Eighteen ~ Work it out!

Most people in this world are not mean horrible bullies who go out of their way to make another person's life miserable.  Most of the time people who have hurt or offended us don't even realize they have crushed us.  One great way of removing resentment and hatred towards a person is to TELL THEM they hurt us and ask them to apologize.  When we tell a person they have hurt us we need to do it in a way that gives them a chance to explain themselves and apologize. 

When we really try our best to see the situation in a better light and get past our anger, this tool can help.  Assuming we have a positive attitude towards life, we can follow 5 steps to help with the process:

1. Explain that you like them, or care for them.  "You know I love you and I now you wouldn't purposely try to hurt my feelings."
2. Try to come up with a reasonable explanation or rationalization for their behavior.  Judge what they did in a favorable way.  -  "I know you have been under a lot of stress lately."
3. Tell them how it made you feel when they did or said the hurtful moment.  - "I felt so embarrassed and incompetent, when I though you called me stupid in front of my friends."
4. Apologize for any part you played in the situation - "I'm sorry I called you that horrible name."
5. Offer a solution.  "I would appreciate it if you would apologize." or "Let's just forget about the entire incident, but please promise me that you will never try to willfully hurt me like that again." 

Pretending that hurtful words or actions don't bother us is silly.  These kinds of things will eat us up inside and make us sad or resentful and mean.  It is better to face our problems and solve them, than to erroneously claim they don't affect us.  If this happens to be someone that always hurts us and will more than likely continue to do so, it is probably best to remove that person from our lives.

Is there anyone that you are no longer on talking terms with, or who you harbor some resentment towards?  Call or visit that person TODAY and try to re-establish that relationship.  (as long as it isn't an ongoing hurtful person that is never going to change)

 Often times people don't even realize that they've hurt us, they are so caught up in their own world that they don't even see it.  Some people won't even remember the situation that you are referring to.  We can use this tool to help free us from hurts we recently felt, by dealing with them quickly, speaking with the person and not letting a little thing blow up into a major resentment.

When we confront people that have hurt us we are giving a positive message that they are valuable to us and we don't want the relationship to end but we don't want to be treated this way.  When done with love, telling someone they've hurt us can be a great act of compassion and love to our fellow human being.  We need to free ourselves of our past hurts, remove hatred, resentment and anger so that we can be caring, forgiving, loving, self confident and assertive people!



Warren, S. 2010, 7 Ancient Keys To Happiness, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform