No One Can Hurt Except Ourselves. Stop Playing Victim.

NO ONE CAN HURT US. Read below. 👇🏽

Hurt people hurt people. People who are usually experiencing a negative emotion themselves is causing them to hurt on the inside. Some people can process that pain, but people often react to it before responding appropriately; lashing out at others, taking a higher or lower position relative to others, and sometimes saying unskillful things out of anger.

Having said this, no one can hurt us without our permission. Words can’t hurt us without our permission. Our thoughts do - uncontrolled thoughts.

In one of Buddha’s stories, he encounters an evil man who tried to verbally assault, ridicule and demean him. But then, without success, he gave up. When he asked the Buddha why he didn’t react, the Buddha responded, “If you offer me a gift and I do not respond, to whom does the gift belong?” People can offer us their words or opinions, it can’t hurt us unless we let it first land in our heart and mind.

Understand that words have different meanings to us. We are all trying our best to communicate these mysterious sensations in our bodies called emotions using an agreed-upon means of communication (language). Language is nuanced, complex, and not universal. We all have different meanings and value we place on certain words. Some words for us have more emotional charge than others because of what we’ve experienced in the past or connotations we have heard them used in.

Be aware and be conscious of what we allow our thoughts to tune into.