We get wounded and hurt badly by several things that we allow to happen to us. It is not just the hurt itself, but what it does if it is not handled correctly that can become a bigger cause for concern for us. It will serve us well to reflect on our own past hurts, those that we have dealt with, and those that still remain unresolved.

Every hurt has the potential of being a transformative experience for us. It is the ego that immediately hurts, but if we were to reflect on why we hurt easily and why we continue holding on, not only will we unravel things about ourselves, but we will as start developing a perspective, helping us live in a lighter and happier manner.

We must remember that our hurt is emotional energy that we are carrying which needs expression and closure. When we don’t learn and grow from our wounds, we transfer them and strain other relationships we carry. We often see this in our daily interactions.

We get irritable and snap at people, not because they may have directly done something, but because we are transferring our hurt which we have not transformed.

We get aggressive and sometimes unreasonable, not because we need to, but because we have been hurt by someone treating us badly and we are transferring the hurt onto others.

We start becoming less accommodative and more assertive, not because we have reduced our love, but because something someone said or did in the past keeps getting transferred to our current behaviour.

We sometimes get into a cynical and self-pity mood, not because life has stopped offering opportunities, but because we have been hurt by circumstances, and rather than transforming our challenges, we transfer them to others by getting into a negative frame of mind.

We sometimes start living a very guarded life, not allowing people to come close to us, not because they are not trustworthy, but because someone in the past has broken our trust which we have not transformed, and therefore transfer it onto new relationships by keeping a distance.

When we are not appreciated, it hurts us, and rather than growing out of it, we transfer the hurt and start pointing out every small thing we do, making the other person feel pressured, obligated, and responsible, and over time losing the essence of the relationship.

Sometimes we get wounded deeply, we may not be able to prevent that. But we can prevent wounding others by our behaviour. We can only do this when we stop transferring our hurts and allow our hurts to transform us.

(Picture – 25th anniversary of Broken Chair installation, outside United Nations in Geneva)