I’ve spent most of the week at an intensive workshop in mediation. Mediation is often an alternative to going to court but the process is also used to handle non-legal disputes. My interest is in environmental disputes. In the past, I’ve sat in community consultations and felt helpless because I couldn’t understand why people were so angry, didn’t agree, weren’t listening.

I could go on about this but I’m tired and will now write whatever. So I’ve spent the week learning some general skills like active listening, asking the right questions, reframing. I’ve begun learning the theory of negotiation. My next subject is called ‘negotiation’ so I will study this aspect more in depth later.

Anyway, a lot of the week was spent in role plays. We played mediators, as well as disputing parties. Even though it’s all fake, it’s still very draining and emotional. I’ve had to mediate and act in disputes about inheritance, intellectual property, someone stealing an old lady’s car and crashing it, the dissolution of a medical partnership, a custody battle… The most interesting dispute for me was where the local church had set up a soup kitchen in an affluent neighbourhood and the community members wanted to close it down because it was attracting ‘criminals and bums’ to the neighbourhood. I found that this dispute was a lot like many environmental ones. It was about differences in values and the ‘not in my backyard’ syndrome. I played the NIMBY proponent. I think I did it well too. I channeled the anger I had seen at community meetings about new incinerators and toxic waste dumps.

I had no idea how good I would be at mediation until I actually did it on day two of the workshop. I was crap. We’ve learned a particular model of mediation (the facilitative model) and the framework has been really helpful to work in. But the pressure of thinking and listening at the same time! You have to be so careful to ask the right questions. You have to be impartial and to never show your biases or ideas or solutions. A mediator’s hands should not be seen to be all over the decision.

Why have I been so bad at it? Firstly, my lack of experience and skill. That’s to be expected. Today, though, in our final coaching session, I did really well. I was finally able to overcome my tentativeness. Yesterday, while writing my reflective journal (which is assessed by the lecturer), I decided to stop worrying if I was asking the right or wrong questions. I stopped worrying about being calm and still. I decided to ask the questions I wanted to ask and just to be myself. And it worked!

Yesterday, I had told everyone in my workshop about how discouraged I was at my progress. The lecturer told me that the stages of learning were often said to be unconscious incompetence, followed by conscious incompetence, unconscious competence then finally conscious competence.

I think I’ve made it through all the stages. I actually believe that in terms of mediation, I exist in all four states at once and at this moment.