Make It Actionable

As I say,

I cringe

when I hear “You hurt my feelings.”

Here’s why. (I won’t go into it again here.)

But what if your feelings are hurt? What do you do with them? Deny them? Repress them? For my sake?

Absolutely not!

Hurt feelings are, like all other emotions, important data. If you want me, the person who hurt you, to work through the data efficiently towards an outcome of learning and growth, then make the data actionable. Tell me, in effect, what I did wrong and what I can do differently.

“When you interrupted me just then, I felt swiped left. Utterly dismissed and devalued. Please wait until I’ve finished speaking.” (Of course, you could channel Vice President Kamala Harris and just say, “I’m speaking.”)

“Please don’t touch my hair. Please never touch my body without my permission.” (I am a white person, so I don’t know how difficult it is to say this. If you’re Kamala Harris, maybe not so difficult. If you’re not, then a different variation might work better.)

“I feel like you two are laughing at me. It feels terrible to feel excluded like that.” (This is one I use at home when I feel as though members of my family are bonding at my expense. Fortunately, they don’t consciously want to exclude me, and they don’t want to hurt me. So this statement helps re-balance me.)

Of course, making it actionable might feel like

making yourself vulnerable.

Which it is.

And which helps put “You hurt my feelings” into useful (for me) perspective. “You hurt my feelings” turns vulnerability into power. It turns feeling one-down into feeling one-up. Because you haven’t been specific and haven’t taught the person who has hurt you what they can do to repair, the relationship remains unbalanced.

You might be safe in that imbalance, but the relationship will not strengthen.

And I’m all about strengthening relationships.

Especially if you’re a developmental partner, like a parent or teacher. Where you automatically have power. Or if you’re working with a peer, where the power is more equitably distributed. If you’re feeling hurt in a constitutionally unbalanced power relationship — hurt by your boss, a parent, a teacher, a principal, a senior colleague, a board member — your response might require more strategy.

Like making the flip. This way. Or that way.

Like doing emotion work.

Like chasing down the chicken from hell.

Like wondering how your expectations are driving your perceptions.

Like sitting with it.

Point being:

Yay for hurt feelings!! Yay for emotional and relational data!! Yay for strengthening relationships!!