Have you ever encountered a person who was on a rampage, putting others down left and right, leaving a path injured of souls? How do you protect yourself? How do you protect those that you love?
#1 Don’t get upset
#2 Respond with kindness
You may be thinking “That’s nice in theory, but it’s hard to do.” Practice, arm your children with these skills. Teach them what it means to “kill them with kindness.” When somebody is showing their bullying behavior, they are lacking in self-worth or integrity or a feeling of significance. Don’t take it personally, get curious. What’s going on for this person? What has them in such a destructive state?
Let’s look at integrity a little closer and how it plays into self-worth. Integrity is simply defined as doing what you say you are going to do, the state of being whole and complete.
Now imagine that you said you were going to do something like take out the smelly trash before school/work and you didn’t. You know you didn’t and it’s hanging out there while you go about your day, you have less patience because you know you need to get that stinky fish out of your kitchen. The place is stinking up more and more throughout the day as your house warms in the sun. How irritable or anxious will you be by the time that you get home. Everybody will know you didn’t take out the trash in the morning like you said you would. You can smell it and it stinks!
No matter how small it is, what you say you are going to do and don’t do, it’ll stink up your world. Your self-worth is slowly degraded, there is an underlying current of anxiety and stress building.
Now let’s go back to this bullying behaviour that you or your kids encounter. What could be going on or not going on in that person’s life to cause such a storm? What are they dealing with?
If their bad attitude doesn’t have any friction, doesn’t have anywhere to land, it will dissipate for the time being.
Teach your children to get curious.
“Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.” ― Miller Williams
And remember:
#1 Don’t get upset
#2 Respond with kindness
Yesterday I had to be around a person who was full of venom and I kept these 2 simple steps to disarm a bully in mind. I wasn’t triggered at all and that was new. I just looked at this very angry woman and wondered what it was that had her so worked up. She was not up for any conversation at all, she was just barking at us. I didn’t have to say anything. I simply listened with curiosity. I felt secure and as if everything she said was directed at somebody else, which it was. It was from her own lack of self-worth and integrity that she was coming at us. I can sincerely wish her the best with my self in tact.