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Listen to the audio description while you read this page about Type 9 — The Mediator:
more about the mediator
The Mediator tends to ‘go along to get along.’ They put their needs and opinions on hold, and will blend into or merge with what other people want. In this way, they try to gain love, acceptance and a sense of belonging.
They often suffer from losing themselves in the more assertive agendas of others. They will rarely look inside themselves to see what they want. Hence they will seldom voice to others what they feel or need.
A Mediator will too quickly agree to things or go along with others’ agendas, yet later end up resenting it, or resisting it. This makes other people angry. And anger presents a serious problem for a Mediator. They avoid feeling it. They avoid conflict. Instead, they numb out or fuzz out.
In relationship, others have problems with a Mediator not expressing feelings or needs — and with their difficulty in making timely decisions. People want the Mediator to say what they feel, and to more quickly say what they want.
A Mediator is overly focused on comfort. The excessive need for comfort means they avoid all possible conflict. They do not say what they want, because others might reject them, or it may lead to conflict. This leaves them unaware or non-assertive about their personal needs and agendas.
Personal growth for a Mediator is to know that they are important. They need to know what they feel and want — and they need to voice it to others. They need to learn to be more comfortable with conflict. Set better personal boundaries, even learn to say ‘no’ — as this helps a Mediator better express their authentic self, and ‘show up’ more in a relationship.
Lost essential quality: Unconditional love, with everyone of equal importance, belonging and regard.
Compensating belief: The world makes you unimportant, requires that you blend in.
Attention/coping strategy: Forgetting yourself and seeking belonging. Getting pulled away from personal priorities by external claims.
Trap: Seeking outside of yourself for comfort and harmony.
Driving energy: An inertia (sloth) toward yourself. Energy going into other people and many substitutes for your own priorities.
Avoidance: Conflict and discomfort, by ‘going along to get along’ to avoid being dismissed.
Strengths: Excellent mediator, understanding, caring and supportive of others, adaptive.
Paradox: Neglecting yourself in pursuit of comfort produces discomfort.
Path of development:
- Make self important
- Set own boundaries, limits, priorities
- Love self as well as others
- Accept discomfort and change as part of life
Ultimate task: Realize we are all unconditionally and equally loved, accepted and appreciated for who we are, that our worth and well-being come from within.
The basic proposition:
You lost sight of the fundamental principle that everyone belongs equally in a state of unconditional love and union. You came to believe instead that the world treats people as unimportant for who they are, and you can gain belonging and comfort by attending to and merging with others and by dispersing energy into substitute objects. At the same time, you developed inertia (self-forgetting) about your own priorities and limits. Your attention naturally goes to others and to the environment around you.
The central issue for healing:
All of us, not just Mediators, sometimes focus on the environment around us and experience ourselves as reacting primarily to people and events outside ourselves. For Mediators, the central issue is losing touch with their inner separate self in favor of adapting to the environment and merging with others. Mediators struggle fundamentally with gaining or reclaiming a separate self.
Your main task is to become awake and alive to yourself — literally to love yourself from a personal reference point that has no substitute. Your path to healing is to establish your own priorities and timelines instead of falling into comfortable secondary pursuits, and to resist becoming overly influenced by others.
Six healing and growth commitments for Type Nines:
- Practice loving yourself as you would others
- Take responsibility for your own well-being and value
- Reclaim a separate self
- Establish and adhere to your own agenda and priorities
- Welcome discomfort and conflict
- Recognize anger in its many forms and see it as a signal that you are feeling violated
If the above personality type seems to fit you, we recommend you print out this page for easy reference. We also highly recommend that you listen to the audio description at the top of this page.