4 ways to overcome hurt feelings

This article addresses a few but very important questions we all have in our lives. What causes you to feel hurt? Why does it hurt when someone speaks to acts in ways you did not expect? Why do you feel that you are taken for granted? People don\’t understand your hurt feelings, why? How can you live with self respect, honour and dignity? How can you forgive and not remember your hurt feelings?

Did you know – One of the most important assets you must possess, nurture and nourish is self respect. Without self respect, you are simply incomplete. People you interact with you won\’t know how to perceive you, if you do not speak and act with self respect. Behaving without self respect can cause you to feel hurt.

What is Self Respect?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, Self respect means that you behave with honour and dignity. While honour and respect meant the same, dignity means – to be worthy of being you. Your dignity is when you not only experience life, but, when you learn from your life experiences.

I have come across some people who want to make others happy. They go to any length without bothering about how they look and feel about themselves. Such people don\’t know that people don\’t understand their hurt feelings. They often make a fool of themselves. People like these are often taken for granted and feel hurt very easily. They act with emotion but without awareness. This is an example of behaving without honour and dignity. Furthermore, wanting to make others happy can make you physically ill, mentally weak and emotionally vulnerable.

Self respect means to live respecting your physical, mental and emotional existence which includes the body and what you must use it for and mustn\’t. Respect the mind. Think possibilities. Think good about yourself and others. Encourage strengthening thoughts, discourage weakening or debilitating thoughts. Respect your emotions. Use your emotions to be compassionate towards others, to be loving towards all, to laugh more, be happy. People with healthy emotions do cry. However, they are strong within.

Help yourself first to be happy, loving and be content with what you are and what you have. Then help others in whatever way you can. Give your best. When situations demand, unknown, strength emerges in your body, mind and your emotions. This is where you demonstrate your honour and dignity.

What causes you to feel hurt?

When you are loving towards a person and that person doesn\’t reciprocate love in the same way but, behaves in a way that is considered rude, you feel hurt.

Hurt feelings and attachment go hand in hand. The more attached you are to a person, the more easily you can feel hurt. Furthermore, As your attachment towards a person grows, your self respect declines. Then, you are more willing to do anything to strengthen your attachment rather than behave with honour and dignity. People don\’t understand your hurt feelings. They can\’t. They care about what they get out of how you treat them.

Attachment causes hurt feelings

You can get attached to a person who behaves with self respect. Have you witnessed this behaviour within your family and also in your corporate environment? We are all attracted to people who make others laugh and who themselves laugh more, isn\’t it? Attachment makes you hold onto the present that you are witnessing or experiencing. You can be attached to people or objects. You can also be attached to places and structures such as your house. Attachment makes you resist change. Attachment breeds as much fear as the hurt feelings it causes.

I knew of a person who was attached to her house that her father left for her. Her brother wanted to demolish the house and build an apartment. She wasn\’t aware of her brother\’s intentions. However, she was saving money to renovate and paint the house. When her brother approached her and forced her to sign on the papers, she felt so hurt that she had epileptic seizures. A few years later, unable to come to terms with her hurt feelings, she developed a brain tumour and passed away. Attachment weakens you.

I met a very strange family a few years ago. A lady married the man she was attracted and later very attached to, because he made everyone laugh. He loved people being around him. She told me that she dreamt, that if she married that man, then she will be always happy. What she realised after marrying this man is that, his behaviour wasn\’t real. He behaved funny because of his craving for importance. It turned out that he was in real, a very abusive person.

Possessiveness can hurt both of you

A stronger form of attachment is possessiveness. Possessiveness happens when you become selfish and self centred and your motive is to control the other person to the maximum possible extent. When you become possessive about a person, your sense of like and dislike towards that person becomes very strong and you begin to enforce it on that person so that you can feel the pleasure of having the person with you all of the time. If that person reacts to your possessive behaviour with firmness, then, you are sure to feel hurt. In rare cases people turn suicidal. That behaviour is becoming more common these days.

4 ways to overcome hurt feelings

Be yourself

The first step to overcome your hurt feelings is to be real. Be real to yourself first. Observe your behaviour. Are you being unreal to yourself and to others? Being unreal can be very stressful. The real you is a loving, compassionate and happy being. That is what you did to anyone who held you in their arms when you were a tiny child. Back then, you did not know anything else apart from being real.

Do not change for others

When you regain your ability to be yourself, do not change for anyone. Never compromise for others, no matter who they are and how close they are to you. There are people who will like you and those who won\’t. That\’s okay. If you get onto the business of making people to like you, you can join an acting class first. Actors successfully fake their personality on screen. I have heard in the past that some of the actors who acted mostly in villain roles were actually very gentle people in their real life.

Remember that people are always perceiving you. And they will take what they get from your behaviour and trust their perception. Every person you know in your life today, behaves with you, the way he or she has perceived you. People don\’t understand your hurt feelings. Don\’t waste time. So, be real.

I often tell people in relationships to keep their personality real. People often change their personality before marriage. They make promises that they can\’t keep. And after marriage, the change drops off. You are back to being yourself because now you are safe to be you. Your spouse doesn\’t know who you are! Who was that person she was courting? Conflicts and hurt feelings arise because you changed from being you only because you wanted your partner to be your spouse.

Love Yourself

Being in love is the best feeling one can ever have. Always be in love with yourself. That\’s even better than being in love with someone else. It\’s not that people who are in love with themselves don\’t face problems. When you love yourself, you are happy, peaceful, ever ready to take on the different facets of life with the same zeal and enthusiasm.

I met a lady who didn\’t appreciate her body very much because she felt and looked out of shape. Only after she had parts of her skull scraped out because of a car accident and that left her head out of shape that she began to love herself. Don\’t be in love with your body. It keeps changing.

Loving yourself means to value your existence. You are invaluable. You, the sum total of your existence, is unique. When you set foot on this planet, your presence made this world a brighter place. Can you fathom this reality? Now, do everything possible to have this continue. When you love yourself, your contribution to the world multiplies manifold. You will not compromise, but you will give away what you love, in sacrifice. That is real freedom. Did you understand this? You won\’t, unless you live it. When you are in love, it shows. I have often spoken about Antargat Dhyan. If you have been hurt and want to get out of that feeling quickly, this technique will really help.

Forgive always

This might seem very controversial. Most people I have met who speak of forgiveness do not know what that really means. Forgiveness has nothing to do with letting go of the other person!

Unforgiveness or the inability to forgive causes several chronic diseases and terminal illnesses. Unforgiveness comes from unable to let go of your expectations.

Forgiveness is a process to release your judgments and perceptions of your experience with the other person. Bear in mind that your perception with the person is bound by the experiences you have had with that person. So, you must release only experiences that have created your hurt feelings, hatred, anger, resentment, unhappiness, etc,.

If you try to forgive someone for what they have done to you, you will actually feel more miserable than before.

I have created this video for you to forgive and release your hurt feelings.

Conclusion

Life has given me countless opportunities to learn to love, to be real to me and others and to always forgive. I followed these techniques for over 6 years and attained freedom from prejudice and perception. It is true that people don\’t understand your hurt feelings. They can\’t. The only way you can understand others is by understanding yourself. Be yourself, Love yourself and forgive always. This is the way to be happy always. My family and friends alike have been intrigued by the fact that nothing hurts me.

When you practice these techniques, you too will be free from hurt feelings. Welcome to the journey towards freedom.

— Mahesh Krishnamurthy