We all have conversations with loved ones that leave us hurting. Sometimes it is very clear that we have been hurt because the conversation became very loud. At other times the hurt occur ed in the middle of a moment of emotional intimacy and the other person from our perspective threw in an emotional spear that pierced our souls. There are times when we know that the relationship has become fragile and we are walking on eggs, afraid we will break something, and feel like we did. In all of this normally our friend or family member is feeling the same dynamic. Lost to find a way to avoid getting hurt and feeling defensive enough to swing back at what they see as attacks from us. Add to this many times that our relationships have professional and organizational aspects and the complexity of relating become filled with fear, doubts, confusion, and if we are not careful; paranoia.

So when we have a conversation that hurts us what can we do?

1. Put the conversation in the context of the entire relationship. Are we justified in thinking the worst of this conversation or is this relationship really healthier than the conversation we just had? If a relationship is basically unhealthy then a painful conversation is to be expected and we should not be surprised. If a relationship is basically healthy then we should become overly negative and instead seek to interpret the words in the best light.

2. Can we without doing some additional harm to the relationship seek to express our pain to our friend and seek a resolution? Is there some way to make peace with our friend or family member? If not, then what keeps this from happening? This problem is really what has to be solved.

If we go to our friend it may help to write things out.

a. What actually was said that hurt me. Explain how you understood these words.
b. Explain what you felt in response to these words
c. Define how you would like to resolve the hurt of these words.

3. Seek God’s comfort in prayer. God is our refuge and strength (Psalm 46). God loves us with an infinite love in Jesus the Messiah. While friends and family may at times abuse us and abandon us we are always secure in the love of our Lord (Romans 8:28-36). The Lord will comfort us and give us the strength to go forward if we seek help.

Being hurt in a conversation is a common thing. It is very easy for us to hurt one another with our words. It is important that we process such wounds since they can easily become areas of bitterness in our hearts and then lead to greater problems.

To be in human relationships is hard. People do not normally relate well. To have safe, secure, and satisfying relationships is something we all want but few of us find. People hurt each other much easier in human relationships than nurture each other. Even when we want to be intimate in friendships and families we find that injure the very peoploe we try to love.

There is no silver bullet that can solve all this. There is so many dynamics that impact a relationship. Every person brings their past and pain with them into the current situation. We do not come in as bland slates. We come in needing security and feeling that only by having power and control that we can be safe. Each person has also a ‘narrative” or story that they have been telling themselves about the other people and about themselves. This “narrative” creates the emotions which then frames how we understand each other. Many times we are not reading from the same script. It is like actors from different plays suddenly being put on the same stage to perform. Then there are those darker sides of our hearts. The deep evil that can poison everything we do unless carefully governed and monitered.

In the end all I can do is try to be sane, stable, and spiritual within my own soul and life. I can strive to think clearly, logically, realistically, fairly, objectively, and with empathy. I need to have humility to be sane. I need to know I don’t know everything and that what others think and feel has value. I need to be able to stay in this space of sanity on a reguler basis. Avoiding radical actions and denials we stay in a place of mental and emotional balance as a life style. A critical part of this is to develop a real spirituality in which I dwell in the presence of God in Christ where I can receive comfort, forgiveness, strength, and wisdom. As I begin more and more to be sane, stable, and spiritual; then I can offer this to the other people in my life. At least my part of the relationship is not unhealthy. That is really all the control I have.

Now part of the truth of this is that this will not keep me from being crucified by others. At times this happens. But other times I find myself in fellowship with others who also are seeking to grow in sanity, stability, and spirituality. Then we become family.

Sanity is the ability to know the difference between reality and illusion.

The struggle is that at times sanity is very painful. It confronts us with painful truths. Death, sickness, rejection, abandonment, and abuse. We fear that seeking reality will kill us. We believe to survive we need to lie to ourselves and deny the truth.

But the illusions begin to have a cost. They begin to create more pain. We also find ourselves lost in our illusions. At some point we do not know who we are.

So we must make sure we see all of reality. The glass half full as well as half empty. Then reality becomes a comfort as well as a challenge. We must come to be content with what really is true. This gives us the sanity we need.

How do we deal with false accusations that are made against us? Such experiences are not easy. We feel angry and confused because we do not understand why someone would falsely accuse us. It is easy at this stage to become defensive and attack back.

The first thing to do is to correct the wrong message. If it has been made public where you feel slandered then you need to make a simple and nonjudgmental statement of your innocence. Next you need to go to the source of the wrong information and see if you can find out why they felt they needed to communicate to others a bad impression of who you were without talking to you first. You need to be a “peace maker” but recognize that it takes two people to make peace. Many times we can only set the boundary of confronting in love and then we will have to turn the other cheek. When someone has decided to be your enemy then only God can change that. We must love them and bless them but we cannot change them.

Finally, we must release our hurt and pain to God in prayer. We must ask God to protect our reputations. We must mourn the lack of love and trust people have for us. It is a time to be sad but remember that God loves us and is working in our lives.

Psa 69:20

Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.   I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.

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Most of us at times find ourselves in times of despair and depression.   These can be either caused by outward circumstances, abuse by significant people in our lives, or by inner condemnation of our own being or actions.   At such times we feel crushed by the weight and the inner pain we feel inside of our hearts and souls.

Recently a man cam in to talk to me.  He had lost his business, his wife, and his children lives were in  a mess.  He had gone from being a “success” to being a “failure” in a fairly short period of time.  The inner voice inside of his head was one filled with self condemnation and anger.  His health was suffering, he had anxiety attacks, and he was all but paralyzed as the banks threatened to foreclose on his home. 

What could he do?  The first step was to carefully define what was under his control and what was not under his control.   His wife had made a decision to be unfaithful and leave.  This was outside of his control.   His business suffered the impact of the general down turn of the economy.  These events were really outside of his control.  He had to not believe that there was some magical way that these events could have been avoided.  Such thinking wasted his energy and produced false guilt. 

His children were making poor decisions.  What could he do about that.  He could be sane, stable, and spiritual today.  The only thing he could do to help them was to strive to be the most healthy dad he knew how to be today.   In fact the only thing that was under his control was himself.  By watching his self talk, practicing meditative prayer, centering himself in the love of God, and believing that there was purpose in all the pain then the inner feelings of fear and anger could be curbed and more positive emotions nurtured.   These emotions could help him to begin to seek positive answers for today.

Depression is one of the most common problems we face.   To fight it we must first see what things were under our control and which were not under our control.  We must begin to put our energy into those things that we do have under our control.  Above all we must seek the Lord to be our helper and comforter.   These steps can step by step take us out of the depths of our despair and produce in us new hope.