The Lie Of Fear Of Hurting Someone

The fear of hurting someone is manifested through a very common phrase: “I didn’t want to do or say such a thing for fear of hurting him”. Probably everyone has used this phrase in one way or another, but what does it really hide? It hides a big lie associated with a feeling of guilt.

How many things have we stopped talking and doing because of the fear of hurting someone else, or rather because I think it works that way. In reality, we don’t know what can hurt a person, and we’re not even being honest with ourselves. We secretly deceive ourselves out of the need to protect ourselves.

We stop telling the truth, we stop maintaining effective and authentic communication, we hide and hide a lot of information that the other person would deserve and want to know. And all of this ends up having some consequences that we often didn’t want to consider.

The only person responsible for how you feel is yourself.

We don’t have the ability to make a person feel a certain way. This is not up to us; neither our actions nor our words have this power, and therefore we cannot know how anyone will feel about something.

We ourselves are responsible for what we feel, we generate everything through the interpretations we give to something that happened, what was done or said to us. There are many phrases that make us believe that we are responsible for what other people might feel:

• You made me feel guilty about this situation.

• You hurt me.
• You hurt me with your words.
• I am hurt by your behavior.
• You make me feel sad.

With these sentences, and everything that has to do with taking responsibility for how we make another person feel, we are failing to take our responsibility and the reality that these sensations, these feelings and emotions are generated by us, through our interaction with other people.

The fear of hurting hides other fears

We configure ourselves like that, and use the “I am like that” to justify that we believe we are truly responsible for how the other person might feel.

We believe that what really happens is that we are afraid of hurting someone else, and we rely on that thought. When we believe this, we can fool ourselves indiscriminately. And, in our fantasy, we are the saviors who prefer to cheat rather than hurt.

What are we really justifying with this attitude? We are justifying our fears, and, above all, our guilt. When we feel guilty, alarms are immediately set off that prevent the truth from being known. We protect ourselves from some consequences we don’t want to assume.

However, we feel guilty because we automatically infer that the other person will hold us responsible for how they feel. We can get rid of this guilt if we are able to assume that we are not responsible for how you end up making the other person feel.

get rid of your guilt

The feeling of guilt generated by our own insecurities and thoughts is what determines behaviors that distance us from other people. We protect ourselves by avoiding authenticity and clarity by not facing our fears.

You must understand, accept and integrate that you are not responsible for how another person may feel, as you do not have the power to hurt them, nor to avoid their pain.  You will come into deep contact with yourself, you will not distract from what is really happening: your fears do not allow you to clearly understand that you are avoiding a situation that causes you discomfort and anguish.

Facing this situation allows us not only to know ourselves and our fears better, but also to regain the value of being honest and facing the consequences of our actions. And this contributes to maintaining more authentic and stable relationships; based on trust.