Disclaimer: This is an example of a student written essay.
Click here for sample essays written by our professional writers.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com.

How To Deal With Hurt Feelings Philosophy Essay

Paper Type: Free Essay Subject: Philosophy
Wordcount: 5425 words Published: 1st Jan 2015

Reference this

People who wish to live in this world with any degree of inner peace must learn how to deal with hurt feelings. It is so easy for the ego to take offense when people rub us the wrong way. Mastery of the feelings and emotions is at the heart of inner realization, a basic of spiritual training. Many persons think that they should pity themselves when criticized, and that sensitiveness brings a little relief. However, as we pity our self and feel hurt, the feeling becomes more intensified. An oversensitive person frequently suffers in vain; generally nobody gets any idea that he has a grievance, much less what it is. So these feelings further hurt a person in self-created isolation. Nothing is accomplished by silently brooding over some perceived offense. It is best to remove by self-mastery the cause that produces such sensitiveness.

Get Help With Your Essay

If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help!

Essay Writing Service

We cannot go through life expecting everyone to be careful with us. As often as we feel hurt by someone, let our thought be, “No matter. Let me give love, let me give understanding.” Constant practice makes for continuous progress. Let us be happy that God is giving an opportunity to rise above negative feelings, opportunity to express love and kindness toward someone who has misbehaved toward us. When we get affected by feelings of hurt, which means we are thinking of our self. Let us not always think of own self and give other person benefit of doubt. It may be that other person has not understood us properly. It could also be that he has not hurt us intentionally. It may also be that he is not fully aware of entire situation. Sometimes, our perception about any issue varies with the other person. That effort on our part to understand other person and to look from his perspective will help to eliminate our hurt feelings.

Whenever some one behaves rudely in a thoughtless behavior with us, we can either reiterate in the same manner or remain more thoughtful ourselves. If we behave in an irresponsible manner, with a mean remark without control on our tongue, it will only affect us. If we continue with this habit, our inner self will never remain close to true feeling of love in the heart. We may not be able to come close to God and feel sense of belonging with him, unless we work and make concerted efforts to recognize the problems and not to spoil our inner condition. Problems may be for our benefit. It could be divine gift to mankind. The divine law which works ultimately for our benefit, draws together souls of diverse personalities and temperaments and puts them in situations that reveal their weaknesses, so that they have the opportunity to see and deal with their mental and spiritual defects and be healed of them. Divine perfection is already within our soul; but we have to work to realize and manifest it.

If a person is of a dominating nature, other person dealing with him or her feels hurt and increasingly entrapped in the role of a weak and dependent person. The feeling of hurt makes a person dysfunctional and not able to perform to the best of his or her capability. When we find other person under performing, this may be for the reason that we do not allow him or her enough room to work up to his or her potential. This situation arise both in our work situation as also in family.

Some staff becomes dysfunctional and not able to work to the best of their capabilities as they feel hurt and depressed by the way their seniors deal with them. It is practice with some people to find fault with their juniors. It takes away happiness and confidence level comes down. We have to be careful that our attitude do not create problems for other person and make him or her depressed and unhappy. It is difficult to notice such feelings of hurt inflicted on others; if we are not sensitive to the feelings of other person. If we develop faith in goodness of God, it will shed our tendency to hurt other person. Our dealing with other person will flow out of love and concern. Even if other person have not performed well or fails to accomplish the work as per our direction, these deficiencies could be expressed with a feeling of bringing improvement in them. If we cannot do anything good to a person, at least not make him or her depressed and unhappy.

The personal life suffers if words spoken and harsh attitude hurts other family members. The tendency to find fault the way our spouse, children and siblings does any job or attends household work often creates pain and suffering in the relation. People feel that by criticizing will bring some positive improvement in other person. While criticizing at times may be normal, but if we are in the habit of continuously making other family members feel low, it does tremendous damage to the confidence of other person. It is difficult to be aware about the agony and pain which certain harsh words or dominating nature causes to other person. Under these conditions, the atmosphere in the family remains tense, and no one feels free to express feelings openly.

To demand and expect too much is to let down and hurt that person, if despite best efforts that person is not able to satisfy these demands. This often happens in the close relations, friends and family, when they demand attention, time, money and other possessions which may be difficult to be offered, and painful to refuse. As children, let us ensure that we are not too demanding for our parents to make them uncomfortable. Same is case with any other close relation. This demanding nature often spoils married relation, as one of the partners often expects and demands too much attention and comforts from other. It is often preferred not to discuss and share these feelings with a third person to avoid any further complications in the family relation. All these feelings remain hidden and get accumulated. This is the reason why most family and other close relations these days result in lot of pain and mental agony requiring help of psychiatrists. People are not sensitive to notice accumulation of such hurt feelings in other person.

Our attitude may often become a source of unhappiness in the family. Each family member ought to feel free to express his or her views, and do not expect parents and children to think and act in a manner we feel appropriate. Often, people treat children in a way so as to expect them to develop in life as them deem fit. Each person is different in his or her likes, behavior and approach to life. We have to act just like trustee while dealing with children and not to force our attitudes on them. Try to imbibe good qualities in them while helping them to evolve on their own. Family members often avoid coming together and feel intimate due to stubborn attitude. A close and loving family is the most important means to remain happy in life. Without knowing, our demanding nature may be cause for unhappiness. We miss the happy moments in life by holding to our ego and demands.

A close inner connection comes when individual attributes like our ego, our superiority, our knowledge does not come as a stumbling block while dealing with others. The inner feeling recognize one to one relation; it believes in oneness of all people; soul does not know external differentials; position and status in society are external to inner consciousness. We feel hurt sometimes by some one whom we love or who loves us. It is not a good emotional feeling, but we often allow these feelings to magnify into bitterness. This declines our capacity to love. Bitterness is something which generates ill feeling towards others. People often become vindictive when felt hurt. It does much harm to our inner self.

We may feel hurt and stressful due to various factors; attitude is partly responsible in accumulating these feelings. Circumstances outside may not be favorable and it may make us feel stressful. Our boss, relations, friends or spouse may be behaving in a manner making us feel tense. Still we could try to reduce the negative impact of such tendencies for our own welfare and avoid getting hurt. It is within control of each individual. Engage mind to develop positive thinking by ignoring various irritants as long they do not affect drastically your life. If boss, friend or spouse does not talk nicely, we may feel hurt and spoil inner peace or alternatively choose to ignore and be good to other person. The choice lies with us and it is good for inner calmness to ignore such irritants and go ahead with life in peace and with less turbulence. It may not be always that people will respect and like you. You may face lot of criticism from other person. It is the habit with most people to criticize others by showing their superiority and knowledge. Let us not react at each and every incident.

Do introspect and find whether you can modify your behavior a bit to help accommodate other person’s viewpoint. The need is to feel calm and not resentful for each and every criticism and angry outbursts towards us. Every time we face such distractions, reassure yourself that these emotions ought not to spoil inner calmness. This is a sign of self- improvement and more in tune with spirit as discussed in subsequent chapters. Consider these changes for your own benefit.

People face problems in a relation. It is not true only in married life but in other relations with parents, close relatives and friends. Some people are found to ignore and forgive all the small things, and do not allow inner condition to spoil. They are happier in dealing with any relation. We have to think whether all the negative feelings are worth accumulating, and are we not better placed by ignoring day to day irritants.

Finding fault

Sub-Title: How to Control your anger

Descriptive: Anger is one of the worst contributing factors that spoil human relationship. We feel angry when something happens contrary to what we had expected.

Key Words: Emotions, Mind, Superiority complex, ego

Finding fault is common with most people. The fault could be with surroundings, system, policies, government or any other thing. It could be with the way other person talks or the manner in which some task is accomplished. Finding fault do not make things better. The moment we find fault with others, they become defensive. They will provide lot of reasons for justifying their approach. It leads to arguments and counter arguments. In turn, other person may also point fault with us. People get into the habit of putting blame on others without trying to resolve the problem. Finding fault prompts us to avoid taking responsibility. Do communicate your concerns without finding fault with other person; offer help to improve the way things are accomplished; suggest alternative approach, if any to accomplish a particular task.

The manner to accomplish a particular task varies from individual to individual. We may observe that our subordinate, colleague or spouse are not able to perform some role effectively in a manner we would have liked it. The capacity of a person to accomplish any work depends on his/ her overall knowledge and interest in a particular task. If we often keep on complaining and find fault, it will either create inferiority complex or resentment in other person. To criticize or find fault makes things much worse both for self and for the other person. The words spoken ought to be modified to achieve our purpose, but at the same time it needs not to be directed to humiliate or find fault with other person. All these small things if adopted in life works wonders for imparting happiness and regaining self esteem of other person. Your words could either make somebody hurt or happy. We have not to spend any thing in changing our attitude but it will make great difference to other person. The entire atmosphere will be charged with happiness and we will feel happy vibes from other person. It makes our inner condition good and filled with happiness.

Sometimes, people get into habit of criticizing or fault finding others without any genuine reason. It may be just for pampering personal ego. The atmosphere gets spoiled with this attitude. Much of the trouble in this world comes due to personal ego. Someone wealthy or on high position in job, feels important and often treats others not with equal respect. It starts with fault finding. It needs strong moral character for the person well placed to treat people below him with love and respect. This is what is expected of a person who is in tune with spirituality. He will feel less impacted by his higher status and much in tune with others; love will flow from him.

Married couples spend considerable time together and often get into the habit of finding fault with each other. They have to perform various tasks together towards maintenance of home, care of children, meeting financial needs and fulfilling responsibility towards others. They develop differences on various issues and resort to anger, argument and fault finding. It needs reality check periodically by internal introspection to satisfy that mine behavior do not bring any ill feeling to other person. All these things are known to us but the need is to put it in our behavior and make it part of personality refinement. If we are able to connect our self emotionally with our spouse, we will automatically find no place for finding fault.

Taking responsibility of your self

Descriptive: In the name of being tactful, we try to suppress full truth to show our superiority and devoid other person from a rightful claim.

Key Words: Tactful, truth, Manipulative, straight-forward

Attitudes of people differ; some are responsible while others avoid it. People who are responsible when faced with difficult situation meet the challenges, and feel less panicky. Being responsible makes them to remain calm and courageous unmindful of pain and aches that come with the day to day problems. They are more proactive in dealing with problems and plan well to meet any challenges. These people do not need to rush at the last minute. Responsible people are well organized, more focused and efficient to overcome the problems with less of pain. A person who acts in a responsible manner does not blame family for his personal problem. This makes the atmosphere at home more congenial even in the face of difficult situation. Similarly, person who acts with responsibility works hard to meet challenges at the professional level. These people avoid putting blame on others and do not like to pass buck on some one else.

A person acts in a responsible manner, if he is honest and man of integrity. Such people feel that solution to the problems have to be sought by them, and nobody else will help to sort the problem without their full involvement. They do not like to put burden on others. These people develop more immune system and live longer and remain happy in a productive manner. They feel encouraged from past successes to meet any difficult challenges. These attributes are desirable to remain happy and to make all others happy.

In contrast, people often do not take personal responsibility and put the blame on some body else for their problems. It is the general tendency with so many people to react immediately when faced with some difficult situation by pointing out blame on some one else. We observe such attitude with most of the people in a work situation. They feel panicky with the problem and make others stressful, thereby losing focus of the main issue. Much of the time is spent to find fault with the system, people and processes. If some work is not completed properly, they will prefer to fix responsibility on juniors or push the problem for sorting out by seniors. At home, they feel, it is the responsibility of their family members. They blame bad upbringing, lack of opportunity, inadequate education, bad society, bad job, etc. Happy attitude block some of pain, while constant complaining amplifies pain harmfully and unnecessarily. People who do not own responsibility suffer with pain and worry as they remain dependent entirely on some body else to sort their problem.

  

Responsible people eat well, exercise frequently, treat others with respect, interact well in social settings, have good friends, and become exemplary role models for others to imitate. They quickly recover from sad situations, move on, and become productive once again. These individuals learn from the mistakes made by others, avoid trial and error approach to solve the problem. They do take calculated risks and make mistakes, but they learn to not constantly repeat previous errors and oversights. They don’t continue to do the things that failed yesterday and foolishly expect things to get better tomorrow. When traditional bad habits are not working well, people who chose to become happy search for new lifestyle behaviors until they discover something that works much better. Responsible people try to get rid of bad habit like excessive drinking, gambling or wasting time in unproductive activities, if they realize that these activities are harmful for them.

When a person acts in a responsible manner, he realizes that happiness may remain unattained, if looking for an ideal situation with no problems and conflicts. He realizes inevitability of problems and tries to derive happiness by resolving them with commitment. Real happiness comes when we face the problems, admit differences and sort out irritants in a spirit of good feelings. Each situation and relation has certain positives and negatives. It is better to look for positives in a particular situation or relation and feel satisfied. Ups and downs in a relationship are unavoidable. Without getting perturbed, try to monitor the situation and give it a positive direction. If negative thoughts get accumulated, try to wash them and fill them with the positive aspects of good living full of love, compassion and forgiveness. This process has to be carried on a continuous basis, as each stage will be with new dimension of problems. People have to make adjustments at every stage of life. If we assume that every thing will be to our satisfaction, it could make us feel complacent and disappointed when things turn contrary to our expectations. To become complacent in our efforts to bring better harmony in our relation and overcoming certain problems is to avoid taking responsibility.

Find Out How UKEssays.com Can Help You!

Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs.

View our services

Happiness depends on commitment to profession, home, children, elders and society at large, and how best to accomplish it. It does not suffice to be responsible to one while leaving other. People feel responsible to their profession and think that it alone will derive them happiness, and in the process lose the intimacy with family. To be responsible is to fulfill multi dimensional role and do balancing act at each and every stage of life, so as to move in life happily. We cannot think of only our profession leaving behind the worries and responsibility of home. At the same time, we cannot be complacent to the demands of our work. Relation with our spouse is a major contributory factor for happiness or troubles. Children are great source of enjoyment and satisfaction, but the responsibilities that come with are challenging. Other commitments become a source of conflict and irritation, if we are not able to develop adequate understanding. Generate happiness in life by depicting responsibility towards resolving problems and conflicts.

When faced with problems, it is natural to believe what is happening is not fair. The first reaction is to blame other people for their inefficiency and lack of commitment; however, it does not serve any purpose. People blame system, juniors, policies and lack of opportunities, when faced with problems in professional life. They provide lot of suggestions for others as to how they ought to perform. In personal life, we often blame family for problems. We may be right, but it does not in any way make life comfortable. The moment we blame somebody else for problems, it makes us passive and helpless to be in control of situation. We feel that nothing is in our control as it is up to the other person to readjust to meet our needs. People judge us and do not form any great opinion when we avoid responsibility. A little bit of higher responsibility in professional and personal life derives better coordination from others.

Take responsibility and own the problem that comes in life. It is a sign of maturity, sincerity and commitment. You are able to connect with other person and derive their love and respect. As we take responsibility of our sufferings, it activates us to think of various strategies and actions that help in salvaging the situation. People ought not to accept suffering as fait accomplice, but make earnest efforts to own and work towards their resolution. Use knowledge to sort out problems, and decide on actions appropriate to make life better.

The problems we face are partly own creation. The intensity of these problems depends on how we are disposed towards others. Ego often comes in our way to seek help from others in resolving interpersonal related issues. We remain adamant and avoid thinking alternative approaches suggested by others. Are we honest in admitting our shortcomings? It will do a lot to bring changes in us and help to move towards a happy life. People will appreciate our sincerity and understand us better. This attitude will bring closeness in dealing with family members, friends and relatives.

Importance of silence

Descriptive: People conceptualize events and deeds in a narrow span of time and space. Divine frame of reference is bigger and much large both in terms of time and space.

Words: Re-incarnation, divine, justice, reward, honesty

As thinking is an attribute of the mind, feeling an attribute of the emotions, silence is an attribute of the Divine. Silence is one of the many attributes of the Divine including Peace, Light, Love, Delight, Power, Eternity, Infinity, Immortality, etc. In the modern world silence has practically ceased to exist. It is very difficult to go anywhere where there is no possibility of being disturbed by the sound. There is also more noise than ever before inside our houses. Living in the midst of all this noise is bound to have a bad effect on us.

All man-made noise is fundamentally disturbing. And since we live our lives against a background of mechanical noise it follows that there’s always an undercurrent of agitation inside us, produced by the noise. This noise is certainly one of the reasons why modern life is so stressful as well. This lack of quietness has also meant is that people are no longer used to silence, and have even, as a result, become afraid of it. Along with inactivity, silence has become something which most people are determined to avoid. Remaining silent means remaining idle and it is considered wastage of time and efforts. People have become so used to remain active that they feel uneasy when left with nothing to occupy their attention even for a few moments.

Along with external noise, our mind is constantly disturbed by the chattering of our ego. This chattering fills our minds from the moment we wake up in the morning till the moment we go to sleep at night, an endless stream of daydreams, memories, deliberations, worries, plans etc. We have no control over these noises, and which even continues as dreams when we fall asleep. This ‘inner noise’ has as many bad effects as the mechanical noise outside us. It actually creates problems in our lives, when we grudge over tiny inconveniences or uncertainties which seem to become important just because we are giving so much attention to them. We continue to discuss about all possible future plans and these occupy mind and make it stressful. It has become habit to stop living in present and make self filled with thoughts of either planning for and anticipating the future or remembering the past.

Ultimately, the most serious consequence of both this inner chattering and the noise and activity of the modern world is that they separate us from our true essence. When we remain silent, we feel the presence of pure consciousness inside us, The sense-impressions we absorb from the world and the thoughts which run through our minds are like the images on a cinema screen, but our ‘true self’ is still there even when there aren’t any images being projected on to it. Getting into contact with the pure consciousness inside us enables us, therefore, to experience long lasting happiness. It is the only way to remain attached with inner self. It is only when we do this that we can experience true happiness.

Silence is a refreshing activity for our inner condition. People often argue with others to prove their knowledge, expertise and understanding. This attitude puts us always in competition with other person, and it makes us feel exhausted. Different people have different perception and faith. The understanding on various issues differs. Our analysis and understanding on political, economic and social issue may vary with other people. If we always talk and argue, it requires that we have to justify our self as right. We feel turbulent when other people do not agree to what we believe. Hence, it is for our own good to be more discreet in deciding when and how much to talk. We may offer our views without making others to feel bad.

The silence has its own advantages. We are not in conflict with others while remaining in silence. We allow other people to judge and understand us. Our actions and deeds talk for us. Maturity of a person will be reflected when he talks limited and purposeful. We need not to defend all the time for our actions. We need not feel impulsive to justify our actions through long talk. Remaining silent when not required to talk will enable us to remain absorbed in good thought about our blessings; it activates us to do good deeds or be in remembrance with the creator. These are all positive activities to keep us happy and in peace. Our inner calmness will be enhanced if we try to adopt silence and give other people due respect to listen to them.

Silence is good for spiritual growth. Silence is the tool which helps us know and experience fully who we are and what our purpose in life is. Silence offers the way to detach for some time with the requirement of body and to feel essence of inner self. The appreciation for silence replaces the need for addictive thoughts and activities. When we love silence, there is no reason to run away from our thoughts and fears. The practice of silence brings unspeakable peace. The regular practice of doing nothing is crucial for spiritual growth. It keeps us from having an inflated view of our importance, it surfaces anxiety, fear, and worry along with our controlling strategies to keep from facing them, and it opens our heart to hear from our real, authentic selves and God. These benefits of solitude combined with silence, a form of “doing nothing” are of crucial importance in today’s climate. First, one closes oneself off from sounds and seeks a quiet place. Second, one closes oneself off from communicating with others. We can observe silence in different ways. We could adopt silence and be absorbed in inner self during traveling, walking in a garden or during breaks from busy schedule.

Avoid Comparison

The main reason for unhappiness is to compare with people who are perceived to be better in some respect than us. To compare with colleagues and if they have progressed well, it makes us in some respect feel unhappy. It is common to feel that other people are lucky, be zealous about their success, and blame on our luck and circumstances. The comparison is mostly with people who are higher in ladder of success compared to us. Despite these comparison, there is no clue about whether such material possessions, success or any other things possessed by them which is lacking in us has really made them happy.

The people perceived to be better in material possessions than us may not be happy. Look to total possessions, someone is better placed in one aspect, but may have to struggle for something else. You may be low in material possessions but blessed with good health. Hence comparison is mostly illusionary in nature. We are not able to judge whether all those things which are not possessed by us will really make us happy.

Look back to past, most of us may notice that we have progressed on various fronts, like higher status in job, more salary and better homes. Let us now find whether all these things have given us a long lasting happiness. It might have been happy moment to get a pay rise, promotion or a good home to live, but all these make us happy only initially. The happiness derived does not last long once such comforts become part of life. Comparing with someone and aspiring and feeling bad for things not possessed takes away happiness, which is otherwise available from what we have already possessed. Look to life in totality; make a list of your successes and failures; it becomes evident that each success has its price. A successful person in one field may not necessarily be successful in other areas of life. A good paying executive may be facing problem in his personal life. A wealthy person may not be maintaining good health. The comparison that makes us depressed is often based on false assumptions and limited knowledge of other person.

A poor man may be happy and contented; he may be getting respect and love from his wife, maintains good health, and his children may be possessing good qualities that brings satisfaction to the parents. However, a person rich may not be comfortable from his home front, and not able to derive same level of love and respect from his spouse. In such a situation, who is better placed? It is difficult to decide. A poor person may feel bad when he compares with other who is rich, because he is not fully aware about the level of overall happiness of other person. It often happens that you find some married couples happy and feel bad about your own plight. Once we look more closely, we realize that they have also problems and have to make adjustments and sacrifices to remain united and happy. Comparison is often deceptive. Let us derive happiness from what we have already possessed.

Why we compare with others? It is to satisfy our ego and to see our self to be superior. This is the reason that people like to compare with others who are better in some respect. They aspire for same level of possessions that someone better in status has already acquired. They do not look to happiness but something to make them feel superior. It is natural to lose peace of mind and happiness when efforts are directed towards something else.

Comparing with others creates negative emotions; it often leads to inferiority complex. We try to find and search for various reasons as why we have been left out. This search makes us to find fault with the system, with the people with whom we are working or to put fault on our family. Ultimately all these processes and thinking leads to anger, hate and depression while dealing with others. It is a painful process to explain to self as why you have failed.

Another negative impact of comparing with others is that you do not wish to be seen as inferior compared to others. You try to show false superiority in so many ways. People end up in behaving differently than what they are only to impress others. If we are not as rich as others, we will try to show off by depicting higher standard of living. People try to pose bigger than what they are only to hide their inferiority complex. All these processes put pressure on us as we try to deviate from our inner urge to be simple, sincere and humble in our dealings.

The need for ego and superiority varies from individual to individual. Being egoistic may be constructive to drive a person to perform better and be more focused. However, at the emotional level, these qualities create problem in being too conscious of how others deal and perceive you, possessive of various material comforts and expecta

 

Cite This Work

To export a reference to this article please select a referencing stye below:

Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.
Reference Copied to Clipboard.

Related Services

View all

DMCA / Removal Request

If you are the original writer of this essay and no longer wish to have your work published on UKEssays.com then please: