{"id":1295,"date":"2014-11-13T08:24:21","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T15:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2014-11-13T08:24:21","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T15:24:21","slug":"the-talking-stick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/the-talking-stick\/","title":{"rendered":"The Talking Stick"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the weekend of October 24-26, I attended the annual conference of the International Academy of Collaborative Profess\"stick.talking\"ionals (IACP<\/a>) in Vancouver. \u00a0I was fortunate to be accepted as a speaker and received a gift which upon returning home, I opened to find a talking stick. \u00a0It is a beautiful piece of art with feathers tied to an end with a leather thong. \u00a0For those unfamiliar with the talking stick, many indigenous American cultures use this tool when a group of people are meeting to discuss…..well, just about anything. \u00a0The stick is passed around and when it is in a person’s grasp, only he or she may speak. \u00a0There can be no interruptions, side-talk or other distractions. \u00a0There is one person who speaks and the role of all others is to\u00a0listen<\/em>. \u00a0 This process – of providing space for people to express themselves without interruption – is essential to any dispute resolution process – be it couples therapy, divorce mediation or a larger group process. \u00a0 I always tell people who sit in my office – so full of anxiety about the specter of conflict that hovers in the room – that I will keep the other from interrupting so that each has a space to speak. \u00a0I have not hesitated to get up in between people if the sparks start to fly. \u00a0“You can do this – you\u00a0have<\/em> done this – quite well on your own. \u00a0You don’t need to pay me to do this in my office. \u00a0My role here is to keep this place safe, so if you are listening to what the other is saying and you believe it is not accurate or you need to defend yourself, please hold it and you will have your opportunity.” \u00a0This rule, together with a chiding reminder that conflict is made safer and resolvable when each person talks about their\u00a0own<\/em> experience, helps move a process which initially may seem frightening or overwhelming to a platform of acceptance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the weekend of October 24-26, I attended the annual conference of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) in Vancouver. \u00a0I was fortunate to be accepted as a speaker and received a gift which upon returning home, I opened to find a talking stick. \u00a0It is a beautiful piece of art with feathers tied Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[25,43],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1296,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions\/1296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}