Hurt Feelings

I don’t like the phrase “hurt feelings”.   Perhaps I hear it too often.   I’m pretty good at hurting feelings judging by how often I hear that I’ve done it.    I don’t like the phrase because it suggests that feelings are a fragile part of our body, one that can easily be injured.

Our feelings, or emotions, are a continuum.   They all connect with each other and play on each other.  One can’t exist without the others.   Without caring there can be no indifference.   Without anger there can be no joy.   Our feelings all need to exist concurrently.   We have to accept them all and understand their place in our emotional wellbeing. 

We give other people the power to hurt our feelings.   We give it to them by having expectations about what they should say or do.   This is not a bad thing.   We should expect people to behave in certain ways and we should react to the fact that they didn’t.    It’s important to understand what is happening though.   It’s important to remember that the same power we gave them to upset us is the power we gave them to elate us.   It’s the power we gave them to make us happy or proud.   We have given them enough credit to be able to expect something from them.    If someone is not upsetting you from time to time, they are probably also not making you happy.