Louise Thompson


Louise Thompson: Why being 'over it' is actually a good thing

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Being "over it" can feel awful, but hitting rock-bottom can be fundamentally liberating. Photo / Thinkstock

Call me crazy but I love hearing when clients or friends are "totally over it". When they can't look at another "fat picture" or drag themselves into the office for another soul-destroying day. I know that may seem mean because it means they are miserable, but I think of being over it, really, really over it, as a special kind of breakthrough.

There are two stages. The early stage is where we just like to talk about being "over it". We actually secretly enjoy talking about our awful boss, or our nightmare mother. When people are really, truly over it, however, they don't want to talk about it. They have talked about it to death but that hasn't made them thinner or their relationship happier or their career more lucrative. When people are truly over it they can actually hear themselves repeating those same old lines and they are sick of hearing themselves. Moaning no longer cuts the mustard. We are actually boring ourselves.

Being "over it" feels awful. It can feel like despair, it can feel like we have no real options or choices, it can feel like nothing we might do will make a difference. It can feel lonely. It can feel isolating. But in actual fact when you strip this away rock-bottom can be fundamentally liberating. When we are so sick of a situation in our lives, the choice has to be change. Changing either how we choose to think about the situation or changing the situation itself. When we start to open the mind to the fact that there has to be another way then, hey presto, some solutions will start to present themselves. "Over it" becomes the first step on the pathway to something far better. When we reach rock-bottom and are sick to death of a situation it can be just the springboard we need to move to a far brighter future.

Here's the funny thing about being "over it".

You can't really get over it, skip it, miss out the pain or the hassle or the scariness of sorting out whatever situation it is you are over. You can't actually get over it without going through it. The way out is through whatever change is required, not over. We are creatures of comfort as a rule so we tend to avoid the tough stuff, the convo with the boss about the payrise or the missed promotion, the meeting with the neighbour about their continually barking dog. But this is the way over to the other side of our pain, to front up and deal with whatever it is. To go through, to come out the other side. Good stuff starts to happen when the pain of being "over it" becomes greater than the perceived fear of changing the situation or our thoughts about it.

Learning not to be afraid of, or to resist "over it", but to welcome it, can transform how quickly we move forward in life. As the great Harry Potter author JK Rowling (and let's face it she's done okay) famously said "Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I built my life".

Action step

In what area of your life are you "over it"? An energy sucking friendship? A tired and outdated kitchen? Being unfit? Identify it and then choose to either change the way you feel about it or change the situation. Remember the way out isn't over, it is through.


- NZ Herald

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