I'd like to welcome Hillary to be our next speaker, Hilary Zarate, and Hillary as her training is an empathy circle facility, as an empathy circle facilitator in 2024 along with certification in California as a state mediator, and her work has had an impact in the global empathy movement. And she's also going to be talking about conflict resolution using empathy circles and conflict resolution and mediation. Thank you, Hillary. Look forward to hearing everybody.
Can you hear me? Okay? Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you to Edwin, of course, for having this empathy Summit. This is the third one I've been able to attend, and to the co host and speakers who made this possible also. So I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Hillary Zarate, and I am the owner and creator of zaradi mediation services, and I'm also an educator at a local community college, um, also grateful for God's gift of a firm foundation of faith. I am a single mom of an adult son, an author on sub stack, and I've been professionally doing conflict mediation Since 2017 and in 2023 I did receive my state certification for conflict resolution and mediation, and then I was able to be certified as an empathy circle facilitator in 2024 and so my intention for today is to tell you how using empathy circles with conflict resolution has really helped me and how it can help you in dealing with conflict. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. I'm
okay, so again, using empathy circles in conflict resolution, I believe that conflict is inevitable. It's everywhere you look, in our neighborhoods, within our homes, on the media, in your workplaces. But I really believe that resolution is a choice, and empathy is the way that helps us move forward in the most powerful way, understanding others perspectives really transforms conflicts into opportunities for growth and connection. And some of you might already know what conflict is, but I wanted just to go over it briefly. You know, it really arises when there's a clash between individuals and groups, and maybe there's Opposing Viewpoints, opposing values. Maybe create. It creates fiction and misunderstanding. And I believe also that conflict is not what happened, but how you respond to it, what your what emotions that you're feeling. So if something could happen and you might not respond to it, it's not necessarily a conflict, but really looking at how you perceive your threat, a threat to your identity or to your need. Um, there could be a communication breakdown, and people can get defensive or take things personally. But I believe that conflict, if it's properly managed, can really become a catalyst for positive change and a growth opportunity. And so some of the advantages of conflict. Who would say that there's advantages to conflict, but I really see that conflict can be the doorway to peace, and it clarifies your doubts and queries new ideas could come out of conflict. It encourages healthy debate and argument. It leads to positive outcomes. You maybe can identify some goals that you want to work towards, and also, I think most importantly, is it identifies preventative strategies for your future. It helps you have healing and not to repeat the harm that was done to have this conflict. So I really, I. See that conflict can be advantage if we could just change our mindset to look at it as a growth opportunity. And thanks to some of the speakers before me, we kind of went into what empathy is already. But I just wanted to speak briefly to this. You know, empathy is my top three values. Is mutuality, really the is the foundation, I think, of human relationships. Um, when you have reciprocal empathy, it really can make connection. And that's one of the hardest parts of my job is to get people to the table, so let's see here, making sure I'm not missing anything in the chat. Okay? And so mutuality, yeah, that is one of the hardest things is to get people to the table, and my second value for empathy is openness. And when you're able to be open, you can express yourself and be able to listen to others. And I love what you what was shared previously about having that self empathy, to have that self empathy, you're able then to give it to others. Empathy. Empathy is not sympathy. It really is not feeling sorry for anyone else and making judgments about what someone else is going through. I
let's see so why empathy matters in conflict, it really does expand your perspective. It reduces your defensiveness, builds trust and it reveals deeper needs, so you're able to identify what's truly important to each person, and on this next slide here, you'll see that above the water, I love this iceberg photo because I think it really captures what is going on in any kind of relationship. You can see the behaviors. You can see the facts that are happening. But underneath the water is a whole lot more iceberg, a whole lot more values, attitudes, your culture, your past traumas that might have shaped where you're coming to at this moment and in this time. Um, so underneath the iceberg could be seen as a barrier and also having strong emotions, anger and fear, really can override being empathetic. And being able to self regulate your emotions is really key, needing to be right. I think we all know some people in our lives who really prioritize winning over, finding the common ground. And in that case, I would really say that they're not being open. They're not really ready to come to the table yet. And so maybe I need to do some more work as a mediator to to help them see the advantages of coming to the table with an open mind? There could be biases and prejudices that really prevents us from truly seeing others, and one of the things that we've all seen also is poor listening or apathy and reaching people who don't care, as you might have heard, loneliness is a huge problem in our society right now, in isolation, and one of my intentions is to get people out of that isolation, out of that apathy, And to find something that they do care about. And you know, we really don't need to worry about the result with empathy. We need to think about our motivation, our intention. And so these are some of the barriers to empathy. Empathy circle techniques. Briefly, I'll just go over this, because a lot of us are trained already in empathy circles, but we fully focus on the speaker without planning any response, and we do some active listening, and then it's time for the reflective listener to paraphrase what they've heard and confirm understanding using their own words, and again, being open, not analyzing, diagnosing, advising, not having judgments or assumptions, and really being present in the. In what's going on and to understand also that they will have a turn to actively listen and speak. So now I wanted to go over a couple case studies that I used in my own conflict resolution and mediation business. So I love this quote here from Bell Hooks, if you want a beloved community, we must stand for justice, have recognition for difference, without attaching difference to privilege. And what does that mean? To me, that means that we all have something to offer, and diversity is an asset, and these differences that we have don't have any status to them. We are all valuable. And I just love that quote from Bell Hooks, because that's how I go into these empathy circles. So the situation at that I wanted to share with you all happened at a day center for women and children who are experiencing homelessness, and two of the employees, two of the team members, were arguing over a racially motivated language, and they had a long history of of things that have happened. And so I was called in, and I was able to to go in there together with them and do some empathy circles. And they each were able to share their concerns and really reflect back, you know, the essence of what each of them heard. We were focused on making some agreements, not necessarily any resolution, but healing, like I mentioned earlier, not repeating the harm that has been done in the past. And one of my co mediators, Davis, who's here today, likes to say, you know, you do not need to attend every argument you are invited to, and I think that's really important with your emotional regulation. And I think that's something that these participants learned at that case study. But one of the agreements is we developed an inclusivity statement together and an exit policy, and sometimes the resolution really is just the increased understanding. So some of the team members said to me, one of the team members said to me that this is the first time I have ever been able to really share what's happening with me, what's underneath the iceberg, right underneath the water, and this is the first time I've ever to really feel heard. So it was, I think, a real success. The next case study I wanted to share is you've probably heard that the top two reasons for couple separation is money and intimacy. Well, I was able to help a couple with their financial decisions that they were making and each one felt misunderstood and like they were not on the same page. And so using the empathy circles, they were really able to share their deeper fears and their hopes, and they're they're able to validate each other's feelings. And I think this one went on for over an hour. We we did the empathy circles, sharing at four minutes each, back and forth, and the the outcome was really positive in that they were able to hear each other right, having that understanding and then developing a financial plan that really addressed both of their needs. So I've been able to check in with them again, and you know, there's still conflict that comes up. Just because you do an empathy circle doesn't mean all the conflict goes away, but they are able to talk more and understand more about where someone's coming from, and then reassess their agreement if they need to. So since I've been using empathy circles as part of conflict resolution and mediation, I have really had a 97% success rate, and I'm so pleased with using empathy circles as part of my business. So as time wraps up here, I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening. You can contact me at zaradi mediation com, or my email is radi mediation services@gmail.com do. So thank you all again, and I'll turn it back over.
