Demystifying the Bully
I recently wrote a blog on the importance of teaching children what it means to be their own best friend. The significance of writing this blog was important to me as it really was about my greatest endeavor in gaining the emotional intelligence needed to be the mother, and human being, that I desire to be. I spent a lot time explaining how we are our own best friend in that blog. I mentioned the inner bully throughout, but I did not go deep into explaining how it is the cruelest antagonist to our well-being. I feel it’s necessary to explain what I see as being the internal bully in order to best support the whole self. So here it goes…..
To better understand ourselves, and in order to best support the generations to come, I believe we have to take the time to look at, and be with, what is at the root of our suffering. We first, though, have to be honest with ourselves before we can start to fully understand all that exists in our hearts.
In order to make vital changes in the world, we must stop running away and distracting ourselves from our sadness and anger, and rather walk into it with curiosity and compassion. We’ve run for long enough. We must do this so that we do not repeat the pattern that has cost us our peace and has resulted in a debilitating divisiveness, both internally and externally. We must do this so that we can then teach our children how to understand their whole self, so that we support them to see that they have choices where we've not realized that we did.
Have you ever been curious as to what is at the core of your sadness, anger, frustration and pain?
Have you ever wondered what is it that exists within you that is constantly sizing up and polarizing yours and others’ actions, feelings, and thoughts as either good or bad, right or wrong, worthy or unworthy? In these moments when you are feeling fearful, have you ever stopped to consider why? How have your experiences up to this point shaped your beliefs about your value in this world? What is it that brings you to experience fear that can at times hinder you from being who you truly are? And, have you ever considered what it will take for you to not only accept that person, but also embrace him/her?
Brene Brown has identified in her research, and I whole-heartedly agree, the answer to the above questions is shame.
What is shame? Merriam-Webster dictionary states: shame is a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you (we) have because you (we) have done something wrong; in other words, to feel dishonor or disgrace.
Brene Brown has done further research on the difference between shame and guilt, which is important and deeply relevant to healing through developing more emotional intelligence. It is interesting to consider, per her research, that shame is highly subjective and guilt is more objective in nature. Shame is driven by self-identification, and guilt by action-identification. She has interpreted that shame is the feeling that invokes a sense of, “I am wrong,” and guilt results in a sense of, “I’ve done something wrong.” What is important to know is that shame is experienced by each of us, which shows up in different facets. It is individualized yet collectively rooted in the same principles.
Shame is, in part, how we come to see ourselves. It is the way we label and feel about ourselves through how we measure up or compare to another. We, at a subconscious level, are always in pursuit of trying to feel like we are “enough,” so that we feel assured that we are accepted and loved by those around us. The ultimate motivator of shame is to avoid rejection and abandonment, all the while self-inducing rejection and abandonment in our own hearts by caring more about another’s thoughts and feelings then our own.
We shame ourselves when we gauge our success, value and worth to some standard that we’ve been conditioned to believe or we’ve made up; a gauge which may not even be possible to attain. To be skinny but not too skinny; to be muscular; to always make sure our hair is impeccable and our make-up is flawless before we walk out the door, to always try to say the right thing even though it’s not the truth, are all ways we are driven by shame. These emotional patterns are deep in our subconscious so we may not even be aware of them. They may arise through our need to always please others, or they may be present in our perfectionistic tendencies. Despite our efforts to reconcile our fear, we never quite feel like we are one-hundred percent secure considering we are always relying on someone else to help us feel safe and loved rather than finding those feelings from within.
I’ve shamed myself plenty, and in doing so I’ve rejected and abandoned the person who’s acceptance matters the most, mine. It’s crazy to even consider that I have made so many unconscious decisions to hide from my feelings of irrelevance and insignificance as I have compared my value to someone or something outside of myself. I have tried to be perfect. I have been a people pleaser. I’ve intended to be the best person possible so that others would see that I’m worthy and valuable to keep around. I have dialed myself back to not be too “woowoo,” or too over the top so that people would like me. I have let people treat me in ways that I was not comfortable with all because I needed to fill the hole that existed inside me where my shame lived.
What’s amusing is that shame, the shame that we’ve all been so scared to admit exists because in doing so the world would find out that we are a fraud, has been in control of our lives because we have given it power by not addressing it directly. And in saying all this, I now know that shame is what fuels our internal bully, the harsh critic that constantly judges and sabotages us, because we have been running away from it instead of walking into it to listen to what it has to say with objective compassion.
I believe that the inner bully is the collective shadow that we visibly see in the world today; the shadow that has resulted in school shootings, mass-terrorist attacks, and threats of nuclear war. The inner bully is the opposite of the compassionate, understanding, and empathetic friend that exists within us. The inner bully is threatened easily, and is constantly seeking assurance from others and will do whatever it takes to soothe its dis-ease, which is rooted in the feelings of fear of abandonment and rejection.
I believe that it is the inner bully that causes a child to become a social bully. The inner bully fueled by shame can move us to a deep and penetrable state of suffering that results in anxiety and depression. Why does this happen? It happens because we walk away from ourselves to gain the acceptance and love of another, devaluing our own self-worth and self-acceptance, while approving of another’s.
“In identifying shame, and its significance in our lives, it’s important to consider that babies are not born with shame. ”
In identifying shame, and its significance in our lives, its important to consider that babies are not born with shame; they do not feel this sense of wrongness or unworthiness in their fundamental nature at birth. This is something that develops with time and experience. The question then leads us to, why does it develop?
As I have looked at what is beneath the shameful, judging bully that exists in my own psyche to see where this aspect of my humanness developed, I’ve considered lots of different possibilities. I’ve considered being a twin, having divorced parents, being the youngest of 4 siblings, not getting into the gifted program when I was in kindergarten, as possibilities. I, though, have kept coming back to the same thing, the thing that, as a parent myself, I have done with my child through what I thought was helpful, before I realized it wasn’t.
I believe and have witnessed that in teaching a child, “right from wrong” we inherently program them with an inner judge that looks to be perfect and please, and in turn sets them up to eventually experience a raging, shaming, inner bully that is starved for assurance and approval of others. This is somewhat masked as a child becomes an adolescent growing more convicted in disposition, yet these are the years that the inner bully is in full control.
Yes, it’s crazy to think that our good intentions as moms/dads somehow land us to have to deal with major consequences of our child developing an inner bully, just as the good intentions of our own parent’s has instilled within us our own bully that emotes feelings of fear and shame.
In supporting a child to see the world through the construct of right and wrong, which at the core is a comparison, we consequently guide them to develop a competitive mindset, a mindset that results in experiencing life as either winning or losing, succeeding or failing. Competition is so strongly promoted in schools, sports, and even work environments, it seems obvious how this can manipulate our own minds to think in terms of successes and failures, wins and losses.
Comparison and contrast is at the foundation of human nature, it’s a tool rooted in survival instincts. There is no denying that we live in a world where duality exists, between human compassion and primitive instincts. How though do we support ourselves, and in turn support our children, in learning how to see comparison objectively, rather than from the subjective scope of promoting personal value?
When our child makes a so-called “mistake,” in other words the outcome was unhelpful to their life, if we are unsubscribed to the competitive mindset, we won’t judge them by pointing our finger in saying their choice was wrong, rather we will support them to see the experience as something to learn from. We will support them by processing through different choices, which will allow them to have a plan if the experience emerges again. If, though, we don’t take the time to sit with our inner bully to hear what he/she has to say, we will not fully understand the tone and emotions behind our own shame, which will consequently impact the way we then support our child because we will be shamed ourselves, as our children are reflections of their parents, or so we have believed.
How do we shift the mindset of right and wrong that creates an illusion of life being a competition, to that of seeing meaning and purpose of every life experience?
We have to change our perspective of what success is in order to change our relationship with competition. We have to unsubscribe to the illusion of success or failure lending to our innate value, despite what we’ve been programed to believe. We have to do this by nurturing ourselves back to seeing our inherent worth and value, the value we bring just because we are alive and capable to give and receive love. We must shift our perspective from the competitive mindset to a compassionate mindset by not putting another’s opinion over ours, knowing that the ultimate acceptance that we will ever receive is our own. We start the journey to healing ourselves by no longer looking to fill the shame that exists within us with someone else’s love, giving ourselves the love that we want and need from within.
We have fallen victim to the misconception that if we are not successful then we are failing, worse off we are a failure. And as a result, we judge others based on our own understanding/ideas about success/failure. We may look at others as a failure when they feel like they are a success. We should not have permission to evaluate success and failure in others, but we do because that is how we have been guided since we were young. We’ve been brainwashed to think that we must do things a certain way, or we will be rejected or worse-off replaced, ultimately losing the acceptance and acknowledgment that we seek for from others. Doesn’t this all sound so appealing? It totally makes sense why the collective shadow is so big.
We send our children to school so that they can get a good education. We instill in them that they need to do their best in order to get into a reputable university so that they can have a successful career. They kickass and do all that, and yet after graduation they find themselves feeling lost because they don’t know who they are when they are no longer competing to be the best? They start their career and want to reach the top because they feel they’re of no value unless they are winning, or striving to obtain some benchmark of success. They are on a hamster wheel that is driven by the power of achievement and rooted in the fear of failure. What happens then when they become the CEO of a top Fortune 500 Company? Is the next success having a dollar amount in their savings account, or having so many shares of stock in a company? Does chasing success like this make for a happy and meaningful life? What happens when there’s a setback or loss? Who are they then?
Or, do they just not try at all because even the thought of it is way too exhausting for them to consider?
You see, the competitive mind is something we’ve subscribed to, but has no relevance if we acknowledge that it is only true if we believe it to be true. Logically, we can see there is something to be equally gained in either winning or losing; we can see this despite how we may feel about a loss. It takes time to re-program patterns that are deeply rooted in the subconscious, yet it is possible to do with determination and discipline.
What will we feel like when we stop competing and start to recognize that we are all on the same team? In reorganizing our beliefs about competition we see that the significance is in the process, the journey, not the outcome. It’s the lessons that hold the true value. In doing this, we recalibrate our ideas about success and in turn walk away feeling empowered regardless of the outcome because we have learned more about ourselves through the experience.
It is our responsibility as parents and caregivers to help our children differentiate what is safe to unsafe; empathetic to un-empathetic; respectful to disrespectful; trustworthy to untrustworthy. In seeing life as a continuum, rather than a competition, we help them to not judge their experiences, and in doing so we inhibit shame from taking root while relieving them of the burden of being exclusively attached to outcome.
Supporting our child to see important and valuable aspects of life not from right/wrong, but rather from the clarity that occurs through open and meaningful discussion is key to replacing shame and fear with courage, trust, and responsibility. In taking the time to discuss processes and outcomes, we connect with their interests and feelings, which is at the heart of supporting them to feel safe and loved.
Yes, this is hard to fathom and it is almost uncomfortable to think that I am guiding you to parent from the middle. I’m inviting you to first parent yourself through compassionately understanding your personal narrative, and then I’m inviting you to partner with your child as they learn important life lessons through their own trials and errors. Yes, share with your child your thoughts and feelings, however, don’t try to force them to make the decision that you’d make unless you want to consciously invite shame into their hearts for choosing what would be your “wrong.” Yes, this has to be strongly considered when dealing with measures of safety, as though, the more information our children have on safety the more likely they’re going to make helpful choice because they want to inherently be safe, not because they’re told they have to.
Lastly, I’m inviting you to parent through focusing and acknowledging the process your child takes, not just praising the end result. As parents our job is not to solve our child’s problems, in other words to distract them from experiencing hurt and failure that comes from non-preferred outcomes. It is rather your responsibility to partner with them while they are in the process of feeling and learning important life skills, so when they are out in the world as an adult they are prepared for what life throws at them. Most importantly, our purpose is to partner with them by pointing out to them their process, and helping them to see that they bring incredible value and worth because their process is different, regardless of what the outcome is.
If we continue to live from a place of winning and losing, we will continue to create more of a divide and brokenness in our humanity; a divide that is founded on a lack of compassion and empathy for ourselves and each other because we see our life as something that we need survive, and the only way to survive is to be the best.
We have to start to change the way we see things, so that the world starts to change the way it is doing things.
Our so-called “mistakes” help us to make more supportive choices, and when we develop the mindset of exploration and possibility we will have more compassion towards our deemed failures and shortcomings, as we will no longer see that it is means for another to get ahead.
As we support our child to tune into their inner guidance, both their best friend and inner critic, we are inviting them to see how to celebrate their mistakes with objective compassion. If judgment emerges, we will have given them the tools to help them to walk into and face their feelings rather than hide or run away. Shame exists when we consciously run and hide from our feelings, so in sharing with our children how to be in process with their emotions, by sharing how we are in process with ours, we support them to be their whole best self. Yes, they will falter. They though will get back up when they do with more resilience and strength, and they will see that for every act of courage they’ve chosen, they learn more about themselves and life.
The more we can see that life isn’t a game that we either win or lose, but rather it is about the acts of courage we take that accumulate to be our life legacy, we will start to meet each other in the middle and live from a place of equality and equanimity. We will celebrate each other and see the importance each and every one of us are to the continuum of life, in the uniqueness of the process that we bring to it. When we adopt the mindset that regards differences as brilliances and necessities to the world, we will start to meet each other in the middle, a place where real change can and will occur.