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Last week’s blog we took a look at the importance of time and how if we don’t own it, manage it and take care of it, it can get away from us and rob us of our joy. There is nothing more time consuming than relationships that are hurtful and harmful which brings up the issue of bullying and victimization. The good news is that we are seeing and increase in awareness about the subject bullying and victimization with Public Service Announcements – PSA’s – of famous people and wonderful organizations coming out AGAINST bullying these past several years. It’s a good thing that we are addressing this issue and yet, we must be willing to learn how to understand the psychology of what’s really going on. We must engage in learning an ever advancing skill set to be effective at diffusing bully behavior while empowering all parties involved to learn how to ask for what they want in a way that gets people more of what they want and less of what they don’t want. In today’s blog we’re going to take a look at what it really means to be AGAINST something. Reaching out …
Victim Mindset?!
I’m a stickler for language and how it either inflames an already potentially volatile situation OR it soothes it. Being AGAINST is about a FIGHTING and WAR-ING mentality which means we are in fact, making people who use bully behavior to try to control their world, i.e., THE ENEMY! This is the very thing we must learn how to do differently. True story: An example of this is high school principal who wrote me, proudly saying that there aren’t any bullies in his school, because he IS the bully (thus, teaching kids exactly how to be bigger bullies as they grow up!) His justification was that his mother was a pushover, so when he got into education he found that ALL of the successful teachers in his nationally renowned inner-city, private, low income school were authoritative, old-school, using the “black parenting style” approach, and that this was the ONLY way to work with “these” kids. Let’s look at this: out bully the bully = Bigger Bully Bully Behavior is seen by most as beyond their control, and to deal with it we must be strong enough to “out-bully the bully.” Either that, or we try to convince ourselves that we didn’t see what we just saw, and we can somehow put our heads in the sand and tell ourselves it’s not our responsibility to step up and make a much needed difference. PERCEPTION –The KEY to PEACEFUL INTERACTIONS Instead of being AGAINST bullying; let’s ask ourselves what we can be FOR? We can be FOR PEACE Making Skills in our homes, schools and places of work. We can be FOR CALLING OUT THE GREATNESS in every person we meet. We can be FOR 2-WAY COMMUNICATION and hanging there with people who see things differently than we do. We CAN learn the skills that attitudinally, verbally and energetically create the kind of outcomes that we prefer. There have been two significant studies I’ve found that shed light on how we come AT problematic behaviors rather than build a clear pathway to desired results and goals … Heart Publishing, the Pacific Northwest |
