How To Stop Being Hurt By Bad Stuff People Say About You

By realizing that there is no “you” in the first place and reforming your self-talk

Hurt is defined as any harm done to a person by the acts or omissions of another. Harm can be done to a person’s body, mind, reputation or property. In this article I focus on harm done to a person’s mind or reputation by what people say — and not harm done to body or property, which are harm done to real tangible things.

What happens when we feel hurt? We certainly feel pain mentally and our body reacts to the pain. The brain processes the pain of being separated from or rejected by others “in a manner that looks very similar to physical pain.” Your neurology in turn interact with and affects the rest of your body.

What leads to hurt to your “mind”? It is usually something what people say that triggers you. Their words (insults, mockery, sarcasm etc) somehow leads to you developing a negative emotion (mental pain) that wrecks havoc on your mind and body.

I believe that “mind” and “reputation” which is thought to be harmed does not really exist. They are but a created illusion— a self image that is idealized and propped up that you try to uphold to the world and when someone knocks it down or contradicts it with a comment, we feel hurt on behalf of. The only thing that is “you” is your sense of consciousness. Of knowing. Of being aware.

I would challenge you to point out what exactly is damaged by harm done by mere words. They are nothing but a created sense of self by you or others. We think that is real and exists.

And who does the hurting? It is our own subconscious thoughts and conscious self-talk. Our own assumptions and beliefs and evaluations of what was just said or done. Our feelings are secondary to our own thoughts. Hence negative thoughts lead to feelings that are negative, destructive and harmful.

There is no “hurt” inherent in the words alone. Unlike swords which would hurt everyone the same way, words do not hurt equally. Hence it is not the words that cause the actual hurt.

We notice these negative emotions rising — causing negative reactions in our mind and body — and we direct the cause to be that someone and their words/actions, and not our own thoughts and self-talk. Words may not harm us at all — unless we give them the ability and authority to. Then they are to our “mind” like swords are to our body.

In order to react productively to “harmful” words, we need to step back and realize there is no “mind” or “reputation” in the first place. There is only the “I” of awareness/consciousness/knowing/thinking that non-dualists speak of. And we should realize that it is our self-talk from a negative biased perspective (from past experiences or harmful beliefs) that analyses the situation or words to be harmful. To cause those words to not be harmful, one should simply change the perspective of the self-talk.

In order to react productively to “harmful” words, we need to step back and realize there is no “mind” or “reputation” in the first place

Otherwise the “hurt” would lead to negative feelings by our biased self-talk which would warp into destructive emotions like raging anger or bitter depression or jealousy to mask that feeling of hurt. These would cause havoc to our own bodies and to others and things around us. This is totally unnecessary and totally avoidable.

So the next time someone says something bad to or about you, ask yourself two things and answer them yourselves: 1. What should be hurt in this case? Nothing! 2. How can I analyse those words differently? By changing my beliefs and assumptions about them!

Peace is the emotional equilibrium we should be in the state of at any given moment. It is ourselves that disrupt this and it is totally in our hands to restore any disruption through the power of our own self-talk. Realize there is nothing to damage by words and that they cannot be damaging if you change your perspective of them!