Unpleasant (making it minus the 'un')

It is not male or female, nor man or woman. It does not discriminate and can come at any age or state. Hurt.

There are times in our lives where we are hurt by others, ourselves, inward and outward, deserving and undeserving, inevitably unavoidable. It is written, "makhtub" for hurt to come and change us, to bind us, to break us, to mend and heal us, to free us from fear, it has a purpose and we must over come it.

Life contains expected and unexpected challenges. Those that we plan for and those that take us by surprise. The problem lies, when we become stuck in our state of sadness or pain so much so, that it stunts our growth. The venom of revenge boils in us and proves to be and additional parasite that eats at our happiness.

From this, we must look forward. Fulfilling our next dream, destiny, step and success...we must prove to ourselves that we can build and move upward. We must realize that time heals all things. To keep from sounding optimistic, I will say that the light at the end of the tunnel is not always visible, depending on how deep the hurt is for you. You must convince yourself, however, that there is a light, a Divine light that is urging you to come to greatness, to succeed.

If you are the helper to the hurting, a few tips:

*Be Private!!!! - Don't go running and telling Any One's business. PERIOD.

*Be Sincere - If you can help, help. If not, then say something encouraging and move on. No one hurting needs pity, they need support.

*Be Honest - Giving your honest opinion of the situation (emphasis on you saying 'your opinion') is key.

*Encourage Reflection - Ask the person to recount the story of hurt and let the person process their feelings about the situation and the actions contained. Don't press for information that you don't need (i.e. - names, location, familial ties...)

*Validate - Let the person know that you acknowledge their feelings. Many times, we disregard the hurt of someone we may see as very strong. So comfort and validate, all things can happen to anyone.

I could go on forever, but be a friend, encourage the person to live in the moment and in the present and to reflect on the lessons that can be learned and looked forward to.

Here are some quotes from a blog I frequent. I pray that may also touch some of you out there who are hurting or helping the hurt. Blog Address - http://lessonsoftheday.blogspot.com/

"The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well. Hurt is a fact of life. until we accept and allow the hurt as inevitable, we cannot begin to deal more effectively with the hurts of life. As human beings, we will hurt and be hurt. None of us is invulnerable. Not only do circumstances upset us, but we hurt each other, not necessarily intentionally or maliciously. We disappoint, criticize, oppose, anger, injure, and withhold from one another all the time.

"Because we refuse to accept and include hurt and the suffering that may follow as an inevitable aspect of human experience, hurt takes us by surprise and we never learn effective ways to deal with it. It is not wrong to hurt, but it is tragic that we let our reactions to hurt and our fear of hurt run our lives." [Judy Tatelbaum, You Don't Have to Suffer]

"We hold hurt as wrong. We think that hurt should simply not happen to us. We imagine if we were good enough or mature enough or strong enough, we would not hurt. Longing to be superhuman-----not human-----we deny the inevitability of hurting and being hurt. As a result we are outraged and often overwhelmed when we are hurt or disappointed.

"If we only accepted that hurts happen, we would be much more effective in dealing with them. Then we could freely admit to inflicting or feeling hurt. With such a consciousness, we could simply recoil momentarily from pain and not feel damaged by every hurtful event in our lives. We would certainly be freer to forgive and forget, the most powerful way we can overcome hurt." [Judy Tatelbaum, You Don't Have to Suffer]