Its not you, it's my mentality.

[anahata]

Some of us believe we are being mentally or emotionally ‘hurt’ by other people every day and we tend to accuse others for making us feel this way. Is that because, like physical hurt, we are not strong enough or not powerful enough to protect ourselves? Do we feel we are at the mercy of other people and circumstances regardless of how powerful we are?

Do we need some kind of ‘bouncer system’ standing guard at the widows of our minds and at the doors of our heart? Or do we need to manage our hurt feelings a little more discretely?

It’s useful to see how we get upset by other people. Here’s a few of the main reasons why we might feel that we are ‘hurting’ mentally or emotionally.

Insulted “How dare you say that to me!”
Whether someone calls us names or makes derogatory remarks about our personality, it seems many of us can easily feel personally insulted.

Offended “Can you believe what they just said about ‘my’ religion”

Similar to a personal insult being offended means we are disapproving of someone’s behaviour or words. In our ‘judgment’ of the other we see them as doing or saying something against our beliefs or values. It could be a slander towards our race or religion. Some have come to habitually feel so easily affronted they consciously seek for reasons to be offended.

Let Down “I am so disappointed in you because you’ve let me down”

A sense of hurt is the form of disappointment that follows quickly from the perception that someone has let us down. Whether they turned up late or just didn’t meet a commitment, we take it personally and once our sadness and anger (hurt) have faded, we put a black mark against that persons name.

Betrayed “How could you tell them what I said, how can I ever trust you again”

When we take others into our ‘confidence’ we do so with the expectation that they will keep that confidence confidential! We do not expect them to pass it on to anyone! And when they do we feel betrayed.

Robbed “They took everything from me”

Perhaps one of the deepest hurts is when we have something we deem precious taken from us. Sometimes we feel it’s not just thieves, but we perceive some businesses are out to take as much from as many of us as they can for their product or service.

Broken Promise “But you promised me…”!

We all know the moment of personal hurt when someone breaks a promise, whether it’s a parent who fails to buy that bike at Christmas, the boss who fails to deliver a promised promotion or the friend who fails to return a precious item on time.

Excluded “You didn’t invite me…”

It’s that moment when you realise that you are not included in what you desired to be a part of. Any hurt feelings are often followed by, “What’s wrong with me?”


Life seems to throw up so many good reasons to feel hurt which makes us feel powerless in the face of other’s behaviours and prevailing circumstances. In some areas this can happen so frequently to so many people that eventually we have to create a ‘protection agency’ to ensure ‘the people’ are not exploited by others.

So how do we build our mental and emotional strength, how do we empower our self so that we don’t experience these feelings of hurt?
How can we build the inner power to protect our self from our own mental and emotional suffering?

Perhaps the real question is how do we break the habit of creating our own suffering in the first place?

Here are some suggestions in the form of the basic principles of ‘self empowerment’ which can both eliminate hurt and eventually give you the strength not to create it.


1 Accept Responsibility
Sometimes it’s hard to see, never mind accept, that we are each largely responsible for our thoughts and feelings. Our first responsibility in life is our ability to respond.
If we can apply the principle of self responsibility, even after the situation has receded, we will begin to look for the cause of our hurt within our self as opposed to continuing to project our emotions on to others. And when we look we will almost certainly find that we feel hurt because the world is not dancing to our tune.

2 End Controlling
Most of our hurt comes because others are not saying or doing what we want, or they are saying/doing what we don’t want. Our emotional reaction is a sign that we are trying to control what we cannot control.
Our ‘hurt’ is a sign that we are unhappy, and believe ‘they’ are ‘making’ us unhappy.

3 Be Happy Anyway
Being responsible for our own happiness is a challenge when we’re sent hundreds of messages saying you can’t be happy until you have this, go there, consume that and acquire these etc. As long as we depend on other people for happiness we will be unable to be at peace with ourselves, unable to give the light of our love consistently to others and we will be unable to stop hurting ourselves mentally and emotionally.
Realising that our happiness is an ‘inside job’ frees us from our dependencies and then there is nothing anyone can do that would ‘let us down’.

4 Letting Go
If you explore the root of any hurt and all your unhappiness you will always find some form of attachment. Holding on to things, ideas and images of how others ‘should’ speak and act, is the real cause of our hurt feelings. Letting go or being detached does not mean we don’t care or that we are ‘avoiding’, it simply means we are free, our energy, our power is not trapped or blocked by old attachments, and we are able use our energy to respond positively to whatever happens.

5 Self Awareness
The one place we tend not to look and learn is the inner space of our self. Cultivating self awareness allows us to see how and why we are ‘feeling’ hurt. It reminds us we are always responsible for our feelings and that we have the inner power to choose our feelings regardless of what others say or do. We may even see that we too have the ‘occasional inclination’ to insult, offend, exclude and let others down. These are things some people intend to do and we can do absolutely nothing about, all we can do is to not be ‘affected’ by what they do.


You know when you are becoming self-empowered when:

People stop hurting you by insulting you.

You are no longer ‘offended’ because you are no longer ‘attached’ to a particular belief or belief system about how others ‘should’ speak, act, wear their clothes and live their lives.

You can never be hurt by some one who lets you down because you have learned not to make your happiness dependent on having your expectations met by others.
You’re not hurt or betrayed because you no longer depend on what others think about you for your self worth and self esteem and you know that you cannot control what others will do with what you share.

You cannot be robbed of anything of real value because in truth you know you possess nothing (you can’t take it with when you go). Everything comes and goes and you have no control over the manner in which it may leave! You know your primary values are intangible and internal and not those tangible and external things you are taught to acquire.

You can no longer be hurt by a broken promise because you know and accept that that is what people sometimes do, they break their promises and your happiness is no longer dependent on others keeping their promises.

You are no longer devastated when you appear to be excluded.
You do not take it personally.
Your self-esteem and self-worth are no longer dependent on the approval of others.
You no longer need to be involved in anything to be content within your self. You know there is nothing ‘wrong’ with you.
You are a free spirit, and if the invitations come that’s OK, but if they don’t come that’s also OK.

In truth you cannot be protected against ‘hurt’ at a mental/emotional level because most of the time you create the hurt feelings yourself. But if you are still ‘hurting’ then it’s a signal to head for the mental/emotional gym and embark on some mental muscle building. And the first exercise is realising it’s ‘not them, it’s me’.

Question: Which of the above reasons tends to be the ‘trigger’ (not cause) of your hurt feelings.

Reflection: How could you free your self from this hurt?

Action: Take a few minutes every now and then to note down all the moments you felt hurt by someone or something and see if you can see why it was you and not ‘them’.

Source (http://www.bahrainmeditationcentre.org/clear_thinking.html)

I think one of the most important things about all of this is that we need to be able to drop some of the stress and hastle we create in our minds over what people will think about us if we simply try to express our individuality. We're capable of being such creative beings, what benefit is there to be gained by holding ourselves back in fear of being labelled by a blinkered society?

[gooseone]

I think self awareness and ego really have a lot to do with it and that there is no chaos/everything happens for a reason.
It's like someone wants to be part of the " cool gang " because they think that people will see them also as " cool " .
Then you can get hurt when you are not accepted by the "cool gang ".
If the people in the "cool gang" truely believe they are cool so be it , maybe it isn't for you to go along with the general concensus about what's cool and important in the first place and after realising such things you aren't hurt anymore.
I however do believe it's important to create self esteem so that you can stand up to someone who is trying to hurt you intentionally, you don't have to be a push around either.
Usually mental hurt and suffering can be defined by the emotion that great injustice is being done to you for no appearent reason....so if you can't find the reason it can help to expierence it as "just this emotion"
(although i'd rather not expierence it to much;))

edit: about your final thoughts , i think it's easier living trying to go with the flow of society but being aware of it because not caring about
what other people think of you can in extreme cases alienate you from the rest which just brings social discomfort

[holylucifer]

The nature of the two faced beast which we all have will always be like sand and unstable, it is the lauguage of it.

I see you as an angel and really you have two selfs but can only focus on one and they are completely opposite, you know???

[gooseone]

I think that everybody has just one kindred spirit which is very similar in everyone , the great contradictions only come from other influences and how the spirit (maybe not consiously knowing) represents itself.

[entrangermercenary]

Some of us believe we are being mentally or emotionally ‘hurt’ by other people every day and we tend to accuse others for making us feel this way. Is that because, like physical hurt, we are not strong enough or not powerful enough to protect ourselves? Do we feel we are at the mercy of other people and circumstances regardless of how powerful we are?

Do we need some kind of ‘bouncer system’ standing guard at the widows of our minds and at the doors of our heart? Or do we need to manage our hurt feelings a little more discretely?

It’s useful to see how we get upset by other people. Here’s a few of the main reasons why we might feel that we are ‘hurting’ mentally or emotionally.

Insulted “How dare you say that to me!”
Whether someone calls us names or makes derogatory remarks about our personality, it seems many of us can easily feel personally insulted.

Offended “Can you believe what they just said about ‘my’ religion”

Similar to a personal insult being offended means we are disapproving of someone’s behaviour or words. In our ‘judgment’ of the other we see them as doing or saying something against our beliefs or values. It could be a slander towards our race or religion. Some have come to habitually feel so easily affronted they consciously seek for reasons to be offended.

Let Down “I am so disappointed in you because you’ve let me down”

A sense of hurt is the form of disappointment that follows quickly from the perception that someone has let us down. Whether they turned up late or just didn’t meet a commitment, we take it personally and once our sadness and anger (hurt) have faded, we put a black mark against that persons name.

Betrayed “How could you tell them what I said, how can I ever trust you again”

When we take others into our ‘confidence’ we do so with the expectation that they will keep that confidence confidential! We do not expect them to pass it on to anyone! And when they do we feel betrayed.

Robbed “They took everything from me”

Perhaps one of the deepest hurts is when we have something we deem precious taken from us. Sometimes we feel it’s not just thieves, but we perceive some businesses are out to take as much from as many of us as they can for their product or service.

Broken Promise “But you promised me…”!

We all know the moment of personal hurt when someone breaks a promise, whether it’s a parent who fails to buy that bike at Christmas, the boss who fails to deliver a promised promotion or the friend who fails to return a precious item on time.

Excluded “You didn’t invite me…”

It’s that moment when you realise that you are not included in what you desired to be a part of. Any hurt feelings are often followed by, “What’s wrong with me?”


Life seems to throw up so many good reasons to feel hurt which makes us feel powerless in the face of other’s behaviours and prevailing circumstances. In some areas this can happen so frequently to so many people that eventually we have to create a ‘protection agency’ to ensure ‘the people’ are not exploited by others.

So how do we build our mental and emotional strength, how do we empower our self so that we don’t experience these feelings of hurt?
How can we build the inner power to protect our self from our own mental and emotional suffering?

Perhaps the real question is how do we break the habit of creating our own suffering in the first place?

Here are some suggestions in the form of the basic principles of ‘self empowerment’ which can both eliminate hurt and eventually give you the strength not to create it.


1 Accept Responsibility
Sometimes it’s hard to see, never mind accept, that we are each largely responsible for our thoughts and feelings. Our first responsibility in life is our ability to respond.
If we can apply the principle of self responsibility, even after the situation has receded, we will begin to look for the cause of our hurt within our self as opposed to continuing to project our emotions on to others. And when we look we will almost certainly find that we feel hurt because the world is not dancing to our tune.

2 End Controlling
Most of our hurt comes because others are not saying or doing what we want, or they are saying/doing what we don’t want. Our emotional reaction is a sign that we are trying to control what we cannot control.
Our ‘hurt’ is a sign that we are unhappy, and believe ‘they’ are ‘making’ us unhappy.

3 Be Happy Anyway
Being responsible for our own happiness is a challenge when we’re sent hundreds of messages saying you can’t be happy until you have this, go there, consume that and acquire these etc. As long as we depend on other people for happiness we will be unable to be at peace with ourselves, unable to give the light of our love consistently to others and we will be unable to stop hurting ourselves mentally and emotionally.
Realising that our happiness is an ‘inside job’ frees us from our dependencies and then there is nothing anyone can do that would ‘let us down’.

4 Letting Go
If you explore the root of any hurt and all your unhappiness you will always find some form of attachment. Holding on to things, ideas and images of how others ‘should’ speak and act, is the real cause of our hurt feelings. Letting go or being detached does not mean we don’t care or that we are ‘avoiding’, it simply means we are free, our energy, our power is not trapped or blocked by old attachments, and we are able use our energy to respond positively to whatever happens.

5 Self Awareness
The one place we tend not to look and learn is the inner space of our self. Cultivating self awareness allows us to see how and why we are ‘feeling’ hurt. It reminds us we are always responsible for our feelings and that we have the inner power to choose our feelings regardless of what others say or do. We may even see that we too have the ‘occasional inclination’ to insult, offend, exclude and let others down. These are things some people intend to do and we can do absolutely nothing about, all we can do is to not be ‘affected’ by what they do.


You know when you are becoming self-empowered when:

People stop hurting you by insulting you.

You are no longer ‘offended’ because you are no longer ‘attached’ to a particular belief or belief system about how others ‘should’ speak, act, wear their clothes and live their lives.

You can never be hurt by some one who lets you down because you have learned not to make your happiness dependent on having your expectations met by others.
You’re not hurt or betrayed because you no longer depend on what others think about you for your self worth and self esteem and you know that you cannot control what others will do with what you share.

You cannot be robbed of anything of real value because in truth you know you possess nothing (you can’t take it with when you go). Everything comes and goes and you have no control over the manner in which it may leave! You know your primary values are intangible and internal and not those tangible and external things you are taught to acquire.

You can no longer be hurt by a broken promise because you know and accept that that is what people sometimes do, they break their promises and your happiness is no longer dependent on others keeping their promises.

You are no longer devastated when you appear to be excluded.
You do not take it personally.
Your self-esteem and self-worth are no longer dependent on the approval of others.
You no longer need to be involved in anything to be content within your self. You know there is nothing ‘wrong’ with you.
You are a free spirit, and if the invitations come that’s OK, but if they don’t come that’s also OK.

In truth you cannot be protected against ‘hurt’ at a mental/emotional level because most of the time you create the hurt feelings yourself. But if you are still ‘hurting’ then it’s a signal to head for the mental/emotional gym and embark on some mental muscle building. And the first exercise is realising it’s ‘not them, it’s me’.

Question: Which of the above reasons tends to be the ‘trigger’ (not cause) of your hurt feelings.

Reflection: How could you free your self from this hurt?

Action: Take a few minutes every now and then to note down all the moments you felt hurt by someone or something and see if you can see why it was you and not ‘them’.

Source (http://www.bahrainmeditationcentre.org/clear_thinking.html)

I think one of the most important things about all of this is that we need to be able to drop some of the stress and hastle we create in our minds over what people will think about us if we simply try to express our individuality. We're capable of being such creative beings, what benefit is there to be gained by holding ourselves back in fear of being labelled by a blinkered society?

Whats up now :( Txt me :)

http://www.theseniorschoice.com/newsletters/content_images/Psychologist%20couch_edited.jpg

[ekim]

Self importance

Ego

Perception

Some of the best things come in three's :D

[toseeitclearly]

I agree that what i have found in life is when you expect something dont expect to work out how you want it thats being selfish and is a invasion of free will, we are creative even if you don't think so we create mental blocks when feeling these negative illusions created by the ego.

The feelings of bliss when not letting these negative feelings control you is much better than meeting the expectations for these things hurt you.

[anahata]

edit: about your final thoughts , i think it's easier living trying to go with the flow of society but being aware of it because not caring about
what other people think of you can in extreme cases alienate you from the rest which just brings social discomfort

This is a really good point but I'm sure for the most part you'll only really be alienating yourself from something you've grown out of. If you're socially uncomfortable you're just in the wrong room with the wrong people, having the wrong conversation... maybe those are people you used to blend with perfectly but attitudes change, time moves on and you've got to let yourself adapt.

[anahata]

The nature of the two faced beast which we all have will always be like sand and unstable, it is the lauguage of it.

I see you as an angel and really you have two selfs but can only focus on one and they are completely opposite, you know???

Not quite. How can both selves be happy in the same body with the same lifestyle? There's got to be an equillibrium, no? You've got to get on with yourself.

[anahata]

Whats up now :( Txt me :)

http://www.theseniorschoice.com/newsletters/content_images/Psychologist%20couch_edited.jpg

:p thanks doc, I'm fine... got the info in a 'work' email today. There isn't a 'situation', honest :D

[anahata]

I agree that what i have found in life is when you expect something dont expect to work out how you want it thats being selfish and is a invasion of free will, we are creative even if you don't think so we create mental blocks when feeling these negative illusions created by the ego.

The feelings of bliss when not letting these negative feelings control you is much better than meeting the expectations for these things hurt you.

What do you mean?

[toseeitclearly]

What do you mean?

What i mean is dont try to control or manipulate everything for your own benefit and expect someone or yourself for it to work out for you.

[anahata]

You're a bit ironic toseeitclearly, your sentences are a little confusing (not being rude).

Any manipulation is a possible infringement on someone else’s free will, its part of the joint consciousness parcel. Just because you’re trying to make things right for yourself doesn’t mean you are working against others. Sure, you might not be able to keep all the people happy all of the time but if you accept yourself as part of a joint consciousness, you’ll incorporate your benefits with what you believe will benefit everyone else anyway. With this in mind, you should expect things to work out the way you wan them else you’re just trusting everyone else to make those decisions for you and that’s not empowering yourself at all… which is fine if you’re surrendered to the belief that everyone else is capable of making the right decisions for you / us.

[toseeitclearly]

You're a bit ironic toseeitclearly, your sentences are a little confusing (not being rude).

Any manipulation is a possible infringement on someone else’s free will, its part of the joint consciousness parcel. Just because you’re trying to make things right for yourself doesn’t mean you are working against others. Sure, you might not be able to keep all the people happy all of the time but if you accept yourself as part of a joint consciousness, you’ll incorporate your benefits with what you believe will benefit everyone else anyway. With this in mind, you should expect things to work out the way you wan them else you’re just trusting everyone else to make those decisions for you and that’s not empowering yourself at all… which is fine if you’re surrendered to the belief that everyone else is capable of making the right decisions for you / us.

You can give information to someone but when someone strongly rejects the idea it only brings misfortune to the person and makes the situation worse and can create more ignorance. I am not saying that you should keep things to yourself and let others realise for themselves. You can help people be more aware, but what i mean is to not to "pester" to those who do not want to listen to what you are talking about.

I have been talking to people, and it is only the minority that is ignorant to listen but that doesn't mean they are ignorant in general it is just beyond their comfort zone, so they wish not to talk about it. Prehaps they will go beyond that if you freely let them realise for themself when it comes to this.

Thats why i say not to try to manipulate them into thinking something they strongly do not want to agree on.

[steevo]

The awareness of the true nature of reality, and the true nature of ourselves (including the part our mind plays in all this) is essential for us to be able to live in TRUTH.

[theoriginalmurph]

Some of us believe we are being mentally or emotionally ‘hurt’ by other people every day and we tend to accuse others for making us feel this way. Is that because, like physical hurt, we are not strong enough or not powerful enough to protect ourselves? Do we feel we are at the mercy of other people and circumstances regardless of how powerful we are?

Do we need some kind of ‘bouncer system’ standing guard at the widows of our minds and at the doors of our heart? Or do we need to manage our hurt feelings a little more discretely?

It’s useful to see how we get upset by other people. Here’s a few of the main reasons why we might feel that we are ‘hurting’ mentally or emotionally.

Insulted “How dare you say that to me!”
Whether someone calls us names or makes derogatory remarks about our personality, it seems many of us can easily feel personally insulted.

Offended “Can you believe what they just said about ‘my’ religion”

Similar to a personal insult being offended means we are disapproving of someone’s behaviour or words. In our ‘judgment’ of the other we see them as doing or saying something against our beliefs or values. It could be a slander towards our race or religion. Some have come to habitually feel so easily affronted they consciously seek for reasons to be offended.

Let Down “I am so disappointed in you because you’ve let me down”

A sense of hurt is the form of disappointment that follows quickly from the perception that someone has let us down. Whether they turned up late or just didn’t meet a commitment, we take it personally and once our sadness and anger (hurt) have faded, we put a black mark against that persons name.

Betrayed “How could you tell them what I said, how can I ever trust you again”

When we take others into our ‘confidence’ we do so with the expectation that they will keep that confidence confidential! We do not expect them to pass it on to anyone! And when they do we feel betrayed.

Robbed “They took everything from me”

Perhaps one of the deepest hurts is when we have something we deem precious taken from us. Sometimes we feel it’s not just thieves, but we perceive some businesses are out to take as much from as many of us as they can for their product or service.

Broken Promise “But you promised me…”!

We all know the moment of personal hurt when someone breaks a promise, whether it’s a parent who fails to buy that bike at Christmas, the boss who fails to deliver a promised promotion or the friend who fails to return a precious item on time.

Excluded “You didn’t invite me…”

It’s that moment when you realise that you are not included in what you desired to be a part of. Any hurt feelings are often followed by, “What’s wrong with me?”


Life seems to throw up so many good reasons to feel hurt which makes us feel powerless in the face of other’s behaviours and prevailing circumstances. In some areas this can happen so frequently to so many people that eventually we have to create a ‘protection agency’ to ensure ‘the people’ are not exploited by others.

So how do we build our mental and emotional strength, how do we empower our self so that we don’t experience these feelings of hurt?
How can we build the inner power to protect our self from our own mental and emotional suffering?

Perhaps the real question is how do we break the habit of creating our own suffering in the first place?

Here are some suggestions in the form of the basic principles of ‘self empowerment’ which can both eliminate hurt and eventually give you the strength not to create it.


1 Accept Responsibility
Sometimes it’s hard to see, never mind accept, that we are each largely responsible for our thoughts and feelings. Our first responsibility in life is our ability to respond.
If we can apply the principle of self responsibility, even after the situation has receded, we will begin to look for the cause of our hurt within our self as opposed to continuing to project our emotions on to others. And when we look we will almost certainly find that we feel hurt because the world is not dancing to our tune.

2 End Controlling
Most of our hurt comes because others are not saying or doing what we want, or they are saying/doing what we don’t want. Our emotional reaction is a sign that we are trying to control what we cannot control.
Our ‘hurt’ is a sign that we are unhappy, and believe ‘they’ are ‘making’ us unhappy.

3 Be Happy Anyway
Being responsible for our own happiness is a challenge when we’re sent hundreds of messages saying you can’t be happy until you have this, go there, consume that and acquire these etc. As long as we depend on other people for happiness we will be unable to be at peace with ourselves, unable to give the light of our love consistently to others and we will be unable to stop hurting ourselves mentally and emotionally.
Realising that our happiness is an ‘inside job’ frees us from our dependencies and then there is nothing anyone can do that would ‘let us down’.

4 Letting Go
If you explore the root of any hurt and all your unhappiness you will always find some form of attachment. Holding on to things, ideas and images of how others ‘should’ speak and act, is the real cause of our hurt feelings. Letting go or being detached does not mean we don’t care or that we are ‘avoiding’, it simply means we are free, our energy, our power is not trapped or blocked by old attachments, and we are able use our energy to respond positively to whatever happens.

5 Self Awareness
The one place we tend not to look and learn is the inner space of our self. Cultivating self awareness allows us to see how and why we are ‘feeling’ hurt. It reminds us we are always responsible for our feelings and that we have the inner power to choose our feelings regardless of what others say or do. We may even see that we too have the ‘occasional inclination’ to insult, offend, exclude and let others down. These are things some people intend to do and we can do absolutely nothing about, all we can do is to not be ‘affected’ by what they do.


You know when you are becoming self-empowered when:

People stop hurting you by insulting you.

You are no longer ‘offended’ because you are no longer ‘attached’ to a particular belief or belief system about how others ‘should’ speak, act, wear their clothes and live their lives.

You can never be hurt by some one who lets you down because you have learned not to make your happiness dependent on having your expectations met by others.
You’re not hurt or betrayed because you no longer depend on what others think about you for your self worth and self esteem and you know that you cannot control what others will do with what you share.

You cannot be robbed of anything of real value because in truth you know you possess nothing (you can’t take it with when you go). Everything comes and goes and you have no control over the manner in which it may leave! You know your primary values are intangible and internal and not those tangible and external things you are taught to acquire.

You can no longer be hurt by a broken promise because you know and accept that that is what people sometimes do, they break their promises and your happiness is no longer dependent on others keeping their promises.

You are no longer devastated when you appear to be excluded.
You do not take it personally.
Your self-esteem and self-worth are no longer dependent on the approval of others.
You no longer need to be involved in anything to be content within your self. You know there is nothing ‘wrong’ with you.
You are a free spirit, and if the invitations come that’s OK, but if they don’t come that’s also OK.

In truth you cannot be protected against ‘hurt’ at a mental/emotional level because most of the time you create the hurt feelings yourself. But if you are still ‘hurting’ then it’s a signal to head for the mental/emotional gym and embark on some mental muscle building. And the first exercise is realising it’s ‘not them, it’s me’.

Question: Which of the above reasons tends to be the ‘trigger’ (not cause) of your hurt feelings.

Reflection: How could you free your self from this hurt?

Action: Take a few minutes every now and then to note down all the moments you felt hurt by someone or something and see if you can see why it was you and not ‘them’.

Source (http://www.bahrainmeditationcentre.org/clear_thinking.html)

I think one of the most important things about all of this is that we need to be able to drop some of the stress and hastle we create in our minds over what people will think about us if we simply try to express our individuality. We're capable of being such creative beings, what benefit is there to be gained by holding ourselves back in fear of being labelled by a blinkered society?

That's very wise. :)

[anahata]

You can give information to someone but when someone strongly rejects the idea it only brings misfortune to the person and makes the situation worse and can create more ignorance. I am not saying that you should keep things to yourself and let others realise for themselves. You can help people be more aware, but what i mean is to not to "pester" to those who do not want to listen to what you are talking about.

I have been talking to people, and it is only the minority that is ignorant to listen but that doesn't mean they are ignorant in general it is just beyond their comfort zone, so they wish not to talk about it. Prehaps they will go beyond that if you freely let them realise for themself when it comes to this.

Thats why i say not to try to manipulate them into thinking something they strongly do not want to agree on.

Oh sure, most people on here will vouch for the pestering technique not working too well... it winds most people up, including yourself. Although we all like to get our voices heard and hope people will listen and take note, that's not what I was getting at with this thread.
What I'm saying is that we're getting angry with people over preconcieved ideas. Ok so in some instances copying a reaction is important. A child might benefit by learning a behaviour from a parent but when the parents start fighting over something trivial, copycat reactions are not necessarily the best way of learning!! ... yet they remain the assumed best way.
So by watching our thoughts as if from a non bias bystanders point of view, determine whether your life (and altimately lives around you, knocking on back to you again) can be enhanced by removing some of the social barriers created through ignorant behaviour.

[anahata]

The awareness of the true nature of reality, and the true nature of ourselves (including the part our mind plays in all this) is essential for us to be able to live in TRUTH.

Yep, awareness reaches for a better life.

Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

Stay faithful and Be greatful :D