When someone hurts you
How to empathize without remaining the victim
Published in
1 min readAug 2, 2017
I was angry, hurt, and confused. The last thing I wanted to do was empathize.
“How they could do this? Why did they?”
Empathizing is especially difficult when someone hurts us. (Note: I’m not referring to abuse or life-threatening offenses. This post is focused on the disagreements or difficult situations we encounter in our day-to-day lives.)
At first, I thought showing empathy toward the person who wronged me meant coming up with an explanation that justified their actions/words.
But that’s not empathy. We can give people the benefit of the doubt without excusing hurtful behavior.
We begin by acknowledging the offense, our emotions, and what is and isn’t within our control.
Within our control:
- How might I avoid a repeat situation by doing things differently?
- What boundaries need to be set or clarified?
- What deeper issues/stories might be triggered by this incident that need to be resolved?
Outside our control:
- Am I willing to forgive the person who hurt me?
- What is their story? If appropriate, how might I better understand their behavior?
- What change (if any) is necessary to my relationship with this person?
- What is the truth about who I am? Am I believing it?
