So, you’ve undergone some hurt in your life. I wish I could say you are a rare case, but unfortunately, you are in the majority on that one. Let’s not linger on the hurt that happened; that is best delved into in therapy. We want to talk about moving forward from this and doing so in a way that will provide you with understanding, compassion, and a way to continue to be better for yourself and your current relationships.
Generational Trauma
While there are many forms of hurt in this world, I want to touch on one that may not be as widely understood or explored as the heartbreak-hurts, tragedy-hurts, or other more widely-known-and-felt hurts. We are going to talk generational trauma.
In short, generational trauma is when trauma is passed down from our caretakers to us. This is done through behaviors and lingering, unresolved trauma symptoms that our parents, grandparents, and other caretakers are suffering with themselves. This type of trauma and hurt can show up in various different ways. For instance, if our parents and grandparents have suffered from long-standing sexual or physical abuse from their own caretakers, they may take extra precautions with us that we don’t quite understand; they squeeze our hands a little tighter when we are in public, they don’t allow us the freedoms that other parents allow our peers. We feel that we are being treated differently, we feel the anxiety that our caretakers are unknowingly releasing onto us, but we just don’t understand it. Our caretakers are not able to identify it, label it, and work through it, so how can we expect them to support us in a healthy way through our own hurts?
This can also start us off at a serious disadvantage having learned anxiety and avoidance at a young age. We are growing up learning these anxious feelings as a sort of baseline, but not really able to say what it is and what it is doing to us.
Although this is a seriously shortened version of generational trauma, and generational trauma expands to so much more than what I would like to get into here, I wanted to touch on the idea of learning to deal with hurt. If you find yourself being a person who hurts others, blocks out others, or isolates yourself when you are feeling hurt, I want to reinforce that dealing with pain is something we have to learn. It is a modeled behavior. If all we have ever seen or heard is anger, isolation, anxiety, or sadness, it is not surprising that we will fall back on these comfortable albeit unproductive reactions.
But, the good news remains; we can always be better than those before us and around us.
“We want to talk about moving forward from this and doing so in a way that will provide you with understanding, compassion, and a way to continue to be better for yourself and your current relationships.”
Healing from those that hurt us
First and foremost, pain demands attention. Let’s say you’re going for a run and you slip and twist your ankle. You keep running, but feel the pain becoming worse, and really hindering your ability to run like you usually do. Would you continue your run as if nothing had happened, or would you cut it short, go home, ice, elevate, and explore seeking medical attention? (Ok, I’m talking majority of people here, not a Navarro cheerleader or Olympic runner). Our pain demands attention.
Even if your immediate reaction to pain is to keep going, you may need to slow down. Let’s translate this back to emotional pain. You have suffered a heartbreak, the loss of a friend, you’re mourning the loss of a loved one, or you’re breaking away from someone truly, truly toxic in your life. Are you continuing your life full-speed? Why? Why are we not allowing ourselves the time to honor our pain, to acknowledge our hurt?
When you find yourself in a time of pain and hurt, allow yourself time to slow down. Try the following, in no specific order:
- Honor your pain
- Reach out
- Take a Break
- Say it out loud
Honor the pain and hurt. Acknowledge it. Try not to find yourself mad or frustrated about how you are feeling. You are human, you come with feelings, and it is okay and normal.
Reach out to someone, anyone. A friend, a partner, a parent, a therapist, a colleague, etc. Confide in someone. You wouldn’t want a loved one to feel they are going through something alone, and your loved ones feel the same way about you.
Take a break. Slow the heck down! It’s okay to allow yourself time. If you find this to be a difficult thing to do, set a limit to how much time you are going to slow down. Really outline what it looks like to slow down; will you be cutting social commitments for a week or two, taking a mental health day from work, adding a few more self-care items over the next few weeks? Make it attainable and realistic to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the thought of slowing down.
Say it out loud! And then say it louder for the people in the back! I can’t tell you how many times I listen to clients work through their own pain and hurt, just given the safe space and acting as a trusted sounding board for them. Share your story with a trusted person, your pet, or just out loud to yourself. You’ll find your thoughts become far less jumbled and confusing when you are forced to say them out loud.
“You wouldn’t want a loved one to feel they are going through something alone, and your loved ones feel the same way about you.”
How to not hurt others when I feel hurt
Okay, so you’re healing from hurt, you’re putting all these wonderful things into action to be gentle and compassionate with yourself and work through hurt in a meaningful and healthy way, but you find yourself acting out towards others in your life. Maybe you find you have a short-temper with them, or have become snarky, or lack an understanding for things they are going through. Maybe you are simply lashing out at them. Regardless of the behavior, chances are you are becoming frustrated that something is bringing you so out of character and your behaviors aren’t really matching who you really are.
The change in these behaviors is going to come solely from you.
Even if you may be feeling like someone around you is frustrating, making poor decisions, or acting in a way that is evoking these destructive reactions from you, you can only control you.
As difficult as it may be, especially initially, it is so, so important to focus on your reactions, not others’ behavior. As much as we may want to, we cannot force someone to change. We cannot force someone to be better. What we can do is focus on our reactions to others. Do their behaviors warrant some boundaries, maybe some time spent apart? Is it best if we simply listen to what others are going through, and stop ourselves from trying to ‘fix’ or problem-solve? We are going through our own healing, and we cannot take on the healing and hurt from those around us.
So we have explored all of these things discussed above, but still find our behaviors to be a bit off. Time to reshape them. If you were taught destructive, dysfunctional, or avoidant behaviors, its time to change. Dump the excuses, look past how difficult and uncomfortable change can be. These behaviors are no longer serving you. Take a look at who you want to be, not who you have been. You are not pigeon-holed into being the same person forever. If needed, explore new role models and let them model behaviors for you. Immerse yourself into therapy. Find what you need to change these behaviors. We deserve better, and our loved ones deserve the best possible version of us.
But do I forgive the person that hurt me?
Your process for healing is just that; yours. If you don’t feel like you’re ready to forgive yet, that is okay. There are steps you can take before this.
Set the intention to forgive. Remind yourself that you are working towards forgiveness, and it is an individual process with highs and lows. Try not to let yourself feel that you are less than or a ‘bad person’ for not immediately forgiving the person or thing that hurt you.
It may help in your process to try to understand why someone has hurt you. Exploring this empathy and really looking at why can help us to forgive. For instance, we have left a toxic relationship in which the person was vastly codependent on us. Take a look at what that person has gone through; were they abandoned early on, are they acting on survival skills, are they working through their own hurts and traumas that life has presented them? Finding this deeper understanding for those that hurt us can help us to grow as well as help us to forgive quicker as we develop a true understanding.
Finally, remember that everyone is doing the best they can. If we are feeling hurt, chances are those around us have felt or are also feeling hurt. If we are lacking some positive behaviors or some good coping skills, chances are those around us are also lacking these, and searching for something that will help them to survive. Be gracious, kind, and compassionate with yourself through this process, but also to those around you through their own processes.
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