He phoned after his first mediation session, and said he was considering withdrawing, having come to believe that I was biased against him. Although I apologized for creating that impression, I did not offer a denial. For I knew he was right.

            Yet, silently, I excused my professional lapse. He had worn his arrogance like a badge. Self-righteous and proud, he had blamed the failure of his 22-year marriage entirely on his ungrateful departing wife.

            Covertly, I had cheered her on.

            Arrogance has always aroused in me a confusion of emotions. Scorn, heightened anxiety, perhaps even tinged with fear.

            But his perception could not be ignored and as a mediator, I had failed. Could I reestablish my impartiality and bring him back to the table to negotiate the terms of their agreement, and avoid his simply throwing down the gauntlet? Or would my reaction to his show of conceit and disdain send them off to combat?

            I consulted a colleague. Her advice: Try to genuinely empathize with how he’s feeling, and if you can, let him know that you do. Unless you connect with him in this way, simply educating him about reasonable settlement options won't work.

           Wondering if I could do so with sincerity, I determined to try.

            I met with each party alone at the beginning of our next session. In his early fifties, a vital, attractive and financially successful man, he exuded both great assurance and despair. I deliberately put aside my previous mission of bringing him to recognize and accept the legal realities he faced. I focused on how he was feeling at that very moment and simply asked: Tell me how things are going.

            He returned to the same story of disappointment, innocence and blame that I had heard before, but having deliberately removed my attorney/mediator mantle, I listened as might a friend, and found I could genuinely empathize with what he was feeling: wronged, betrayed, misunderstood and overwhelmingly sad. I did not, as I had before, try to get him to put aside these feelings. I actually felt a fondness for him. Sympathy required only understanding, not affirmation.

            I apologized for my previous failure to fully appreciate his experience. And then asked: how can I be helpful to you?

            We talked at length.

            He posed all the right questions, and now, working with someone who recognized and accepted his genuine angst, he could hear what I had to say. He was ready to be pragmatic.

            I've learned something important.

            We develop ways of successfully performing our many roles, as parent, spouse, friend, and in our work life. Over time, what seems effective and comfortable becomes part of our standard script. Sometimes we respond having made an accurate assessment of the behaviors we witness. But how often, without conscious thought, or the wisdom of restraint, do we react in response to our own past experience, to emotional triggers that have little to do with the person before us in the present? Then, if our communication fails, we blame the other.

            If a reflexive response to the actions of another derails the conversation, questioning the source of our own emotional reaction, and putting it aside, to listen with understanding and empathy, may cause a meaningful and positive shift in how we communicate and relate.

            Which is how I hope to be received, when it is my crisis on center stage.