How To Stop Hurting Too Much
For practical steps, go to How to Stop Hurting Too Much – Part 2
When you care too much, you get hurt a lot, so in order to stop hurting you need to care too much. Of course, a lot of people might claim there is a logical fallacy there but let me explain.
When you care too much, there is a higher chance of hurting too much, right? And everytime you get hurt, it’s like a dagger sent through your heart, and even if you don’t let others see it, the immense pain is there. You feel it. With time the wound might heal (or it might scar over) and you move on. You care again, and you get hurt again, and the cycle continues; the more you care, the more you get hurt. But then a point comes when your heart is so scarred over that you don’t feel the pain anymore. Your threshold for pain increases, and suddenly the pain doesn’t feel so bad.
Think about it in another way. Burnt skin hurts for some time but when the sensory cells die do you feel anything?
So in other words, When you care too much, you get hurt a lot, so in order to stop hurting you need to care too much.
Do you agree or not?
Image courtesy of google images; 
Image via the internet. It does not belong to me but I also don’t know who holds the copyrights as many websites seem to have it.
A Heart's Echoes 
October 5, 2011 at 5:59 pm
you’ve got me smiling over this…
i partially agree…hurting is human…. the more expectations u have the bigger your dissappointment shall be… i’d rather work on expecting less that caring too much…
October 8, 2011 at 3:56 pm
I second you on that. Thanks for commenting
October 5, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Amina i like the idea… but when u r hit with a “knockout: الضربة القاضية” punch, it is difficult to overcome the pain, especially if its emotional hurting not physical or physiological
October 8, 2011 at 3:57 pm
@alikhandro, all I need to say is that with time, even the worse pains heal.
February 1, 2013 at 7:27 am
I feel this is not true, the pain stays , but you learn to live with it. My son died in May2012, he was only 21 years and everybody tells me that time heasl the wounds, its not true, or at least not to me…….you learn to live with the pain, but it will never go away…….this is my opinion……., feel free to read my blog and give me your opinions and experiences on this, it will be highly appreciated, I am never to old to learn from them…… Lots of love
February 1, 2013 at 10:19 am
Thanks for your comment and really sorry about your son. When I was writing about this I was mostly talking about heartache and rejection, not loss of a loved one because of death. Thanks 4 your response I really appreciate it.
October 5, 2011 at 7:36 pm
I enjoyed reading it, thanx!! It’s a common thread we all have and it’s true that every human wants to feel @tlst appreciated 4 being too caring…It’s kind of a defence mechanism to protect oneself from getting hurt. However, like you’ve put it, cont… to care too much and eventually healing take place and we can move on in life. I maself, used to take it personally and feel hurt, but not any more….( doesn’t mean i’ve stopped, i still do it_” carin too much” coz it’s worth it!!). Trust me, there’s a huge amount of freedom that comes to u when u take nothing personally, u become immune!
October 8, 2011 at 3:58 pm
@mariam I agree with u, but it’s not easy not to take things personally, especially when ppl hurt us so bad.
October 9, 2011 at 1:08 pm
it’s what we do with that pain is what can lift us up or not…some of us do and can mould the pain into something positive (or not).
October 9, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Not forgetting, it’s a progress with time u’ll adopt!!
October 6, 2011 at 8:37 am
Yes you reach to a point where you no longer feel that hurt, but thats worse because for me personally, once i reach that stage for anyone there’s no turning back
October 8, 2011 at 4:00 pm
@shireen, I guess that depends on how strong ur positive emotion was (love or caring), the more you love, the more permanent it feels when you’re hurt and it’s over.
October 6, 2011 at 10:21 am
love the pic!
you actually put it in a very nice way, but I still have to disagree. I don’t think the immunity system of hearts works that way. I would say there are two ways not to hurt:
(A) Care less. You will still get hurt sometimes, but you won’t bother.
(B) Care too much, yes you will get hurt too much, but then your immunity system will evolve and you will care less next time. go to (A)
October 8, 2011 at 4:01 pm
@hanan, I love the way you put it…so computer engineering style. step 1, step 2 and then form a loop like a program. Thanks for the comment
October 8, 2011 at 10:33 am
Once I saw an interesting clip about the correlation between the size of the heart and degree of hurt… the bigger your heart is, the smaller the problems/pain/hurt will be compared to it… so picture this:
you have two knives of the same size (keeping the size of the problem constant)
and two hearts for two different people…
one is extremely large (stronger iman, etc)
the other one is tiny
and each knife is stuck into a heart…
🙂
of course the one with the smaller heart will hurt much much much more… whereas that exact same problem will seem so small compared to the size of the heart…
I agree to a great extent with the way you put it, but the way I see it is that you don’t become numb and hurt less or get used to that kind of pain and increase your tolerance… it’s just that the problem itself seems so much smaller when you grow from the inside and not when your “sensory cells” die…….
I think it’s what you mean, right? I don’t know why I sensed a little negative connotation with the way you described it …. 🙂
October 8, 2011 at 4:02 pm
@ muna, I gues your comment wins on this post because I like the way you explained it. Keep commenting. As for the negative connotation, it depends on how you see it.I just want to people to understand that hurting doesn’t always mean something bad because they learn to be stronger the next time.
September 19, 2012 at 2:37 pm
See, with analogies, one has to be careful.. Analogies are tools to strengthen our understanding by drawing a mental image to closer-to-the-mind everyday actions.. Once you drew the analogy, it doesn’t mean that it represents the phenomena entirely. The bigger problem arises when the analogy is taken to a bigger extent than the original situation trying to stretch both to fit each other. That might look appealing for a second, or even thought provoking, but never be fooled by that my advice..
Be careful with analogies, especially with “emotional” imagery..
October 29, 2012 at 12:52 am
Sometimes I am afraid to care about someone knowing that in the future this person will hurt me. You are right – the person you care for the most will also be the same person who will hurt you the greatest.
March 20, 2014 at 1:05 pm
If you culture within yourself the realization that you have unlimited capacity to care, at least about something, even if not someone, then you can protect yourself from hurt. A Taoist would say you hurt because you let yourself hurt, though the trigger is the hurtful person. The frame of mind for caring is ironicly much like loaning money wisdom… you give it out trying not to expecting it back. If you feel your investment wasn’t worth it, then you stop giving to that person. If you give so much you hurt, you’re giving too much, too soon. Often introverts are so starved for affection and inclusion, they are taken for a ride. It makes it look foolish to trust, to care too deeply, but the world would be a better place if others cared more, rather than less. One thing that helps is to realize that others may not be as developed as you are in the caring department. Ask yourself if caring for a child (who naturally tends to live a self-centred life) bothers you. Why not? Because with greater capacity to feel/hurt/care, there is also greater capacity to understand and forgive. If you can’t get what you need out of what should be a relationship between mature people, even after stating what you feel is going wrong, then move along or accept the uneven drain of your energies.
December 26, 2012 at 9:52 am
[…] 2) How to Stop Hurting Too Much. […]
January 20, 2013 at 1:25 pm
You should read the story of the perfect heart. It’s exacty what you’re talking about here!
February 3, 2013 at 9:54 pm
Where might I find this story of a perfect heart? Thanks!
February 1, 2013 at 7:29 am
you’ve got me thinking over this now…
June 30, 2013 at 3:10 am
I disagree,iv been hurt a countless times over and the pain nevrer seems.to faden get less or stop its horrible then againg maybee some people are born more like this than others
July 24, 2013 at 12:28 pm
What we’re talking about here is habituation. To feel less hurt the next time, habituate. But… if you don’t want to harden your heart by habituating, you will have to keep on taking the hurting. I don’t ever want to get used to violence on tv, for instance – it will numb me to tragedies in real life. The world is too insensitive as it is, which is why the news is so upsetting: the media needs to, more and more, rile people up because they’ve habituated. It makes for a nastier world. So what to do to help yourself deal? Yes, learn to care more, but not for the reasons cited so far. In order to not hurt so much and yet still not develop a hardened heart, try empathizing with the ones who hurt you. You might not feel like it, but figuring out why they did what they did will help you understand why you were injured – and where they have their fallabilities. Very often an extrovert will seek to pull down an introvert in an attempt to raise his social standing; at other times, it’s personal due to uninformed and misplaced jealousy. If you look at it as the other person’s sad state of affairs instead of your own, you can both deflect the assault and help them at the same time. It has been proven that extroverts point the finger of blame… and with 75-80% of the population being extroverted, it all falls on the introverts – the responsible ones who are the problem-solvers. This isn’t a good thing, as what happens when the introverts can’t function for too much psychological injury? They go see a shrink who gives them antidepressants that make them suicidal. Extroverts need to stop this abuse and start to realize that, without people who love playing with ideas (introverts), civilization grinds to a halt. Scientists create technologies that build civilization; artists enlighten and entertain us to maintain civilization. We are the very last species of our genus. Without the sapiens, there is no Homo, so love your geeks and artsies! (I’m going to put that on a t-shirt.)
July 24, 2013 at 12:32 pm
Thank you for your comment
July 24, 2013 at 3:30 pm
I fell in love with is guy knowing his got 7 moth old son.im single with no kids I’m 30 yrs old…he said he love me I was abit to much on him becoz I got s scred of losing him,but so I did lose it. In back of my mind his got son works a lot never have time for me..then one day he said he hates me he never wants to see me again it kills my heart.becoz I do love him…how can’t I stop loveing him & move on
November 6, 2013 at 3:35 pm
[…] the post “How to stop hurting” has been one of my popular posts in the past. I don’t really understand why. Funny enough, […]
November 7, 2013 at 8:32 pm
Hi there, awe I really do like that!
January 20, 2014 at 8:34 am
wow what if it gets to a point where you do not feel a thing?
October 9, 2016 at 3:48 am
I really wish that was true. I wish I didn’t care. I wish I was numb to pain. I wish I didn’t have dreams and I really, really wish I didn’t love so deeply, but I do. That’s the way God made me. The only thing I can do is not put myself out there anymore, at least in the ways that would hurt the most. Maybe there’s someone out there who values me (or you) for the way I (or you) were created; someone who sees loving deeply as an asset, not something to be exploited or taken for granted. I haven’t found that yet. I don’t know what’s sadder: getting hurt again and again or this world where love, as God intended it, just doesn’t seem to exist anymore. If you love deeply, accept that for who you are. Know that I value that in you. If you can’t grow numb to it, at least there’s still hope for love to prevail, for if we all grow numb, what, then, would the world look like?