You hurt my feelings

There are two sides of telling someone your feelings are hurt. On one hand, in order to walk open and honest, you need to express when your feelings get hurt. On the other hand, never lose perspective that your feelings being hurt is your issue. What that person did or said is filtered through your belief systems, perceptions, and past experiences. You are the one that had an issue with it.

The primary things that need to happen when your feelings get hurt is giving and getting information. You need to give them information of what they did or said, how you interpreted it, and how you felt. This will help them understand how you tend to translate things and communicate with you more compassionately. You need to get information about what they intended. In other words, find out what they meant by it.

Since it is critical for both of you to understand that your feelings being hurt is your issue, it is often beneficial to use I statements and take responsibility for what you’re feeling. You might say, “When you said, ‘Why did you do that?’ I took it that you were suggesting that I did it the wrong way. I felt hurt.”

So telling someone they hurt your feelings is actually not the most effective way to tell them they hurt your feelings. Hmm? Better to own how you interpreted it and how you felt.

The challenge is of course that when you are expressing your hurt feelings, it is challenging to own anything. Because after all, your feelings are hurt. It feels like they were mean to you… mistreated you… were insensitive… and whatever else. So there is a tendency to assume that they were.

So why not take a step back and ask them?… “When you said, I was ______, what did you mean by that?”

Take it personally why don’tcha

The sad fact is that most people do not have a clear notion of who you are. Most have not taken the time to get to know you. They do not understand you or how you process. They project themselves and how they process things onto you. They make assumptions about you. They accept/reject you and relate to you based on their notion of you. They judge you because what you do is threatening to them.

They cannot feel your feelings. They do not know how it feels like to be you.

Yet most of us look to others to get information about ourselves. We look to them for validation- to tell us that we are OK. When someone gets mad at us, we assume that we did something wrong. We take it personally. We ask someone out and they say no. Or we flirt with them and they do not respond. We feel rejected. There must be something wrong with us. We make a presentation and someone doesn’t not like it. It must not have been any good. We personalize it.

When someone does not like us or something we do, we are getting information about THEM. It has nothing to with us. It is, however, valuable information about them. We can draw on it to make determinations about what type of relationship and interactions we want to have with them (if any).

But… other people’s perceptions of you is NOT an effective way to get information about yourself- that has to come from you. Another cannot validate who you are; you have to validate yourself. Your estimation of yourself (self esteem) has to come from how YOU feel about how you interacted. You need to evaluate if you feel like you did everything you could to relate clearly to them or connect with them.

Do you feel good about how that went? Maybe you need to adjust how you interact with them. That IS about you. How they respond to you is about them. Let them have it.

Give yourself information when making a decision

Feel stuck or trapped? Need to make a decision? Give yourself information. One of the first things things we do when we feel conflict or indecision is cut ourselves off from getting information about the situation. Then we try to make a decision without having the necessary information.

Whenever you are feeling confused or indecisive, the first thing to ask yourself is: “Do you have enough information to make your decision?” Usually, you do not.

It may be that you are trying to make the decision prematurely before all the necessary information is in. This tendency is often due to the anxiety and uncertainty of the unknown. If this is the case, it is essential to back off, let the situation to unfold, and allow the necessary information to emerge.

Other times, you may feel trapped or overwhelmed by a decision. Your perspective of the situation becomes narrow and limited. Peter Gabriel’s 1978 song Perspective puts it, “I need perspective, ‘cos I’m facing the wall.” (Click here to listen to Perspective via YouTube) You stop seeing possibilities. You cease allowing yourself information. You try to make a decision that requires information that you are not allowing yourself.So… start giving yourself information. Do some research. Bounce your situation (or part of it) off some people you trust in order to broaden your perspective. Is there something that you do not understand about your decision? Ask some questions. Who would know about such things?

What does your heart say? Are you listening to it?

Or maybe you need information that only comes with experience. If so, orchestrate some experiences that will give you the information that you need. Test the nature of the relationship or situation in question. Invite the person into your world and watch what they do. Risk being yourself in a situation and see what happens. Soon you will be able to see the person as they are or the situation as it is. Then you are free to navigate through it.

Once you allow yourself enough information to see things clearly, possibilities will present themselves. You will see an inroad to get where you want to be. Your decision and what you need to do will be clear.