A friend of mine is dying as I write this. She’s been a friend for 15 years and she’s always been strong and beautiful and graceful. Today I saw her for the first time in a few months. She was heavily sedated on morphine and looked small and frail and a shadow of her former self. Where did the other person go? Why is she not there anymore? Where is this person going – and when? We will all face death and most of us, if we’ve lived long Continue Reading
Dream Our Story to Life
“The stories we tell literally make the world. If you want to change the world, you need to change your story. This truth applies both to individuals and institutions." … Michael Margolis, Educator, Anthropologist. I met someone at a networking function recently who was telling me about a tribe she is familiar with in the Amazon, the Achuar people. The Achuar believe you can dream your future to life. Furthermore, on a nightly basis during Continue Reading
Go Slow to Go Fast
For those of you who know Mediator in a Box will know there is a little card within the box which is a “Take a Break" card. This little card can be used by anyone in a tough conversation who might need to take a break to calm down, rethink things, come back to themselves. Taking a break as a way to keep the conversation productive is substantiated by a study done by John Gottman. He and his team tracked fighting couples in the research Continue Reading
Say No to Enemification!
There is a well-researched phenomenon in social psychology called In-groups and out-groups. We all have built into us an “in-group bias” – we define ourselves in terms of social groupings and are quick to “other” those who do not fit into our group. I’m sure there is a lot of solid reason for why we, as a species, needed to hone this capacity to scan for whether the person in front of us was “either with us, or against us” – as is said in Continue Reading