One Word

Protection is often equated with physical means - vaccines, security guards, martial arts, etc. However, there's a kind of protection majority of us would never think about - protection from being emotionally scarred by others. We will never need to worry about being hurt since our day carries very little physical threat. But if we consider it to the mental and emotional level, there appears to be a different kind of possiblity that we may get hurt.

Here are some examples:

LET DOWN. "I'm so disappointed in you because you've let me down..." Disappointment comes from the perception that someone has not met our expectations. If they fail to do what they promised, we take it personally.

BETRAYED. "How can I ever trust you again?" The hurt comes when we expect people not to do things that can melt down our trust.

BROKEN PROMISES. "But you promised me..." It's a personal hurt when someone does not keep his word.

The key word to being hurt is expecting. We create our own suffering. Any hurt reactions are self-created and not caused by another person or event. Majority of the hurts stem from the fact that people are not behaving the way we want them to behave. It's like trying to control what we can't control. So you see, it's a mistake to make our happiness dependent on our expectaions of others.

I admit that in physical hurt, I'm not strong enough to protect myself. In emotional pain, I'm not powerful as well. So my question is, "Do I need to build a kind of 'bouncer system' that can guard the windows of my mind and the doors of my heart?"