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Why We Are Protective Of Our Hurt

Hurt isn’t helplessness, some of us just learned that it is. Some of us have learned that hurt is wallowing and shows our weakness. Others of us have learned that we need to be productive and fix, atone, make better when hurt comes up. So, when we feel hurt, we will instead turn to anger.


Here’s the thing that makes this all the more interesting; how we learn this. Often, no caregiver or parent sits us down and actually tells us these things. We learn them because we are attuned to our environment, through demonstration and whether or not our caregivers held space for our pain, comforted us and organized our feelings determines what we think about hurt. Did they sit us in time out when we were overwhelmed and teary because we weren’t following the rules? Were we told to stop crying? We’re we made fun of when we were sad? Were we ignored?


So all of the learning that we do often isn’t conscious, we develop a felt sense of navigating what is okay to feel and show, which we learn from those that raised us. Another complex layer to all of this is society’s expectations and narratives: you are tough and outspoken if you are angry and weak or dramatic if you are crying. Think about what we see in the media about hurt and pain; it is often covered up and we don’t really have any idea of other’s hurt, we know more about what they’ve done right or wrong.


AND....

All humans feel hurt. All humans feel pain. Whether or not we feel comfortable with it is based solely on what we have learned about what to do with it.


What did you learn about hurt? Was it okay to show? Or did you have to turn your pain into anger for it to be noticed?

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