I work with organizations to resolve difficult situations. after over 30 years as an employment attorney, nearly 30 years as a mediator and over 25 years as a neutral, my experience has taught me that most people, whether a manager or an employee, want to do the right thing, be helpful, and be a good team member. Sometimes, we lack the skills to do the things we should, or the knowledge to even know what we should be doing. Yet often we see people doing and saying things which don’t align with their positive intent. This is why, over the years, as I have learned and grown in my practice and approach, I sought training and developed skills which have deepened and broadened my practice. Like most attorneys, I love research and have spent time researching best practices and teaching tools, becoming certified in those practices I believed were most beneficial. After working as a coach with individuals who demonstrated high conflict behaviors, I realized that whatever they were doing in the workplace, it was nothing compared to what they were doing internally to themselves. Often, an individual had not had kindness and compassion modeled to them, which created an inability to be kind to themselves or recognize the impact of their behavior on others. I sought additional skills and certification as a teacher of Mindful Self Compassion (UC San Diego) and Compassion Cultivation Training (Stanford’s Mindfulness Institute), which offered me the privilege of studying directly with teachers such as Kristen Neff, PhD, Christopher Germer, PhD, and Kelly McGonigal, PhD, among others. These trainings introduced me to the neuroscience of our emotion regulation systems which helps explain and normalize what happens in our bodies when we feel difficult emotions or are in conflict. These trainings have allowed me, through my own practice and development, to in turn help clients develop their own self-regulation skills and self-awareness in both coaching and relationship building mediation/facilitation. After seeing so many examples of leaders and managers who simply don’t fully understand the power they carry or its impact on their employees, I wondered why people, who had such good motivations, sometimes did things which caused harm, often unrelated to business goals. This curiosity led me to training and certification as an affiliated teacher with the Right Use of Power Institute. I use the models I learned in this training to help clients understand their power and how to use it with compassion and ethics. Over the years, I have been asked to coach individuals from time to time and as this part of my practice grew, I sought training and certification from the International Coaching Federation (ICF). More recently, I have found the models of Internal Family Systems (IFS) helpful for my coaching clients and in mediation and so sought training from the IFS Institute on using IFS appropriately in coaching (course work: IFS Foundations for Coaches) and also in mediation (coursework: The Self-Led Lawyer and Mediator). No one model or approach is ever the only answer because each individual’s needs are unique. One of the things I enjoy about my work is collaborating with clients to develop a customized approach that works for them and their organizations. Every conflict is unique, even though the reasons we get into conflict are (usually) universal. I am very grateful for this work, which has allowed me to learn and grow over the years in partnership with my clients.