On Bullying: Too Much To Bear Alone
the dark night of the soul of our social paradigm
When I was in my teen years I became friends with this amazing singer named Stephanie Clement and I absolutely loved listening to her play her guitar and sing both original songs she wrote and her covers of famous rock and folk songs. There was this one song that she sang called The Queen and The Soldier by Suzanne Vega which was a song telling the story of a queen who ordered her soldiers into battle for her own pleasure. At one part of the song a soldier is questioning her intentions and motives behind this after accusing her of forcing her people into battle for her own enjoyment to which she replied “You won’t understand and you may as well not try…I have swallowed a secret burning thread, it cuts me inside and it’s often I’ve bled”.
It is no secret that those who are bullied become bullies. When people hold intense pain, buried or otherwise, it often becomes too much for them to bear on their own. In a perfect world when people experience painful things they would be given the time and space to process their pain, to first sit in it and then transmute it – transforming it from something that is painful into something that is beneficial for example loss or heart break into compassion or wisdom. However in our world people often have to be driven to the point of illness before they are afforded this time and even then it is often without tools of any kind to navigate their healing. What happens with so many people is that they live in manageable pain, at the expense of others around them.
We are living in a very fast paced world where the everyday expectations are built on survival far more than anything else. In the past decade more and more people are understanding the differences between health and wellness and exciting new ways of balancing ourselves in mind, body and spirit are emerging almost on the daily however there are still vital components of this that are still very much a work in progress.
From a healer’s perspective the world is comprised of energy and this energy makes up everything from physical objects to complex beings such as humans, plants and animals. If we look at pain energetically we can gain insight into how it effects our nature as humans. The human energy field is resolution based which means that it is constantly in a state of bringing two or more processes into balance. This can be seen at a very physical level with the body undergoing thousands of chemical processes a minute to maintain homeostasis (physical balance among body systems) to the way that we learn to the way that we interact with the world around us. When the energy field holds on to emotional pain the energy of that pain disrupts the natural flow of resolution and feelings like resentment, anger, sadness, heartbreak etc begin to wait below the surface for an optimal moment to release.
When people are in pain it is natural for them to seek comfort to help understand, navigate or alleviate that pain. Humans are sensitive beings by nature and our bodies, minds and spirits are designed to survive and our belief systems which in turn form our actions have that survival instinct at its very foundation. When pain isn’t addressed immediately it becomes integrated into our belief systems of survival in unhealthy ways and manifest as trauma responses (in more extreme forms) or in the way that we interact with the world around us in more subtle ways.
Emotional pain is healed through developing an understanding of the self in relation to the experienced that caused that pain and in doing so a resolve is established which becomes a confidence or a knowing that one can survive that similar pain again or the original state in which the pain was experienced in is shifted and one can see their growth beyond that pain. At an energetic level pain seeks love for transmutation.
The human ego is built to ensure our survival and it does a fantastic job although it only works to ensure the survival of its current state of being. The ego doesn’t account for integrated pain because it’s job is to mitigate further injury in order to protect “what is”. Once something becomes integrated the ego protects it. This creates a huge barrier to people wanting help. The ego sees any change to the function or belief of the person as death and huge amounts of anxiety often build up in advance of somebody opening up about the things that have hurt them if those things have been there for long enough. Energetically the process of transmutation for emotional pain (or any pain) is huge. It is the process of huge amounts of polar opposite energies coming together and through reacting with each other the energy that has been harmful becomes either neutralized or brought into a state that is lighter and more beneficial.
People become bullies when their pain hasn’t been worked through, when transmutation hasn’t happened and when the ego tries to protect the current state of being from further injury. If a person is called ugly for several years, the word and concept of ugly, as something unworthy, is then integrated as a weapon. Weapons, physical or mental, are used to ensure survival. When pain cannot be processed at the time of the experience and those experiences become our beliefs it is no doubt that they will become a part of the myriad of survival mechanisms that we employ to get through our very busy world.
We are all healers by nature. Healers hold space for the process of transmutation whether they are doctors, psychologists, counselors, peer supporters, energy healers, mediums, or the person at the coffee shop that is always happy to listen. We all have an innate knowing of what people need when we take the time to listen. In our very busy world being patient with others can be the very opposite of what we’re used to although it will always pay off for those who are dedicated to the betterment of the planet as a whole. If we can step into our inner healer to compassionately address the behaviour of others when it’s harmful the better this world will be. There is the incredible importance of boundaries however where one cannot hold space for someone to their own detriment however there will always be a time where you are able – perhaps it is in witnessing bullying rather at a time of being a victim of bullying.
Perhaps one of the vital components that is missing to attaining health and wellness is something that goes far beyond the individual. When I was 17 I was attending an alternative school and one of the courses I was taking was law and the instructor who was supervising the independent study was a wonderful native man named Mr. Howard. I was talking to him one day about the idea of mind, body, spirit and he said that in his aboriginal culture they add one more thing: Community. Several years later I heard the very common story about an African tribal society where they believed that all people are inherently good and so when somebody committed a crime instead of punishment such prison they were made to stand in the centre of the village and each member of the community spoke to that person one at a time telling them the things they know to be true about their innate goodness. Whether or not this story is true, historically, it is still very much a parable of truth for the healing of the darker side of our social paradigm. We are all trying to survive and how we survive (or thrive) is what will be the measure of success as people and as a world. We can do it – together.
It is no secret that those who are bullied become bullies. When people hold intense pain, buried or otherwise, it often becomes too much for them to bear on their own. In a perfect world when people experience painful things they would be given the time and space to process their pain, to first sit in it and then transmute it – transforming it from something that is painful into something that is beneficial for example loss or heart break into compassion or wisdom. However in our world people often have to be driven to the point of illness before they are afforded this time and even then it is often without tools of any kind to navigate their healing. What happens with so many people is that they live in manageable pain, at the expense of others around them.
We are living in a very fast paced world where the everyday expectations are built on survival far more than anything else. In the past decade more and more people are understanding the differences between health and wellness and exciting new ways of balancing ourselves in mind, body and spirit are emerging almost on the daily however there are still vital components of this that are still very much a work in progress.
From a healer’s perspective the world is comprised of energy and this energy makes up everything from physical objects to complex beings such as humans, plants and animals. If we look at pain energetically we can gain insight into how it effects our nature as humans. The human energy field is resolution based which means that it is constantly in a state of bringing two or more processes into balance. This can be seen at a very physical level with the body undergoing thousands of chemical processes a minute to maintain homeostasis (physical balance among body systems) to the way that we learn to the way that we interact with the world around us. When the energy field holds on to emotional pain the energy of that pain disrupts the natural flow of resolution and feelings like resentment, anger, sadness, heartbreak etc begin to wait below the surface for an optimal moment to release.
When people are in pain it is natural for them to seek comfort to help understand, navigate or alleviate that pain. Humans are sensitive beings by nature and our bodies, minds and spirits are designed to survive and our belief systems which in turn form our actions have that survival instinct at its very foundation. When pain isn’t addressed immediately it becomes integrated into our belief systems of survival in unhealthy ways and manifest as trauma responses (in more extreme forms) or in the way that we interact with the world around us in more subtle ways.
Emotional pain is healed through developing an understanding of the self in relation to the experienced that caused that pain and in doing so a resolve is established which becomes a confidence or a knowing that one can survive that similar pain again or the original state in which the pain was experienced in is shifted and one can see their growth beyond that pain. At an energetic level pain seeks love for transmutation.
The human ego is built to ensure our survival and it does a fantastic job although it only works to ensure the survival of its current state of being. The ego doesn’t account for integrated pain because it’s job is to mitigate further injury in order to protect “what is”. Once something becomes integrated the ego protects it. This creates a huge barrier to people wanting help. The ego sees any change to the function or belief of the person as death and huge amounts of anxiety often build up in advance of somebody opening up about the things that have hurt them if those things have been there for long enough. Energetically the process of transmutation for emotional pain (or any pain) is huge. It is the process of huge amounts of polar opposite energies coming together and through reacting with each other the energy that has been harmful becomes either neutralized or brought into a state that is lighter and more beneficial.
People become bullies when their pain hasn’t been worked through, when transmutation hasn’t happened and when the ego tries to protect the current state of being from further injury. If a person is called ugly for several years, the word and concept of ugly, as something unworthy, is then integrated as a weapon. Weapons, physical or mental, are used to ensure survival. When pain cannot be processed at the time of the experience and those experiences become our beliefs it is no doubt that they will become a part of the myriad of survival mechanisms that we employ to get through our very busy world.
We are all healers by nature. Healers hold space for the process of transmutation whether they are doctors, psychologists, counselors, peer supporters, energy healers, mediums, or the person at the coffee shop that is always happy to listen. We all have an innate knowing of what people need when we take the time to listen. In our very busy world being patient with others can be the very opposite of what we’re used to although it will always pay off for those who are dedicated to the betterment of the planet as a whole. If we can step into our inner healer to compassionately address the behaviour of others when it’s harmful the better this world will be. There is the incredible importance of boundaries however where one cannot hold space for someone to their own detriment however there will always be a time where you are able – perhaps it is in witnessing bullying rather at a time of being a victim of bullying.
Perhaps one of the vital components that is missing to attaining health and wellness is something that goes far beyond the individual. When I was 17 I was attending an alternative school and one of the courses I was taking was law and the instructor who was supervising the independent study was a wonderful native man named Mr. Howard. I was talking to him one day about the idea of mind, body, spirit and he said that in his aboriginal culture they add one more thing: Community. Several years later I heard the very common story about an African tribal society where they believed that all people are inherently good and so when somebody committed a crime instead of punishment such prison they were made to stand in the centre of the village and each member of the community spoke to that person one at a time telling them the things they know to be true about their innate goodness. Whether or not this story is true, historically, it is still very much a parable of truth for the healing of the darker side of our social paradigm. We are all trying to survive and how we survive (or thrive) is what will be the measure of success as people and as a world. We can do it – together.
