Few things can keep you out of touch with your authentic worth than bullying.
I want to address something that is near and dear to me.
Bullying is dishonest manipulation of the worst kind. There’s simply no two ways about it!
Like I mentioned in a previous post, as part of my kingly plan I walk 2 hours a day and listen to podcasts. Of course, my brain gets stimulated while walking and, well, my mind can wander a bit. Somehow a light bulb went off in my head one morning. It was regarding bullying, of all topics.
This is something that used to hit a huge chord with me because I was bullied mercilessly throughout grade school and even into high school. This is something that I have issues with and is a part of who I was and how I’ve grown since. Basically, I came to an epiphany of sorts regarding the nature of bullying.
Each person is beautifully made and has inherent value.
This is a universal truth. Children are uncannily aware of the power dynamic in social structures. It becomes as natural as walking to them by the time they hit grade school. However, at that age they don’t understand that everyone has value and that bullying is a destructive activity. They’re simply not old enough to realize this yet, until they hit around the age of puberty. So, if a kid is perceived to be ‘different’ in anyway, they will get bullied. They are viewed as being less than.
Their own immaturity distorts their viewpoint. This sows the seed for the LIE that the chosen victim is of a lower intrinsic value. They bully the victim and impose the frame and message that he/she is less than for simply existing. This is a complete lie. Keep the universal truth I listed above in mind here. The viewpoint of the bullies is wrong, as they believe the lie. So, they impose this lie on the victim with ferocious force. Sadly, this usually causes the victim to by into that lie.
The victim absorbs this, and it seeps into his/her mind, and the lie is sadly believed without question, especially if there’s very little support from loved ones to counter this lie. Even if the lie is not 100% absorbed, the experience of being verbally and mentally attacked by peers instills a deep, profound sense of rejection that can carry a person into adulthood and can become a heavy, heavy emotional weight on the backs of the victims of such treatment.
All predicated on a horrible lie that they are of a lower value. Lower value than what?? The bullshit standards of the bullies, the ones dealing out the abuse and mistreatment. Which is, again, their wholesale belief in the LIE.
The truth is you are worthy in spite of outside influences. The hardest part is truly understanding this.
I imagine there are plenty of bad asses out there that still operate from that frame of reference, still buying the lie to bolster their self-esteem. On the other side of the barbell spectrum, we have “nice” people that have never really come to see the LIE as the steaming pile of dog poop that it is.
My own former “nice”-ness was partially because I had a low opinion of myself and the deep sense of rejection as a result of the mistreatment I faced. It made me feel less than worthless. It took me a lot of time and energy to get me out of that place. I still struggle at times with a negging, unnecessary sense of inferiority.
In Don Miguel Ruis’s classic book “The Four Agreements”, he describes treatment such as bullying and gossip as “black magic”. It is infectious, insidious, and can infect so many people. (I highly recommend this book!)
Adults are also capable of bullying. Some children grow up to see the lie for what is and may feel some regret over their faulty point of view. Some hold fast and continue believing and operating under that lie. It’s a very sad state of affairs.
To use a biblical analogy: In the book of Genesis, the lord instructed Adam and Eve to not pick the apple from the Tree of Life. The Enemy took the form of a snake and twisted Eve’s ear to partake of the forbidden fruit. All because of the lie and faulty frame of reference that the fruit was somehow “good”, and that the Lord was trying to deceive them. Bullies operate in much the same way. And it’s the belief in the lie that perpetuates the cycle of misery and can make life a literal Hell on Earth for the victim(s).
If you’ve been bullied in the past, do your best to forgive your former tormentors. Forgive for YOU, not for them. I understand that this is often much easier said than done. Please seek outside help with this if you need that. Without minimizing their actions, they literally did not know what they were doing.
You are a person of great worth. You didn’t deserve to swallow the falsehoods around bullying, no one does. The lie that someone is fundamentally less than another is evil to the core and leaves great misery in its wake. If you are a person who bullies, please stop. Commit to abolishing the lie by stopping its spread. The power lies in you. If this blog post encourages just one person…ONE PERSON to see the lie for what it is, and commit to stopping its vile spread, think of how much more whole our world would be.
Now more than ever, in the era of cyber-bullying and what’s now known as “doxing”, it’s imperative that each and every one of us stop this vile practice of bullying and see the LIE for the black magic that it is.
Below are some organizations that stand for stopping this bullying behavior:
https://www.stompoutbullying.org/
https://www.stopbullyingnow.com/
https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/stop-bullying/index.html (CDC website section on bullying)
Check out “The Four Agreements” By Don Miguel Ruiz here
Stay whole my friends!
Feel free to post any thoughts you have around this topic by leaving a comment below!