Can we be emotionally hurt by others? We often say “you hurt my feeling “, “I am angry because of what you do”, “ why you always make me do this… it makes me angry” and so on.
We always feel that other people have the power to change our emotions, but is it true? Or is it the representative of that person which is the part of us that trigger the negative or positive emotions?
Whenever we interact with someone, we are interacting with the representative of that person in our mind.
Let me explain it further with a few stories
Story 1
Mark and Steve, is the best friend from kinder garden and Mark have a bad seafood allergy. One day Steve becomes a millionaire and invites Mark to eat in the fine dining restaurant.
Mark is thrilled because his best friend becomes a millionaire, and Steve picks Mark up with Porsche. When they reach the restaurant, Mark realizes the place is very grand. All the visitors are wearing a suit, and he feels out of place because Steve never shared that they should wear a suit, but neither do Steve. Mark feels low self-esteem and thinks in his mind, “is Steve trying to put me down? He is not wearing the suit because he is a millionaire but I am not“.
After the restaurant manager greet them and show them their table, Steve said: “Mark, I will go to the washroom. Just enjoy the ambiance and wait for me”.
Mark notices that the waiter serving lobster, oyster, clamp, etc., and he is annoyed and thinks, “what is Steve trying to do? He should know that I have a seafood allergy”
The Waiter comes and serves Mark’s drink and passes the menu to him.
When Mark sees the menu, all of them are seafood and they are in a seafood fine dining restaurant. He is more annoyed and furious. He doubts Steve is his best friend. This is not what a best friend should do. All of this money and fame had ruined him, etc.
The interpretation of Steve inside Mark’s mind has changed from his best friend for years to a bad friend who is just trying to harm him.
Steve came back from the washroom, sit down, look at Mark and say “Mark I just buy over this restaurant and wanted to transform this seafood restaurant into a general fine dining restaurant. Because I know you love your beef and I believe in your taste bud, I want you to try our beef menu.”
The question here is who is the one that hurt Mark’s feeling? Is it part of Mark which represents Steve inside Mark’s mind?
Story 2
John and Lisa have been together for 5 years and it is a great happy relationship.
One day, Lisa is very angry with John because John always wet the whole toilet when he washes his face in the washbasin. Lisa said, “are you trying to test my patience? For all these years we are together. You always make me clean up the whole toilet after you wash your face “. John was startled and said “I am sorry since a young time this is how my mom teach me how to clean my face is to splash the whole face with the water” John is genuine that he is doing it because that is the only way he knows how to wash his face. While the brothers always bully Lisa by splashing water all over the toilet and can’t share with anyone because the parents always told her to clean up if she feels that it’s not up to her standards. The wet toilet annoyed her.
Here, is John making Lisa angry? or the part of Lisa that represents John in her mind?
Have you ever felt confused when a few people try to describe a person, each person will have a different representation of that same person ?
Person A says that person is an honest, truthful person
Person B says that person is a blunt and hurtful person
Person C says that person is funny and jovial person
Person D says that person is a liar and not trust worthy
The question here is which of the description about this person is the truth? Or all is just how the person who is saying it thinks or interprets about the person?
When we put our “self” into a story that we create ourselves, the think will get south easily.
Ask your self a question: if you hire a person to clean your house, you paid high amount and by the end of the cleaning there are certain area which are not as clean as your standard.
What will your first thought?
• Does the person doesn’t respect you and the job?
• The person is purposely wanting to make you angry?
How many reasons for this situation?
• The person having a bad day?
• Is something bad happening to the person?
• The person is unwell?
• The area that you feel that it’s not clean is due to natural effect ( the dust blown by the opposite construction work )
• Etc
But our brain naturally chooses the worst answer of thought and brings it up for the mind to dwell in. If we train our consciousnesses and awareness in regards on how reality really works that all is in our mind, is it others who actually the one that hurt us or is it the part of us that represent the person and the story that we created in our mind are hurting us?