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Archives for December 2022

Let’s Make Circles Happen

December 6, 2022 By Julia Menard Leave a Comment

Early in my career, I co-led a victim-offender mediation program.

It was the first adult criminal court diversion program in the province of Alberta and we would work with the Chief Crown Prosecutor to choose referrals. We would work together to determine which criminal cases might have benefit to experience a more reconciliative approach to justice vs a punishment (or retributive) approach to justice.

A key part of our process was using circles.

I remember one case where a young woman was charged with assault for hitting her support worker in a group home.

My co-circle keeper and I gathered together the person charged, the support worker, the staff who would be there for the employee and people who were there for the young woman charged (including her parents and her therapist).

It was an emotionally charged and well-attended circle. 

Having all these community perspectives represented meant that a solution could be worked out that had more heart and humanity than if the young woman had been fined or (worse) sent to jail.

Instead, she was able to hear and be moved by the harm she had caused and together the community worked out a new plan to offer more support to all in a different way. The community was called closer together when the conflict happened and the community was a key part of the healing.

Bill Ury, of the Harvard negotiation project, tells the story of the San peoples of Southern Africa, indigenous hunter-gatherers who have lived like our ancestors lived for much of human history. 

The men have deadly poison arrows for hunting. When conflict arises between members of the community, and temperature rises, someone hides the poison arrows. Then everyone in the community sits around in a circle and talks and talks until the conflict is resolved.

As an anthropologist, Ury believes such a system is responsible for keeping the entire human race alive. You can check out a summary of some of his findings here.

The longer I work in the conflict space, the more I see the necessity for circles. I recently had the privilege of working with a group of leaders, some of whom were indigenous and served an indigenous population. The imperative of circles came up again.

We need circles as spaces where our communities can come together and speak about itself to itself. Circles are a place to nurture ourselves and each other in our bonds of commonality. Circles also serve as natural conflict resolution mechanisms.

This article by Ken Acher on circles is also informative. I hope you are inspired as well to think about where you might be able to experiment with circles.

Have a Line in the Sand

December 6, 2022 By Julia Menard Leave a Comment




For the last few months, I’ve been referencing an article
about 6 moral precepts from the field of bio-ethics. The article suggested we hold on to some ways of being together as we enter these times of environmental collapse.

The 6 suggested moral guidelines are:

  1. Work hard to grasp the immensity of the change
  2. Cultivate radical hope
  3. Have a line in the sand
  4. Appreciate the astonishing opportunity of life at this time
  5. Train your body and mind
  6. Act for the future generations of all species

I’d like to draw our attention to one of these every month.

This month, it’s the third precept of: Have a line in the sand.

This is the hardest precept for me to date. This one involves thinking about worst case scenarios and deciding in advance what will be acceptable behaviour and what will not. 

We only need think about any situations where good neighbours became enemies to realize and remember we are capable of astonishingly bad behaviour.

This precept reminds me how easy it is for me to close my heart at the thought of a tiny slight. How can I hold my heart open when I might be starving and my neighbour has food she is not giving me? Can I decide to die with dignity and honour, not with anger and violence?

I can’t promise myself that. But this precept advises we allow our minds to think about these kind of horrifying scenarios and try to imagine ourselves with that type of “Fierce Kindness” that my colleage and friend Emma-Louise Elsey is promoting.

Etty Hillesum and Victor Frankl are two that show me the way. They both were in the nightmare that was being Jewish in World War 2. They both found ways to be kind and compassionate in the most difficult of situations.

I can draw inspiration from them and send out a prayer that I will know how to draw on my better self when I will need it most.

“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.” … Etty Hillesum

Stay Kind for the Holidays

December 6, 2022 By Julia Menard Leave a Comment



A dear colleague of mine, Emma-Louise Elsey, has a wonderful project called Fierce Kindness. She’s on a mission to infuse more courage in the world to be kinder to ourselves and when we engage the world. Her website offers tools, exercises, inspiring articles, and community connections to help you feel safe and at home with you while doing what you can to make a difference in the world.

It’s the kind of combination we need to be reminded of – how to be bold, mission-driven and yet – fiercely kind!

She offers a newsletter as well and, this month, she chose one of my articles on how to approach the holidays with kindness. She did such a lovely job of how she presented the article – and it’s in such a powerful context of kindness and courage – that I thought you might also appreciate reading my Health offering on her website. Check it out here.

PS – The picture is a kind act from coach and TalktoToT podcaster Tracey Burns. She had me on her podcast and sent me that lovely necklace after the show. Mindful HR consultant Michelle Precourt also had me on her Mindful Monday podcast and sent me a lovely journal. People are kind.

“We all have hearts… If you have a heart, love somebody. If you have enough heart, love everybody.”… Stevie Wonder

Free Conflict Tips Here!

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