02. The sensation of being hurt

Most of us go through life with a persistent feeling of having been hurt most of the time. The hurt is caused by other people, by events, by actions or words, or their absence, by things that happen.

The fact of the matter is, most people are bothered principally about themselves... that’s why we constantly monitor our own state of being and feeling...  but we expect others to be bothered about... us!  So much of the time we end up feeling disappointed... and hurt.

Kids are disappointed that their parents don’t do enough for them, parents feel the kids are indifferent, the boss tears his hair out at his obdurate staff, the employees feel neglected and misunderstood... and so on. We think that the head of the government, at least, is all-powerful, but the moment he (or she) says something specific about anything, a hundred people jump on their words and pillory them... everyone feels powerless and imposed upon. A continuous feeling of frustration could well lead to chronic diseases and poor health, including stress-induced conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, general depression, lessened immunity (think of viral warts!) and so on.

To a certain extent, since we are living, feeling human beings, things will hurt us... especially those that cause physical pain. But we are talking more about the way we react to situations, to actions of others, to situations that do not fit into our pattern of expectations.  The key here is that most things are out of our control, even outside our sphere of influence, as anyone who has brought up kids through their adolescence will know.

The source of the hurt is that we are concerned with ourselves, even as we blame the other for being self-centred. The answer is thus to stop expecting others to be selfless when we ourselves haven’t been able to cast off our self-concern. Once we realise that most of what others do is not directed at us, but is simply that they are acting out their own desires and interests, we may be able to lessen the feeling of being a target, of being hurt. Of course it is difficult to get into another’s head, but once we remove ourselves from the equation, we may at least be able to try and look at things from another perspective.  We may still feel sorry and helpless at the utter stupidity of the other, but at least we can look at them with compassion, rather than hurt and loathing.