When You are Being Hurt

 What to Do when People Hurt you.

HURT

Lets first understand what HURT is. Hurt is a feeling caused by supressed negative emotions like sadness, shame, anxiety, jealousy, anger, procrastination and so on. Fragile people get hurt at smallest of events (For E.g. if your partner forgets your birthday). Hurt also has a physical aspect too (For e.g. somebody slaps you). Hurt is also caused by unhealthy habits such as Drinking Alcohol, Smoking, over doing sexual activities, recreational drugs, sleeping pills and so on. Majorly all the residual negative emotions which are supressed cause hurt.

So the question is How to Handle HURT ?

Here are the 9 ways you can handle Hurt Smartly.

1)     1) Move from SUPRESSED or REPRESSED or DEPRESSED to MINDFULNESS, CALMNESS

Repressed emotions are like keeping a sponge ball under the water, it takes lot of effort to keep it there and one day it eventually pops up. Same thing is with repressed emotions without no rhyme or reason we just snap it at our family or friends or even at work and/or we move towards developing unhealthy habits like DRINKING, SMOKING or EVEN DRUGS.

Supressed negative residual emotions are also the main cause of DEPRESSION, STRESS and LONELINESS.

GIVE IT A TRY : The best way to handle REPRESSED emotions is to spit them out once in a while, try crying in alone and speak out loud whatever is supressed in your mind. You can even practice MINDFULNESS (Practice pranayama to increase your calmness & awareness).

2)      2) Hurt is Like a BAGGAGE – OFFLOAD it.

These negative repressed emotions are like magnets, sitting for days and weeks in our feelings attracts more of them, for a matter of fact you will also attract only those kind of people towards you who will or have more hurt in them, eventually you lead yourself to “VICTIM MENTALITY”, which closes all the doors of healing.

“Yes you might be furious or despondent, but lashing out more often leads to more hurt”

In a way HURT is good, if taken positively (For e.g. if your partner forgets your birthday, remind him/her a few days before (My wife does it one month in advance and everyday till her big day comes), and even on the day he/she forgets, it time to express it in more happy way rather than loosing your cool).

It’s when we empty the box of hurt and offload it, we learn from it that it’s very easy to empty it and take a step forward in life. We learn what we DO or DON’T want from a relationship, or how to set boundaries.

GIVE IT A TRY : “WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR REPRESSED EMOTIONS” whatever comes to your mind, without any judgement. Be as wild as you want, than burn the pages or rip them into as small pieces as you want, put them on the floor and jump over it or may be flush them in your washroom or give them wings and let them fly out of your window like a paper plane.

3)      Speak to your Negative Feelings, Put a Question across to yourself.

I always do when something negative pops up in my mind. Very often I get this thought that I am worthless, than I sit alone and go deep down the thought and figure out where is it coming from, than it pops up that while I was in school a teacher use to call me “USELESS” “WORTHLESS”. I say to myself the time is gone, you have done quite well in your life, your life purpose is much bigger than you think (I take a deep breath in and say to myself I am worthy enough, I am useful to others)

“Every negative thought of Hurt comes from past experiences, and we just keep piling them up in our mind forming layers over layers”

Learn to RESPOND technique rather than REACT, this is a constant practice which needs to be developed over the period of time.

GIVE IT A TRY : Asking the right questions to yourself. If you don’t know to ask questions, try starting with “WHAT”, “HOW” or “WHICH”, avoid using “WHY THIS”, “WHY ME” as this are rat holes of SELF BLAME, so avoid them.

Questions you can ask to yourself

“What is this HURT Feeling, really ? If I could name it ?               
“Which person or event in the past made me feel this way ? Can I talk to him/her and express it (Even Say sorry if possible, this will release you from unnecessary hurt feeling, you will get cleared from your end.)           
“Did the person reject me as much as I think, or I am too overwhelmed by this feeling ?

Mark Leary, in his work on hurt feelings, identified that REJECTION, and the feeling we have ‘LOW RELATIONAL VALUE’, is one of the key reasons we end up with hurt feelings.

4)     4) Refine your BEHAVIOUR

Behaviour is the key to everything that you think and do, as this shows in your thoughts, your body language, your responses and in your overall BEHAVIOUR.

When someone hurts us the first thing we want is REVENGE (It’s a REACTION), sometimes such meddling thinking is not bad (Depends on the situation, needs proper presence of mind (For e.g. if you have an intruder in your house and you are trying to save yourself, than that thinking is not bad as you got to save yourself)). But if you keep raising such thoughts in your mind all the time and being revengeful to everything and everyone you will end up being more hurt and at the end you will have regret about your Behaviour.

GIVE IT A TRY : Have a sensible support system (A friend, A Family member or even your Partner) whom you can freely talk to about your feelings, who can be a guiding system when you need help and support. Who is your best CRITIC, but at the SAME TIME A WELL WISHER.
Have a weekly or a daily 5 min call with him/her (This can be done only if you have too much of pile up, or you are too fragile to react to any situation).     
Moreover you can also take help from an expert counsellor.

 

5S  5) Shift your PERCEPTION

When you cannot stop yourself for feeling sorry all the time, a new direction of thinking is required. See things, people and situations in an entirely different manner. We all perceive through our five sense organs SEE (VISUAL), HEAR (AUDITORY), TOUCH (KINESTHESIA), TASTE (GUSTATORY), SMELL (OLFACTORY). Often these two types of perception effect our behaviour “PEOPLE” that we interact with and “SOCIETY” that we live in.

GIVE IT A TRY : If you have an situation hard to handle, think about the 3 most significant people in your life (Living or Dead), What advise would they give you ? What would a 5 year old child in you would have advised you ? (Mind you Children have a very different ways of perceiving things / situations and we can learn a lot from them). Think about an experience 80 Year old person in you, what would he/she advise you with his experience of life ?

 

6)    6) EMOTIONS – Balance Them

Human beings are Emotional creatures highly driven by external situations. There are about 27 Emotions through which we perceive life, there are few positive ones (E.g. Adoration, Admiration, Calmness, Empathy, Joy etc) and there are negative ones (aggressiveness, boredom, dejections, grief, guilt etc).

Are you feeling guilty about something all the time ? Guilt is purely emotion driven feeling which pops out when you mentally think, see or feel that situation which caused Guilt.

Time to do a reality check, where is this guilt coming from, which event is clinging in your mind all the time. These thoughts seem to be real, but are deviations of reality (this is the only drawback of your mind that it cannot differentiate between reality and illusion) hence we feel low and guilty.

GIVE IT A TRY : It is always best to note down your thoughts on paper.

E.g. If you were discussing something with your partner, discussion turned into an argument, argument turned into a fight  : The person never meant to hurt at first, but one thing led to another and emotions just poured out and the situation went out of control.

Rewind your day before you sleep, write down all the negative emotions you had through the day. Seek for forgiveness if you had done something wrong and forgive the opposite person if they caused hurt to you. (“FORGIVE and FORGET” these are very powerful tools)

7)      7) A Healthy Body has a Healthy Mind – Focus on your own WELLBEING.

The Key to a Healthy life is a Healthy Mind, Body, Brain and Soul. (M.B.B.S)

We all know taking positive actions towards our Main Machine (Human Body) is a must, but the question is DO WE TAKE THOSE ACTIONS ?

Take Those Actions : Doing exercise, eating healthy food, doing your hobbies, volunteering, doing some art work(Drawing, Craft) whatever which lifts your mood up. This activities release a shot of (DOSEM) in your body every time you do them. (More about DOSEM in some other article)

GIVE IT A TRY : Keep aside atleast 30 Minutes of your day to do some positive activity which makes you feel happy and energised. The best way is to write down all the activities that lift your mood (For E.g. Drawing, Long Walks, Going to a Beach or may Be Riding a Bike)

 

8)      Be COMPASSIONATE towards your own self.

When you give your life remote control to someone, Hurt becomes a common things which can later become a SELF BLAME game.

I always tell people SELF RESPECT, SELF CONFIDENCE and SELF COMPASSION are never available in market. The easiest and fastest way to raise your SELF WORTH is treat YOURSELF with as much empathy and concern as you can. How would you treat your best spouse, parent or friend.

GIVE IT A TRY : We all have a constant mind chattering going on which is many a time negative. Sit in a quite place write a Letter to yourself encouraging yourself about facing a difficult situation, read out loud to yourself atleast 3 times. (I also have a list of Sutras (Small TAG’s E.g. I AM A LEADER)), which I say to myself before facing the situation.

Researcher Kirsten D. Neff in her studies showed that practicing self-compassion gives us all the positive benefits of self-esteem, while also keeping us away from the comparison and defensiveness that just focusing on our esteem can bring.

 

9)      9) Consider TAKING HELP

Sir Deepak Chopra says, humans are the worst SELF HATERS. When they are HURT, they tend to become IMPULSIVE, do you feel IMPULSIVE when being Hurt? Do you become revengeful and say spiteful things, than later feel regret and embarrassed?

Time to do a reality check, if that is the case than you need to introspect yourself, if not able to do than take a professional help to evaluate yourself, it could be a borderline personality disorder or a mental health issue which needs immediate attention. You must take proper professional counselling before the issue becomes very large to handle.

GIVE IT A TRY: Seek for professional support if you are not able to control your emotions and lash out quite often. 

Jatin Asher         
NLP Life Coach 
Brainography Expert Consultant               
Kids Specialist Life Coach             
Tel : +91-9833156365 / 8355881872          
Email : jatinash@gmail.com