Getting Through vs. Getting Over: Why Mediation Is Your Best Bet

{3:48 minutes to read} First – let me wish you a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous New Year!

For those of you beginning the New Year with a personal event that has you stymied and upset (a pending separation, perhaps?), I’d like to offer a perspective to consider. It’s the concept of getting through something rather than getting over it.

When we find ourselves in a situation that we would rather not be in, a typical reaction is to hope for the best (and good luck with that!) and just get over it. If only it were that easy.

I would suggest that whatever it is that we are trying to get over, will ultimately bite us in the you-know-what at some point in the near or not-too-distant future, unless we’re willing to do the hard work now to:

• Stay present;
• Be with it;
• Allow the feelings and emotions to bubble up; and
• Deal with it head-on.

It’s either walk through the fire now or live with the smoldering embers forever. I know, I know—who wants to walk through fire??? But if you look at it, you’re walking through it anyway—you’re just prolonging the pain with no end in sight.

Wouldn’t you rather be done with the anguish sooner than later? You know the reckoning will ultimately come and delaying it will only add to the stress you put on yourself knowing that you’ll have to deal with it at some point, anyway. And it may not be the time of your choosing! Remember when you waited until Sunday night to do your homework only to ruin the entire weekend having that unfinished business on your mind?

My friend told me a story about her close childhood friend who just lost her husband after a long battle with cancer. She dealt with every aspect of her husband’s illness from the time they got the first diagnosis until the very end. It was years in the making but she was totally present to it every step of the way, making all the preparations for when she knew the time would come. When she saw her therapist after her husband died, her therapist asked her if she wanted antidepressants. Her answer was: “No – aren’t I supposed to be sad? Why would I want to suppress my grief?” Now, I’m not disparaging her therapist. My point is that she was willing to go through the grieving process and not try to jump over it by anesthetizing herself to her pain.

When we suppress normal, natural feelings, we do ourselves a disservice because when we don’t allow ourselves to experience life—warts and all—the things we don’t deal with now will pop up in the most inappropriate ways later.

In mediation, when couples deal with their issues together, head-on, not skipping any steps, they are able to bring closure to their situation now and be more complete about their relationship with each other. I also believe this affords them the ability to have a healthier relationship with a future significant other.

Think about it.