Restorative Practices January 25

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I’m sitting on the bus, riding downtown. Nearby, a mother kindly but firmly tries to enforce the rule of sitting - not standing - on seats with her toddler. In the front of the bus, two people argue loudly about whether or not one of them is “in the right” for taking up an extra seat with her multiple bags of groceries - and I realize I certainly wouldn’t have the “answers”...  behind me, I hear two people complain to one another about “people on the bus these days”... In this moment, I am witnessing different people in disconnection, experiencing or expressing pain or judgment of one another..

Conflict is a normal - though challenging - part of life. We can have conflicts about what movie to see. Our work team might have different ideas about how to put on an event. When someone treats us in a way we don’t like, we show up for ourselves by saying something. In the broadest sense, conflict arises when people are trying to get their needs met, but in the process others’ experience that they don’t matter, or they get impacted.  In reality, conflict has transformative potential. Conflict can be a dance of inclusion and trust-building, and if it’s done in this way, we can reach creative outcomes.

“One reason the problems seem overwhelming is because we’re using the wrong tools to understand them and fix them. We’re actually talking about a profound change in paradigm… People are looking for a community right now, though we don’t have confidence in love. We have much confidence in anger and hate… I think part of it is that we don’t have to imagine doing things one at a time. We claim life, our own and others. We celebrate and engage in life. And so, to me, the question is not, ‘how do we get there?’ It’s ‘how do we live?’ “ - John A. Powell

What if we knew how to take care of ourselves in moments of disconnection?

Imagine if we had structures and practices to help us connect to our needs in the moment, and to elicit the needs of the other person involved?

What if we had the skills to communicate our honesty with care and curiosity, so that we could actually build trust and collaborate on outcomes that deepen relationships? 

Restorative practice is a field of study and practice that uplifts the ways we can support collective dignity - especially during conflict and after harm-doing. These ways have been practiced since the earliest times, before recently being held up in the models of “Restorative Justice” or “Transformative Justice.” At a Center for Restorative Solutions, we bring many elements of these models into our work. www.centerforrestorativesolutionsseattle.com

A justice system is a set of agreed practices for how to communicate when conflict and harm happen. Dominic Barter, a central figure in the development of a model called Restorative Circles in Brazil, says that, “When painful or violent conflict occurs, we actually create more security for our communities when we move towards each other rather than away from each other.” What he understands is that, even when terrible harm has happened, there still exists the possibility for reconnection, repair and systemic change to prevent recurring harm. The goals are to (1) reestablish the ability to hear and understand one another, (2) understand the good reasons (or values) that caused people to choose harmful strategies, and (3) work together towards repair and new ways of moving forward.

A Center for Restorative Solutions’ work is about offering people the chance to slow down, learn and practice the skills, and to build understanding and collaborative action. The juicy thing is that we are doing this right here in West Seattle!

Learn more about how to join us at the West Seattle Universalist Unitarian community building, where we have a drop in Monthly Practice session:

https://centerforrestorativesolutionsseattle.com/rj-practice-group

https://wsuu.org/

And where we are running a 1-Day Introductory Training in Restorative Practices on Saturday, January 25th that is open to the whole community:

https://centerforrestorativesolutionsseattle.com/rj-intro-in-person-winter-2025

https://wsuu.org/event/intro-to-restorative-practices-1-day-workshop/?event_date=2025-01-25

Come join us, Let’s have fun finding the joy in moving through conflict, together.

Devon Little

A Center for Restorative Solutions