They say hurt people hurt people, but who started the cycle?
The short answer: people who lack self-awareness.
Take a moment to think about the very first time you felt emotional pain.
Many think of ex-romantic partners, ex-friends, and even as far back as early memories with primary caregivers/parents.
Perhaps you grew up in a household where mistakes were not allowed, or bodies were judged by size, hue, or features.
Perhaps friends you confided in threw your vulnerability back in your face to dominate, blackmail, or exploit you.
Perhaps a previous romantic partner lied, cheated, or neglected your needs.
When you scratch the surface, you might see that all the people who caused you hurt were hurt themselves, so who is going around hurting the OG hurters?
People who are not self-aware hurt people.
This is not because they are malicious (although some are). Unfortunately, a lot of formative experiences happen before most of us are self-aware and it’s hard not to have made others collateral damage on our journey.
Unfortunately, again, for most of us, self-awareness takes work. We have to actively choose the kind of people we want to be and how we’d like to show up in the world.
We have to “do the work”.
I think of it like this:
The center point of everything in my life is me.
Everything in my life starts and ends with me. My energy, positive or negative, shapes my world. What I put out, I get back. The only person I have control over is me.
The career path, physique, and relationships I have today are all influenced by(not entirely dependent on — because sh*t happens) decisions I made yesterday.
If I am not aware of myself, it is almost impossible for me to be aware of how my Self might affect others.
Create space to generate awareness around your fears, doubts, and insecurities that you likely project onto people and situations.
Self-awareness is a pillar of self-love.
To know yourself is to love yourself, and to love yourself is to love others. We preach “love your neighbor as yourself” while self-loathing.
We’re hurting others because we hate ourselves; struggling to reconcile conflicting narratives within and letting our emotions take us on a ride. There is an inner warfare that without self-awareness, we don’t even realize is happening. (#Cuetherapy …as usual).
If you let emotions yank you in any direction they choose in a moment, those around will also get emotionally yanked by association. It is unfair to them. This is how people get hurt.
When a frustrated parent yells at a toddler for playfully jumping all over their tired body spread out on the couch after a hard day’s work.
When a friend would rather win an argument than protect another’s secrets and vulnerabilities.
When a partner allows their dissatisfaction with the relationship to lead them straight into the arms of another, instead of sitting with uncomfortable feelings or having uncomfortable conversations.
There are many reasons the OG hurters hurt others: religious, cultural, and societal norms and pressures, ignorance, a wicked heart, selfish desires, self-preservation, fear, control, the list goes on but your name isn’t on it.
The good (or bad) news is that for the most part, no one is thinking about you. Most people are heads down with their own crap, they don’t even see your life experience. This means:
The hurt people cause you has nothing to do with you. Hurt people hurt people because they haven’t healed.
Last night, my friend confided in me that throughout high school and college, she had a severe eating disorder. Despite our friend group sharing early every meal together at the time, I had never noticed she wasn’t eating. There is a chance that we had spoken about diets and waistlines as teenage girls tend to do. There is a chance that I complimented her about looking her best while she was at her worst.
I would see her sit at the table with a tray full of food but never noticed her heading to the dining hall receptacle cart with her tray just as full. I had been too worried wondering what the girls at our table thought about the contents of my tray to focus on hers.
15 years, we actually see each other now.
We’ve all been hurt. We’ve likely all hurt people. We can all break the cycle.
Each day, we can try to see people a bit more; a colleague or a classmate, a stranger — or suitor — on the internet, a new friend, or an old one. We can always lift our heads up from whatever is going on in our lives, I promise, for whatever you’re going through, you are not the first and will not be the last AND someone else is going through worse. That person is sitting silently not too far from your reach.
In college, I was obsessed with Matthew West’s My Own Little World which recounts the journey from him focusing on his “own little world, population: me” to set his sights on his “bigger picture and greater purpose outside [his] own little world” starting with seeing a homeless widow he had passed by many times in the past. (Ah! So refreshing to listen to this again over a decade later. What a banger!)
Retreat from your ever-so-important and all-consuming world to look at your neighbors and give them a second of consideration, empathy, and grace.
Pause in the moment. Get to know yourself outside the moment. Love yourself, then love your neighbor as yourself.
Thank you for reading! If you’re wondering why I’ve been publishing less frequently, here’s why (still writing every day, just a lot in the drafts pile).
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