When Someone Repeatedly Hurts Us

“When someone does something to hurt us over and over again, and we allow it, we are actually hurting ourselves.”  Byron Katie

  When someone hurts us repeatedly, the first thing we tend to do is blame the other person.  We gather our crew of supporters around us and we stand in our justification of our anger or pain.  All the while pointing the finger to him/her and how they need to change.  There is an old saying, “One time, shame on you, two times, shame on me.”  Once we state to the “offender” what they have done, it is then up to them to change their behavior, but only if he/she wants to.  If they decide not to, we then jump into the cyclical behavior of Pain and Blame.  Why won’t he/she stop doing that?!  What’s the matter with him/her?!  He/she must not love me enough!

Is it truly that he/she doesn’t love you enough or is it simply that you do not love you enough?  If a behavior continues with someone else, only WE have the control whether we change or not.  We cannot ever change someone else.  At this point, we must decide how we are going to handle this?

Historically, I have been the Queen of wishing for someone else’s change.  I felt so justified in my unhappiness.  I would talk until I was blue in the face hoping and praying that the “offender” would finally get it!  That he would love me enough to not want to hurt me anymore.  Boy, was I wrong.  You see, we teach people how to treat us.  We can tell them all day long what is acceptable and what is not, but the truth is only our behavior will truly speak for us.  We must be willing to lose the love or friendship or whatever, to not allow someone to treat us inappropriately.

Once I started working on self-love, this actually just fell into place.  Once I knew that I was fine with or without _____ , that is when I truly stepped into my power.  You must understand the word power is not used in the definition of control and manipulation.  It is used solely as a loving feeling for self that stops me from allowing people to treat me poorly.  I now take care of and protect myself in the same method that I would someone I love.  Prior to this, I was so worried over losing the love that I would put up with the disrespectful behavior of people.  On one hand I thought I was just being a forgiving soul and then I realized, that I could forgive their innocence but that did not mean I needed to stay in the relationship. 

So now my new method of operation is: 

1.      State my thought

2.     Have a conversation around it

3.     Forgive and move on

At this point, I know I have been fair in stating my truth.  I have given opportunity to the person to explain the behavior and I have forgiven.  If the behavior then continues, I now know that it is up to me to make a change.  Keep in mind, this doesn’t always mean leaving the relationship- it could merely mean changing something about the way I deal with the behavior.  Sometimes a small change in myself is all that is needed. 

In conclusion, love yourself!  Take care of you!  Be your own best friend.  Stop looking for love outside of you and be willing to walk away if someone is repeatedly treating you poorly.

Namaste’