By: Paula Drouin, Founder and President of ADR International Group Inc. and ADR Learning Institute
I recently finished reading a book called A Better Man by Louise Penny. There are two lines in the book that have inspired this little article. The first is “If you own the truth, then you must also own the malice.” The second is “Things are strongest when they are broken.” I recognize that we all assign our own meaning to the words we read. This article represents the meaning I have assigned.
“If you own the truth, then you must also own the malice.” This line, for me, describes behaviors that guarantee harm and conflict escalation in relationships. Frequently a party will share something nasty about another person and declare it as the truth. They will share it with others, knowing, or not caring, that it is damaging the persons reputation, or possibly opportunities for advancement or opportunities to belong. It often comes from a place of pain, fear, or powerlessness. Other times it just comes from careless disregard for one’s impact on others.
They justify what they are doing by declaring that they are just stating the truth. What they fail to notice or be accountable for is the malice with which it is shared. By malice, I am referring to the intent to harm, or simply not caring that someone will be harmed. Rarely have I seen supervisors or anyone else challenge the malice with which a person ‘tattles’ on another, gossips about someone, or confronts others. It is possible to share a ‘truth’ without malice. To share a truth with kindness, for the benefit of the other person. Truth with malice breaks relationships. Truth without malice can inspire growth.
“Things are strongest when they are broken.” Mediators regularly see broken relationships. People negotiating in the hope of designing a better working relationship, partnership, co-parenting relationship, or parent-child relationship. The parties know the relationship is broken and they are tired of the stress, strain, frustration, and a sense of hopelessness.
The pain of ‘brokenness’ is sometimes the trigger to search for help. Other times it is someone else who notices the toll it is taking on the person, their coworkers, moral, their family members, and all others on the periphery who are also being impacted by the conflict.
How are things strongest when they are broken? When people are surviving on fear, adrenalin, fighting, and plotting against the ‘enemy’? They may feel strong and righteous. However, that type of strength frequently requires no courage and can entrap one or both parties into a dynamic that is not serving either. From the place of fear and anger can come a shattering of the status quo and an unavoidable requirement to do ‘something’ about it.
What I see during mediations, is the real strength that comes from brokenness. The courage to be vulnerable. The realization that the relationship cannot get any worse, the cost is beginning to outweigh the benefit, and that there is nothing left to lose. Those things can be what causes a crack in the façade of bravado. It frees them up to speak from the heart to be understood and to listen simply to understand.
“Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition.” – Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days.
Shared vulnerability forges a new relationship. One that could never exist without the previous version breaking. One role for a mediator is to create the safety required for shared vulnerability to happen. If the vulnerability is not shared, then there is risk that someone will be harmed. One person demonstrating vulnerability while the other remains armored will never create a lasting and healing resolution or a newer stronger relationship.
Not all mediations have ‘future relationship’ on the agenda. If the parties are required to still be in an inter-dependent relationship post mediation, then it should be on the agenda. The journey of co-creating something new based on what is important to each of them, is where the fruit of their journey through brokenness is found.
