HURT Hurts
One of the least talked about and the least understood of all the
emotions is basic human hurt. Most people bury their hurt and
it can then become “frozen”. This is depicted very well in the
book and the film, “The Stone Angel”, by Margaret Laurence.
The less loveable a person is, the more susceptible to hurt they
become. Big hurts and little hurts happen to all of us throughout
our lives. It is therefore important to know how to assimilate hurt
and transform it at the conscious level as much as possible. It is
also critical to be able to distinguish between “old hurt”, “recent
hurt” and “newest hurt” and not let these hurts aggregate.
People who are brimming over with hurt often attempt to “down-
load” it onto others. They will often target happy people and
attempt to bring them down to their hurt level. They may leave
another person with a hurt that festers. Since they are not
heart-connected, the only way they can ensure that others will
remember them is to inflict hurt, or even engender hate. Here is
a little trick you can use when someone does something nasty
or hurtful to you. Respond by doing something kind and loving
to the next three people you meet. Let the original hurt be “like
water off a duck’s back” by transforming it into love.
A true apology is about addressing the hurt of the other person.
Very few apologies accomplish this, as they are often hollow
and shallow. Usually it takes three or four rounds of apology to
get the original hurt down to around zero. Contrary to popular
belief, time does not heal all! It is the quality of the apology that
creates the healing. It is also important to realize that we can
hurt ourselves and that we can also apologize to ourselves for
self-inflicted hurt. Unaddressed, lingering hurt can be dissolved
through acts of compassion, caring and appreciation.
Our heart and brain are connected by a parasympathetic nerve
called the vagus nerve. If we learn to keep this nerve fired up
with energy, our heart and head can resonate in harmony and we
can operate from deep heart-connectedness.
When we operate primarily from the brain, we are usually
acting in a reactive way, whereas, when we operate with heart-
connectedness, we are acting in a non-reactive way. Non-
reactivity is a basic tenet of Buddhism. It does not mean no
action. It means that the responding action is solely based on
the resonating, heart-connected inputs from the responder’s
whole energy field. This ensures that any existing hurt is either
gently blocked or reduced, and not compounded. When a person
is in this theta brainwave state, it is called supra-consciousness.
Supra-consciousness acts as a modulator between the states of
simple consciousness and self consciousness. It is a beautiful
state in which our Psyche and Spirit are continuously balancing
each other. We stay conscious of hurt and dissolve it.
It is important for couples and partners to negotiate their
respective levels of hurt. If one person is at a 9 out of 10 and
the other person is at a 3 out of 10, it is usually best to focus
on the one with the highest level of hurt. It is also advisable
to pre-negotiate the frame-work in which the negotiation takes
place. For example, by mutual agreement, some topics may
be excluded from a particular round of heart-felt healing and
negotiating. Remember that it is best for both Partners in
Healing to approach hurt negotiation with a strong sense of
humility.