No One Can Hurt You Without Your Permission (Mentally)

[Princess Arabia]

Physical pain is different. It's felt by the body and can be a result of someone's actions as in a hammer upside the head that you didn't ask for. The body responds to the blow and is felt through sensations. Mental pain, however, is the mind's interpretation of what was said or done. If, for example, someone says something to you that you thought was mean and inconsiderate, it is because you accepted it as true or took it personally. If someone says, 'you're a piece of shit', and you felt hurt by that statement, the person didn't hurt you, you felt hurt. There's a big difference. 

People cannot make you feel anything, those feelings are generated within the body and it's because of how the mind interpreted the statement that caused that bodily response. One can easily interpret that, or any derogatory statement that was directed towards them, differently. One can say that the person is just having a bad day and ignore it which would then generate a different feeling response. That's just an example and can be extrapolated into any verbal intended insult or statement. 

Words cannot hurt, it's the interpretation of the words that makes the difference and the relationship one has with the person.

If a stranger at the bus stop randomly turned to you and said 'you're a piece of shit', and walked away, you'd think they were insane and laugh at them. Why? Because of the relationship you have with them. None - but impersonal and irrelevant to your own ideas and thoughts about yourself. If you got upset and felt hurt, however, it would be because of your own making and thoughts and ideas about the strangers relationship to you where you might have said that no one should talk to me in that way regardless of who they are. It's all made up and all depends on the relationship you have with yourself. So therefore, no one can mentally hurt you unless you gave it the OK.

Your feelings are generated by you, not someone else; so literally you're making yourself feel the hurt. This is not to say you don't feel hurt because of what someone says or does, it's to show that they didn't hurt you, you felt hurt because of the relationship you have with them in the mind. Your mother could have said the same thing, but because in your mind you have a special kind of relationship with your mother so it can feel worse than when a stranger says the same thing. That shows it's not in the words, but the person saying it and how you see yourself and the relationship you have with the person.

 

Edited yesterday at 02:44 PM by Princess Arabia

[Rishabh R]

In meditations by Marcus Aurelius opens the book with similar passage-- When you wake up in the morning tell yourself that people you will meet would be dishonest, muddling etc. because they can't see the good from the bad but I have seen the nature of good so they can't hurt me.

By the way it is a nice perspective that no matter what others say to you it is your's permission weather to take it personally or not.

I think that this can be done by separation of responsibility. Like for example- I am responsible for my actions and other's are responsible for their actions.

Edited yesterday at 03:09 PM by Rishabh R

[Princess Arabia]

9 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

By the way it is a nice perspective that no matter what others say to you it is your's permission weather to take it personally or not.

Yes, but more importantly, is to not believing that they hurt you but to recognize that YOU felt hurt; if you did. This opens up the space for one interested in self-improvement to look into why they felt the hurt and to see what's inside of them that needs to be looked at, if any. Giving yourself permission to take it personally or not still says it's up to you to decide if they were the one that hurt you or not. It's still giving you the option and not allowing for the understanding of what it really means to feel hurt.

[Sugarcoat]

Solid post

In my experience one thing to help not to feel offended by others is to have your own standard in your mind for yourself that you follow. So you asses yourself and you are the one who has the most important opinion, not what someone else thinks

And self awareness ties to this. So if you’re self aware enough nobody can surprise you with saying something they noticed about you, because you’re already aware of it. They can only feed the self image you already have . Or not, because you already feed it yourself

Edited yesterday at 03:30 PM by Sugarcoat

[Princess Arabia]

6 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Solid post

In my experience one thing to help not to feel offended by others is to have your own standard in your mind for yourself that you follow. So you asses yourself and you are the one who has the most important opinion, not what someone else thinks

Nice, but to me, this is still an avoidance to recognize that even if one feels hurt by another, it wasn't the person that did that. It's not really about standing your ground, but to see through it and recognize how hurt feelings are generated - through interpretation which no one can do for you and you're solely responsible for. It's not to say you won't feel hurt by them, but maybe other feelings like say resentment, hate or detest won't emerge also. One may only feel hurt in the moment and the feeling passes though easier and quicker because they realize what happened without it's remnants like hate, fear and resentment because of that hurt. Hope that was clear.

Edited yesterday at 03:35 PM by Princess Arabia

[Davino]

There's a lot of truth to this post but I find the integration of such points quite difficult. From 0 to 100% how much have you embodied this post @Princess Arabia?

If other people were to abuse me mentally all the time, I don't think any mental interpretation awareness could help me out of feeling bad. Is this considered in your post or am I being too picky?

Overall, I agree that the interpration our mind plays in being hurt is very high. Particularly on carrying a grudge while life moves on.

Edited yesterday at 03:38 PM by Davino

[Sugarcoat]

2 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Nice, but to me, this is still an avoidance to recognize that even if one feels hurt by another, it wasn't the person that did that. It's not really about standing your ground, but to see through it and recognize how hurt feelings are generated - through interpretation which no one can do for you and you're solely responsible for. It's not to say you won't feel hurt by them, but maybe other feelings like say resentment, hate or detest won't emerge also. One may only feel hurt in the moment and tge feeling passes though easier without it's remnants. Hope that was clear.

It was very clear. I agree for the most part. I don’t know how to counter the first part of what you said, so I’ll let it be

[Sugarcoat]

@DavinoLet’s say a severe case you get bullied in school by several people. I do believe that what they say can only hurt you if you somehow are insecure in it yourself, so for example if they point out your physical appearance, if you have no problem with how you look it won’t hurt you. But what can happen though is you can get very angry and irritated at the mistreatment and feel sad and exhausted because your boundaries are being overstepped and you feel unsafe and not respected. But that’s not really a matter of taking what they say personally, you’re just reacting at the mistreatment as a whole, not feeling hurt by particular things they say. That is reasonable and human. 

Edited yesterday at 03:44 PM by Sugarcoat

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Davino said:

There's a lot of truth to this post but I find the integration of such points quite difficult. From 0 to 100% how much have you embodied this post 

I would say 80%. The other 20% is the processing time it takes to really integrate it because of who the person was. An example is my brother and I had a little quarrel the other day and he said somethings I didn't like. I felt the emotions right away, but 5mins or so later I gave myself the time to process the feelings and then allowed for them to transform. Not by force but by allowing the energy to flow freely and by also incorporating thoughts that made for a better feeling. Feelings of relief. Example, he's been hurt himself, he feels frustrated by whatever, i'm feeling this way because of disappointment etc. Within no time, feelings of apathy took over my relationship to the encounter and i felt normal again. He called the next day and he explained why he blew off the handle, I listened with no judgements and the conversation ended with him and i back on good terms. 

I have many more stories to illustrate my integration, but that was the most recent.

11 minutes ago, Davino said:

If other people were to abuse me mentally all the time, I don't think any mental trick could help me out of feeling bad. Is this considered in your post or am I being too picky?

It's not a mental trick but what's actually the case. The actual case also is that one feels badly, but as I said in my post, it was a matter of interpretation and not the words itself. The difference I'm trying to point to is going around saying that so and so hurt me is way more poisonous than the recognition that the hurt came from you and your thoughts and interpretations and may result in one feeling less and less hurt if processed correctly.

[Princess Arabia]

22 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Let’s say a severe case you get bullied in school by several people. I do believe that what they say can only hurt you if you somehow are insecure in it yourself, so for example if they point out your physical appearance, if you have no problem with how you look it won’t hurt you.

This is a very delicate subject because kids process things differently than adults and have a harder time seeing through the reality of the situation. That's why there's so many trauma responses and memories of childhood abuse that's so hard to get rid of or not affect one in adulthood. What I'm saying isn't easy for a child to understand. A child isn't processing the fact that they have no problems with how they look so I'm not going to feel hurt. Not even an adult will process that in the immediacy of what's occurring. I still have a time period where I have to consciously process it.

I made the post for awareness of the notion that people hurt you in the hopes that us adults can see how hurt is felt and to not let the poisonous remnants like i mentioned linger on and on and flood into other areas of our lives. I still see how people are saying such and such hurt me from things that happened a long time ago and maybe if this information is understood, those statements will be eradicated from one's vocabulary and better relations may be formed with oneself and others. 

Edited yesterday at 04:06 PM by Princess Arabia

[Exystem]

First, I'd question the distinction between physical and mental pain. What if physical pain ist just the escalated version of surpressed/repressed mental pain, another (even more clear) invitation of the universe for you to become conscious of the truth, to come back into alignment with it?
Second, it's easy to say for someone who has a solid self-worth due to upbringing. Would you tell that to a molested, neglected child? Imagine telling someone with a genetic disfunction who has chronic pain since childhood that it's his choice to feel good in his body, he just needs to take ownership and should go for sports, healthy nutrition and enough sleep.

[Exystem]

Maybe we sometimes underestimate our own role in helping people feel loved. Maybe we want to tell everyone he or she is fully responsible for him/herself because we are too comfortable and disconnected to show them some of our love, because we don't want to admit that it is not our own strong free will that made us feel good but external factors like luck, which now is our own responsibility to share fairly. "The wise one sees everyone as children." - Maybe we should take more responsibility for the state of the world and when someone else is suffering, it is a remindet for us to be more loving <3

[Princess Arabia]

7 minutes ago, Exystem said:

First, I'd question the distinction between physical and mental pain. What if physical pain ist just the escalated version of surpressed/repressed mental pain, another (even more clear) invitation of the universe for you to become conscious of the truth, to come back into alignment with it?

Someone smacking me with a broomstick and i feel the pain from that I doubt is the Universe trying to make me conscious if the truth that I need to come back to alignment with. That's just going to be felt by the body. There's no existential difference between physical and mental pain; but as the post is in the self-improvement section, it's more about the practicality of it.

 

12 minutes ago, Exystem said:

Would you tell that to a molested, neglected child? Imagine telling someone with a genetic disfunction who has chronic pain since childhood that it's his choice to feel good in his body, he just needs to take ownership and should go for sports, healthy nutrition and enough sleep.

You're right and i explained this in a response I made to Sugarcoat earlier that it's difficult for a child to even understand this. My post is not a suggestion to bypass the feelings and that one should own and be responsible for their feelings but one of awareness on trying to explain how no one can actually make you feel a feeling. I believe that when this is understood other destructive feelings can be kept at bay when dealing with the situation at hand.

[Princess Arabia]

22 minutes ago, Exystem said:

Maybe we sometimes underestimate our own role in helping people feel loved. Maybe we want to tell everyone he or she is fully responsible for him/herself because we are too comfortable and disconnected to show them some of our love, because we don't want to admit that it is not our own strong free will that made us feel good but external factors like luck, which now is our own responsibility to share fairly. "The wise one sees everyone as children." - Maybe we should take more responsibility for the state of the world and when someone else is suffering, it is a remindet for us to be more loving <3

Yes, I agree but this doesn't take away from the purpose of the post. You have put your own meaning to what I was trying to communicate and it's purpose and gave your own meaning to it. Not to undermine your statements because you have a point, but your comments have also shown how interpretations can bring about feelings that were generated from within. Someone else might see the post from a different perspective, feel differently and therefore respond in a way more aligned with those feelings. Neither is right or wrong. This just, to me, illustrates what the post is saying, not to say one needs to take responsibility for anything.

Edited 23 hours ago by Princess Arabia

[Yimpa]

18 minutes ago, Princess Arabia said:

Someone smacking me with a broomstick and i feel the pain from that I doubt is the Universe trying to make me conscious if the truth that I need to come back to alignment with.

I just smacked a fly a few minutes after reading this.

goes to show how powerful Mind is  

Now I murdered two of them.

Edited 23 hours ago by Yimpa

[Princess Arabia]

24 minutes ago, Exystem said:

Imagine telling someone with a genetic disfunction who has chronic pain since childhood that it's his choice to feel good in his body,

I specifically mentioned that I was speaking about mental abuse, and mental pain. Whether there isn't an existential difference or not is not the issue at hand that's really being discussed.

[Davino]

1 hour ago, Sugarcoat said:

Let’s say a severe case you get bullied in school by several people. I do believe that what they say can only hurt you if you somehow are insecure in it yourself, so for example if they point out your physical appearance, if you have no problem with how you look it won’t hurt you. But what can happen though is you can get very angry and irritated at the mistreatment and feel sad and exhausted because your boundaries are being overstepped and you feel unsafe and not respected. But that’s not really a matter of taking what they say personally, you’re just reacting at the mistreatment as a whole, not feeling hurt by particular things they say. That is reasonable and human. 

Yes, I now see that subtle distinction. It's interesting to frame it that way were you're not buying into what they say but into the unfair overall treatment, although also that is again an interpretation if we were to take Princess' ideas to the extreme.

[Davino]

1 hour ago, Princess Arabia said:

The difference I'm trying to point to is going around saying that so and so hurt me is way more poisonous than the recognition that the hurt came from you and your thoughts and interpretations and may result in one feeling less and less hurt if processed correctly.

That's a powerful point.

I'm trying to frame it properly and realistically. I like how your implementation came from letting feelings flow rather than disconnecting from them.

[Sugarcoat]

1 minute ago, Davino said:

Yes, I now see that subtle distinction. It's interesting to frame it that way were you're not buying into what they say but into the unfair overall treatment, although also that is again an interpretation if we were to take Princess' ideas to the extreme.

I was going to edit my post to say that it’s also in a way an interpretation, so yes I agree! 

[Princess Arabia]

1 minute ago, Davino said:

That's a powerful point.

I'm trying to frame it properly and realistically. I like how your implementation came from letting feelings flow rather than disconnecting from them.

Yes, I think I'm being misunderstood thinking I'm suggesting to not feel hurt or that one needs to take responsibility for other's words or actions or that it's your fault for feeling hurt. That's why I try to put in examples and lengthy explanations so it's better understood what I'm saying.