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Bullying1

The neighborhood bully

4

I hate bullies. I have no tolerance for them whatsoever. I have neither time nor patience for them and I am not willing to make any space for them in my life.

One of the most powerful, and relatively recent, discoveries in my spiritual journey is the power of kindness. Developing a kindness practice is one of the best turns I ever made in my long and winding spiritual path. And bullying is about as far away from kindness as I can imagine. I want a world filled with kindness, so bullying is the opposite of what I want in my life.

AA-Bullying-tcoach-bullying-studentWe have a bully in our neighborhood. I hate him, and he knows I hate him. And because of that, he avoids me. He keeps himself as hidden from me as he can manage. If I catch even a glimpse of him on the street, before I know it, he turns the corner and disappears down the alley. He seems to have an almost magical ability to disappear.

Every once in a while, when I’m not around, not watching the neighborhood so vigilantly, he gets a little of his bullying done. I hear about it afterwards; I find out about it from other people. He never does it in front of me, because he knows I wouldn’t tolerate it, but honestly, I can’t watch him constantly. So eventually, he bullies someone, and I hear about it later.

When that happens I go looking for him with the urge to kill him, or at least punch him in the face, and he disappears, completely. He’ll go underground for months or even years at a time. He’s become as expert at hiding as I am about watching for him, and our neighborhood has lots and lots of good places to hide.

The neighborhood I’m watching is my own heart, and the bully is me.

The bully is a piece of me that is verbally aggressive, bossy, intimidating, pushy. It happens relatively rarely these days, but I have zero tolerance for it happening ever. I find this behavior completely unacceptable. The bully knows that I will kill him if and when I find him, and because of that, he hides from me. The only time he can do his work is when I’m not watching, when I’m unconscious, and I often don’t even know he’s been out doing his thing until I hear about it from someone else.

I’ve been doing the most fascinating shadow work these past weeks. (Working with our “shadow” is a form of spiritual and personal growth where we try to dig beneath our “persona“–that part of us which is public, visible, and proudly displayed to others–to dig out the deeper, hidden parts of ourselves.) Shadow contains the pieces of ourselves that we consider unpalatable, unattractive or unacceptable. You can read a good summary about shadow here, or check out your favorite bookstore for a variety of books on the subject, or read online articles about working with your own shadow.

121030095709-bully-locker-story-topThe irony about this particular shadow work for me is that unless I become tolerant of bullies, my own bully is not going to make himself known and I won’t be able to engage him constructively. The true test of my kindness practice is here: how do I welcome a bully? What does kindness look like when it meets a bully–how do I warmly invite a bully in, make him feel comfortable, coax him to come out of the shadows and convince him that he is safe with me?

Now, the idea of creating safety for a bully, or giving him a warm welcome, would strike me as insanity if the bully were some other person, outside of myself. But I’m faced with a dilemma with the bully inside, because if I don’t create some safety for that guy to come out and make himself known, to show himself, then I will never have a chance to work with him, moderate him, and engage him constructively. I can banish him for a while, but I can’t make him go away forever. I can make him invisible, but I can’t kill him completely.

Our shadow side is more dangerous when it is banished than welcomed; the unacceptable parts of ourselves pose a greater danger when they are imprisoned in the unconscious mind than they would if we consciously welcomed them into awareness. So this meeting of myselves–”kindness practice, meet bully; bully, meet kindness practice”–is a great big dilemma for me. The part of me that I value the most and the part of me that I am deeply ashamed of have to become working partners, somehow, if we’re all going to get through this together, with what we call “integrity.” Integrity is the act of having it all together–but in the opposite way from which we tend to think of it. Having it all together means you intentionally go looking for the pieces that you’re missing, and we’ve lost track of those pieces for good reason: we find them disgusting, unacceptable, and embarrassing.

So going out to make peace with my hidden bully is some interesting piece of work. It’s a bit painful, but not terribly so. It’s more embarrassment than anything else.  I’ve started keeping a journal of when, where and how I bully others, or, more frequently, when, where and how I have the URGE to bully: those moments where I feel like I want to cut someone off with a remark, or have a passive-aggressive thought for revenge, or wish ill on someone.

bullying

Am I suggesting that I try to make space for bullying behavior? No, not at all; I’m not trying to welcome that. But see, I’ve already suppressed the behavior. I’ve done a remarkably good job of getting rid of the behavior, sweeping the evidence under the rug. Most people who interact with me frequently would not say that I bully people on a regular basis, and some would probably experience some surprise, even astonishment, that I wrestle with this at all.

It’s precisely the fact that I’ve done such a relatively good job of suppressing the behavior that I can’t get to the core of the issue, as though I’ve cut down the tree and ground up the stump, but this enormous, buried root system remains. Like the sound of one hand clapping, what is a bully who no longer behaves like a bully? What’s left of the bully once we eliminate bullying behavior?

Fear.

One thing I’ve noticed in my journal is that my urge to bully people surfaces when I am afraid I am about to be bullied. It’s a kind of defensive preempt; I get harsh and verbally aggressive with someone in anticipation of them running over my needs, my rights, my well-being. I get aggressive with them as a form of defense, lest they manage–intentionally or accidentally–to tread on me. I become “high and mighty” when I’m afraid. When I’m not afraid, my natural state is to feel very gentle but very strong.

It’ll be interesting for me to see if I can make it safe enough to coax my inner bully completely out of the shadows, enough to get to know him, enough to become his friend. If I’m successfully, it should allow me to become more comfortable with other people who behave aggressively when they’re afraid, and perhaps it will even equip me with tools to engage active bullies, scared people who act aggressively from the anticipatory fear of being aggressed. We’ll see. I have to clean up my own neighborhood first.

Have thoughts you’d like to share?

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  1. BabaSink
    BabaSink12-29-2012

    It reminds me of what Robert A. Johnson had to say about working with your shadow, that these energies we wish we could suppress indeed have a life of their own, and they WILL express themselves one way or another, usually in an inappropriate manner or time during one of our unconscious moments. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to, as you suggest, start up a dialog (through a process he calls ‘active imagination’) and get to know these aspects of ourselves. You will most likely not become best friends with your inner bully, but you can engage it with the intent of making it an ally. In Aikido it’s about redirecting the energy of the attacker to where you want to go. I think the same principle applies here.

    What inspires me to continue to do this inner work is that, as I learned from Robert, those aspects of self that I dislike the most prove to be the most valuable for my own growth (what he calls inner gold).

    Thank you Kevin, another outstanding post!

    • Kevin Smith
      Kevin Smith12-29-2012

      Thanks, Baba. I agree with you wholeheartedly (word chosen intentionally): we need ALL of our pieces. To go through life whole, there can’t be any parts of ourselves that we unload and leave in the woods while we continue forward on the journey. We have to take the whole vehicle with us.

  2. Michael Parise
    Michael Parise12-30-2012

    Funny you should have brought up this topic. I’m writing a piece about my “perfect world” that is very much part of my shadow/bully. I learned to internalize the bullying I received as a child from my brother and peers. It seems I was a sitting duck for bullying…my highly sensitive self constantly observing my world to see if I could dip my toe into the water. Before I had a chance I often encountered some kind of aggressive behavior that turned me aside (or maybe it was normal behavior that an HSP like me could only interpret as aggressive!)

    In time I learned to internalize the bully. Like you I became my worst bully, telling myself how worthless I must be to feel so isolated and lonely. I had an experience in Ian Ellington’s tantra workshop of recognizing the bully within and at least drawing a separation between “him” and me. He take the form of a myriad of inner saboteurs, and yes, judgment and fear are my two primaries.

    I use watching television between activities to numb myself out in order to keep the bully at bay. The bully tries to tell me that unless I’m busy making money and building my business as a coach I am not truly engaged in the mission. He makes me hyper-vigilant about my need for real human contact and relationship and reminds me of how I fall short in “making the effort.” He keeps me wary of groups, taunting me with the fear that no matter what group I join, what social activity, I will be discounted and ignored. And so I try to push through, and occasionally succeed in moving him aside.

    But I must admit I am tired of my bully bringing me to tears. He used to bring me to rage and anger, but the price of expressing these was too high and ultimately futile. And so now I feel deep empathy in any situation where someone is getting pushed around or hurt…and I grieve.

    Breathing deeply into my body helps…being conscious of my body in this moment helps…and keeping grounding in my senses helps. My bully is just around the corner….but I can choose to go in a myriad of directions to avoid him. And when lurks about, ready to strike…I just stare him down…and call a friend, write, or make some lentil soup!

    • Kevin Smith
      Kevin Smith12-31-2012

      Hi Michael: thanks for your note. In my case, I’m not aware of an awful lot of self-bullying (I seem to be fairly loving and patient with myself.) It’s my bullying of others that is the concert of this current round of shadow-work. Each of us has a different sort of shadow, sneaking out in different ways. Perhaps for me, adding the question “and how do I bully myself in addition to others” will add depth to my inquiry. Perhaps for you, the parallel question, “how does my bullying of myself show up in my treatment of others” will be an equally interesting question. In both cases, it’s likely that the way we treat ourselves shows up in the way we treat others, and vice versa.

      I wish us both a safe and interesting journey!