know, so that we can talk about it and what we might be able to do differently to improve things for both of us so that we can…….

Some of the keys to this approach are as follows

• Be specific with what you are asking for and why
• Be careful to frame it as a request, not a demand
• Do not confuse observation with judgement or evaluation.

For example, I am careful to say; ‘I feel really angry because I think you cannot be bothered’ rather than; ‘I get angry because you cannot be bothered’.

This way, I am also acknowledging responsibility for how I feel and being honest about why I think what I am thinking whilst leaving open the opportunity for a conversation about a different explanation and perspective, if I am wrong.

Perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to accept is that what others say and do may ‘trigger us’ to feel in a certain way but does not actually cause the feelings. We do that all by ourselves.

Our feelings are the result of how we choose to receive what others say and do, as well as our expectations and particular needs, in that moment which is why are mindset is so important.

If we accept this, it is easier to accept or, at least, begin to accept responsibility for what we do to generate our own feelings and how we react and respond to what others might say and do, in mediation.

As I say, harder said than done, but perfectly possible with practice and practice is what is needed.

In a later article in this series, I talk in more details about the skill of making requests so that they are not received as demands because this is such an important aspect to conflict resolution communication.

For the moment, thanks for following this series.