First of all we all fall in different ways, at different speeds and with different intensities. You might get your feelings hurt when someone forgets something about you, perhaps you hold a certain item or trait at a much higher esteem than another and their flippancy hurts you,  or something that you just knew in your heart of hearts (compared to your heart of lungs?) was a sure thing but didn’t pan out now your life is over… Someone once said “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” I tend to agree with the first half of that. We all suffer but some of us to different degrees than others. No matter what the circumstance some times wounds and scars that aren’t visible hurt the absolute worst and cause the most damage. I may be wrong (it’s happened in the past) but I don’t think you can adjust your sensitivity. If you are a person who takes everything to heart then that is a burden you have to learn to deal with if you are a person that can let any old thing roll off of your shoulder then I don’t like you or well I am incredibly envious of you. Also I am not a medical professional by no means and these findings are solely based off of my experiences as a human.

1- Deal with and manage the pain

   This is something that I myself am not good at. I suffer from severe manic depression, anxiety attacks, attention deficit disorder, atelophobia, PTSD, short-term memory loss and synesthesia. But that’s all. I’m a mess and admittedly I can be more than difficult to deal with sometimes because of that. One of the most useful tactics I’ve ever been taught in therapy was having a protocol set up for pain management.

      1 Establish why you are hurting. It is much easier to attack a target and defend against a foe when you know what it is. Once you can clearly identify what is causing you pain (i.e. Britney lied/cheated on/ or was mean/rude to me, I go out of my way for john and he couldn’t help me today, My mom is disappointed in me, Anna ignored me, Lyle does not feel the same way about me as I do for him…) make it as specific as possible. Once you can define your pain and it’s stimulus or stimuli as the case may be you can separate it from your self . Don’t let the pain become your identity. Express the pain but don’t let it become your story. 

      2 Determine a course of action both mentally and physically of what you are going to do to correct this and prevent it from happening again and then do it. Do your best to use this as a learning experience so you can determine what you yourself did that aided in you getting hurt and try to figure out how to ugh not do that again. Self awareness is so important and figuring out your course of action quickly based off of that awareness helps you not  dwell on the cause and to quickly move on to the solution. Goals are so important. Make the decision that this hurts…  I do not want to hurt… I want to do this. Then focus your energy on that thing and not on what’s causing you to hurt. Keep yourself in the present with what caused the pain behind you. Move forward, move on or if nothing else just move away from what it is that causing you to hurt and if you can’t move away geographically, then decide on an action that will fix your environment or the situation.  If you can not figure out how to immediately make your self happy do something that will make some one you care about happy even if it’s something small.  

      3 Again just act don’t dwell on the bad stuff. Once the decision is made get a move on.

3-Forgive the person who hurt you and yourself.

   Forgiveness is a way of tangibly letting the hurt go not a sign of weaknes or inferiority. Forgiving someone is saying good bye to the clutch inside of you and saying hello to the opportunity for joy and happiness to fill the void.  Telling your self it is okay and forgiving yourself will bring you to even higher level of self awareness. If you are like me you are scared to forgive some people because in truth the grudge and/or pain you have because of them is the only link and somehow psychologically we fear the absence of that connection between them. Most important thing to do in forgiving is to loose the role as the blameless victim, take up the responsibility of the rest of your life and move on.

4- Focus on your blessings and lessons

In most of these situations you come out with a new life lesson and a slightly different outlook on life. Maybe you learned who isn’t truly a friend, or that you can not handle certain situations alone, maybe you learned to never mix sleeping pills and laxatives. What ever the case may be use the experience to better yourself, your life and the lives of those around you. Ask yourself what am I grateful for now that I have gone through that. What am I more grateful for now that I have gone through that. What skills and tools do I have now that I went through that and how can I use them.

5-Do your up most to be as happy as possible at all times.

I don’t know if being hurt is a state-of-mind necessarily but it definitely impacts your state-of-mind. As such you should try your hardest to smile as much as you can and help others to do the same.

I suck at math don’t judge me.

I hope that you got something out of this and if not and you feel the need to inform me how horrible of a human I am you can always email me at TheDepartmentOfComplaints@gmail.com .

Be happy-

Noah