Mindful Self-Compassion & the Mediator
Published on mediate.com Oct 9, 2025
These days, we often hear the words “mindfulness” and “self-compassion.” We hear them so often that it is easy to either ignore them or dismiss them as being the remnants of overly commercialized trends. In fact, there are now more than 9000 studies of the positive effects and efficacy of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC). It’s time to bring the benefits of this practice to the negotiation room as we divorce professionals shepherd our clients through divorce.
Mindful Self-Compassion combines mindfulness and self-compassion practices to improve emotional well-being. Kristin Neff, PhD, was the first to define and study this concept. It involves treating yourself as you would a friend, with kindness and understanding, especially in tough times, while also staying aware of your present-moment experiences. Research consistently shows that MSC lowers self-criticism, builds emotional resilience, and promotes greater self-acceptance.
The Latin root of the word “compassion” means “with suffering.” It can be difficult for people to sit with suffering—both their own and others’. How well do you handle your own suffering? Often, the automatic reaction is to avoid it; however, we can build our muscle of self-compassion.
To be human is to be imperfect. As family law professionals many of us find it challenging to acknowledge our own struggles. We went into this business to help others, which we have redefined as having all the answers our clients need. When we feel at a loss, without answers and advice, we can get stuck. Feelings of shame, guilt, inferiority, or fear often arise. That internal discomfort can be expressed in various ways, such as dominating the conversation, offering advice, changing the subject, and more. We feel the need to disconnect from the discomfort, which we mistakenly see as weakness, and which also separates us from our clients. Self-compassion practices allow us to sit with negative feelings without judging ourselves. They are designed not to perfect ourselves, but to accept our imperfections. When we practice self-compassion we can improve and expand our mediations, helping both ourselves and our clients.
Louise recalls a mediation where her clients could not be in the same room together longer than five minutes before they started sniping at each other, talking over each other, ending with one of them shouting and the other refusing to speak. This was how each session began. One day she felt such anger when they walked into the room and started their routine that she abruptly stood up, slammed her notepad on the table and shouted “Why are you wasting my time?” She didn’t know who was more shocked, them or her. They sat down, Louise apologized and so did they. She felt embarrassed and ashamed. Ironically, her outburst allowed them to construct a viable method for moving forward. However, this was only possible because Louise realized almost instantly that her outrage, frustration and fear was not based on their behavior and emotions but were her own emotions from a memory of a long-ago incident where she felt anger and frustration and incredible sadness in the midst of warring relatives during a tragic circumstance. If she hadn’t had this realization, she wouldn’t have been able to forgive herself or her clients and her clients wouldn’t have forgiven her. In fact, this opened the door and allowed the first sign of forgiveness between them occurring that day. That session could easily have ended the mediation.
Neff described two types of self-compassion. Soft, or tender self-compassion is similar to how a parent soothes a crying child. It involves gentle kindness, comfort, and acceptance of one’s pain. Fierce self-compassion is much like a mother bear defending her cubs. It is action-oriented and involves taking steps to protect oneself and encourage change. Have you seen the movie Aliens, where Sigourney Weaver appears in the exoskeleton to protect the young girl? A balanced self-compassion practice requires being both tender and fierce; without tenderness, fierceness can turn hostile, and without fierceness, tenderness can lead to passive acceptance.
Mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness are the three components of self-compassion. The first step is to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings without judgment. Simply accept them as they are. The next step is to recognize that suffering and imperfection are inherent to the human experience, and that everyone encounters difficulties. Finally, self-kindness means to treat yourself with the same warmth and understanding that you would offer to a friend.
Why does this matter? Mindful self-compassion is good for you and the people around you: family, friends, work associates and clients. It is empowering, allowing you to recognize and manage your emotions in a constructive manner. These are some of the benefits:
Increased emotional resilience
Reduced self-criticism
Improved emotional regulation
Enhanced self-acceptance
For mediators, MSC can be a great tool in the mediation room. It can help foster a sense of common humanity and calm, allowing for the expression of emotion without chaos, fear and confusion. The increased emotional resilience resulting from self-compassion practices enables you to navigate challenging emotions and setbacks with greater ease. This applies not only to your own emotional challenges that could negatively affect your work, but also to the emotions in the mediation room between your clients. Emotions can hit us unexpectedly and cause confusion and unease. Are they coming from past fears and painful experiences? Are you confusing your client’s emotions with your own? Are you taking on their setbacks as your own? You will be able to recognize your emotions, accept them and move more easily through the emotional fallout, truly present for your clients and their concerns.
Reduced self-criticism plays an important role, as the absence of negative self-talk allows for a clear and open mind for the flow of decision-making and creative problem-solving. You are well-trained and well-experienced, yet self-doubt can creep in unawares when things become difficult or you are faced with a challenge that is new to you. It is easy to engage in self-judgement and self-criticism in these circumstances. As you learn to keep your strengths and abilities in the forefront of your heart and mind you will feel more confident in the negotiation room and more aware when your clients drift off into self-doubt. Your ability to acknowledge and release your own negative thoughts allows you to stay present in the process and help your clients deal with theirs.
Improved emotional regulation fosters a calmer and more comfortable atmosphere for everyone in the mediation room. It is all too easy to go down the rabbit hole of intense emotions with your clients or, in an effort to disconnect your emotions from theirs, to distance yourself to the point where you lack empathy and understanding. Self-regulation allows you to be understanding and compassionate when confronted by strong emotions, creating a safe and trusting environment for your negotiations.
With enhanced self-acceptance there will be less reactivity in the mediation room. Emotions are calmed when self-criticism and resulting feelings of shame have been minimized. Self-compassion is the antidote to shame. You will have more capacity for being curious, non-judging, and unbiased in your responses to others. This opens the door to greater connection with your clients, creative brainstorming and problem-solving, and more flexibility in the process. Compassion and connection go together.
The ability to create a clearance in the dense forest that is your emotional life allows you to become aware of and even intimate with the life that is right here, right now, waiting for you to see it. This ability to be with what IS, enriches your personal life and your work life, bringing you a new sense of ease and comfort.
~~ by Louise R. Zito and Beth M. Karassik
