From hurting to healing: How our reaction to hurt can heal the world

We all experience it, and it’s a real bummer.

There will be people that we trust that will hurt us. 

Sometimes it’s the result of a bad day or a misunderstanding—a conversation and an apology are sufficient.

Other times, it’s betrayal, abandonment, or rejection, and you learn that someone you trusted shouldn’t have been.

In this very human experience, we are unified. 

There is a sinking in our chest, a heaviness or a physical ache. We lose sleep, replay the scene, and wonder what we could have done differently. 

There is no language or cultural barrier when it comes to heartache.

We are all at the mercy of those we love.

The question isn’t whether or not you’ll be hurt, it’s how will you respond when you are?

Many of us move into fight or flight.

In those moments of pain, we might send hurtful messages, malign the character of the offenders, or plot a more creative form of revenge.

Or we might shut down altogether.

When our trust is broken…

We feel powerless in the face of pain, and every ounce of our being reacts to that powerlessness.

When our trust is broken…

We feel foolish. We wonder how could I let this happen?

When our trust is broken…

We lose the illusion of control that most of us must maintain to feel safe.

In this state, we come up with a thousand different ways to take back our power, stop feeling foolish, and regain control, like cutting remarks, decisive actions, and shaming public announcements. 

Many of us assume the worst and cut people out of our lives altogether, choosing to live with a low-grade bitterness instead.

All of these things would be considered a very normal reaction to being hurt by someone we trusted.

But there is a better way, and we are called to it.

Jesus spent his ministry healing, and this is our calling as well: To be a healing force in the world.

Jesus didn’t fight back, and this is our calling as well: To refuse the impulse to defend our egos or cause harm in our pain.

The grounding wisdom of our faith tradition addresses this directly.

“Do not repay anyone evil for evil.”

Sit with this for a moment.

It’s natural to feel reactive in the hours, days, and weeks after we’ve experienced great pain. It is a form of self-protection, and it’s how we self-preserve within a tribe.

After all, fight and flight are both survival instincts.

But this command requires us to sit with every idea and impulse in these painful moments and ask ourselves: 

“Is this very normal reaction good…or evil?”

Our first reactions usually aren’t good. This is why so many of us do harm in this state.

But when we refuse to react and ground in our values…

Love tells us to pause.

Before you act, notice what’s motivating you.

“Is this good, or is this evil?”

And then, if we continue to listen, the way of Love will rise to the surface. We’ll hear the whisper in the depths of the healing process:

Feel it all. 
Be compassionate. 
Take no action. 
Take your time.

Feel it all, the pain and powerlessness.

Let it sink into your bones. Remember your vulnerability and humanity, and weep and rage all about it. Your heart was open, and it cost you something. 

Don’t bury the feelings, or you’ll get stuck there.

Be compassionate with yourself.

Your wound is fresh and bleeding. Refuse to shame yourself for caring, refuse to berate yourself for your trust and openness, refuse to blame yourself for what happened. 

Allow it all, and hold it compassionately.

Take no action. 

Anything you do at this time will naturally come from a place of vengeance and ego protection, not love.

Acting from this place won’t take the sting of pain and powerlessness away.

Take your time as you move through this experience.

Don’t rush it or convince yourself that you’re taking too long. Trust your heart to know what it needs to express and feel.

The timeline is different for every person and circumstance, but this is where the magic happens.

It is one of life’s great mysteries, the beginning of healing.

When you allow the healing process to work, you’ll wake up one day and realize the sharpness has dulled as time has passed. 

That ache in your chest lessens and that vengeance you desperately needed has softened. Your desire to fight back and malign the character of your offender is gone too.

The wound will stop bleeding. It will close and feel tender, and that pain will grow duller each day.

And then, you’ll be left with gratitude, self-respect, and greater compassion.

You’ll know you chose groundedness and perseverance in the face of the most universal trial of all—being hurt by someone you loved.

Only on this side of healing will you understand the ones who refused this process.

You know them well, the ones who carry their hurts around every day of their lives.

They are easy to offend and slow to trust, and the freshness of their pain is present like a new wound, even if it happened decades ago.

When we allow ourselves the space to heal, our ability to love the ones who hurt us rises to the surface again. This great allowing is the work of the Christ mystery, it is an act of Love.

And it’s easy to refuse it.

It’s easy to take control and power back into our own hands by reacting in our pain. It’s easy to sweep it under the rug, to numb and avoid.

But this is the work of the ones who are committed to being the Body of Christ and the force of Love in the world:

To be healed and to bring healing.

You will feel love for the ones who hurt you again, even if it is months or years from now.

And as you feel ready, move into compassion.

Remind yourself of their humanity, their painful childhoods and experiences. Remember the human you loved, think of the ways they were hurt that led them to hurt you in similar ways. 

As a mantra, say to yourself: 

“It makes sense that they would operate this way, doesn’t it? What a difficult road that must be.”

This is the sound of grace.

And as you heal, the wisdom of experience will guide you.

You’ve learned that some relationships are unsafe, that some people have too much pain in their own hearts to love well.

Allow this to fill you with compassion.

The ones who hurt you are not evil, they have been hurt, and Richard Rohr teaches us that when pain isn’t transformed, it is transmitted.

Allow this to fill you with compassion.

For many, it is easier to pass on their pain than it is to do the work of unearthing all the ways they’ve been hurt and to find wholeness.

Allow this to fill you with compassion.

There are people who feel safer breaking stable relationships because their soul is more familiar with instability and heartache.

Friends of faith, we are called to grow in compassion as much as we can every day of our lives.

You are called to “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you.”

These things are not our first reaction to being hurt, but we can take our time and consciously choose love day after day.

When you give your heart the time it needs to heal, it will. 

Don’t rush the process. Allow every emotion that your heart needs to feel to flow. Anger and grief, rage and shame—give them space to be felt, and after some time, they will be released.

It’s subtle, but it’s true.

And one day, in the future, you will wake up and be able to feel love for the ones who hurt you again.

You’ll feel compassion for who you were before the wound and for the ones who caused it.

When it doesn’t sting to look back, you’ll know the wound is healed. It is a scar that tells a story of being perfectly human, open to love and vulnerable to being hurt. 

You’ll know that you are wiser because it happened.

Your healing isn’t in the fight, it’s in the surrender.

In your choice to love, you didn’t fight to take the power back or to hold on to control, you surrendered.

You hung on a cross of your own that you were asked to carry, you suffered so that others might find life and healing.

It is a devastation to be hurt by the people we love. 

At the same time, it is the mystery of Christ and the grace of God that healing transforms pain into greater love and deeper wisdom that will guide us home.

Are you doing the work of healing yourself and the world around you? 

Only the fruit of our lives and relationships tell the whole story.

If this new to you, the beautiful thing about this truth is that it can be lived through at any moment, regardless of how you chose to act in the past.

Perhaps this is always how truth operates, it is never too late.

We’ve all been hurt by hands we trusted with our hearts, but we have the power to decide what we do with the pain.

The hurt will hurt, the healed will heal.