In this social climate, where attacks are common place, justified with declarations of “I’m just being honest. We must fight for what’s right. You are wrong.”, it’s super important for me to stop and consider “is this kind…..?” Is this thought, this action, these words, kind to them, or to self?

What it was like

I used to think in order for me to take a stand, to rise up for what I believe, and to be an instrument of change, I had to attack your beliefs.  This ‘attack mentality’, inevitability led to personal attacks, which in turn led to me “winning” if you chose a reasonable position.  “Reasonable”, like not reacting, going silent, walking away, laughing it off, or in general refusing to match intensity level with reactive lunacy!

That’s when I began to feel more like a bully and less like a victim; even though at some point I had already become the “bully-victim”. Can you relate?

I felt wounded, slighted, ignored, attacked, marginalized, victimized, or some other personal threat, so I justified attacking back or lashing out as a defense.

Since I felt wronged first, I dismissed my aggression, but instead label you the bully.  Just because a person feels wounded or other things, does not mean they really are.  So real or imagined slights became justification for attacks.  You know, those times when you blow up, only to realize later you were reacting on misinformation.

So this interpretation of what I felt you were doing, being the justification for what I was doing, was terribly flawed.  It was based on the premise that I knew what you were doing, based on my feelings and perceptions.  My feelings often did not consider alternatives, your feelings, the idea perhaps what you had going on had nothing whatsoever to do with me, or that I had misread the situation entirely. 

It was just feeling became fact, then react, and repeat.

Now if this was an isolated or occasional event, that’s understandable. We all have our boiling point and in certain situations, especially dangerous ones, fight is survival.  Sadly, for me, it was not occasional. The eruptions were routine, and that routine turned me into a bully, even though I still falsely saw myself as the victim.

If you feel hurt often, lash out often, are depressed or angry often, shut down and self harm often, have a huge ego, are overly anxious, or insecure, then chances are you may be a bully-victim. 

Bully-victims are often on the edge.  We can heal our wounds.  We can become the most extraordinary people.  At least I believe it’s true, so I’ve decided it will be true for me!

We are so afraid of being hurt, often as the result of childhood trauma, that we build up files on your perceived faults (as assessed by us), and then erupt all your wrongs back at you, with a self righteous, crusader mentality.

Now many of us do this, at times. It’s when it becomes habitual, and our state of being, that crosses us over the line.  I felt the line, but didn’t know how to stop doing it. I didn’t know how to stop my inner pain and mental torment. I thought if I ‘controlled’ my reaction, then I would be ‘better’. This just led to self repression and depression.  It also got weird.  I was trying to shut down parts of myself, with good intent, but the result was just “off”.

You know!  Those of us who have those resting “bit&ch” faces, visible facial ticks, angry scowls, or weird energetic misalignment between our face and our words or actions.

We definitely know who these people are. They are at the center of conflict. They may often take up social causes, talk about what’s wrong in the world, be charming, funny, extremely kind to some or flat out nasty to many.  The victim-bully is difficult, cantankerous and exhausting among other things, but often people like us, and see our good qualities as they endure our eruptive side.

It’s still a vicious way to live, and yet some of us stay stuck in this cycle our entire lives.  That is the difference between a victim-bully and a ‘lifer’.

What can happen without a desire to change

Then there are those nasty sorts who cross the line from victim-bully to “LIFER”.  You always remember them being this way, and you can’t imagine them being any other way.  They are like the Teflon of evolutionary change and emotional maturation.  Caricatures from those scary villains in Disney movies.

If the above is not enough to motivate you to change, then perhaps a peak at your future self below will!  I know it scared me.  It drove me to desire change, especially when I say glimpses of her in the mirror.  Lifer’s are the example of what I didn’t want to become, and motivated me to work that much harder on self.

Lifer Victim-Shamers

They can appear to be the meek.  Soft spoken or understated “victim-shamers” always there with a “tisk”, ready to withhold attention, but deliver doses of dripping guilt and toxic sardonic facial expressions, all hidden behind syrupy sweet voices, and the delusion they are ‘doing for you’.

They creep me out, even now.  They say things like “it’s so sad what happened to you. You always were a sexual little child always making advances since the time you were two,” in response to victims.

They are so good at eliciting sympathy, and being manipulative, they usually have a few nice people in their emotional web to torment.  They become the sweet little old lady, or man, that people feel bad for.  They seem harmless enough at arms length.  At arms length most people are harmless enough.  So wise people learn to keep most people at bay, and invest wisely in their core support group.

If you get into any financial or emotional arrangement with this sort, look out.  They keep score.   Through the delusional lens of their self deprivation, no matter how much you do, they will still believe you owe them.  They will take, demand, and manipulate, in the most subtle of ways, it may take you years to wake up to their sly hooks.

Victim-Attackers

Oh these are the people who rage at employees while you stand their watching in disbelief.  They are always right.  Few can stand to be around them.  They are charmers, and great at fake friends, or especially to social elites they believe can elevate their status in society.  If they can get an ego stroke, they may write a $30k check for public recognition, but refuse to pay $30 of their fair share to those they deem beneath them.

Any close relationship they have ever had, disintegrates under their nastiness.  Friendships, businesses relations and family relations are all littered with pain and periods of ZERO CONTACT.  They often have a host of victims that get sucked back in after decades of stealth warfare.

Let’s face it, kind people are often looking to forgive, to move past the past, to believe their love and light can burn away the darkness.  So in time, they may wriggle their way back in.  A wise person will keep it shallow with this type and at arms length.

Never let them have financial or emotional power.  Don’t say “yes” to their offers.  Don’t think they’ve changed because they finally said one nice thing, or after many failed marriages, finally a decent partner or after years of conflict finally have peace with an old “frenemy”.

They are not safe.   Alarm bells should buzz loudly whenever they are in your intimate space.  The minute they get a little leverage, they will attempt to lord power over you.

If you want to reveal their true nature, just tell them how you feel and ask they show up; really show up emotionally.  They will call you names like crazy or sick, tell you all the things that are wrong with you, lash out, bail out, say it’s too much, accuse you of being fake, toxic, mean, or whatever behavior they live in; will be projected as your short falling, not theirs.

So go ahead. Make it real.  Share your genuine and vulnerable feelings.  Ask for what you want.  Then be prepared to have it all turned back on you, along with a list of everything you’ve ever done wrong, followed by withholding (withholding of their love, time and money).

Guess what?  When you no longer need their love, approval, time or money, then they can leave as often as they like.  Their actions will have no effect on your life!  You will be free.  It takes a lot of work to get here though.  It takes going back, expecting change, getting hurt, leaving, going back and over and over.  We see this with most abuse victims.  It was certainly true for me.

As I healed and let go, not out of anger, but out of love…. love for myself.  I came to understand that all love (especially a child’s love) is the greatest gift in the universe.  So all they’ve done is withhold from themselves a gift.  Then they tried to make you believe their shame was your shame.  You are not their view of you an that is where your shame lives.  It is yet another false story about who you think you are.

This is how some of us go from Victim-bully’s to ‘lifers’.  There is very little chance of any deep, or meaningful change, because their over inflated ego has an equally inflated pain body of unhealed wounds deep within their psyche.  Although usually, as weak and afraid as they are on an emotional level internally, they hide it with puffed up pride, arrogance, anger and a false sense of bravado externally.

They may appear larger than life on the surface.  Underneath they are yet a small imprisoned child full of torment.  If you can see this child, this light within them, and honor that part of who they are, then you are really onto something.   You can detach without anger and you can love without attachment.  This does not mean you have to cut them out or let them in your physical space.

It means you are free to decide how close or far you choose for them to be.  It is now your choice.  You don’t have to have a reason to keep them out of your physical space.  You do not have to have a reason to decide to let them casually in.  It can change.  You have choice to change your mind.

What can happen

So how do we heal?  How do we pull ourselves back from that line?  How do we stop the mental anguish, and torment, we grind ourselves through, and in turn, erupt out into the world?

So many of us did not understand the art of conflict resolution. We have forgotten to practice what we wish to see in the world. Even people who agree with each other, start to cut one another down, when they disagree on the “how to”.  This the fence most of us live upon.  We say we want what’s on the other side, but we act upon what’s in front of us.  At some point we fall off the fence and become a lifer, or make the decision to jump off and begin to transcend the misuse of our own thinking minds.

There are many paths “how to”.  This is the foundation of the “how to” that made sense for me, following to the steps I went through; not necessarily in order.

“When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot.  When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.” Dalia Lama.

Step One.  Be aware of every thought.  They are mine after all.  No one puts them there. My thoughts ran wild in the background and I had learned to tune them out.  So often I found myself having thoughts, and by really tuning into to each thought, I started to understand patterns.  Patterns that created the view I had of the world.  That view in turn created reaction within me, that in turn the world responded to.  This process meant that my thoughts actually created the world in which I lived and acted in.

Step Two.  Drop all judgments about thoughts.  Instead of this is bad, good, happy, right, wrong, terrible and so on, I just became AWARE.  No Judgment.  No bad.  No good. “I’m fat.  Oh what a terrible thought.”  Instead, “I’m fat,” followed by a simple “huh that’s a thought.”  I became the observer of my own mind.

Step Three.  Ask questions.  Is this thought kind?  When did this thought first occur?  What purpose does this thought serve?  Does this thought bring me joy?  In, time it became clear my mind had some thought loops for feeling like “Sh*T”, for judging, for pain, for self soothing and they queued up like a favorite play list on my Ipod.  Asking questions led to some interesting discoveries.

First, the realization that my mind was powerful and that I had been asleep to it’s awesome power.  I also had been misusing its power on thoughts that did not serve my higher self.  Thoughts that close off the intuition highway of love, a sense of knowing and a state of being.  That peaceful knowing where you realize you don’t know very much, that questions can hang in the air, that emotions can pass, that being uncomfortable does not mean anything is “wrong”.  The state of being, where you just sit in the feeling of a moment and enjoy it outside of thought.

Step Four.  Look at the meaning I was attaching to thought.  That person cut me off (fact), what a self centered A%sHole (meaning attachment).  So often others actions were assigned some meaning that may or may not exist.  Those meanings were true for me, but they didn’t have to be.  They were only true for me because I made them up!  It was all a story.  A great fiction.  A total illusion.  It all started in my mind.

I don’t have to attach meaning to their conduct.  Meaning like “they are sick, they don’t respect me, they are crazy, they have no idea who they are messing with, I must be deficient for them to treat me like this” I can register if those thoughts come up but I can choose to set them aside.  Not stuff them.  Not judge them.  Not make them wrong.  Just set them aside.  Just sit in the presence of the current moment.

Step Five.  Make a decision to see the world differently by choosing to change my mind about what I think I know.  They cut me off (fact).  She’s an a%sHole.  Is that really true?  Perhaps he’s in a rush.  Have I ever been in a rush and acted this way? Maybe he is just an a$shole but how does that thought bring me joy?  It does not.  She’s a flawed human, just as I am a flawed human.  I forgive the a$hole in me that cuts people off too. Maybe not in a car, but maybe in a conversation?  Today I will focus on my own level of courtesy.  Does that idea bring me joy?  Yes.  Good now do it over and over and over with each thought.

What if someone verbally lashes out at me?  I stay present.  I register their intensity level.  I seek to understand.  If I could have done something different I offer an apology for this part clearly.  I make an agreement and agree to amend my part moving forward.  If I don’t see my part, then I listen.  I may say “I hear you, let me give this some consideration.”  It is perfectly reasonable.  There are times, I may need time to fully process and respond to a situation.

The key is to accept some people may just do what they do.  I may leave unsatisfied.  I may leave feeling erupted on.  The point is, that as I continue this work, over time, those relationships just won’t fit anymore. In the beginning I may erupt back.  I may engage in heavy old behavior. My mind may take me right back to it’s familiar space.  As I do the work, those familiar spaces will fell too small.  They will no longer offer comfort.  This may feel scary.  I may feel deep levels of internal insecurity.  Like a crab leaving it’s shell for more space, during the transition we are naked and vulnerable.  We may feel deep levels of anxiety as every hostile, cold, self centered action of others pierces our tenderness to its core.  It’s ok.  We keep going.  We breath.  We have at least one trusted support person who can love us in all our processes just as we are.

As my love for self grows, as each journey into larger love space happens, I begin to feel more comfortable outside my shell.  My treatment of self becomes kinder.  Think about it.  What is kinder?  Thinking someone attacks me because I, or they, have some deficiency, or just seeing their attack as an unhealed part of self.   I can just remain neutral internally regardless of emotions externally, because I choose to.  If I choose to see their action as a personal attack upon me, then I leave feeling wounded, and how does this help me?

Even higher level thinking, is that if I do feel a reaction or wounded, I can say “thank you”.  Thank you for this gift of shedding light on parts of my unhealed self so I can heal that too.  Each time I do this.  Each time I grow. It gets easier.  The transition happens more quickly.

So “do no harm”, is a tenet for self to follow.  Do no harm in my thoughts of self or others.  Do no harm, in attempting to shut down parts of self for fear they are ‘bad’.   Do no harm in taking on other eruptions and thinking somehow self is the cause.  Do no harm in lashing back.  It is a false belief that a verbal attack can be deescalated with a stronger verbal attack.  It is what has led to wars.  There is a war raging in the heart and mind of all humans who look outside.  We can stop the internal war if we choose to. 

I have quieted the internal storm.  I have experienced the release from the bondage of self.  It took almost a decade of mindful thought.  It took attention to every thought that came across my mind and learning to flip it, set it aside, sit with it, or redirect it, with a new thought kinder to self.  Over and over, sometimes many times per minute, hundreds of times per hour, thousands of times per day.  This work is so worth it.  The internal joy is both humbling and wonderful.  Sometimes I sit and weep, the tears of joy, the tenderness of gratitude, the sweetness of total presence.  Thank you so often comes to mind.

So now, I see the attacker as the sufferer.  They suffer, just as I did.  Perhaps they become a ‘lifer’.  Perhaps, they choose at some point to take the journey within and really look at, sit with, and own all parts of self.  Perhaps not.  The point is I can continue along my journey of liberation from destructive thought.  I can be kind ….. to self! So can you.