Tag: empathy

When Truth Isn’t Enough: A Story of Hurt and Healing

Pavitra had always believed that truth was enough. That if you were honest, if your intentions were pure, people would see that. Especially family. Especially the people who claimed to love you most.

But sometimes truth isn’t enough when people have already decided what they want to believe.

The Innocent Mistake

It started so innocently. Pavitra was managing the WhatsApp group for the community volunteer cleanup project when she saw a notification about her son Arjun’s friend, Vikram, who had helped with the last event. Without really thinking – just quickly trying to add helpful volunteers while managing multiple tasks – she accidentally added Vikram to the group chat.

Within minutes, Arjun was storming into the room, his face flushed with anger.

“Mom, what is wrong with you?” he said, his voice sharp and disrespectful. “Why are you adding my friends to random group chats? You’re making Vikram feel obligated to volunteer when he never asked for this. You’re crossing boundaries!”

Pavitra looked up from her phone in confusion. “Arjun, it was completely accidental. I was quickly adding people and …”

“That’s impossible,” he cut her off, his tone harsh in a way that made her heart sink. “You don’t accidentally add someone to a group. You had to search for his name, select it, and click add. You’re lying about this being an accident.”

“I can show you exactly how it happened,” Pavitra said, trying to keep her voice calm despite the familiar panic rising in her chest. “It was literally a matter of seconds; I was moving quickly through contacts and …”

“Stop lying to me!” His voice was cruel, cutting. “You did this deliberately and now you’re making up excuses. Just admit what you did!”

“Arjun, I’m sorry this happened,” Pavitra said, her voice breaking slightly. “It was completely an accident – it happened in a matter of seconds while I was managing the list. I’ll remove Vikram right now and let him know it was a mistake.”

But even her immediate apology and offer to fix the situation wasn’t enough. Arjun continued to glare at her with that look of disgust, as if she had committed some terrible crime instead of making an innocent mistake.

She found herself wondering – why was he making such a big deal out of this? Why was he speaking to her with such disrespect over something that could be so easily resolved? Was this just how this generation handled conflicts – with immediate accusations and refusal to accept explanations? Or was this something deeper, something about how he saw her, how he valued her feelings?

The questions swirled in her mind as she watched her son’s face, searching for any sign – some part of her son that could trust her, even a bit of willingness to give his mother the benefit of the doubt in that moment.

The Betrayal of Silence

What happened next shattered something inside Pavitra. Her husband, hearing the raised voices, came over and instead of asking for her side of the story or addressing Arjun’s disrespectful tone, immediately began trying to smooth things over.

“Arjun, calm down,” her husband said, but his next words cut deeper than his son’s accusations. “And Pavitra, maybe you should give the boys some space with their friendships. You know how sensitive these relationships can be at their age.”

The betrayal was complete. Not only was her husband not defending her against being called a liar by their own son, but he was also suggesting she was somehow in the wrong for accidentally adding a friend to a volunteer group.

This was no longer just about a group chat or volunteer list. When your own son calls you a liar and your husband sides with him instead of you, when they choose his comfort over your dignity, when they let him disrespect you in your own home – it becomes about everything that matters: respect, trust, and whether your feelings have any value in your own family.

Old Wounds, Fresh Pain

As Pavitra stood there, watching her husband smooth things over and her son avoid eye contact, she felt that familiar sensation – the walls closing in, the ground shifting beneath her feet. She had been here before. Different situation, same feeling of being utterly alone while surrounded by people who claimed to love her.

Years of similar moments came flooding back. Times when she had been misunderstood, when she had to defend her truth to deaf ears, when keeping the peace was more important than protecting her dignity. The accumulation of all those times when she had swallowed her hurt for the sake of family harmony.

Pavitra felt angry, upset and could not help crying and felt a panic. Her anxiety rose. Her voice rose and she began feeling out of control.

“I know what I did and why I did it,” she said angrily, her voice unsteady following the growing storm inside. “It was an accident that happened in seconds while I was managing the volunteer group. But if you’ve decided I’m a liar, nothing I say will change that.”

That day, Pavitra found herself eating emotionally, seeking comfort in food when comfort from family wasn’t there. She stayed away from them, spending time outside, trying to process the weight of feeling so alone in her own home.

The Loneliness of Being Right

Later that evening, after Arjun had stormed off to his room and the group chat issue had been “resolved” with apologies and Vikram being removed from the group, Pavitra sat alone in her kitchen. Her family had moved on as if nothing had happened. Her husband was watching TV and her son in his room.

But she couldn’t move on. Not from being called a liar when she had told the truth. Not from watching her family choose the path of least resistance instead of standing up for her. Not from the realization that in their eyes, her feelings mattered less than avoiding conflict.

She thought about all the times she had intervened when someone disrespected her family. How natural it felt to be a moral support for the people she loved, and how important it felt for her family to be heard, understood and be happy.

Why didn’t they feel that same instinct for her?

The Weight of Invisible Pain

The hardest part wasn’t even the accusation or the misunderstanding. It was Pavitra’s wondering – how could this happen? How could everyone just get over it and expect her to get over it too? How could they expect her to be okay and just be fine, to accept the disrespect without any apology, as if nothing had happened?

It was the way her pain became invisible the moment it became inconvenient.

Pavitra wondered if this was about a lack of empathy – the inability to put themselves in her shoes and truly understand what she was feeling. Could they see her pain and still choose the easier path? Was it about seeking quick comfort rather than going deeper into understanding what really happened? Was it about avoiding the emotional work of truly supporting each other through difficult moments?

Maybe it wasn’t that they didn’t care – maybe they just didn’t know how to handle the messiness of someone else’s pain when it felt easier to smooth things over and move on.

But she also realized something else: her truth didn’t need their validation to be real. Her worth didn’t depend on their recognition. And sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is simply know your own heart, even when no one else seems to.

Moving Forward

That night, Pavitra wrote in her journal:

“Today I learned that some battles you fight alone, even when you’re surrounded by family. Today I learned that my truth belongs to me, whether others choose to see it or not. Today I learned that sometimes the people who should stand with you will choose comfort instead, and that doesn’t make you wrong – it just makes you strong.”

She didn’t know how to heal the hurt yet. She didn’t know how to bridge the gap between her need to be believed and their need to avoid conflict. But she knew she wouldn’t apologize for expecting basic respect from the people who claimed to love her.

She did realize deep within that the hurt she felt came from the expectations on how people need to be in her eyes. The moment she lets go of the expectations, she can be set free and there will be clarity, forgiveness and peace in her heart. She knows it is a matter of time when she will seek His help to let go of the expectation and be at peace. No one is responsible for her happiness except herself.

And maybe, just maybe, that understanding and insight is enough for now.

The Energy Wisdom – The Choice of Where We Place Our Focus

From the times of Covid when work from home became the norm, remote work has presented unique challenges, particularly in understanding and connecting with colleagues. You learn to interpret coworkers from whatever little they share during meetings or daily standups. Emotionally connecting with peers has been difficult, not to mention how crucial it is to understand each other to work effectively as a team.

Years ago, a new colleague joined our company. He sounded very sarcastic, often cutting people off and calling out mistakes in a somewhat snobbish manner when someone didn’t understand or comprehend what he shared. He quickly developed a reputation as a difficult person to work with, and very soon I had formed an opinion of him as being hard to collaborate with, intimidating, and aggressive. Let’s call him “Jacob” for privacy reasons.

With many new people joining our team at that time, I had suggested at our Retro meeting that it would help us bond if we did a casual team building exercise. I was pleased when my scrum master and manager agreed, seeing value in such an activity. My manager went the extra mile by preparing some creative questions for the team.

One question asked everyone to share something about their childhood – what was their best learning experience or what they wished they had learned better.

When Jacob’s turn came, what he shared caused a paradigm shift in how I perceived him.

Jacob revealed that he was orphaned and didn’t know his birth parents. He had moved between several foster homes as a child before being raised by an elderly couple when he was 8 years old in rural Iowa. His foster parents had a big farm with neighbors half a mile away. There weren’t many children his age nearby with whom he could relate and play. His foster parents were kind enough to teach him life skills and provide him education. He worked very hard to respect the opportunity he had and to thank his parents too.

He shared with a chuckle that due to his childhood and growing up with elderly parents, he had always struggled with connecting to people his own age. His weakness has been his awkwardness with people, and his communication style has suffered as a result. He acknowledged that he could come across as rude or too direct, but emphasized that he doesn’t do it intentionally – he’s simply struggling with it. He added that he’s actively working to improve.

Hearing him talk shifted something profound in me. It made me realize how quick we are to judge others. We don’t know their full story, and it’s true that to a great extent, our choices and behaviors are heavily influenced by our life circumstances and childhood conditioning.

While it’s important to listen to our instincts when our energy senses something or someone is not good for our mental health, we don’t need to rush to judgment or share harsh opinions. Rather, we can respect our feelings and create appropriate distance when needed, as our primary responsibility is to take care of ourselves.

We tend to waste our energy and time harboring negative feelings towards others or obsessing over “why” or “how could they” behave a certain way. This often leads us to assume things about situations unknown to us. We may never truly understand why people behave the way they do, but we can take care of our wellbeing, know our boundaries, and simply meet people where they are, keeping things uncomplicated. No one is responsible for our happiness except ourselves.