If someone has hurt us and we don’t have the courage to tell them what can we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
two different questions actually the first question is about if a person has hurt us, we may calm ourselves down we may avoid anger but then shouldn’t we communicate to the other person that they have hurt us that’s what I said, we have to speak speak with others, not speak about others but suppose we don’t get the courage so if we don’t get the courage to tell the other person that they have hurt us then we have to find out an appropriate way to do it see basically, whenever we face any problem we have broadly speaking three alternatives one is change ourselves second is change the situation, in the situation we change the other person third is walk away from the situation now it is not that anyone is right and others are wrong it depends on time and place the Pandavas, we see in the Mahabharata, at different times they do all these three things initially when Bhima is poisoned initially when the Kauravas try to burn them in Varanavath the Pandavas just tolerate they just tell, don’t tell it in public don’t make a fuss out of it just keep this conflict in the house don’t tell it in public, they tolerated they changed themselves and tolerated but when Draupadi was dishonored at that time a line was crossed and then the same Bhagavad Gita which tells Arjuna tolerate that same Bhagavad Gita also tells Arjuna fight, attain victory, Krishna is not telling Arjuna, tolerate the Kauravas atrocities Krishna is telling fight so in some situations we need to change the situation that is also one course of action third is when Krishna departed from the world the Pandavas retired, they walked away so sometimes we may decide that this particular issue has become so messy there are so many misunderstandings in this particular thing I have better things in my life than to resolve this just walk away from it so now which is appropriate when that we have to use our intelligence to understand so we have to deal with it, there are many situations when we have to communicate and if we don’t have the courage to communicate then we have to consider the other two options either I have to tolerate it, change myself and tolerate it or I have to walk away from it now usually speaking the fear of the other person’s displeasure or the fear of the other person’s reaction if that is what is keeping us silent then there is a unhealthy power imbalance in the relationship that means either that person has power because of certain position or that person has power over us because of which we are unable to express ourselves now whether that is the way we want it to be whether that is changeable, all that has to be decided but if we choose a particular option then we need to embrace it wholeheartedly there is no point if I decide that I am going to change myself I can’t speak to that person, I can’t change that person my words will not have an effect, they will have a counterproductive effect if I decide that then there is we have to be prepared to tolerate what makes life worse is that we choose one option and expect the result of the other option that means I choose to stay silent and I expect the other person will understand me and will change the other person is not Parmatma the other person doesn’t know everything and if the other person has been so sensitive as to understand what we are going through then probably they would not have done that thing only so each course of action has its consequences and it’s not that one is a sign of weakness and the other is a sign of strength it’s just that we have to choose which is wise which is the best for us and when we are able to do that we have to be prepared now it’s possible also that if we tolerate a person may understand eventually this person has tolerated so much but if we choose a particular course of action then we have to stick to that and we can’t expect the result of the other course of action so the mind often troubles us by making us feel as if we are being unfairly victimized it may be true that we are suffering unfairly but then we also have made certain choices so once we make a choice we stick to that choice of course in a future situation we might make another choice but we have to know each choice comes with a consequence so which choice and which consequence we are ready for we will have to use our intelligence to decide but it’s not that being fearful of the other person’s reaction and that’s why staying silent that may not be a healthy thing in some cases it might be because it’s a small issue and we just want to let it pass but it’s a big issue for us and best to find some way to communicate and do it in a non-judgmental way but we do it and then when we are communicating, how we communicate is also important there is a behavior of a person there is the effect which that behavior had on us and there is a reason for that when you did this it hurt me because of this if instead of talking about their action and the emotion that we felt because of that we just make a value judgment you are so insensitive I don’t know how I can live with you I don’t know how you can be so insensitive what has happened is we have not spoken about the action we have just spoken the value judgment from that and then that becomes a all of us we may pretend to be very confident, very powerful even domineering but everybody has insecurities, different levels of insecurity and if anybody attacks us it just agitates us so if we point out a particular behavior when you did this, it angered me, it irritated me so that behavior is different from the person we all can behave in odd ways at times but when we make a value judgment about a person’s character you are insensitive, you are irresponsible you are this, you are that I can separate myself from my behavior or occasional action but when an attack comes on my character then it is very difficult to tolerate that so while communicating rather than making a value judgment about the other person’s character we could just stick to specific actions, specific facts then usually the person will also understand people cannot usually dispute facts if the facts are objectively known you are supposed to not do this it is an objective fact, they may have a reason why they did not do it or our reason they may not agree with but we start with facts, not value judgments then the communication is most likely to be more productive does it answer your question?