How We Mediators Don’t Get Jaded by Our Work

{4 minutes to read}  I’m so often asked if my work as a divorce mediator has soured me on marriage and relationships. It’s a fair and obvious question. After all, who would want to be steeped in someone else’s marital and/or human drama on an ongoing basis? A crazy person – right?

I guess the same question could be put to triage nurses, hospice volunteers, addiction therapists, gastrointestinal doctors or any other professional working in the face of serious human need — why would they do that work??!

I would say it’s because we feel we’re called to it — not out of guilt or obligation, but for the simple reason that we know it’s vital to our wellbeing. We feel, deep down inside that we have something imperative to contribute. In most cases that “something” includes a sense that we can alleviate suffering that individuals on their own cannot necessarily do themselves.

I knew in my gut that I had the instinct and temperament to do divorce mediation. That was the first step: acknowledging the innate aptitude and capacity. Next came the formal training, continuing education and the practice. So how don’t I get jaded? How don’t we get jaded?

If you think about anything you are called to do, that you love to do — you most certainly have a huge attachment to it, but you also have the capacity for a parallel detachment. You are in it but not of it; you are involved in the nitty gritty, yet you are grounded in a greater reality. You have almost a grander, universal attitude — an ability to see your tasks with your third eye if you will.

You can be part of the foibles, the imperfections, the ups and downs of it, but that doesn’t quench your thirst to keep going, finding a better way, a newer and perhaps unique solution. You’re more than up to the challenge. The challenge itself is essential to your quest. That is certainly so for me and for most mediators I know.

From my experience with my colleagues and friends in the divorce and family mediation world, and my co-training of burgeoning mediators at the Center for Mediation & Training in NYC, I find that most mediators are called to this work for the following reasons:

1. They have been through a vitriolic divorce themselves and want to help others avoid the chaos and disruption to their and their children’s lives — not to mention the cost in time, money and energy.
2. They have been through an amicable and cordial mediation themselves and know what’s possible.
3. They tend to be relationship optimists. One marriage gone south doesn’t mean that a better, healthier and happier new marriage is not possible. There is life and love after divorce. Mediators don’t just believe that, they know it.
4. They know that a little humor, a dose of reality, and a lot of grace go a long way.
5. They know as I do that not everyone has the “chops” to do this work. They know that they have the ability, capacity and big love to hold a sacred space to help their couples get their work done.

Do we get jaded? How can we when this is our calling?!