Recently I was told that I am very insensitive to a child and I rejected her as a baby by disagreeing to hold her. I took this verbal violence for an hour, sucked in my feelings of despair and anger and went on to plead my case and apologise for things that were quoted and exaggerated out of context. In retrospect I feel I should have objected fought and what not…
What to do when you have not said the right thing at the right time? How do we deal with the negativity? Some people confuse themselves of being hurtful, brash and tactless with the identity of being straight forward. You want there attitude changed and you know you can not relate unless they realize how much they have hurt you over the period. How to say this to those people?
Being the sucker I am, I think I will always suck my negative emotions up, smile and retry after I recover from the previous onslaught!
Is there any other way out of this?
9 comments:
As far as I know this is the situation with everybody.All of us are hurt.But thinking we are hurt differently or deeply than others(may be it is true)is also an attempt to say that we are unique.I don't say we are not unique as everything appears to be different from person to person,but when we observe it a little closer,we can find that uniqueness of human beings is only superficial.Personal history,family,traditions,cultures,nationalities,races,classes,etc may seem to make us very different people from others.But this only results in a self centered assessment of our own hurt.This insensitivity to others hurt actually brutalizes us about it.When this is the case,hurts can only accumulate.So, starting with the idea that all of us are hurt recognizes that we are all the same as human beings and is a good start towards healing.Because healing cannot take place in isolation.It is a mutual process.Stopping listening to our own self and listening to other selves brings in the attention required to examine and understand,instead of escape.Where there is hurt,there is no relationship.Where there is no relationship,there is no listening.Where there is no listening there is no love...Love is the healer.We cannot say I want to have a relationship without hurt refusing to love.Hm.. a big problem...Oh! I am not referring to romantic love here,by love I mean sensitivity and harmony.
I like what you have written and Suhir's response as well. It is a starting point. I think it is a door. Hurt is not the end point. It is an avenue. Probably a dark, scary and a bit slippery. Instead of gaining the energy to smile back, we will do greater good to each other if we walk the dark alley a little more. Trusting the unknown could be very rewarding...
There are no short cuts for relationships, i feel. Its a long journey of forging and reforging ourselves with others. Sometimes, with some people over a period of time we are able to travel long enough...with others it may never happen no matter how much one tries..
Yes...I need to add something here...both the persons involved should be ready to come out of themselves.One sided attempts are futile if the other thinks he/she is right.There is nothing right or wrong about hurt.It happens in judgments.
Dear annayya I agree with you. But, when we feel hurt it seems so unique and bittersweet and enjoyable to wallow in it. May be that is the dark side which stops us from making a positive contact with the hurt giver. We speak passionately about our hurts and revisit it every now and then so that it remains eternally fresh may be with some more negativity crystallising on it solidly instead of neutralising the hurt and replacing it with love. I think this is a trap and though it seems like it is the right thing to do to love others and forge and reforge, there is always one step short of that. So you guys are right, I think both parties have to acknowledge and move towards each other ... otherwise it will be the dynamics again.. refurbished and ready to pounce in a different disguise. You might be curious whether I am ready for my step forward yet.. may be 'yet' answers your question
The funny thing about all these emotions is,even though we seem to be powerfully driven by them every moment,we cannot arrive at an objective appraisal of them.We can only accept them as categories that are present in life.Can we define what love is? What hurt is? We should start with such questions and try to see what our perception is about them.Because if we don't question the basic tenets and arrive at a deeper understanding,we will never make a beginning.All we can do is to maintain the status quo.
Yes I agree. What you say makes profound sense. What is love? I think there are numerous answers to this question. May be sharing the same values and appreciating the same nuances makes us feel that we 'love' certain person and may be the jitteriness sets in when there is the 'other' whose values, sensibilities and outlook towards world and relationships differ from that of ours. May be I am jumbled in the way I am expressing it. In a nutshell, acknowledging and appreciating differences and still feeling the need to be connected is love for me. Am I making sense?
As for as hurt is concerned, I think there is a sense of 'belonging' or 'feeling understood for what I am' with people you think you love. When situations arise which make you feel like that you are not understood at all, or your sensibility is not appreciated or you are made to feel like the oppressor of goodwill then it creates hurt. I am talking about interpersonal hurt here. We have a tremendous need to be understood and when people turn a blind eye to that it hurts. Still more to think about this.
I think instead of asking what love is and getting lost in explanations, let us consider it part of life and ask why do we love?
Similarly asking why we get hurt rather than what is hurt seems a better question to ask.Unless we understand hurt and stop getting hurt,all our actions become reactions.
Shall we proceed from there?
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