It’s rare that strangers hurt your feelings. The people that can hurt you the most are those that are closest to us. That usually tends to be family members. What do we do in those situations? How do we handle it?
My Experience
So, there I was reading an email from a family member about a potential business opportunity and I can see that it included all the previous emails. Not really expecting to find anything, I read some information that is personal and doesn’t pertain to this opportunity.
Reading this, I felt the full range of emotions. Feelings of anger, that negative things were being revealed about me to sad and disappointed that someone close to me would portray me that way.
It’s sad to say that most of us have had an experience where we overheard something we weren’t meant to hear or saw a Facebook post that revealed personal information. How do we handle these situations? What do we do with those feelings?
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Separate actions and feelings
The Bible talks about us being angry and not sinning. It’s okay to be angry and have the emotions but we have to separate the emotions from driving our actions.
Think to yourself how many times you’ve gotten back at someone and felt better about yourself or what you did. Revenge, hurting someone because they hurt you, never makes you feel better about yourself.
Having our emotions drive our actions does more damage to us than we could do to the other person. The mentality, emotions and actions can lead to destructive pattern of behaviors.
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Evaluate the relationship
I’m not an advocate for cutting everyone out of your life for any reason. There are times, however, when you may need to dissolve a relationship for your betterment. In other cases, if we let our emotions drive us we can be too quick to cut people out of our lives.
To know the difference, we have to do step 1. We have to separate the emotions of the event that happened, with our actions. Evaluate the relationship outside of your emotions. Is this person adding value to your life? Could there be a possibility that the relationship could be salvaged?
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When they go low, we go high
Former First Lady Michelle Obama made this phrase famous in a speech. It very much can apply to when we are hurt by those closest to us. Sometimes it is better to leave the situation completely. Take the high road and just move on with your life.
Discussion Question:
How do handle when people hurt you?