Bullies are all around us, we may have encountered a bully in School, in Work, in our Family or on a Sports Team or Club. The fact is that we are never going to be too far from people who want to feel in control. I often say to children that they will come across mean people their whole lives, no matter what age they are, you have to learn how to cope with people saying mean things to you, it is part of life.
Bullies are people who have their own insecurities. It makes a bully feel better when they put someone else down, or when they make a person feel bad. It gives them power, or so they think, that fills the hole they have in their own confidence or other insecurities. The truth is we all have our issues, but the right way to deal with them is not to belittle someone else. So never let a bully think that they have upset or bothered you, in fact learn how not to allow anyone to upset or bother you ever again. Say to yourself ‘it’s water off a ducks back’, your own opinion of yourself is more important than theirs so listen to yourself. The trick here is you must make sure that your own inner voice is positive and not negative. If you need to get some help to do this – do.
If you don’t react and don’t care about someone else’s opinion, then the bully is not getting the reaction they want. Remind yourself regularly, that what someone else says is more about them, and their issues, than it is about you. So learn how to just let it go and not affect you in the slightest. Be yourself and say or do what you feel is right in the situation, fight your corner, take appropriate action, tell someone who can help, but don’t let someone else’s issues become yours. Don’t take on their comments and don’t believe them either.
When you stand up to a Bully they generally back down, the whole point in them bullying a person is that it makes them feel better about themselves, bigger, stronger cooler, etc, once they get away with it once they think they will always get away with it. So change this pattern, if you think you are being bullied stand up to them and let them see they are no better than you. In fact you are automatically a better person because you are not a bully. David Coleman showed a young boy in ‘BullyProof’ TV series how to look someone in the eye, stand up straight and say ‘No’ in loud commanding voice. Be heard, be assertive, and find that part of you who is no longer willing to take this behavior. If you are being subjected to Cyber bullying – take action, decide what you feel is right for you: here are some options:
1. Defriend the person, 2. Block their messages, 3. Don’t check facebook or other sites all day, limit it to once a day, or leave these sites altogether 4. Spend more time with people who make you feel good. Rely on your true friends and family to support you and supply you with the love and friendship that you deserve, (not cowards who make smart remarks on line). 5. Talk about it – talk to people you trust / love or get help, in order to unburden yourself with this problem. When you talk things out you will start to come up with solutions and ways to get over the issue. It becomes smaller than if you let it take over your mind.
If something is keeping you awake at night and it’s running around in your head, here are a few ideas to learn how to let it go, before you start make sure your phone and electronic devises are out of the room or switched to Airplane mode. Firstly you can write about it before you turn off the light, get it out onto paper in as much detail as you want, but make sure there is a plan of action to solve the problem. Promise yourself that you will take that action the following day. Secondly, you can choose to just let the thought go, if it’s a negative one, then this is particularly useful to practice, replace it with a positive thought and every time it tries to come back into your head, take control and replace it over and over again with a positive thought. This is cognitive behavioral therapy and you may need help to get it right but give it a go, it can be very effective but takes practice and commitment. For example if you are thinking about something embarrassing that happened, try to replace it with a positive thought of something that you were proud of or a happy time for you, take some deep relaxing breaths and really imagine you are back there in that proud happy moment and feel the feelings you felt. If all my own personal favorite way to go asleep is listening to relaxing guided meditation for confidence or hypnotherapy to help you sleep, there are free apps and tons of stuff on you tube.