Nobody can hurt me without my permission. –Mahatma Gandhi
This beautiful quote is from Mahatma Gandhi. My understanding about this quote is that one cannot hurt me (or anyone) unless we give permission to our heart to accept and be hurt. Here hurt means not physical but emotional hurt.
Sometimes others hurt us knowingly or unknowingly with their words or actions (not speaking, ignoring, avoiding, etc). We can come across this kind of situation either at home, at the workplace, or from near and dear ones like siblings, partners/spouses, friends, relatives or sometimes from a stranger.
The impact of hurt (pain) on us and our reaction and action towards the hurt is relative to how near and dear we are to each other.
For example, if a sibling hurts the other sibling the impact of hurt can be more. Same way if a partner hurts the other partner the impact of the hurt and the reaction and our action towards that hurt might be different.
Same way depending on the relationship the impact, our reaction and actions might differ. So towards a friend, we might react differently and towards a colleague, the impact and reaction might differ. Towards our boss, our reaction and impact might be different.
However, when we are hurt, we are hurt. It bothers us inside. Hurt can take away our peace. It is like a thorn pricking our hearts in silence. The longer the thorn is in your heart the more you bleed. Hence, as any thorn, as soon as it pricks we have to remove and throw away far. And, save our heart from bleeding further. Else, if you permit the hurt (thorn) to stay, the pain will stay day long sometimes days long. This can have an impact on our peace inside.
Hence, to manage peace never should we permit the hurt (pain) to impact our peace. Thus, do not permit the hurt (pain) to let in without your permission so that you (we) can empower your (our) heart with peace.