In her book Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal, Dr. Rachel Remen tells the story of her introduction to Carl Rogers. He was with the young medical students to demonstrate Unconditional Positive Regard. For me, this is the most beautiful description of empathy…
As Rogers turned toward him and was about to begin the demonstration session he stopped and looked thoughtfully at his little audience of experts, myself among them. In the brief silence, I shifted impatiently in my chair. Then Rogers began to speak. “Before every session I take a moment to remember my humanity, “ he told us. “There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me, I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever his story, he no longer needs to be alone with it. This is what will allow his healing to begin.”
As a mediator, I am called to be an impartial, neutral third party. This means that I have no personal judgments of right and wrong. I am not a stakeholder in terms of outcome. I step aside from my own thinking about the problem and help the parties find their own solutions.
As you can imagine, this topic gets discussed quite regularly among mediators. We are, after all, human beings. We too get triggered by what other people say and do. We too have life stories running in the background of our days. How do we acknowledge our own humanity without interjecting it into the mediation process?
Nonviolent Communication, based in large part on the work of Carl Rogers, is the best model of mediation I have found to stay fully connected to my own humanity. By acknowledging my own internal workings on a regular basis, even on the spot and on the fly, I am “growing my capacity” to remain fully present, fully engaged with others in a way that does not affect their process.
Ike Lasater and John Kinyon have a wonderful program for mediators. I recently had the opportunity to attend one of their workshops, and “wow” is all I can say. With NVC tools and practices, they help us become better at what we do.
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