In this article, I’m going to instruct you on how to respond to bullies. First of all, we need to define what a bully is.
My Definition of a Bully
A bully is someone who tries to make another person do something against that person’s wishes.
If you witness someone trying to get others to do things by threatening them, shaming them, manipulating them, lying to them, or in any other way hurting or attempting to hurt them, then you can know that you’re witnessing a bully. Sometimes the hardest bully to spot is the one that is bullying you personally.
Bullies will punch, pinch, push, name-call, try to make you flinch, send you long and unpleasant emails, troll you online, yell at you, blame you, and generally take zero responsibility for their emotional reactions or their physical actions.
Inside, bullies feel profoundly disempowered and in pain. The only way that they can experience any sense of power is to use force, or threats of force, to make other people do things that they wouldn’t otherwise want to do. Bullies also often feel emotions to which they’re not willing to pay attention. They try to invoke those emotions in others as an alternative way of experiencing them. Feelings they don’t yet have the courage to own include fear, anxiety, powerlessness, anger, frustration…
