ONGOING CONFLICT: An Integrated Approach with Bernie Mayer

Working with people in conflict requires that we face our own issues with conflict—how we avoid, embrace or create conflict in our own lives. A significant paradox that many of us face is that we have chosen to take on the role of helping others deal with their conflicts but at the same time we are limited by our own strong conflict avoidant tendencies. One way these tendencies can limit our work is through how we define our purpose. We tend to think of conflict as a linear process requiring effective resolution. But the most important conflicts in people's lives do not end--they endure in one form or another, sometimes for many years. In this presentation, I will discuss the nature of enduring conflict and the challenge it presents to us as professionals but also as human beings. If we can find a way of helping people to stay with conflict, if we can confront our own conflict avoidant tendencies (which take many sometimes contradictory forms) and if we can develop a constructive approach to enduring conflict, we can not only expand our self concept and our capacity to help people in conflict, we can engage in a significant professional and personal growth process.

Keynote and Workshop:

Big Heart Clear Mind With Diane Musho Hamilton

This session, led by Diane Musho Hamilton, a Zen teacher and training of Integral Theory, will explore what Integral Theory has to offer to mediation practice. She will of some basics from Integral like conscious perspective taking, levels of development, and neutrality as a state experience. She will also give us a taste of Big Mind, a Zen opening in dialogue form. This will be a free-ranging session - open, exploratory, dynamic, including the insights of the philosopher, Ken Wilber.

A Kabbalistic Perspective on the Integration of the Conflict Specialist With Lili Zohar

Awareness is growing in the conflict resolution community of the vital importance of the integrated practitioner, one who brings not only skills and knowledge to the table, but is also aware of the human challenges and underlyingdynamics of the people she is serving. In short, one who can mediate with mind and heart. In this workshop, I will explore the multiple perspectives we adopt as mediators through the paradigm of the Kabbalastic Universes. This model allows us to see the different levels which we are operating from at any given time. The first and most recognizable universe is Assiyah, the world of doing and making. In this place it is very important that the mediator clearly see and understand the situation and circumstance of the conflict, and have skills and experience to help the parties with the goals they wish to accomplish. The second is Yitzerah, the level of formation. Here the mediator brings life experience, skill and a basic psychological understanding of the case’s history the underlying drives and emotions of the parties. The mediator must also understand her own emotional hot spots, places she avoids or reacts to out of fear. Finally, the third level is Briah, which allows the mediator to access a realm of non-duality: where paradox can exist, relationship is paramount and we experience a spacious connection from the heart. Here we have immediate access to insight and feel a sense of being in the flow of the unfolding moment. It is from this place that paradigm shifts happen, parties make big leaps towards seeing and understanding themselves and their conflict in a whole new way. Each universe contains and includes the prior ones, so that one mediating from a briatic perspective includes the insights, understanding and knowledge contained in the other levels. The goal is to simultaneously have access to all three perspectives. This workshop will provide methods, practices and examples of how mediators can gain more awareness and integration at each level while finding more meaning and understanding of themselves as instruments of peace.

Nonviolent Communication as a Spiritual Practice with David Shindoll

The two steps that are integral to practicing NVC as a spiritual discipline are intention and attention/awareness. The intention is on creating a quality of connection in which everyone’s needs are valued and can be met through “compassionate giving” i.e. acting from a natural enjoyment of contributing to each other’s well being instead of motivation through guilt, shame, fear, or desire for reward. When this intention isn’t there, NVC can be used as just another strategy to manipulate people into doing what we want.

The attention is on the present moment, which is where the connection with many spiritual traditions comes in. I will present the four components of NVC (observation, feelings, needs, and requests) as doorways to the present moment as differentiated from treating them as “steps in a process” to be a better communicator/person or achieve some outcome. Each component will have a

time devoted to teaching the concept and time for experiential learning where participants can feel what the consciousness is like.

In my experience, the consciousness that many people (including myself) cultivate through spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga, prayer, etc. is difficult to stay connected with when we find ourselves in conflict with others. NVC bridges this gap by providing the consciousness and skills for people to discover and enliven the most authentic part of themselves and to apply this in their relationships.

Gong Bath with Gary Fishman*Doors close at 7:20 promptly. Bring a sheet to lie on and a blanket/pillow for comfort.

A “Gong Bath” is an unforgettable experience to soothe, inspire, heal and awaken your spirit. This vibrational healing is intense and may not be appropriate if you are going through emotional, physical or spiritual upheaval as it brings about energetic shifts on subtle and gross levels alike. It is also really loud and can be frightening for those who have had auditory trauma, although the sounds are very pure and are not physically harmful. It begins with the intrinsic harmonizing properties of the Singing Bowls and other Buddhist ritual instruments. The sounds of the bowls calms and center, paving a path into which the transformational waves of the Gong blend. The participant is bathed with rising and falling rhythms, tanalitis and multi-octaves of healing vibrations.

Vibrational sound Practioner Gary Fishman returns to create transformational waves of sound bathing you with the rising and falling rhythms, tonalities and vibrations of a huge Earth Gong tuned to the sound of "AUM", the Universal Chord. This will be an extraordinary experience in sound healing. The session begins with your experiencing the healing properties of the Sacred Singing Bowls. Then, Gary creates transformational waves of sound bathing you with the rising and falling rhythms, tonalities and vibrations of a huge Earth Gong tuned to the sound of AUM - the Universal Chord. The harmonic resonance reduce stress and induces spontaneous healing bringing you into harmony with the movement of the Earth. Gary also uses crystals and the Australian plant-based didgeridoo to bring the vibrational healing into a full spectrum experience.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

Bernard Mayer, Ph.D., Professor, Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Creighton University, and Partner, CDA Associates, is an internationally- recognized leader in the field of conflict resolution. Bernie has facilitated many complex and controversial environmental conflicts, commercial and organizational disputes, interpersonal conflicts, public decision-making processes, and has an extensive background in family mediation as well. Bernie is the author of many books and articles including The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution: A Practitioner’s Guide” (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2000), “Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution” (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2004), and “Staying With Conflict: A Strategic Approach to Ongoing Disputes” (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2009)

Diane Musho Hamilton is a gifted facilitator, mediator and spiritual teacher living in Utah. She is well known as an innovator in facilitating group dialogues, especially controversial conversations about religion, race and gender relations. Diane is a fully ordained Zen priest and teacher. She has studied Buddhism since 1984, and was given dharma transmission by her meditation master, Genpo Roshi, in 2006. She works with the Big Mind process; a facilitation technique synthesized by Roshi to convey eastern teachings to western audiences. Diane also teaches Integral Spirituality, and has worked with Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute in Denver, Colorado, since 2004. She lives in Salt Lake City with her husband, Michael D. Zimmerman, a lawyer and Zen teacher. They have four grown children and one dog.

Lili Zohar, www. lilizohar.com,ACR Spirituality Section Tri-Chair and RMR Chair 2007-2010, (OSU College of Law, Order of the Coif; LLM, Yale) is an attorney/mediator who, since 1995, has practiced family, civil and community mediation in Denver, Colorado. A yoga teacher, conflict coach and Integrated Kabbalasitic Healer, Lili has for many years been bringing together the worlds of mediation and spirituality. In 2007, Lili presented workshops on bringing spiritual awareness and intention into dispute resolution at the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and the Association of Conflict Resolution (ACR) annual conferences and was a co-facilitator of the Third-Fifth Annual Rocky Mountain Retreats. Her presentations cover the topics of Non-Duality in Mediation, the Energy of Conflict, From Reactivity to Responsiveness:-Mediator Self- awareness, Energetic Boundaries and creating safe/sacred space in mediation.            She taught yoga and meditation at the ACR Annual Conferences and at the 2007 Summer Learning Forum of the Harvard Negotiation Insight Initiative. Lili incorporates the Vedic, Buddhist and Kabbalah teachings into her transformative approach to conflict transformation and an understanding of the energy of conflict into her teaching, healing and coaching practices. Lili is a graduate and practitioner of Kabbalistic Healing, an integrative program created by Jason Shulman.

David Shindoll, a certified trainer for the Center for Nonviolent Communication. has been practicing and teaching Nonviolent Communication since 1999 and is currently working to create a center for Nonviolent Communication in Denver. As a teacher trainer at the Montessori Education Center of the Rockies, David has used the NVC model to support teachers in having power with children instead of power over them and to create classroom structures that reveal children instead of mold them. In addition to his work in education, David also does couples/family mediation, communication coaching, restorative justicework, facilitates a weekly NVC practice group, and gives professional presentations on a variety of topics related to NVC.

Michael John Aloi will be President of the Association for Conflict Resolution beginning October 2009 and was past Co-Chairperson of the ACR Spirituality Section. He is Past President of the West Virginia State Bar (2002-2003). He has been selected for inclusion in “The Best Lawyers in America” for ADR and is listed as one of only five lawyers in the state of West Virginia as a Super Lawyer in the field of ADR. He is the only lawyer in West Virginia to be a Fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators. Michael is a Lecturer at the West Virginia University College of Law, where he is a Clinical Law Program Supervisor. He also teaches Negotiation in the West Virginia Wesleyan College MBA Program. He has mediated over 2,000 cases and has trained mediators in West Virginia for over twenty years. Michael lectures nationally on the topic of a more holistic approach to conflict resolution. During his year as State Bar President he encouraged lawyers to find “Balance” in personal and professional life and emphasized a more holistic and humane approach to the practice of law.