Mindfulness: An Approach to Problem-Solving in Mediation

Mediation training has ventured into mindfulness, a contemplative practice that teaches mediators to develop a sense of calm. One benefit of this practice is evident when the energy in the mediation session is less than positive. With this technique, the mediator can assess how to re-focus that energy in a way that best assists the parties in reaching a resolution of their dispute. I’ve attended three training sessions. Before the first one, being the skeptic that I sometimes am, I thought the training would not prove to be the best use of my time. And, as sometimes happens when I pre-form opinions without data to back them up, I found out that I was wrong. The training was not the hippie-love-child- “OMMMMM” practice I had expected, although in fairness, if repeating a nonsense syllable or sound enables the mediator to learn a mindfulness technique, I’d have to accept that proposition. The technique utilized in the programs I attended explored mindful breathing.

There are several recognized proponents of mindfulness in mediation. Leonard Riskin and Rachel Wohl are two of them, and they “encourage mediators to develop a contemplative practice through meditation and to use mindfulness more strategically in their practice by setting an intention for their mediations and using breath during mediations to re-center themselves back on that intention. In addition, they teach mediators to harness their awareness of themselves in this hyper-concentrated state to better manage their own personalities.”[1] As mediators, we recognize that our ability to develop and sustain a connection with the participants, and our ability to help them connect with each other, can often move the mediation process toward a deal. When strong emotions come into play and disrupt the connections and the pace of the mediation, the skilled mediator finds a way to pull the parties back into meaningful discussions. Any technique that enables the mediator to find the course of action to accomplish that goal is helpful, particularly one that can be used before the mediation begins as well as during breaks in the sessions. Mindful breathing, as I see it, is one such technique. It is a form of meditation designed to assist the mediator with controlling strong emotions and enabling thoughtful and deliberative choices.

Learning how to breathe mindfully is to learn a skill, one that requires concentration on breathing and practice on redirecting all extraneous thoughts that creep into your mind by always pulling thoughts back to the central theme of concentration on breathing. In the sessions I attended, the trainers had us sit very tall, hands on knees, eyes closed, taking several deep abdominal “belly breaths” and thinking only of the process of breathing. After a minute or so, our breathing returned to normal, but the learning process remained constant — that is, we continued to think about those breaths and, when a different thought entered, we’d recognize it, send it away and get back to thinking about those breaths. There are even apps, sometimes used to help a person relax or get to sleep, that are useful tools in developing the skill. “CALM” was the one demonstrated in my sessions, although there are several available in the app store.

So why would a mediator want to spend time in each already-busy day to practice mindfulness? There is a developing neuroscience research behind mindfulness that suggests that health benefits as well as emotional control emerge from meditation. According to a Mindworks article,[2] “Meditation develops certain areas of the brain, such as those that are responsible for memory, compassion, and empathy. Meanwhile, parts of the brain associated with fear, stress, and anxiety (such as the amygdala – the ‘fight or flight’ center) begin to shrink. Anxiety neurotransmitters may decrease, whereas the pleasurable neurotransmitter dopamine may increase. These and other subtle changes result in an overall feeling of improvement in your health and wellbeing.” The article also noted, “An eight-week study at the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness seemed to indicate that after just two months of daily mindfulness — a half hour per day — not only had participants’ brains begun to change, but they already ‘felt more capable of acting with awareness, observing, and remaining nonjudgmental.’” Not only will the mediator experience the health benefits personally, but the business of conducting mediations will be bettered as mediators learn to control their own emotions and to identify situations during the mediation that require a change in direction or pace of the discussions.

Although there are many ideas about why mindfulness matters, one is that it heightens a mediator’s awareness of different aspects of his own personality, which informs conscious decision-making to help the parties move toward a resolution of their dispute. In Harnessing the Power of Mindfulness in Mediation,[3] the authors wrote that “mindfulness provides the confidence and peace of mind needed to walk into the heat of the conflict to address it head-on.” In discussing the benefits of mindful breathing, one presenter offered the opinion that, with practice, mindful breathing becomes an arrow in the arsenal that facilitates thoughtful and purposeful decisions. As we mediators likely all have experienced at one time or another, there are times in mediation that we need to take account of the pace of the process and to identify the elephant in the room. We have to choose what to do if the pace is too fast or too slow, or if one person is so distraught that progress has halted, so that the discussion can proceed in a productive way. As mindfulness works to improve our brain function, our creativity may lead to new ideas to break the logjam or make a beneficial connection.

Attitudes can be contagious. When faced with a situation where participants in a mediation behave as though they are under attack, a trained mediator will pick up on those emotions and understand that the time has come to reduce the tension in the room. Mindfulness helps a mediator become aware of the different aspects of his or her own personality and which of those aspects to employ when the going gets rough. The mediator’s attitude is watched (and can be imitated) by the participants, so making a purposeful decision about what to do next, and how to do it, can be a critical component of the success of a mediation. As an aid to enabling purposeful decisions regarding tactics that will best help the parties, mindfulness is a practice worth considering.