Don’t suppress your feelings and defend those who hurt you.

Something confusing and hurtful happened to me yesterday.

Someone was publicly rude and dismissive.

My first instinct was to try to ignore it. 

Be ‘good’ and don’t react. 

Thoughts going through my head such as: 

Don’t create waves. Don’t upset anyone by taking up space with your feelings. It must have been an accident. 

Until I cracked and messaged a friend. 

I was worried, it was to do with work, work stuff needs to be ok.

After a discussion about it with my friend I decided to ignore it and get on with my day.

Until a client mentioned it. 

Said she thought it was strange. Was something going on? 

I tried to remain calm but my throat was tightening, I could hear the tone of my voice raising as I was trying to appear dismissive as though it didn’t bother me. 

Instead of saying ‘yeah thats hurt my feelings and I don’t know why they did that’ I’ve stuck in my good girl conditioning, pretending that it didn’t bother me at all. 

My client was wondering if anything had happened for me to have been left out in such a way. 

Which I understand and don’t blame her for, I was also wondering the very same thing. 

I was also worried that other clients would think that I wasn’t at work anymore, or that something had happened. Would that cause clients to not message me for an appointment? Would they take that as meaning that I no longer worked there? 

I was trying to rationalise this persons behaviour, maybe they didn’t even realise? 

But, there is a difference between giving the benefit of the doubt when it’s grey area and trying to rationalise and excuse poor behaviour.  

Firstly, I was upset. Upset at the dismissal.

Was it poor behaviour? Yes! 

It hurt my feelings. That’s actually normal. That’s a normal thing to feel and I just had to sit with that and let it melt away.  

Then I was confused. Why had it happened? 

Did this person realise that this would reach my clients and it might cause them to question what was going on? 

Maybe. Maybe not. 

But does it really matter? This persons motivation and reasons are theirs and theirs alone and have nothing to do with me.  

It’s ok to be upset when something hurtful crosses your path. Sit with it, acknowledge it, and use it as a tool for growth.  

But you don’t need to waste your energy on wondering why the person did it. Whether it was on purpose or not. Whether they even realised they did it or not doesn’t change your experience of being hurt by their actions.  

Everyone has learning and growing to do, but you are only responsible for your own. 

And part of that responsibility is owning and acknowledging how you feel.  

It is our own responsibility to deal with our trauma and pain from experiences that are our own and inflicted upon us by others. 

We are responsible for how we behave. Doing no harm to others is and always should be a priority. 

But we are absolutely not responsible for figuring out why others hurt us, or for justifying their actions and suppressing our own feelings to be ‘good’. 

They need to figure out why they are hurting others in their own inner work.