March 2020 Quote: Hurt

“Hurt people, hurt people.”

To all those who have been hurt and who have hurt, I don’t know who exactly termed this phrase, but I heard it from Adelaine Morin, a Youtuber, who I highly admire. You see, I’m the type of person who loves a good play on words; the repetition in here just got me. When I heard this from Adelaine it took me a minute to process what she said. And when I did, it resonated and stuck like a post-it in the back of my mind.

Now whenever I look at a person or a situation, I think of this.

Not to get too personal about Adeline Morin because it’s her life and her privacy, but she is the epitome of someone I thought who was Miss Sunshine. She was someone who came across as utterly happy all the time on her Youtube videos with its yellow backgrounds, her dogs, her laughter, and her bubbly personality. I thought she was so happy, and I wondered how she was always so happy? In all honesty, I knew she had her bad days and she could just videotape the moments when she was joyful or that she could be putting on an act. But I trust Adelaine a lot and to me that would seem ingenuine. Even when I had a hunch that she broke up with her boyfriend, her videos had this mood to it and she had this vibe from her that no matter how bubbly she was on camera, she wasn’t happy.

Recently, she came out with a mental health series that left me in utter tears, especially the first episode. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll leave it down below, but I watched it and I hurt for her. Because here I was thinking Adelaine was the happiest person on earth, the kindest person on earth, but she was someone who’s been through heck and over on this earth.

And it just goes to show you that you never really know a person in what they’ve been through. The only thing is how a person reacts from those situations of hardships in either letting hatred and anger turn them mean or letting that pain turn them the kindest person they can be. There’s this saying that goes along with this idea in how the kindest people are the people who have faced the worst hardships because they know pain and they don’t want others to feel that. That saying also resonated a lot with me because I’ve been through some hard things, but never have I thought to cause pain to others so they felt my pain. I was made stronger from that situation, but also kinder so no one else had to feel that pain.

But when they say hurt people, hurt people, they mean it.

Because the person who hurt Adelaine was hurt and she was reflecting that hurt onto her. When people are lost, scared, angry, confused, or they aren’t happy with their life or with themselves, sometimes they don’t know how to act, so they react in ways that seem monstrous. Hurt people, hurt people.

Sometimes it’s consciously, sometimes not, but either way, it’s coming out of a place of pain and when we all feel that, we can sometimes let that emotion override in the worst way.

I know that when I felt the lowest in my life—-the most hurt—–I reflected some of my anger to my brother. He never deserved that. I was hurt in the sense that I was angry at myself at what I’d done and how low I’d gotten. I was mad at the world and at people for how they made me feel about myself. I was just so angry as a teen. I wasn’t in the best place physically or mentally and I hurt my brother a lot because I was hurt. I pushed him away. I snapped at him. I ignored him. I made him feel unloved to the point that he cried and it caused some tension in our family.

I did that because I was hurt. I did that because I couldn’t see clearly through my hurt to see what I was doing to him.

Everyday I look back on that and think to myself how ugly I was in the way I acted just because I was mad at myself and everyone. My brother never deserved the hate he got from me, but he was just unfortunate to be at home all the time and to be at the end of the pain. I try to be the kindest person I can be, but sometimes even those people fall low. I fell low in that moment.

And everyone does.

We all get hurt. We are all victims of pain in some ways. It’s how we react to that hurt—-the pain that makes all the difference.

We can be hurt and hurt others so they can feel that pain. We can spend all our lives making people feel as low as we do because for some sick reason that makes us feel better to know others feel bad. Or we can be hurt and use that hurt to make others not feel that pain. We can spend all our lives saving others from knowing what we all know too well.

Next time, you truly look at someone or a situation, please look past it for what it is. Because I guarantee you if someone is lashing out at you, is angry, bullying you, or anything like that, it’s because they’re hurt. They’ve been hurt before and they don’t want to hurt again, so they hurt you first. Or they’ve been hurt before and want to hurt you so you feel their pain. It might make that person feel better and I never used to get it. Why did people bully? Why were people so mean to each other?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Hurt people, hurt people.

They’ve been hurt before, so they want to hurt others.

I get it. It’s not right, but I get it.

Because I did it once. I’m not perfect. But I learned from it.

I get it.

So this goes out to all those who have been hurt. Really look inside yourself and know this: No amount of hurting others will make your hurt go away or stop. No amount of hurting others will make you feel better. It won’t. For a time, it might. Sure, you might feel powerful because, heck, that person feels suckish. But hurting others makes you only as bad as those who have done the same thing to you. It makes you worse because you are so much better than that. You are so much stronger than that pain. Don’t let that pain hurt you, eat at you, and take away every good part of who you are. Because that’s what they want—-to hurt you.

No.

You take that pain, and you make it gold. You dry up your tears, you bandage over your wounds, you breathe out your anger. You pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and if you see someone being pushed down like you were, you be the one to help that person back up. Not laugh at them. Don’t be the one to push others, to tease others, to lash out at others, to hurt others. Do be the one uplifts others, encourages others, spread joy with others, to heal with others.

Love finds love.

Kindness finds kindness.

I genuinely believe it. If you do things out of love, you will find people who love you. If you do things out of kindness, kindness will find you. Like the Cheerios commercial: good goes around goes around. Because it does.

Healing is more powerful than hurting. When you allow yourself to heal and move on from what you’ve been through, you can see all you needed to do was help others find that peace within themselves.

When I healed, I looked back and thought that that person who lashed out at my brother wasn’t me. I was going through some things and once I grew out of it, I knew that I had to make amends. And I did. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for my actions back then because they weren’t justified. Maybe someday I will. But am thankful my brother did. I don’t think he has completely though, because he will always remember that time. I know I do. But when people heal enough to acknowledge their actions as wrong, that’s the first step in not hurting.

Being hurt sucks. You didn’t or don’t deserve any of the hardships, pain, oppression, taunts, or teasing that you have got in you life. not one bit. No one deserves to get hurt. But as people we hurt because we feel hurt and it’s always been this cycle of hurt.

Let’s end that cycle.

Let’s stop hurting others out of a place of hurt.

Let’s heal,

Let’s love,

Let’s spread kindness.

Because as much as hurt people can hurt people, healed people can heal people.

Let that be our mindset and manifestation.

With much love,

As always,