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Things To Consider Today By Leland Pulley

Dealing With Insults And Hurt Feelings

All of us will experience insults and hurt feelings at some time and in some way. We must learn to deal with these two things in appropriate ways. Here are some suggestions.

An insult occurs when another person or group says or does something that offends us or puts us down or makes fun of us in some way. Insults can devalue what we do or what we believe. They are aimed at our pride, reputation, and confidence. Insults can be aimed at us personally or our religion, nationality, race, or culture. Insults can be aimed at members of our family, church, community, or nation.

It is not always possible to stop insults, but you can control how you react to them. You must not allow them to get you irritated or mad so you retaliate with insults back to the other party. This requires that you have some self-control, maturity, and forgiveness. It should be noted that not all insults lead to hurt feelings.

Hurt feelings occur for several reasons. Some come from what people say to you, like through insults. Some come through the things people say about you to others in third party conversations. Sometimes hurt feelings occur when others react a certain way to you or treat you in a certain way. Hurt feelings can come through disappointment and sorrow too.

Several factors will lead to the possibility of more insults and hurt feelings. The more you deal with people or a larger variety of people or enter into different types of relationships, the more likely you will be exposed to insults and have some hurt feelings. The same is true for being in stressful or competitive situations. Being in undesirable or negative environments also increase the odds of experiencing insults and hurt feelings.

Here are some constructive ways to deal with both insults and hurt feelings.

• First recognize that they can come from strangers, neighbors, coworkers, customers, friends, or family members. The closer the person is to you or the stronger the relationship, the more vulnerable you are to be insulted or hurt. For example, if something goes wrong between my wife and I, it always bothers me more than a problem between me and one of our kids.
• You can always blame others for their insults and your hurt feelings, and in many cases others are partially the blame. Unfortunately you cannot control others. Therefore you have a responsibility to protect and defend yourself. This means toughen up. Don’t be so sensitive that you are so easily hurt by others. In other words, don’t leave yourself open for attacks that hurt you. You have a basic responsibility to arm yourself with confidence, self-esteem, security, positive attitudes, and love for self and others. Then offenses by others will have less impact on you.
• In most cases, you can always choose to ignore the other person or their words or actions. This strategy works in a lot of situations.
• You can get away from the other person or party. This is not always easy to do.
• Extend forgiveness to others, but remember their behavior so you are not as vulnerable in the future. In other words, learn from today’s experiences in order to do a better job of protecting yourself in the future.
• The best and strongest strategy is to go to the other party and seek clarification of what is going on and why. Gather more information. Allow the other person to clarify what he meant to say or do. What was his true intention? More details help to resolve differences. These efforts will help both of you to understand what cased the insult and why your feelings got hurt. If there was a misunderstanding, it can be cleared up. Negative feelings can replace positive ones.
• If the other party won’t accept your efforts to have some communication and understanding and reconciliation, then you have done your part for now. Move on with your life. Maybe later the other party will be more open to you, and then healing and bonding can occur between you.

The above recommendations do work, so utilize them in your life. Add some of your own.

Finally, here are some simple ways to decrease insults and hurt feelings.

• Don’t give them to others and then you’ll get less of them in return.
• Don’t do things that could encourage others to insult you or to hurt your feelings .
• Seek to be around people who don’t extend insults to you or resort to hurting your feelings.
• Even if you do these things, strengthen yourself, because you will still get a few insults and have hurt feelings at times.

The goal is not to eliminate all insults and hurt feelings. Instead you should strive to minimize their number and impact upon you. Learn how to deal with them the best you can. This is all any of us can do.

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