The inspiration for this post came to me after watching the reality programme “Cheer” on Netflix. I found it quite intriguing that one of the most prominent former cheerleaders featured on the program, started badmouthing his coach on Instagram.

Although throughout the series, he had nothing but praise for his coach. He said she had been like a mother to him, supporting him through difficult times. He even went as far as to say that being selected to cheerlead by the coach had saved his life.

So, I wondered why he could turn against her so completely? What had caused his turnaround?

It goes without saying that the coach felt hurt, embarrassed, and totally humiliated by the things her former protégé was saying about her. She was baffled by his actions and couldn’t understand what she had done to provoke such behaviour and why he chose the most public of forums; social media to air his grievances.

When the two finally met and could talk it out, the source of his actions became clear

The reason he gave wasn’t as huge as you might expect. As he broke down in tears, he said “You never listened to me”

I found the simplicity of his grievance fascinating, causing me to ask myself the question; “Why do we do and say hurtful things to one another? What is the cause? What is it that has the power to turn a beautiful relationship into hostility and turn best friends into enemies?

Well, in most cases, I think the cause isn’t as dramatic as we imagine. The cause can be something as subtle as not feeling listened to or heard, as the was the case with the young man in the program.

I just want to be clear here…I am not writing this to trivialise anyone’s cause.

Because for one person, not feeling heard may be a loaded gun, but for someone else, the same problem of not feeling heard, may bear of little or no significance.

The key factor that makes people act out, is the degree of hurt they feel when they don’t feel heard or listened to as in this example.

So, what is it that triggers us to say or do hurtful things to one another?

Well, I think the provocation is what I said before. It’s feeling hurt by the other in some way.

Hurt is something that’s exceedingly difficult to classify, categorise, quantify, or grade because it’s so individual. The things that hurt me, may not hurt you in the slightest and vice versa.

And yet, having our feelings hurt can be responsible for producing a whole gamut of emotional reactions in an individual, ranging from no reaction at all, to deadly violence—depending on the degree of hurt we feel.

The force of our reaction is dependent on the amount of unresolved, unconscious past hurts we harbour within us.

These unresolved past hurts can be easily triggered by the thing’s others say and do. Thus, the more inflamed our unresolved hurts become as a result of someone’s comment or actions, the stronger the reaction they will garner from us.

So, What Do We Do When Someone Hurts Us?

What do we do when someone hurts our feelings, how should we react?

Well, there are different ways of deal with the hurt you feel from others. I also think there are two philosophies connected with how we deal with them. One philosophy says, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” while the other says “Turn the other cheek”

Does An Eye For An Eye, Solve Our Problems?

I think the most common way for us humans to deal with hurt from others, is through the philosophy of an eye for an eye. And this basically means that when somebody hurts us, we want to immediately hurt them back.

Yet, hurting somebody in return, doesn’t solve the problem, it only makes the problem bigger, because we’ve now created a situation where two people are feeling hurt with one another.

Is Turning The Other Cheek The Right Way To Solve Our Problem?

Turning the other cheek is a practice that requires a very high level of consciousness, patience, and compassion—something most of us do not yet have. It requires you to be able to see and feel as the other does, and in short requires empathy.

Through the lens of this philosophy, rather than the knee jerk reaction of hurting back when someone hurts you, you’re instead able to take the higher moral ground by offering your other cheek to be hurt.

The belief in this situation, is that if you offer the other cheek for somebody to hurt, it’s very likely that the person will not be able to harm you, because it’s very difficult to hurt somebody who isn’t fighting back.

And so, if we want to avoid the misery hurting one another produces, we must first come in touch with our own hurts and spend the time it takes to heal those hurts.

How To Heal Our Hurt

Healing hurt requires your intimate connection with those hurts. You must open and unravel your inner wounds, so you can better understand what happens inside you when somebody says or does something that causes pain.

The first stage is to connect with your past mindfully, through reflection, meditation, and contemplation. The second stage is to identify and acknowledge any unresolved hurts that crop up during the first stage. The third stage is to take the time needed to fully experience the unresolved hurt you avoided coming into touch with in the past.

The more of these hurts you can fully experience, the less triggered you are when somebody says or does something to hurt you. The less hurt you feel, the less you will want to cause hurt to others in return.

Being able to acknowledge that you feel hurt by what the another has said or done takes courage, but when you do this, you avoid the need to hurt back.

Admitting that you feel hurt may leave you feeling vulnerable, however by telling the other what you’re truly feeling enables them to generate empathy for you in the moment and should bring you closer together.

The awareness of what’s happening inside you, empowers you to say exactly what you’re feeling. This clarity and sensitivity to what your own needs are, allows you to ask for an apology and to gain one.

Asking for an apology is a more productive way to resolve a problem than to lash out with counter hurts.

When you can operate from a place of understanding your own motivations, you are better equipped to understand and empathise with others’ motivations. This level of self understanding builds bridges as opposed to tearing them down.

All that I’ve just described is a process and one that may need a lot of work and time, but if you’re gentle, patient, and consistent with the exercise, you will eventually succeed and put an end to your need to hurt others in return and to hopefully end your need to say or do hurtful things in the first place.