How To Overcome Pain When Hurt By A Loved One

Step 1: Settle Down Your Emotions
The moment you are hurt, it’s important to immediately settle yourself down to prevent your emotions from overwhelming you.

The best way to do this is to remove yourself from the situation and take some time to calm your emotions and settle your mind. This period of separation will prevent you from jumping to rash conclusions about the situation. Maybe things aren’t as they seem to be. At the very least, this separation will help you to avoid further conflict that could potentially aggravate your emotions and the situation even more.

Step 2: Get Clear About What Exactly Happened

Now that you are alone, it’s important that you take time to reflect about the events that have transpired. Try to understand what exactly happened, what the person said or did, and also try and gain some insight into your own behavior, reactions and the emotions you are feeling in the moment. Ask yourself:

You’re feeling hurt because in one way or another your expectations weren’t realized. There’s nothing wrong with that, however it certainly doesn’t help if you have a set of unrealistic expectations that will rarely if ever be satisfied. In such instances you need to work through your expectations and bring them back to reality, otherwise it’s likely you’re always going to end up hurt.

Step 3: Resolve Your Feelings of Hurt
Having spent some time reflecting upon the situation, it’s now your moment to approach the other person in order to resolve your feelings of hurt and maybe even clarify possible misunderstandings. Just maybe you’re seeing things all wrong and completely misinterpreting events and circumstances. Just be open to the possibilities, and willing to fully understand the other person’s point of view and true intentions.

When approaching the other person about this situation, it’s important to always think before you speak. Don’t say things that you will regret later on. Have a good idea of what you will say in advance, and talk about these things openly and graciously by acknowledging your feelings, acknowledging the other person’s feelings, while discussing the events that transpired. It’s of course paramount that you do not become argumentative or aggressive. It’s important that you do not blame, judge or accuse the other person of doing or not doing something. Instead, be assertive, yet humble and focused on gaining clarification about the circumstances. The more information you have, the better insights you will gather.

Finally, don’t force the other person to make an apology. This will rarely work, and if it does, it won’t be genuine and is likely to create more friction between the two of you. Instead, talk things through and help the other person see things through your eyes. If throughout this process the other person apologizes, then accept their apology. You don’t have to forgive them, but accept that they are at the very least trying to right their wrongs.

Step 4: Time to Make a Decision
You should now have all the information you need to make a decision to either move past these circumstances and forgive the other person, or to let go of your relationship, or simply distance yourself from the other person. The decision you make will depend entirely on how much insight you gained from Step Three of this process. However, no matter what you choose to do, it’s important that you accept what has happened and allow your feelings of hurt fade away.

Suggestions for Overcoming Hurt
Feeling hurt is never an easy emotion to deal with. It’s painful and makes life seem absolutely miserable. However, there are certain things you can do that will help you to minimize your feelings of hurt, and hopefully lay down the groundwork to help you work through your emotions successfully.

Focus on Blessings
When you’re feeling hurt, it’s easy to blow things out of proportion and make certain of aspects of your life larger and more important then they should be. You get so caught up in your feelings of hurt that nothing else seems to matter. However, things do matter. And in fact, if you take time to think about it, there are probably a lot of things that matter, and a lot of things that you can be grateful for.

When feeling hurt, focus on your blessings , and on the things you are most grateful for. This will hopefully put your feelings into their proper context. It may even effectively help you re-prioritize and shift your focus onto more important and meaningful things that will bring you greater happiness and fulfillment in the long-run.

Focus on Your Strengths
In order to find direction during moments of hurt, it’s important that you remind yourself of your strengths and the things that have brought you to this point in your life. Your strengths might be your optimism, faith, patience, forgiveness, honesty, compassion, self-belief, etc. These are the things that will get you through this difficult time. In fact, these qualities can help you regain the confidence you need within yourself to move beyond this painful experience.

It’s therefore important to re-direct your energies away from what is hurting you, and instead focus-in on your strongest qualities that can help you get through this difficult situation successfully.

Let Go of Past Hurts
Are you holding onto things that hurt you years ago? Maybe you’re holding onto these hurts because you feel as though you were unjustly wronged in some way. However, what’s the point? Can you do anything about these hurts right here, right now? If you can’t, then what’s the point of holding onto them? Whatever happened in the past, happened in the past. Let go of these things and move on with your life. This of course doesn’t mean that you should forget everything. By all means don’t forget these important moments. Learn from them, and use them to make better decisions in the present, however don’t allow your past hurts to haunt and aggravate the life you’re living today.