You don’t need thick skin. You need a filtering mind.

Photo by Chris Jarvis on Unsplash

The advice…

You don’t need thick skin. You need a filtering mind.

Where it’s coming from…

“Grow a thick skin”. How many times was it said to you? Or, perhaps, you said it to others? I always had an issue with this string of words.

This, I believe, is exactly what’s wrong with the world: Instead of holding people accountable for being nasty, hurtful, insensitive, cruel etc… we shift the responsibility onto the recipients of those hurtful actions or words and tell them: “You are partly to blame for the way you feel.”

This must stop. Because feeling makes us human.

Okay, I get that the grow-a-thick-skin advice is coming from a place of self-preservation. But it is also feeding the narrative that we should not feel.

But we should. Sometimes, it’s okay to cry.

This does not mean we should allow others to hurt us.

So what’s the solution? Rather than growing a thick skin that allows all emotions to bounce off us - and as a by-product makes us immune to people’s plight and provides a barrier to fully soaking in experiences - what we need to do is develop a filtering mind: one that sieves through comments and actions that are hurtful and understands them and treats them for what they are.

The barrier we need to create is not one that blocks emotions. It’s one that filters and manages them.

What’s the difference you might ask?

Yes, the result is the same: getting less hurt. But the narrative is no longer one that excuses or tolerates mean comments and actions. It’s one that calls them out for what they are and purposely decides not to give them the power to hurt.

I know, I know… easier said than done - especially when those comments come from those close to us. But it’s worth trying.