The answer is why not both…… in the age of dispute resolution and particularly in relationship and family disputes the conflicted parties are sent to mediation. Now if you type mediate into your search engine (google, siri, yahoo) quite often auto correct will kick in and correct mediate with meditate…. I have a love hate relationship with autocorrect – especially when you type the correct spelling and on at least 2 occasions it changes your correct spelling to something entirely different.
So what is mediation and what is meditation? How do they align and complement each other?
Well mediation is the process of two conflicted parties engaging in a process with an impartial third party who assists them to resolve the issues in dispute. Meditation is the process or practice of deep thinking and contemplation. So how do they complement each other? Well meditation helps to adjust, focus and calm the mind – to make the decisions needing to be made to resolve conflict, a calm and focused mind is essential. So meditate first then mediate. If during the process of the mediation you feel anxious, frustrated, angry etc use the meditation techniques to calm and focus your mind and keep all of the emotional drivers in check. This will assist you to resolve the dispute as you won’t be caught up in the emotion, if you control the emotion you can focus on what is important to resolve the dispute. Emotion often blocks resolution and clarity about what can resolve the conflict. Practicing techniques, like meditation and deep breathing can help you maintain focus on the issues and problems that can be resolved.
If both conflicted parties can leave the emotional issues to the side, then on a practical level the remaining conflict should be able to be resolved and ideas generated that can solve the heart of the dispute between them.
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