Throughout our lives, we experience pain. Emotional pain, physical pain, psychological pain, and sometimes pain we can't identify. Many times we are able to cope with the pain or find some way to deal with it. However, there is a special kind of pain that we allow ourselves to endure over and over, normally from someone we love. In a book I've been reading recently, the author talks about how she allowed her boyfriend to treat her so badly because she didn't want to hurt his feelings, upset him, or lose him. So, she allowed him to hurt her in any way he could. That made me wonder: why do we allow ourselves to get hurt by someone we love and then comfort them and allow them to continue to do it to us?

In some cases, I think we allow people we love to hurt us because we see that speaking up for ourselves or doing something about it would upset them. Ultimately, I think we allow people we love to hurt us because we love them more than we love ourselves. In my case, I know I continually allowed someone to hurt me in a way that broke my spirit and made me think I was the problem because I didn't love myself more than the other person. I think that the person's hurtfulness made me think I deserved it and should continue to endure it because I didn't want to hurt them. However, this could not be further from the truth. No one deserves to get hurt. Even more, no one should endure comforting the person that hurt them.

The lesson here is to love yourself and put yourself first. Do what makes you happy. Put yourself, your dreams, your hopes, your faults, and dare someone to criticize you for it. Without hurting others, be unapologetically happy. Be the person you want to be and don't allow yourself to continually get hurt by anyone you love. If you do get hurt, stick up for yourself and don't let it happen again. Move to that city you've always dreamed about, see the world, be the person you want to be even if someone doesn't like it, dream big, and don't change yourself to please others. Be your own person, do what makes you happy, and don't believe people who say something is wrong with you or who put you down. Be proud of being independent and be confident in that. To those who hurt you, sympathize them, but don't comfort them. Surround yourself with people who would never dare of hurting you, and let go of those who do.