It's not often that I start out with a disclaimer, but here it is: This is not an argument for or against gun control. If you choose to comment about that, as always, keep your comments respectful.

Since the advent of texting and instant messaging, there's a lot of what I call,...

I wonder how many people have referred to family arguments as WWIII. It's about as common as saying something is, "cute as a button."

Now, you and I both know that most buttons are not cute. But in a way, WWIII has been started at the dinner table, especially at holidays. Family is a large part...

Looking at videos of people dealing with effects of hurricanes and earthquakes, one thing stands out...People going to great lengths to help people and animals. Something about natural disasters sets us up to reach out.

These are urgent situations, so the mind doesn't have time to figure out a...

Since the deadly protest rally in Charlottesville, people have been referring to people who have supremacist ideology as "white supremacists" or "neo-nazi's." But labels, those or otherwise, run a dangerous risk of backfiring.

When we label someone, it becomes their identity. The only thing people...

Currently, 12 republican members of the Senate are meeting behind closed doors, drafting their version of the health care bill. This issue affects the public health and U.S. labor and economy massively, yet it doesn't even have the benefit of hearings in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions...

"Get in front of it." People say that a lot lately. But when it comes to conflict, that may be easier said than done. Yet, it's important for conflict resolution. 

You want to keep conflict from growing and requiring more complex conflict resolution efforts. You need to nip it in the bud....

Victims have power. They do. It's just not their own. Instead, it belongs to the role - People want to jump into rescue people in that position. And in conflict resolution, it's not an effective position for consistent results.

It's sort of like a person leading by title instead of by character...

On November 8, 2016, the world experienced a new level of blame, rocking the world of social media as people took in what, for some, was a surprising result. Over a week later, I still see posts blaming others. I don't know how beneficial that is.

Is it creating deeper friendships? No. I bet there...

In trainings for mediation, parrot phrasing has been identified as the way to reflect back what we hear the parties say in their opening statements, and I'm not so sure that's the best way to do that. In fact, it's one of my pet peeves for a number of reasons:

1.) By itself, it may break rapport...

Have you ever gone deeper into something you didn't expect to like, only to discover you actually did like it after all? I did that with business law in college. The course I took to prove to myself it wasn't a good fit turned out to be something I liked so well I went to law school and got a...

In discussions regarding a political hearing, people were expressing frustration at how the whole thing was "a farce," "a waste of time," "disappointing," etc. That is frequently the case when communication doesn't result in the desired outcome. And while that can be frustrating, there are things...