By Vicki Hughes     Posted April 1, 2013

I heard a Maroon 5 song on the radio with the lyrics, “It’s just a feeling that I had.” It made me think that for most of us, there’s no such things as “just” a feeling, because our feelings are the primary catalyst for our actions, and emotions move us.

There’s a difference between “my feelings” as in, “You hurt my feelings,” and having a feeling, such as a leading, or an implication or a feeling in our guts. But I’m about to tell you something you may not like to hear: I don’t believe anyone has the power to hurt my feelings without my cooperation.

Let me explain. People do things, and then I get to make decisions about what I say to myself about the things they do. That conversation will determine if my feelings are hurt or not. That decision is mine to make.

If it’s an unkind thing someone has done or a thoughtless thing, or a rude thing, one of the smartest things I can say to myself is, “This isn’t about me.” Their actions are about them. It set me free from a lot of unhappiness when I realized that other people would likely be acting the way they act no matter who was standing in my shoes. If it’s not about me, why would I want to let it hurt my feelings? People spend so little time thinking about me it’s stunning! They have a lot of other stuff going on, and I’m a footnote, at best, ninety-nine percent of the time. The other one percent, if they really are thinking about me, they are either my biggest fan or a complete idiot, so there’s no point getting my panties in a wad either way.

You could make a part time career out of being offended just by judging all the things other people do and say. I don’t recommend this career path, but lots of people seem to be on it. Here is the best thing I ever learned about judgement, from Jim Richard’s book, How To Stop The Pain: To judge something is to presume to know why someone has done or said something, and then to attach a motive to it.

“He did that because he thinks I’m stupid.”

“She said that to make me look bad.”

“He left me out to make a point.”

But here’s the rub. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t, but you really don’t know why. And if your believing you know people’s secret motives makes you feel like crap, that’s your decision.

Maybe they don’t think you’re stupid, and they just had to pee really bad, and felt rushed, so they completed the task quickly, with no intention of implying your inability to do it yourself. Maybe their comments got taken out of context, and didn’t have anything to do with you. Maybe you didn’t get invited because, oh, I don’t know, they forgot. Have you ever forgotten anything?

Ultimately, we get to decide, and place the emphasis and meaning on the events that play out for us. That is extremely good news. We get to write our own story. It can be, “People like me, I’m fun, life is good, and I’m glad I’m here,” or it can be, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I’m gonna go eat worms.”

© Vicki Hughes 2013