Conflict Wisdom
One workshop with one confidential write up
Apply the same slow, compassionate awareness of your physical patterns to your conflict habits. Drawing on Carie’s 30 years of facilitative mediation experience, these sessions help you notice how you organize yourself in difficult conversations. This is a conversational class, offering classic communication and decision-making teaching - with maybe a little aware movement now and then - to open up choices in how you wish to manage your conflict patterns.
Feldenkrais principles and the facilitative mediation that Carie practices are remarkably similar. She’s not the ‘teacher’ in order to fix you or provide solutions--insights, sometimes. Skills, often. But you are the real teacher and it is the person you want most to be that creates your goal--if indeed you need a goal.
These discussions will not be recorded, though there will be a write up of basic points covered, which will not include confidential information. Topics will generally be driven by what's going on currently for the participants.
What to expect
1. Casting a Compassionate Gaze on Conflict Habits
Some of the most rewarding work Carie has done as a mediator is to work with people who have come to recognize a pattern in their conflicts, and who want to be in choice rather than react again in the same old way. The first rule with habits is to love on them, otherwise they just dig in deeper. And it makes sense to love on them! Habits came along to protect you; they did the best they could at the time. And you might still need them--you should keep them for an emergency. Understanding and appreciation of habits are the secret, paradoxical sauce to convincing habits that sometimes they can share the space with other options.
2. Understanding What Your Interests Are So You Can Get Them Satisfied
The fulcrum of conflict is shifting from what you see as the solution to the problem--your position--to understanding why you think that will satisfy you--your interest. Your position might be 'I want them to get rid of their dog.' Your interest might be 'I want quiet at night.' Positions usually have one solution. Interests often have many. But here's what I discovered thirty years ago as a fledgling mediator: people don't walk into conflict knowing their own interests. Maybe it really is about quiet, but getting an apology matters just as much. Or maybe you're actually worried about the poor dog. If you're fighting for only one piece of what you need and you win, you still haven't won what you came for. Learning to get clear about what you REALLY want? That's gold, in conflict and everywhere else. Note: becoming clear about what you REALLY WANT is a wonderful life skill, even outside of conflict.