How do I help you get over it?
The first track on the Eagle “hell freezes over” album is a blistering, hard driving, rock ‘n roll song with a chorus that implies that we should all just “get over it”. Don Henley in his inimitable way writes an amazing lyric that tells us that we should just shut up, quit whining, and get on with our lives.
And while I love the idea of people taking action, I have to admit that I hate the judgment behind that sentence.
Because it’s so easy to say “get over it”, but we all have our own things we are trying to get over. There’s nothing more addictive to somebody who is judgmental or who does not want to extend compassion than to tell somebody else to just “get over it”, without ever understanding why the person has a problem and what happened in the first place.
If we could see the trauma that people have experienced, I hope we would be more compassionate.
And then maybe we’d be a lot less inclined to tell somebody to get over it. Instead we would actually offer them compassion and kindness, which we struggle with, because both of those require us to let go of her own wants and needs, and care about somebody else, and sometimes we struggle to do that.
Because when you’ve been through something traumatic, the last thing we want to do is re-visit it.
When we break something or tear something physically we are taught to get it treated, and then leave it alone and let the body heal it; that eventually the body will take care of it. I can tell you as a Doctor that that doesn’t always work, and people end years later going through a long period of rehabilitation for something that could’ve been cleaned up a lot quicker.
The same is true emotionally.
When something has been done to us or happen to us that tears at our soul, it leaves a wound that really needs to be “cleaned” and stitched and nurtured and cared for, but because of the pace of our lives and the difficulty in re-living the trauma, we tend to ignore it and “move on”, trusting that “time will heal all wounds”.
But it doesn’t.
Instead a scar forms in our soul and we are never the same person. That particular emotional wound manifests itself as avoidance, attachment, anxiety and the absence of joy. It changes how we act and handle situations, which continues to cause us further pain and suffering.
So my invitation for you today is that next time you feel the urge to tell somebody “get over it”, instead you asked them “how can I help you get over this”.
It’s a small difference in wording, but it actually changes everything. Because it indicates that you believe that they can get over it, and that you stand ready and willing to help them through the pain that they have to get through to heal.
We are all fighting our own battles, and we all have our scars.
May we learn to reach out with compassion rather than judgment, kindness rather than cruelty, and love rather than selfishness.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings