Tough Conversations

Solutions Through Compassionate Communication.

Is Lack of Transparency the Same as Lying?

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What if we neglect to tell a family member something that we feel is unimportant or even trivial, but they think IS important and not trivial? Is that lying? Or behaving falsely?

For example……

What if a family member, a care-giving sibling (CGS), uses her parents’ money to purchase a first-alert device or a home security system so she knows whether the parent has been in an accident or has a medical emergency? The other siblings live a several hundred miles away. Why bother? They’re not involved, right?

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The High-Wire Act Called Mediation

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I once heard an experienced mediator comment: “I care, but I don’t care that much.” I never quite grasped his meaning. Was he suggesting that a mediation session is entirely in the hands of the parties, and if they can’t reach an agreement within a specific period of time, tough luck? Or did he feel that, despite how close the parties got to an agreement, if an impasse arose, he’d be damned if he’d fall on his sword to help them reach the finish line?

The High-Wire Act Called Mediation by Sig CohenNot always, but in many mediations, I feel like I’m one of the Flying Wallendas, balanced on a high wire trying to accomplish two things:

  1. Help the parties reach the far end of the wire (settling the case); and
  2. Not fall off the tightrope (i.e. keeping a party from leaving the session).

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Redeeming the Pain (A Book Review)

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Some books are better the second time around.  Even better the third, after Redeeming the Painlife has delivered its lessons. Living Through Personal Crisis by Ann Kaiser Stearns is such a book.

Its subject is grief over life’s losses, big and small. A painful divorce propelled the author, a clinical psychologist, chaplain, and professor, to write it. She had two purposes: to help others and to heal herself.

In a video on her website, and in the Preface to her revised version, Dr. Stearns says resilience comes when we learn from our pain. When we find meaning in it.  We redeem our own suffering by using it to help someone else. And that makes us stronger. [Read more…]

Right and Righteous? Give It Up!

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Picture this:

Right and Righteous? Give It Up!An extended family is gathered for a Thanksgiving feast. A granddaughter announces she’s moving in with her boyfriend. A son has brought his same-sex partner to meet the family. You learn your favorite cousin had an abortion. The family vegetarian ostentatiously declines the turkey and anything it touched. Your Mom’s friend who helped make dinner is a guy 10 years younger than she and you suspect he’s more than a “friend.” A Marine in uniform and a peace activist complete the scene.

(I’m only partially making this up. I’ve seen each of these situations – but, I confess, never all at once!) [Read more…]

Lost in the Silence

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As mediators we know there are two kinds of silence:
Lost in Silence

The first is tactical.  During a mediation, we may remain silent while one party to a dispute wrestles with how to respond to a proposal, or maybe comes up with an alternative offer.  This tactic can lead to a settlement.  I don’t use it often, but when employed at the right time, it can move the process forward and eventually yield agreement.

The second can be tragic.  This is the silence of unsaid words.  The silence that comes when someone cannot bring him or herself to say, “I’m sorry” or “I’m to blame.” Or express a long submerged emotion that could shatter the silence and steer relations on a more positive course.
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The Wrecked Car Analogy

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No offense intended, but when I hear of a family riddled with distrust, anger, and even denial about their situation or condition of their parents, I most often envision a wrecked car. The Wrecked Car AnalogyCan’t help it. It’s the first image that comes to mind.

There it stands: Not just dings, but serious dents, a missing headlight, duct tape holding the rearview mirror together, and so on. My job as an elder mediator is checking whether the car can travel to its destination. It’s NOT to try to repair the car.

I won’t know whether the car can travel all the way, however, until all the passengers get in the car. [Read more…]

Separating the Music from the Noise

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Imagine sitting in a noisy restaurant, barely able to discern beautiful music filtering through the din. Or imagine a Separating the Music from the Noise by Sig Cohenstrainer with a large mesh basket filled with stuff blocking it so that only the tiniest bit of liquid is allowed to drain out.

That’s what it’s like in some mediations I conduct. A lot of noise – noise that’s important to the persons explaining their interests and what they’d like to see come out of the process. But it’s noise just the same. Accompanying their words are the drama, the pitch of the contending voices, the marshaling of facts and assumptions — all aimed at influencing a favorable outcome.

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Caregiving in the Littoral Zone

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Nearly every day, even when she has to wear snowshoes, my friend Ann walks the beach near her home in Maine, where she shares her life with the man she loves. He has early Alzheimer’s.

“My favorite place to walk is the littoral zone,” she says.  “It reminds me of my life.”Caregiving in the Littoral Zone by Carolyn Parr

The littoral* zone, she tells me, is the area of the shore where the tide comes in and out. The upper part is dry and solid at low tide; at high tide, it’s all either underwater or soft and squishy from the lapping waves.

In the littoral zone you have one foot on solid ground, the other on sinking sand. You’re always off balance.

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What Do Mediation and Palliative Care Have in Common?

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What Do Mediation and Palliative Care Have in Common? by Sig CohenThe more I learn about palliative care, the more I’m persuaded it’s a lot like mediation.

  • Palliative care allows terminally ill patients to spend their last months (or less) without intensive and often intrusive medical interventions.
  • Mediation enables parties to settle their dispute without interminable and costly trials.

Neither the mediator nor the palliative care physician is a “fixer.”

  • Decision-making is left to the individual – be she a terminally or seriously ill patient (or family members) or parties to a case. A terminally ill patient who opts for palliative care implicitly agrees to take responsibility for how they wish to spend their remaining days.
  • When parties mediate, they become the decision-makers in the case and take some responsibility for moving toward resolution.

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Transparency

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“What you see is what you get,” your daughter warned. You liked the transparency. Her boyfriend’s Transparency by Carolyn Parrtattoos and nose ring? Not so much. At least you knew what you were getting – sort of.

What’s really tough is when you think you’re getting Harvard Law and you get a secret drug addiction.

Some secrets start with the best intentions. Mom puts on a happy face until her hair falls out from the chemo – and the kids learn about the cancer for the first time. The youngest has to move back in to nurse Mom.

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