Did you hurt me or did I let myself get hurt?

Understand the need to take responsibility for your own feelings and leave the position of victim of circumstances.

Hello friends!

In my opinion, psychology should be in schools. In all schools. Not as extra support that students could count on, but in frequent classes. And in this sense, I do not mean to study the authors in depth, but rather to make it possible for the most practical knowledge of psychology to become accessible and used.

In our extroverted Western culture, good and evil come from outside. Salvation comes from outside just as trouble comes from outside. For example, it is easy to blame the government for economic problems while the subject himself does nothing to improve himself or does not leave home to look for a job.

In today’s text, I would like to show how a simple knowledge of psychology can help us to have and maintain more happiness and positive feelings.

Did you hurt me or did I let myself get hurt?

Bernard Shaw, a wonderful writer, once said, “People always blame circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. Those who do well in this world are the people who go out looking for circumstances and, if they don’t find them, create them”.

Here we could change the word circumstance for Fulano or Ciclano, husband or wife, mother or father, friend or acquaintance. We would then have:

“People always blame HIM/SHE for who they are. I do not believe that. It’s not the people who do well in this world who go looking for PEOPLE TO BLAME, but the people who take responsibility for their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.”

As a great thinker, defender of human rights and wife of the statesman Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, also said:

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

For example, if someone turns to you and says:

– “How stupid are you”

– “How stupid are you”

– “How ugly are you”

etc…

We have two things: the behavior of the other person who said something and the mental, emotional and behavioral response of the person who received the message. They are two different things.

If someone says to me – “How ugly you look” I can:

– Agree and accept and start to feel ugly;

– Disagree and not accept and continue to feel good about my appearance.

Therefore, only with our own consent can we leave the other person do us harm. However, what we learn on a daily basis is that the cause of feeling bad is the other or the other.

For example:

“He/she did this to me, so I feel bad”

“He/she told me that, so I’m sad / I’m angry / I’m terrible…”

What really sucks is letting other people influence our state so much. There is a space of choice between hearing something, understanding what was heard and believing or not in the past information. If someone turns to me and says:

“With you it’s ridiculous, you’re 5 meters tall” I’ll laugh because it’s a lie, right?

In the same way, when someone offends us, we don’t have to agree with their opinion, or even adopt it and make it a mantra, a constant repetition in our mind.

The question then is: how to change?

First, it is critical to recognize the process. Attributing blame to someone – for being angry, sad, afraid, feeling grounded, etc – is giving the power of choice to another person. Also, it’s a way of not taking responsibility for your own life.

So we have to understand the process. If we are well with ourselves, if we are developing our self-esteem in a satisfactory way, what another person says will only be another person’s opinion and nothing more.

Second, you need to start noticing how extremely fast this process of saying “you hurt me” is. In a matter of 10 seconds, we can go from an unfavorable external circumstance to a very negative psychic state.

Therefore, we must proceed to observe what happens between:

1) an unfavorable external circumstance (someone saying or doing something “against”);

2) the thought of agreeing or disagreeing with what was heard or accepted;

3) the negative feeling that arises from the thought

Many people say that realizing this is too complicated. Some cannot really realize that this is what happens inside their psyche and just think of a reflex arc:

– Something bad happened outside = I feel bad

If it is difficult for you to understand how this process takes place, it may be useful to go to therapy with a psychology professional.

And thirdly, it is very important to take responsibility for your choices. Evidently, many things are not our choices. Today, for example, it’s raining here and I really wish it wasn’t raining, since I’m going for a walk. However, to rain or not to rain is not my choice.

Now, for example, we have a choice if we are going to live with people who are positive and motivating or if we are going to live with people who are negative, pessimistic and critical.

Deep down, deep down, we are where we are because of past choices. The future can be very different. and it can be much better, as long as we start to realize that we have a responsibility to live our own lives and stop blaming other people for how we feel.

Conclusion

At the beginning I said that psychology should be taught in schools. I don’t see this scenario happening in the near future. What we can do to remedy this lack is to start studying psychology more that is useful in everyday life (what we call “practical tips” here on the site) and to go to therapy. If you are a parent or if you work directly with teaching other people, little tips like these today can help transform a life. Make good use of psychology! 🇧🇷

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