Please ask yourself whether you want to do this to your child. Mediation can help reduce the conflict in your divorce. You both do not have to be in agreement to come to mediation with us. Simply agree that you both would like to avoid causing harm to your children, and then give us a call. We can help you deal with your conflicts in a productive way and help you reach your common goal: to give your children the gift of both parents, a happy childhood and an ability to have healthy relationships. Whether you have issues with a parenting plan, visitation, custody or post Judgment co-parenting issues, we have the experience and the skills to help you both to change your communication pattern and the know-how to help you both decide upon solutions that you each can live with.
If your spouse refuses to come in, we can help YOU deal with your spouse differently through divorce coaching. Even if you cannot agree with your spouse about anything, seeking out personalized coaching will give you the skills to change your perspective and your communication which will dramatically change how you function with a high conflict person. Even if you are legally represented but continue to see yourself spending money and stress trying to deal with a high conflict partner that is running you ragged, come in for a consult to discuss how coaching can make a difference for you.
To schedule an appointment, contact us at 81-787-1349 or 813-503-3370.

The role of paralegals is key in family law conflict because they are the ones that are generally behind the scenes getting the real picture of what is going on. Their insight is invaluable and can help shape a case, take it off the emotional roller coaster, and be the person that can help a client really prepare for a potential mediation. So many clients talk to paralegals in a way they do not end up talking to anyone else including their lawyer. That insight is key.

I have seen a lot of intro to Divorce Law seminars for attorneys and paralegals that do not speak about mediation at all. Let’s face it, alternative dispute resolution is gaining lots of ground in the family field and we are excited to be presenting about mediation tomorrow.

“1. You made the first offer when you were not in a strong position to do so.

2. You made a first offer that was not sufficiently aggressive.

3. You talked but did not listen.

4. You tried to influence the other party but did not try to learn from them.

5. You did not challenge your assumptions about the other party.

6. You miscalculated the ZOPA (zone of possible agreement) and did not re-evaluate it during the negotiation.

7. You made greater concessions than the other party did.”

Nancy Hudgens in her blog, Civil Negotiation and Mediation, posted the above rules and added some of her own. You can read them here. One she added was to come prepared to a mediation. I could not agree more. We were just involved in a divorce mediation where the parties could not agree on the assets and liabilities. This was at least one year into the case and neither side could provide proof of certain debt and assets which made for some uncomfortable accusations as well as real difficulty moving forward. For Pete’s sake, get your ducks in a row BEFORE you get to the negotiation room. Take the process seriously even if going in you do not believe anythign will get accomplished. More often than not, people are surprised. You just never know what a good mediator can do.

If you cannot get certain information, then let the other side know. Perhaps the issues can be limited or the mediation moved or shortened. But coming unprepared can do irreparable damage to the process by destroying the trust necessary to begin good negotiations. When ambushed with unpreparedness which represents an “I don’t care” and disrespectful attitude then neither side can really invest in the process. You leave the mediator with a much harder job in that respect – nearly impossible really. And when the parties do not invest in the process, then it is just a waste of time and money and it is an unfair representation of the mediation process which is so fruitful when used correctly.

One last rule I would add to the list is to prepare the Mediator or neutral involved. The more knowledge and understanding the mediator has of each side – the good, the bad, and the ugly – the better prepared the mediator can be. While it is key for the mediator to remain open and aware and “in the moment” we have found that being prepared generally allows us to prepare ourselves correctly for what we are walking into rather than having to spend time understanding all of that during the actual mediation. We can prepare strategies and have some ideas about appropriate communication patterns especially where the parties or attorneys are having difficulty communicating. Additionally, we often can help each side make sure they are completely prepared and not missing anything vital prior to the mediation. A neutral set of eyes and ears on your case is a good “check” to make sure you have dotted your i’s and crossed you t’s. Finally, with some foreknowledge, we can make some decisions prior to the mediation about how to start on a positive note which is so key to moving the process along.

We negotiate every day, all the time, in most of our conversations. The more some of these rules become ingrained in you the better your communication will be, the more you will know really what you need, what the other needs, and how to get there. Extrapolate all these rules out to your life – be it with your boss, your mate, your kids, your neighbor and you will see how well they work in every situation.

Repentance is the true answer. Repent and be converted within yourself to wash away the sin of pride, of ego, of the need to be first, of an overly-curious nature, of the need to “feel good” all the time. That is not life. Life is about getting to know yourself and taking the hard, labor-intensive track of being upset over your poor behavior and bad decisions. That is repentance. It is not easy and you feel yucky but please do it now or else later you will find that their is no more time to do it – either you have given in to the false illusion of continuous sin and/or your life is over and you are eternally damned to live in the sin you have embraced.

And turn to Christ when you repent. He is an ocean of mercy waiting for you to trust in Him so that He can work in you and show you the way out. He can act in you and cause you to be different and live differently but you must surrender to Him and not expect some kind of magic feel good pill when you do. Christ is about forgiveness and love and sweet fulfillment not of the worldly kind. He sets out exactly what is sin and you will know it for yourself when you take the time to quiet down and reflect on yourself as the sinful soul you are. We all are – constantly moving toward sin and it takes loads of love and self control and, above all, attachment to Him who suffered first for us to move in the right direction – to resurrect from our life of sin and despair. He is there to forgive us and help us clean up our memory, take control of our wild will with reason and patience and roll our own stone away from our tomb and walk out. That is the true miracle of Christ. He does for us if we let him what He first did – Rise! But we must stop looking for miracles we want – amazing events – miraculous change in our life unattached to the hard REAL road of change.

“The resurrection, you see, is not amazing. It’s a prototypical experience. It’s the miraculous nature of things woven into the very fabric of life. People who have been dwelling among the breathless tombs of alcoholism have been raised from that creeping demise into sobriety. Every day, someone caught in the death grip of an abusive relationship finds help and rises up to new life. Even hour by hour, the power of resurrection breathes through your experience. When you find yourself facing the dead-end of the same argument with your spouse, the same challenging relationship with a parent, the same incorrigibility of a child, the same humiliating experience with a colleague that you’ve dealt with over and over, and you feel the hope for any better outcome draining out of your soul, sometimes all it takes is a touch, a look, a laugh, a brief conversation, to feel the breath of possibility coming back into your lungs. Resurrection is not amazing; it’s the way things are. That’s what the young man at the tomb said: “Don’t be amazed. Jesus is raised from the dead, and he is going on ahead to meet you – as he said he would.” ” (From “Don’t Be Amazed” A Sermon by Rev. Michael Scott)

He will show you the way – through Himself as the Word of God, through Scripture, through Tradition, through others, through nature – just open your eyes wide to life for He is the Way – the way of humility – to the Truth that God is Love – and the life – He sustains you in energy, hope, beauty, – to LIVE and to BE and to be fulfilled in the only thing that fulfills us – Him Who Is!

Cary and I see ourselves as conduits to helping people see themselves as they are and curing their own ills through love, compassion, hard truth and appropriate action that can bring a new perspective on their situation. Our clients are most amazed by the change that happens in their lives – not being “right” or getting all “they want” but the peace that they begin to experience as well as a new sense of hope and handling of their difficult situation. I cannot help but proclaim what helps me move forward each and every day. For me, He is the inspiration and the reason I can get up in the morning because each and every day is a struggle with my own wild will and it is only when I intentionally stay close to the suffering man on the cross that I can overcome. I can only pray that I transmit this to our clients whether directly through message or indirectly through love, compassion and prayer.

I think of Veronica, a woman who bravely and without regard for herself rushed to Jesus to wipe His adorable face. It brings me to tears because as much as I want to believe I would have run too to wipe the Adorable Face of my God suffering for me, I know that on my own it never would have happened. I know that left to my own devices I would have shaken hands with the devil and wondered why this man who claimed He was something could do nothing in the face of human pressure and I probably would have walked away and said nothing, did nothing, to protest the wrong done to the innocent.

It is only through the sanctifying grace of Christ that we have worth. It is only when we stay close to Him, participate in His sacraments, and love Him with everything we are above all and before all that we can get tastes of the sanctifying grace that moves us toward Himself – the Only True Good – the One who is, who was and who will be forever. And then our life has meaning and our eyes are opened and our hearts swell with love for Him and for others and we know, without study, through His grace what we must do and we have the courage to do it. As we enter the drama of this Holy Week in which the One God has chosen to stoop and participate in human history for love of His creation, let us, on bended knee with tears of love, remember our worthlessness and reach out to Him who suffered FIRST and run to Him and wipe His face with love.

Our practice focuses on the workplace and the family. These areas are mini “social groups” that function on their own as a subset of the larger societal group and world at large. The more these mini social groups can find effective ways to handle conflict the more society and the world will benefit. Communication is such a big issue for people in conflict because during a dispute what they “say” is not usually what they “mean.” I have written about this phenomena previously and will simply reiterate that a skilled mediator brings a leadership quality to the table by taking control of the “conversation” and using his or her skills to dissect the communication and bring out what each party actually means. The results are usually big “aha” moments for the parties involved and a new way of seeing not only the problem but self and other.

The earlier we start to implement a mediation type process – with our kids in the home, at school, on the playground – the better communication skills these mini groups will develop. Additionally, we will begin to train people to access their moral selves such that when they see a conflict they will feel more inclined to get involved – to police in a different way. They will become bystanders who feel a moral obligation to get involved with the aim of clarifying the communication such that all parties present can work on solving the problem. Think of the ramifications of this kind of thinking and what it means for the advancement of a society.

On that note the inspiration for this article comes from a study done on chimpanzees by a team of researchers at the University of Zurich. They state that chimpanzees often mediate a conflict without the “mediating” chimps deriving any immediate advantage from their efforts. Read the full article here. Not only was I not surprised by this news but it made me think about selfish human desire, fear, need for control and a host of other negative traits that we humans allow to get in the way of effective conflict management and continually keep us using others to “impose” solutions on our conflicts rather than using others to help us solve the conflict. We can speak after all – something chimps cannot do.

In this study high ranking male chimps and some female chimps, neither of whom were personally involved in the conflict, would step in to make their presence known and attempt to stop the conflict through a threat of some sort or placing himself or herself between the conflicted chimps. This was enough to end the conflict in a fair amount of situations. This mediating behavior would draw aggression from the conflicted chimps but that was why the mediator was usually a high ranking chimp. According to the article:

The team said it was astonishing that chimpanzees were able to mediate in a conflict, without themselves deriving any immediate advantage from their efforts.

“The rarest and most interesting form of conflict management is policing, that is impartial interventions by bystanders, which is of considerable interest due to its potentially moral nature,” they said.
“These results suggest that the primary function of policing is to increase group stability. It may thus reflect pro-social behaviour based upon community concern,” the team wrote.

Clearly the chimps – who do not speak like us and do not have our thinking brains – are aware of the need to get involved to maintain peace even when their own interest is not at stake. And, as the researchers suggest, the results suggest pro-social behavior. Do we show pro-social behavior when we enter the game of litigation? Does that process suggest pro-social behavior? Not usually. As evolved as we are, we should recognize that when we are in conflict our perspective is skewed. Knowing that, we should consider a pro-social process like mediation which skill builds and empowers people to come up with their own solutions promoting a better, more sophisticated social order. That has got to be better than“These results suggest that the primary function of policing is to increase group stability. It may thus reflect pro-social behaviour based upon community concern,” the team wrote.

So the next time you are watching some chimps at the zoo, sit down for a minute and decide whether you want some high ranking human (maybe even one that is too hairy) to come in and beat his/her proverbial chest and break up your conflict or whether you want to remember you are a human, after all.

So Tiny and Shekinah are good friends and it turns out that Shekinah, a hairdresser, has come up with a money-making “invention” and Tiny has decided to invest in it. Tiny wants 60% of the profits leaving Shekinah with only 40% and, you guessed it, conflict ensues. Big, emotional conflict between friends. Yuck! But who’s right? Without the money the idea cant be executed and without the idea there is no money to be made. They decide to call a Mediator. How perfect…

What happens in the mediator’s office is exactly what I expected – a lot of yelling and arguing about whose role is more important. Even more expected is the fact that they also argue about side issues related to their friendship. The yelling escalates and things start to get ugly. The mediator looks a bit stunned and unsure how he is going to calm them down and move on. Check out the video here.

When Shekinah finally stands up and says she is leaving, the Mediator takes action. He does a move called the “walk to the balcony” which translates to walking away from the heat and cooling things off. He gets up and says he is getting a cup of coffee and invites Shekinah to go with him. She does. At the coffee machine, after a few niceties, he point blank asks Shekinah how much of the profits she wants. She says she will settle for 44% of the profits. Yup…you heard me…44%. All that arguing and she only wants 4% more than what was being offered. He takes her back in the room and lays that offer on Tiny. Not only does Tiny take the deal but her assent brings the validation so desperately needed by Shekinah to feel good. There is love and happiness oozing all over the place.

Ok.. It’s a reality show I know but I must say that we see this scenario a lot – that is, when emotion so takes over a conflict that people stop communicating productively. Shekinah and Tiny were classically “position based” and could not see their way out to even negotiate hard numbers. Tiny wanted 60% and Shekinah did not want 40% – that is as far as their communication went in terms of productivity. The rest of the emotion was all about lack of respect and side issues. Because they are unbiased, Mediators can ask questions that the participants sometimes cannot ask themselves because their pride is in the way, they have boxed themselves in or they just don’t think of asking.

Kudos to the mediator for doing a good and efficient job with this case and kudos to the women for having the foresight to call a mediator. Even if it was all a set up for the show, more people should think about using a mediator when conflict gets too hot rather than digging their heels in and not believing any good will come of it. When you are in too deep your perspective is no good – a Mediator can help pull parties out of the bubble they have created for themselves.

According to the article – The Alzheimer Association says men now make up 40% of family caregivers now – up from 19% measured in 1996.