Whenever we have an experience in our life, it is up to us to determine how that experience is going to be received. I have been talking a lot about forgiveness over the last few weeks, and if you have seen any of those blogs, you know that forgiveness is something that we all do. It is something that we all do for us. When someone hurts us, as inevitably we often get hurt, we must be clear on the fact that no one can hurt us emotionally with our consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt said it best: "No one can disrespect you if you don't give them permission to do so." As we experience our life and deal with the pain that inevitably comes, we must also deal with the fact that sometime we experience pain when there is no pain. When someone calls you a name, it is up to you to decide whether that's important or not. When someone describes you in a way that's unflattering, it's up to you to deal with that in a mature manner. On the odd time that someone really does hurt you, it is up to you to forgive them.
We are by no means excusing people who hurt you. We are by no means excusing people who are rude to you, but we are empowering you, those of you who have had that experience, to take authority over the maladies in your life. No one is going to come by to save you. No one is going to come by to make it all right for you. The moment that you hear something that hurts your feelings, nobody is going to be there to say that that's not true. You have to do that yourself.
I recently heard a story of a football coach who expelled 80 football players because some of them were cyber-bullying another student. While this might seem commendable at its outset, it may or may not be the end of the story. The football players who are being victimized because they were not a part of the cyber-bullying, well, they're going to have to learn to forgive. They're going to have to forgive the coach for innocently suspending them. Of course, there's the other aspect of them uniting with their fellow football players, not to rat out each other. That's another blog, not this blog.
As an extraordinary coach, which is what he purports to be, suppose you were in a position where you have to make such a call, where you have to decide to protect someone who's bullied. I know society tells us to protect the weak and look out for the innocent and all that sort of thing, and that's not what we're talking about here. I have found that the majority of the time that I was hurt, it was all me doing the experiencing.
I used to have a list many years ago that I kept the names of people who I thought had hurt me, and I thought that they had hurt me so bad that I could kill them if I wanted to and be justified. A similar thing happens with someone who is being bullied. I say, let's not attack people who are bullying others. Let's build others' self-esteem, others' self-concept to the degree that words cannot bully them.
Who's going to protect them the next time somebody bullies them? Who's going to step in to defend them the next time they have that experience? I doubt that there will be anyone. This coach who has expelled these players to stop them from bullying the student, what he has probably done is force the bullies to create more imaginative ways for them to bully the student. They're not going to stop bullying the student. They're simply going to be more imaginative in the way that they do that. They will cover their tracks better.
What one resists, persists. If you think that you're going to stop someone from bullying you by punishing them for bullying you, you're absolutely not. If you think that you're going to help somebody who is bullied by saving them, you're absolutely not. The only cure for bullying, the only thing that we can do for bullying is to empower the person being bullied to not receive that malady. That might seem strong. That might seem painful, but that is the only thing that you can do because human beings will never stop being human beings.
This was a strong blog this time, I get that, and this was a blog that might incur the wrath of some, but I can assure you that no one who has risen up and defeated a bully will have an issue with this blog
If it's helped you, great. Go ahead and share it with somebody and let them know exactly what's going on and otherwise continue to follow this blog. I end it like I end all the rest. Do me a big favor and have yourself a good time.
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