Overcoming Direct and Indirect Hurt

In relationships we ALL share a commonality that we have experienced before which is a painful thing called "HURT." It can be within a friendship, a personal relationship, marriage, or with a family member. We often ask questions like, " Why did it happen?", "Why me?" or " What did I do to deserve this?" We ponder over and over, day in and day out about what we could have done differently to avoid experiencing the hurtful situation.

Have you ever felt so bad that the hurt feels unbearable? It develops feelings of anger, sadness, depression, fear, betrayal, or low self-esteem. Hurt becomes very personal and you may begin to think that you failed in an area of your life.

Do you know that there is a such thing as direct hurt and indirect hurt? Being conscious that every hurtful situation WAS NOT directly intended to hurt you, may help your healing process. Direct hurt is when someone intentionally and knowingly tries to hurt you. Indirect hurt means someone does an action or makes a decision selfishly without you in mind, and as a result you are indirectly hurt by it.

You see when we think of hurt, most of the time we think it is intentional; and like I said earlier, it becomes very personal. When something is taken personal we tend to blame ourselves or start searching for flaws within ourselves. Trust becomes the number one thing that goes out the door!

Sometimes you have to stop and access the situation because you could be hurting over a situation that wasn't meant for "you." You have to realize that people have their own free will to make decisions, but they don’t always think of all the consequences or who will hurt as a result of their decisions or actions. For an example, we have many entertainers that we admire and feel close to, even though we have never met them or actually seen them in person. If they were to die, we may be hurt by it or when their marriage turns to divorce we are hurt and disappointed. That is indirect hurt. Those people do not know you and they may not be aware of what impact their lives have on yours. Now you are crying or having a bad day because of something that wasn't meant to hurt you or be intentional.

A married couple may decide to get divorced because they are no longer happy within their relationship, and can’t manage to continue the relationship. They may not think or consider the hurt that their children, friends, or family members may endure due to them splitting up. They are not meaning to hurt anyone, but there may be a need to divorce if their relationship is unhealthy or abusive. Their children may not agree or understand their decision, and may try to come to their own understanding as to why their parents have divorced. They may feel a sense of hurt because of the changes in their lifestyles, and they may harbor hurt as they grow up due to them taking their parents divorce personal. Without knowing the details of why their parents divorced, they may feel like the split of their parents was their fault, or wonder if they could have done anything to prevent it from happening.

Communication is key to determine if your hurt is direct or indirect. Think about it, if you knew that it wasn't intentional or personal towards you, you may still be hurt BUT your hurt may feel lighter. Your healing process may not be as hard and it will be easier to trust again. Direct hurt will take some time to heal, willingness to forgive and a bold effort to move pass the situation or person that hurt you; but you can do it. You can rise above it! Hurt doesn't have to constantly have power over you.

Even though you feel you are alone guess what, you are not! There are a lot of other people who share the same feelings as you do. The top question is, " How can you avoid hurt?" The realistic answer is, you can’t avoid hurt. As long as you are in a relationship with another imperfect person, you are at a risk of experiencing some type of hurt. So what do you do when you experience it? You learn from it, live through it, make a CHOICE to heal, and ALLOW yourself time to go through your individual process of healing. At the end, you take your power back that the hurt drained from you and become a stronger wiser person.
-La'Toya