When I get upset I tend to tell myself “it doesn’t matter”. When people get angry they tend to tell themselves that the people they’re angry at “don’t matter”. When big things go wrong in our lives we tend to say “it doesn’t matter”. As if saying this over and over again will make it true, like it will take these things that obviously do matter and make them cease to.

It might seem harmless, but pretending things don’t bother you doesn’t make them stop bothering you, it just suppresses them so they can come back and bite you later. It’s why people bring up long past arguments in fights. Those things were never resolved, and yes, they’re still angry about them, even though the person they are fighting with has long since forgotten them. It’s a surprise to them, which normally makes the fight deteriorate at a rapid speed.

So yes, it does matter, it all matters. If you’re trying to dismiss something because you don’t think it should matter, that’s still something you need to dissect. If it shouldn’t be a big deal you need to figure out why it still feels like a big deal to you. Maybe you don’t need to get the other person involved, maybe it has nothing to do with them. If it is you, you should adjust, but if it’s them, or even a little bit of you both (which it normally is) you need to talk about it. Notice that I said talk, not scream, it’s normally best to calmly discuss things so you don’t end up attacking instead of resolving.

A lot of people don’t like conflict. It’s not unusual. But that doesn’t mean the things that cause it can be avoided. It means you need to find a way (and find people) to calmly solve conflicts without them escalating. This takes strength on your part and strength on the other persons part, but it’s definitely not hard if you approach the topic in a non hurtful way. A lot of the time people aren’t doing things to upset you, at least, not people that truly love you, not the people you need in your life. Most the time you don’t mean to hurt other people, and if they told you calmly that you did you would be sorry, or at least, you should be. (If your not maybe you need to take a deeper look at yourself.)

Maybe you’re saying “it doesn’t matter” because it’s the only way for you to stay calm, if that’s the case you need to address the fact that you can’t calmly discuss your emotions, or maybe you just need to pull away for five minutes to calm yourself down so you can then say something about it. When I get upset I tend to let the conversation move on, then I address it once the hard emotions have passed. It’s normally received well at this point, and I normally get an apology. When people do this to me, they normally get an apology as well, because it wasn’t my intent to make them upset, or angry, or uncomfortable. But we’re all guilty of doing this to people at different points. Nobody is immune to this, it’s just part of being a human.

My point is, your emotions matter. Whether they are triggered from your past, your own flaws, or the person who upset you, they all need to be dealt with. You can’t brush them under the rug because they will emerge at some point, and they won’t look like they did when they went under. So address them now while they’re still relatively new, then dismiss them, send them straight out the door.

Your emotions matter. Resolve them.