You Hurt My Feelings
Brace yourselves, cuz I might hurt your feelings on this one.
This accusation, “You hurt my feelings!” is a pet peeve of mine. I
just can’t stand it.
Here’s why:
Either I meant to hurt your feelings, so your accusation is a satisfying confirmation of my dastardly intentions —
Check!
— OR
I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, and your accusation makes your response my problem.
Which — sorry! — it isn’t.
Your feelings are actually your problem. But it gets better: Your feelings are a gift. To you. To me.
Because they are data.
And if you shove that valuable data off onto me and expect me to make sense of it — as if I could possibly know what’s going on inside you! If I did, I never would have said or done what hurt your feelings in the first place! — you are missing out on some super helpful emotion work.
That is, the work of mining your emotions. Which contain the answers to questions like
What is this feeling? Can I label it?
What does this feeling mean to me?
How does this feeling remind me of my past?
What am I afraid of here?
That is, lots of information about you.
Your feelings can also answer questions like
What might my feelings tell me about the person who “hurt” them?
Whom or what does that person remind me of from my past?
What does that person need to know about me and my experience right now (or later)?
What am I willing to do about this hurt?
Note that this list does not include “What do they need me to tell them about them?” You can’t know about them. Unless you’re a mind reader. All you can know about is you. Your garden. And you can choose to tell them about you and your experience or not.
Just remember: Choosing not to tell someone about you does not suddenly make your feelings their problem.
And it doesn’t make you a powerless victim. If you’re a teacher whose feelings are hurt — by a student, by a colleague, by a parent, by an administrator — you can get curious. You can look for how you’re being used. You can decide whether and how. You can be an effective developmental partner — that is, a logical magician. You can strengthen yourself and your relationship with the person who hurt you.
NOTE: Hurt feelings are different from hurt or endangered or overpowered bodies. My assumption here is that anyone who can say, “You hurt my feelings” is safe enough to do emotion work.
Mantra: Bless them, for they have hurt my feelings.