Why do we hurt the ones we love?
Why do I often say the things that hurt the most to the people I love the most? Many of us have asked this question too many times in our lives.
Paragraph textWhy do I often say the things that hurt the most to the people I love the most? Many of us have asked this question too many times in our lives.
There is, of course, plenty of info on the internet. Googling this question leads to answers like self-sabotage, lack of trust, vulnerability issues, and attachment styles. Yet sometimes it’s easier to find the insights that help us the most by looking at own lives rather than everyone else’s and the psychological labels that describe their behaviou. What can we learn from the context of the situations in which we find ourselves hurting those we love.
On a good day in grade 7, I was playing football on my Junior High Team. In grade 7, most guys hadn’t had their growth spurts yet, so I was still considered barely big enough to be a line backer, and one particular play I suddenly had a déjà vu. I recognized the pattern of the play unfolding before me. One guy went one way, another went the other way, and a third pulled up short just before the line of scrimmage, turned around, and caught a pass. I probably recognized the pattern because I had been burned on it a few plays before. Don’t worry if football doesn’t make sense to you, the point is the pattern. Because I recognized the pattern before the pass was thrown, I was able to step in and catch it myself. I didn’t get very far with the ball, but it was fun. It was my first interception, and I received a lot of congratulations. Most football teams, soccer teams, rugby teams, basketball teams, etc. have a set of plays/patterns/script like this that members of the team learn in hopes of playing together and beating the other team. In a play (actually I am going to use script for the rest of this blog because “play” has too many meanings) everyone has a specific job or function, even if it is just getting the attention of the other team.
So, when you find yourself experiencing relational déjà vu, that feeling that you’ve been in this emotional place before with this same person, it might be helpful to examine the script you’re playing. Do you like that script? What do you like or dislike about it? What do you and others generally do in the script? What is the result of the script?
Now, you may be thinking, “Wait a minute…the problem is that I can’t stop acting out of my feelings. I get angry and I say and do angry things, I am afraid, and I run away or freeze up. What does it matter what kind of script I am in or role I am playing? The problem is my emotions and my actions. I need to be able to think before I act or feel and calm myself down.” Yet, again, what if context is more influential on our emotions and behaviour than we think it is. Consider how your emotions and behaviour might change if you’re caught up in road rage and suddenly discover the person in the other car is a cop. What happens if we first believe we have just lost a sports contest, then suddenly realize that we have won, because the other team broke a rule somehow. What if you’re watching kids on the playground and see what you believe is someone else’s child hurt, but then, suddenly realize it is your child. Each of these scenarios has two sets of contexts, and each of those contexts has associated emotions and actions that are different than those of the other context in the scenario. Would you expect yourself or another to be able to quickly switch between the contexts and the associated feelings and behaviours in a scenario? I’ve seen it happen many times in my own life and in others’. Taking a reflective look at the relational context and our perceptions in that context can help us in working with both our emotions and behaviour.
The final piece in this work of relational awareness is developing a new or different understanding of the context associated with different emotions and actions. We have to commit to changing the script or coming up with a new one. This is not easy work, of course, but it can make life more enjoyable and fulfilling for ourselves and those we love if we are willing to examine our playbook, our scripts with others and consider different scripts that will help lead to different results.