Have you heard the saying “Hurt people hurt people”? It sounds self-explanatory, but really it isn’t. We are all hurt people and most of the time we are unaware of our actions. We all have been hurt by someone that we’ve trusted, we all have had disappointments in work, sport or social situations, we all have had failures that were witnessed by others and we all have felt huge shame. When we’ve been hurt we often become reactive in passive or more aggressive ways, turning our pain outward and causing pain to someone who loves us. We do it to family members when we come home from a tough day and take out our pain on them by being short tempered or disciplining them for something innocuous.
Recently, I confessed some of my current struggles to an individual involved in my business. I did it to create connection and understanding. I felt vulnerable and uncomfortable being honest about my story and why it is so important in the history of my business. I stepped out of my comfort zone to build connection, and it backfired. Have you ever experienced this? Opening yourself up and feeling raw as you did? Or choosing to be open and honest with someone and it didn’t work out? In my attempt I was honest yet understanding about the other person’s story and concerns. Not only did it backfire, they ended up making a social post about it that made me sound like I had very little integrity. I pride myself on my integrity and on being upfront and honest. I try hard to understand others’ perspectives. Yet I was hurt and angry by their actions. I do fundamentally understand that it is how I choose to move forward from this experience that shows my character not how I respond in the moment.
How we show up isn’t something that most people will witness or give us accolades for.
The truth is, it would be easy to take that pain (or any pain I experience) and use it to shut down. In any situation in our lives, it is easy to choose to not be open with anyone else and be self-protective. When we self-protect, we avoid being seen by others. We hold back our truths, we become less trusting and we close our energy off from others. You can see this physically in people. Our bodies tighten up, our jaws clench and our eyes narrow. If we make it a habit of closing ourselves, we can experience pain in the joints, gut and mind. Over prolonged holding we disconnect from our bodies and we can feel numb or hollowness in various parts of our bodies. We can also experience physical pain (i.e., back pain, joint pain, unexplained injuries and dis-ease in the body).
If we don’t transform our pain and choose to walk through the enormous discomfort of failure, if we don’t give this discomfort a place to exist and move through us, we end up holding onto it. It gets stored in memories in our bodies and erupts in some future moment onto someone who wasn’t part of the original event. We blame others for how we feel and the events in our lives. We confabulate stories about them and ourselves, and those stories ravage our minds. When we are in the midst of telling those stories to ourselves and get interrupted we can project our anger and disappointment. This is one of my worst traits. I get caught in my mind, and stress builds. If my daughter interrupts my processing, I am short and reactive with her. I will get frustrated if she isn’t doing what I think she should be doing and I can be controlling and judgmental. That’s a clear sign I need to take some time to unpack my emotions and process so I don’t project my pain onto her.
We mutilate our pain by projecting it out onto others. We become suspicious of others’ motives and we choose to stay closed and not let people in; it just feels easier. We have less trust in ourselves because we’re unable to prevent painful events from happening. We project a distrust of others and we become closed to new experiences and people because we believe if they don’t have the same ideals and philosophies as us, they can’t be trusted. We conveniently ‘protect’ ourselves by keeping others away.
I have done it all: I’ve projected pain onto loved ones. I’ve walked into new work environments, the line-up at the grocery store and friends’ parties acting suspicious of new people. I finally reached a breaking point and I realized I was isolating myself and creating dismal first impressions. I realized I wanted more connection, and the only way I was going to make that happen was to change the way I was behaving. I choose to go toward the discomfort, to encourage myself to move through the pain and constantly challenge myself to get uncomfortable. In order to avoid projecting my pain onto other areas of my body or onto others, I work to move the energy, whatever it is. When I give myself the time to do that, I move through it with gentleness and I am kind and patient with myself as I process.
How do you project your pain onto others? How are you unkind to loved ones? How do you avoid your pain and how are you skillful at avoiding feeling pain?
These insights aren’t designed to make you critical of yourself. Please be kind and gentle as you learn more about yourself. It is self-education and when we know better, we do better.
With love
Noelle
P.S Mexico calling? I have 2 spots left as of today – they may fill up this weekend – if you’re keen to take a break from your life, unplug from your to-d0 lists and reconnect with feeling relaxed and having space to think, you will LOVE this retreat. Respond to this email for more details.
Read more Mindful Mondays HERE