Being Positive When I am hurt

Recently Abhishek (name changed), who is very close to me did something that caused me a lot of hurt. This post is an interesting story of how I tried to come to grips with it.

What happened?

Abhishek and I have enjoyed a very close relation with each other for many years. Last month, he suddenly did something that was least expected given our closeness. His behaviour made me feel bad as it seemed that he did not care about me at all. As is my natural habit, I suffered the emotion silently for some time and waited for it to subside. But the feeling was so strong that it refused to come down. Hence, I decided to talk to him and share my feeling, with the hope that he will realize his mistake immediately, but to my surprise he plainly refused to acknowledge the problem. I felt that he did not listen to my feelings at all, as if I was talking to a wall. Since then, I was feeling really angry and hurt about the episode.

What can I do about it?

What are my options in this situation? Should I stay silent, keep on thinking about it and feeling miserable? Or should I take the violent option and look for right opportunity to strike back and pay him back in his own coin? Will that heal my feelings? Should I unburden myself, discuss the episode with my close ones to share my disappointment? For good measure, I can also criticise him for his behavior. Should I resolve to not expect too much from him going forward and forget about our relationship?

What did I really do?

I chose to apply the magic worry solution from Dale Carnegie to the problem at hand. I thought really hard to answer the simple question - "What I am feeling bad about?" Some possible choices were:

1. The first action that caused the hurt
2. Abhishek's lack of sensitivity
3. Disappointment at eroding state of our relationship
4. The fact that I was not being understood

On thinking hard, I narrowed down to (4). The first important step I decided to take was to forgive and forget about it. I gave myself three reasons why it is a good choice.

1. Most probably, it was not a deliberate act but an inadvertant slip. Hence it is not his fault.
2. The fact that he is unable to understand what went wrong clearly points to the fact that he was not consciously aware of it.
3. Everyone spends a lot of time thinking about himself. Contraty to what I believe, I am not center of his world. His actions are rightfully not dominated by the thought about my feelings.

The moment I decided to let go of the grudge, I felt an immediate release of stress and felt much better first time in many days. It was as if a huge load was lifted from my mind. I felt very light and happy. I could also start thinking, which was not at all possible while I was burning with anger.

Every problem is an opportunity

Once I started thinking about it, I looked for ways to turn this issue into an opportunity. I realized that for many years, my relationship with Abhishek was drifting and eroding. It was a victim of gradual withdrawals from the emotional bank account between us. Over the years, many small incidents were causing continuous damage to our closeness. Both of us were keeping silent about it for the fear that it will break the relationship. This incident forces me to re-think about it. Maybe I have been doing something that is causing pain to him and I do not know about it. We need discussion and dialog to bring it out. This episode is a blessing in disguise that shows me that instead of keeping silent, I should discuss and clarify things to strengthen the bond between us.

I simply care too much about our relationship to let it fall apart without doing anything positive from my side.