How do children and adults acknowledge, process and let go of their pain when their home life or environment does not or did not feel safe?
Bullying is really a cry for love. It comes from a fear-based belief that we need to protect our self. People bully others when they feel scared and out of control. A bully is really looking for comfort. It makes them feel that they are safe and not themselves a victim. Bullying provides a false sense of security, protection from a fear that they are going to be attacked emotionally, physically, sexually or in some other way. Most times this behavior comes from experiencing or witnessing trauma or victimization in their own past.
Bullying is an ineffective coping skill, a learned behavioral adaptation designed to keep the bully safe at the expense of another. All that bullying really accomplishes is to build walls and shut out love. People who have a history of trauma or carry energetic imprints that include bully/victim patterns (which is most of us) will continue to project these behaviors into all of their relationships and experiences in life. Many times bullies are called narcissists.
It is important to hold a space of love and compassion for someone when they are bullying. God doesn’t want us to take their behavior personally. It has nothing to do with us although, if we look deeply and truthfully within our selves, we may find that the bully that we see in another is just a mirror reflection, an unacknowledged part of our own self.
So many of us have an inner bully, the ego, the critic that wears us down; or maybe it’s a young wounded inner child that has not healed. Whether it is the bully within or the bully on the outside, we can only shift or transmute this energy through love, not by meeting it with force. Love is the only healer.
Journal Entry 10/8/18 – a conversation with God
God:When you cannot contain your thoughts or emotions they spill out of you. When you learn how to hold onto them and can bring forth love, compassion and acceptance for yourself it is perfect; it is Spiritual maturity.
Me:I thought we are not supposed to hold back our thoughts or feelings…that we are to stand in our truth.
God:I know this is confusing. You can admit your thoughts or feelings to yourself or write about them, or you can blast someone with it. You can also choose to speak your truth with love and tact. It’s another thing when you are losing control of your thoughts and feelings because you are no longer present and are stuck in Soul Print Energy Consciousness (the illusion of past stories and misbeliefs).
You will keep acting the beliefs out and eventually maturity, an expansion in consciousness will come, meaning that you’ll be able to communicate in a more thoughtful and loving way. This is a learning process and it is all about where you are consciously. We are not judging this behavior as wrong or bad. It is just where someone is on a conscious level at the moment and we want to meet them where they are with love. We don’t want to shame or blame someone when they are only reacting to their own fears. We hold a space of love and compassion. Believe it or not you did a beautiful job yesterday. Although you felt frustrated and scared and started to cry, most of the time you tried to stay present with the conversation and witness your thoughts and emotions.
Me: I know it was important for me to see my own creation of misbeliefs and I am very grateful for that. It was a valuable lesson to shift away from a perception of victim/bully thinking and remember there is only love. I heard you, God, through the other person asking me to stay present and to stay in the conversation and work through the process rather than shut down or yell.
God: Yes, it is very important to work through difficult situations and not shut down, yell or blame someone for the way you are feeling. When you do react, you keep making a faulty belief real when it is not. It is a memory, a perception of an experience or expectation that keeps getting replayed and these situations will continue until you stop believing you are a victim.
Me: I know I called all of this in because it is an energetic pattern (victim/bully), a belief that all my relationships are unequal and filled with conflict, that I am not good enough, not worthy of being seen or heard and that everything I do is wrong and upsetting to others and that I can’t make anyone happy. This repetitive childhood pattern needs to be healed.
I know I am not responsible for other people’s actions, communication styles, or what they say. You have taught me not to take things personally and that I did not do anything wrong. In fact, I get to see a pattern that I need to stop reacting to because there is no truth to it. On another level, I understand that I am only witnessing my own conscious/unconscious thoughts through others communication or actions. An external view of my own internal dynamic, the war within. However, at times it still takes me a while to see it from a neutral perspective.
I also understand that the other person is a mirror to myself. I know I am just looking at me, maybe at another time in my life when anger or harsh words flowed from my mouth; or how I can be my worst critic and torment myself because I believe ego thoughts. My initial reaction is to pull away from the person when I understand I am just pulling away from an aspect of myself.
That part of me is so angry because I still feel my fear of being victimized. I want to just back away and disconnect from my feelings of hurt and anger but I know I shouldn’t do that and really, I don’t want to. When I feel bullied I can feel so raw and vulnerable and I really don’t like learning about myself by seeing myself mirrored in the actions of other people, although it definitely can be very effective, God. I don’t think it is fun.
I know you said that I could look at it as invigorating to actually see a destructive behavioral pattern that needs to be healed rather than just being emotionally drained by it. Nevertheless, when I’m confronted by that kind of abusive behavior I feel I need to be on guard and typically shut down.
I don’t like when someone gets verbally aggressive with me. It is how I felt as a child when family members would act that way, and it just makes me go into protection mode, withdraw and close my heart. I know I should not do this. I know I need to keep my heart open and be compassionate and loving to both of us.
I want to accept all of me and love all of me, not judge any part of me or anyone else. I guess this is having a relationship of unconditional love for all aspects of myself and for others. It takes Grace to accept each one of us where we are. I must admit I still feel a bit shell-shocked.
As much as I don’t like coming face-to- face with these different aspects of me it brings forth so much light and love and shifts everything. All of my faulty belief patterns need to be exposed so the light can heal them. Only then do I understand my authentic self. I can’t do any of this without you, God, your love and support.
God: You are doing a great job noticing all of this, Debbie. It is okay. We discussed what the process is and you will start to integrate this part of you. Do not project brokenness, Debbie. You are perfection; you are seeing the whole self.
Me: Part of me is angry. I don’t want to have relationships where I am going to be the brunt of people’s outbursts. I don’t like it. Am I supposed to tell people that I am not a garbage dump for their anger?
Hmmm, I am not a victim so no one can make me feel that way but me. I don’t have to take it in and own it, their behavior is not about me other than for me to see the mirror and learn compassion of how I do this to my own self. I get a front row seat to the battle between ego (victim/bully) and my higher self that goes on in my head all the time. God, Is it my job to keep surrounding myself with people like this so I can learn unconditional love, or is it that I chose not to create this in my life anymore by transmuting the pattern?
God: The pattern only shifts by embracing it with love and not feeding into it. Stop projecting that you have to protect yourself. You are loved as you are and you are safe.
*This blog does not advocate violence. If you are in a violent situation please seek help immediately.
©Debbie N. Goldberg
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