DO THEY KNOW HOW MUCH THEY HURT ME?

 

I have been a reader for more years than I care to remember, and of all the questions I am asked, this is the one that comes up most frequently. “He’s done this (or not done that), does he know how much he’s hurt me?” The short answer is: NO

 

Very few people deliberately set out to cause pain to others, but unintentional pain is caused all the time. Pain is an emotion and it is experienced in the here and now. Once it’s gone, it’s hard to remember just how dreadful it felt. Even if we try to imagine ourselves into someone else’s pain, it’s almost impossible to do so.

 

We are designed to be selfish. It’s a survival mechanism that is built into our biology. It is human nature to see things from our own point of view. Even if you think of yourself as empathetic and sensitive, you’ll still have your blind spots, and you’re still capable of inflicting pain on others without being aware of it.

 

So that’s the truth about emotional wounds – the one who causes them is rarely aware of the real effect they have had on the one they have hurt. If you live your life waiting for someone else to apologize for what they have done, you’ll waste a lot of time that is better spent getting on with living.

 

Next time you find yourself thinking, “Do she know how much she has hurt me?” remember that the answer is NO and don’t torture yourself with the thought that it was deliberate and intentional. Human beings are flawed and imperfect. You’ve hurt others without meaning to yourself.

 

Focusing on the pain someone else has caused you is just another way of staying stuck. I like this little saying, which sums it up nicely: “Never attribute to malice that which can much more easily be attributed to stupidity!” In other words, more people are thoughtless than mean. It can just look like that from where we are sitting nursing our wounds.