Shift the Focus from Hurt to Intent
- Jacquline Dacres
- Apr 18, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 27, 2023
Rather than focusing on the hurt someone caused, focus on their intent.
Someone has hurt your feelings.
Maybe it was your boss, a family member, a friend, or a loved one. It could even have been a random stranger.
Real hurt generally comes from the people closest to us and it is particularly painful. I am from a family with three other siblings. I went to school. I worked. It was inevitable that at some point I would have my feelings hurt over something.
I had to learn to cope. I had to find a way to move forward and out of the pain, however small or large it might have been. I could not afford the time or energy to remain stuck in pain. The strategy that worked for me was to examine the intent of the person that caused me to feel pain.
Just because you had your feelings hurt by someone does not mean that the person meant to cause you pain. Sometimes it was the way that something was said or done that was painful.
An example When I was a high school Chemistry teacher, I made a student sitting at the front of the class switch seat with another student sitting at the back of the class.
The student sitting at the back was ‘weaker in Chemistry’ and was frequently distracted. I believed that putting her closer to the front would be better for her. And it was.
Years later, I was having a conversation with the student whom I had moved from the front of the class. She asked me if I remembered the time when she was ‘mad at me’.
Remember? What was she talking about? A student mad at me was almost impossible for me to comprehend. I was shocked.
I told her that I had no such memory. I asked her why she was ‘mad at me’. She explained that when I had moved her from the front of the class to the back, she had felt hurt about it.
She had selected the seat at the front on the first day of class and she did not like to sit at the back. Furthermore, I had not asked her if she wanted to move.
I explained that I had done the reshuffling with her out of concern for the ‘weaker’ student. I knew that putting her at the back of the class would have no impact on her learning as she was an extremely focused student.
I apologized and asked for her forgiveness. She laughed and said she had moved on from her hurt feelings a long time ago.
The bottom line is that I had caused the student to feel hurt. It was never my intention to do so.
Examine the intent So, if you are feeling hurt by someone, go over the incident in your mind. Then decide if the person causing the hurt had purposefully meant to cause pain. If you think that the intent was not to cause harm, move on.
Moving on means that you do either of two things. Or you could do both.
1) Go to the individual who caused the pain and let them know that you found their actions or words hurtful. Talking to the person who has caused the pain is especially useful. Sometimes they are unaware of how their actions made you feel.
Be mindful that the individual might be dismissive of your feelings when you try to explain how their actions made you feel. Some people will justify everything that they do.
2) Let go of the hurt feelings. This is not an easy thing to do, especially when you are sure that you have been wronged. But it is one of the best paths forward. You can let go of the hurt feelings or you can remain stuck in pain and stuck in the past.
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” – Herman Hesse
When the hurt is deliberate On closer examination of an act, you may find that someone close to you purposefully and intentionally caused you pain.
They knew that their actions would hurt you, but they did it anyway. Or they knew their words would cause you hurt, but they said it anyway. They are unapologetic about their actions or words.
Persons like these are best avoided or removed from your lives if possible.
The Reality I wish it was otherwise, but the reality is that people will hurt our feelings and we are going to hurt other people’s feelings as well. It is a part of life.
However, when we examine the intent — whether it was accidental or deliberate — we may find much to forgive and forget.
So, the next time someone hurt your feelings, think about their intent. Let that be the focus. Then decide what to do next.
© Jacquline Dacres 2023. All Rights Reserved
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