We usually think of a bully as someone outside of ourselves. What about the one on the inside? We all live with a bully to a greater or lesser degree. The bully is that feeling that shows up when you begin to doubt yourself. Or, when you have a negative reaction to someone or something. It is the inner critic who is ready to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do or feel. It likes to remind you of your failures, create doubts and self-judgments. The bully can also be waiting to take itself out on others. Since the bully considers itself to be right, it has to find something wrong in others.
The Bully Takes Its Toll
The bully is always lurking in the shadows of our mind, not willing to leave until it breaks us down and we turn against ourselves, however subtlety. So very often we have great expectations to be fully satisfied about a project, meeting someone new, or as simply getting out of bed feeling positive about having a great day. Then, a disturbing phone call displaces that good feeling, or we slide on a rug and hurt ourselves, or the computer goes dead. Your day got ruined! Our uplifted hearts just lost the momentum like a balloon that suddenly popped. The feeling of lack now takes over. Never mind how much we try to stay in an uplifted space, the bully shows up like a thorn in our heart.
I have gone through my years of being blocked by the bully within. I was born a very sensitive person, so my childhood experiences were quite emotional. I anchored them deeply inside. The bully arrived when I was 2 years old. I remember being threatened by my mother to drink a glass of milk that I did not like. My way out of this fearful situation was to give the milk to our helper. She drank it, but then lied to my mother. She told her that I threw the milk through the window. My mother beat me and locked in a room. It was the first wound that stayed with me. You too may remember a childhood trauma and how it left you. When we experience abuse and harshness coming at us, we emotionally withdraw from the intensity, and I really did. The feeling of fear arises, and we automatically close our heart and protect our innocence. This is the birth of the bully. It is our locked-away painful thoughts and beliefs that have started the chain of reaction throughout our lives. We began blaming ourselves when we were feeling doubtful. We find ourselves quickly reacting to the outside world when our needs are not met. The well-intentioned bully stands as the gate keeper protecting our heart from further wounds.
Embracing the Bully
Why would we want to embrace the bully? Because the bully is well intended. It wants to protect our hearts from further trauma. However, by protecting our hearts, the bully keeps us in fear and closes us down from living our lives with fullness. How does one embrace the bully? We first recognize that what we resist persists. By welcoming the bully into our lives we deprive ourselves of an enemy … the bully’s reactiveness, not only against ourselves, but against others. We embrace the bully by embracing inner conflicts rather than pushing them away through substances and distractions.
What is important, is to reclaim our tender hearts by releasing the emotions of the child within. That child has been waiting for you and your love. I learned so much about my wounded child as I went through my self-healing. That is when I embraced the bully, and the treasures stored in my soul became present.
In serving my clients, I have seen time and time again how much the child within has been waiting for the adult self to come to its rescue, wanting to feel loved and safe once again. It is imperative that we clear the veils of our childhood, and no longer be victims to the past. It is those childhood traumas and chaotic experiences that push us into growing and evolving. Without mental and emotional difficulties we would not understand the deeper meaning of our existence. We would not have had the determination to explore and release the veils of emotional pain. To live in harmony and become genuine friends with ourselves we must transcend the dysfunctional, early childhood challenges that gave birth to the bully. We are here to face the darkness within and without. We are here to learn and grow from what life throws at us. That is when our hearts and mind become a unified field.
Beyond One Versus the Other
When the bully continues to be alive in us, it affects the global collective. We have observed families broken apart, nation against nation, divorces, and separation from one religion to another. We were never taught that we are aspects of the one consciousness. When we move through the challenges of life and our childhood, we allow universal consciousness to awaken within us. As the one consciousness, we now know that we are not separate entities. There is no me versus you. As we evolve, the collective consciousness of humanity is uplifted.
Transcendence occurs when we are no longer stuck in the childhood past. Our personal importance will disappear when the shift of perception occurs and consciousness awakens. We are in service to the One, and it starts when we embrace the bully within each and all of us.