In Ben Ainslie's dash for his 4th Olympic Gold Medal in Weymouth last summer it is hard to believe that he was bullied in his childhood and found his escape through the world of sailing. Especially, as when it comes to winning the ultimate prize, it can be argued that Ben himself, if not being fiercely competitive, could easily be described as being a bully. He bullies the likes of Jonas Hogh - Christensen into submission sailing them down the fleet to ensure his own victory. His now infamous quote 'They've made me angry and you don't want to make me angry' will perhaps be immortalized within his own knighthood.
One of the conditions of bullying is that it can make you angry and that anger if it doesn't have an outlet can be turned inwards into states of depression. If you have grown up in a bullying environment it is likely that you will have learned to rebel and fight back, becoming the bully yourself or you have disengaged completely, accepted the fact that others seemingly know better than yourself and you become small and insignificant within your own life. You are conditioned to believe there is no middle ground but in fact there is and this is where the journey begins.
The disengaged scenario was certainly the case for me and I write this now not for sympathy or to get the violins out but just as a statement of fact in order for you to gain an understanding or perspective as to what it has been like for me to make the journey I have to where I am today ready to talk about this for the benefit of others.
It seemed as if when I was growing up that every situation I found myself in I encountered a bully. I was different, I was slightly better off than my immediate peers, I spoke with little or no accent compared to the broad Devonshire dialect and I was quiet, differences that were picked up on and then played upon at school.
Being called names and being pushed down banks was one thing but when the violence escalated towards being spat at, punched, strangled and then having death threats placed upon me there was a need for more authoritative action to be brought into existence from other parties, as I didn't at the time have the knowledge to correct the situation myself.
My conflicts at school were resolved to a degree but I still lived with a 'what if' uncertainty that I carried with me every day. A pattern or mode of communication had been set that would continue into college and then my workplace where each time a similar situation would present itself of bully and bullied. Until that was I got to the age of 33 and sought help outside of my immediate family and friendship group approaching a counselor for the first time.
This took courage, to admit that I needed help, but after 20 mins of bleating on about my life and how it had come into existence, my counselor, like a hired assassin, cut through all the 30 years of hurt to simply say to me 'Simon, I think you let other people rule your life!'.
An explosion of truth reverberated around my being, I could not believe it, how could this guy know so much about my life in such a short space of time 'I let other people rule my life.... I let.... I... me!' A pattern of allowing that when I traced it back I realised started not at school but in seemingly the most intimate and safest of situations within my own family unit.
The characters and personalities within my own household lived with an unwritten rule 'that children should be seen, but not heard' and to coin a phrase from
Shane Koyczan if one did indeed try and stand up for oneself you soon got 'altitude sickness'. In essence this created a scenario where it was easier to escape to the garden and befriend butterfly, bird and bee by way of a survival tactic than face up to my oppressors, but this is what I would eventually have to do in order to secure my own ultimate freedom.
In order for the imbalance to be corrected this is often where the work has to begin within your own 4 walls, in the realisation that you have allowed this situation to come into being and that by changing the way that you do things you can start to find a different answer to your life.
Criticism is simply an act of self justification. So when you learn that your voice matters just as much as the next person and nobody, but nobody, knows what is right for you in your life bar what you do, then you can start to ask questions of your bullies, querying why they feel that they need to act in the way that they do towards you, what it is that exists within you that displeases them so much and how their comments make you feel. In many incidences we will be reflecting back to these people what they themselves don't recognize within their own being.
By stating our own truth and continuing to question those that criticize and abuse us we can start to move to this middle ground where we begin to come out from our shell or bulb and start to grow into the world and encourage others to join us there celebrating this fact and restoring our energy lost in our previous battles.
For me it was a case of becoming more present, to re-engage with society with the belief that what I said or wrote mattered not only to myself, but others and the planet too as it does for us all. In order to restore this right relationship again to our self, others and the planet we are all going to have to be fully energised in order to fulfill our true potential and overcome all the problems we are now faced with.
If this is an issue that you particularly wish to comment upon why not do so via
my blog, or perhaps you would like help with such a situation in your own work or within your own life, if so why not
contact me now and I can perhaps start to help you live a happier existence, for in a scenario of bully and bullied the only type of person that exists is an unhappy person and by all finding the middle ground we can truly start to shine for the benefit of all.
Until next time.
Much love Sx.
