THE POWER OF GRATITUDE IN MEDIATION

By: Patrick Kalscheur

Feeling gratitude softens and expands the heart. When we drop into gratitude, we open the door to love and appreciation. Try it for yourself right now. Take a few moments to close your eyes and to think about five things in your life that you truly appreciate. See each person, place, or thing that you are grateful for and open up to why you feel that way—what does each offer to you? When I do this, whatever else may be going on in my life, I feel a shift towards positive loving energy.

When families begin the process of restructuring their relationships, either due to a separation or a divorce, they undergo numerous challenging emotions. There is fear of the unknown and what their new life will look and feel like. There is sadness, loss, and grief over the changing nature of a relationship structure they never anticipated changing. Many experience anger at their spouses for ways they feel wronged. Some feel anger or guilt towards themselves for something they did or did not do.

With all of these challenging emotions, no wonder families in mediation struggle to reach agreement. When you are feeling anger, sadness, or fear it is hard to look across the table and say “yes”. This is why I encourage my clients to acknowledge these challenging emotions and see if they can access gratitude at the same time. I ask them to remember the things in their lives that they really appreciate, that bring them joy, that they are grateful for. When they do this, their hearts can soften, and we can open the doors to unlock the impasse.

To be clear, I do not ask my clients to ignore or forget about their challenging feelings about their situation. Rather, I ask them to be open to a more holistic view of their reality. They are angry and they still have many things to be grateful for. They may feel loss and they are reasons to feel hopeful too.

While accessing gratitude may not be an immediate avenue to getting my clients to “yes”, it does quickly move them to “maybe”. And if they can make room for both the frustrations and the feelings of gratitude, they can come into a more authentic space from which to choose to engage or not engage over a certain topic; they can choose to speak or not to speak; they can choose to act or not to act; they can be in the mediation room more holistically and authentically. Ultimately, this allows them to open the space for more options for a peaceful resolution to emerge.

Having this tool available to me is one of the many things I am grateful for, and I would appreciate to hear your comments about this post and how you use gratitude in your life.