The DPC-training in Tatamagouche Centre, situated in Nova Scotia, Canada, took place from 3 – 8 June 2012. “A great mix of people, a breadth of diversity including First Nations, African-Nova Scotian, Muslim, Christian, rural-urban etc.” In total 17 people went through the training. Read two daily life stories from participants:
1. For the past two weeks, I have really been wanting to DPC someone- anyone. I even asked/suggested to mediate a case for a friend who was (only) asking my advice. I realized by his response that he was not looking for technical expertise, but experiential advice. Well, he did say “advice”, but with DPC on my mind, I heard “mediate” and I forgot that it could be therapeutic for my friend just to talk to me. I was thinking of me at that time, not of him.
So, when I realized that my heart is unrealistic in expecting everyone to want me to DPC them, I moved to my head to find a solution to my own conflicting approach. May be this dichotomy of my heart and head is to satisfy my unrelenting thirst for mediating something, since I cannot get someone. Anyway, I brought those two parts of me to listen to each other’s side of the story and they agreed that as much as it is good to DPC people, it is even better to wait till I am asked- that was a common ground that they could work from. Their message: I must have some patience and make my new self and skills known first. That’s right!- no one knows me as a ‘trained’ mediator yet! You see, for a while, people who already know us will continue to look at us the way they have always done. Until they understand that you and I are not on drugs when we behave in weirdly meditative ways, we will have to be patient. Until they trust that the new ‘me’ is for real, their perception of me will stay as “the old me”. See?
My strategy now: I will keep reading the DPC binder repeatedly and stop hitch-hiking on the highway for conflicts. I will be a taxi driver with my roof-light on, and wait for someone to hire me. When they do, if they do, I will take them to their destination and gently land them out at that serene beach with a gentle sunlight, where I would hope they find a gentle TIDE.
2. My partner and I and our daughter were in the grocery store looking for pancake syrup. To our distress, Adele wanted to buy the chemically-laden Aunt Jemima brand (which made my skin crawl and not because of the chemicals, but another story for another day) because she thought it tasted better but we wanted to purchase the locally produced real maple syrup. We were in conflict!
Aha I thought, a chance to put my newly-honed skills to great use and get the syrup I wanted. As you can tell, already I am off the rails. Having said that, I still thought I could mediate this. So, we're standing in the middle of the syrup aisle, and my daughter is emphatic that we will get the fake syrup and my partner is emphatic that we will get the real syrup. Well, they both started yelling at each other, in a funny and serious kind of way, if you know what I mean, in the middle of the grocery store and I automatically went into compromise mode by trying to look for other types of syrup, but as we know, there are really only two kinds. I could not get a word in edgewise and then Paul threw up his hands and said "get what you want!" He was not happy because he did not like the syrup. Adele looked triumphant, and I was still agog, wondering what happened to my mediation! Next thing I know, no one was walking out the door with the Aunt Jemima syrup (ugh!) and no one is saying anything to anyone. No one was listened to and no one got to speak uninterrupted. Geez, what went wrong!
But, it all went away and no one was hurt or thinking about it anymore, but what a test! I was amazed at how fast things escalated and how out of control they got.
All I can say is, I'll try to do better next time, but real life is hard!