Understanding Bullies

I had a lot of experience with bullies back in elementary and junior high school. I know the pain of being bullied, and I have allowed bullies to make me behave in ways I wish I hadn't. There were times I caved into peer pressure and there were times I resisted it. In fact, if you were looking at a graph showing my popularity during my school years, you would clearly see where I resisted and where I gave in. After spending a great deal of time reviewing my life looking for life scripts, patterns, and windows of opportunity* in my life, I know that I have allowed myself to be bullied at school and in romantic relationships as well.

The "Bully window" was opened for me so many times that there is no doubt that this was an important must "learn item" on my spiritual "To Do" list for this lifetime. By becoming aware of the nature of bullies, I've been able to put an end to them in my work life and my personal life. My Guide Group has been very clear in the information they've provided on this subject, and here is the shocking news about bullies-we plan for the bullies in our lives! They are a type of relationship villain** and the learning that happens from this type of interaction is as important to the person being bullied as it is to the bully him/herself. Here is some interesting information about bullies from my Guide Group (the "GG"), which was dictated to help us gain a better perspective and understanding of this distinct type of relationship villain:

"Bullies are an ugly thing but they are very much a planned occurrence for any given lifetime. When someone bullies you, you feel badly about yourself. Bullies stab at one's self-esteem and make one feel that they are not good enough or smart enough to fit in with the 'in crowd.' When a soul decides to be bullied in a particular incarnation it is usually because they want to work on building confidence and self-esteem. We can tell you, too, that the 'idea' of being bullied when you are at the planning table is very much different from the actual feeling of the experience during an incarnation. Many things that seem like they will be a breeze to go through when you're on the planning side of the veil don't turn out to be easy once you are back in body.

Being the bully is not a job that souls cherish and if you look at them, really look at them, you'll see that they have issues they need to overcome, and the role of bully gives them the opportunity to do so. The person who bullies you is most likely your 'universal frenemy,' because only someone who truly loves you would want to take on such a nasty role. Those that love us want to help us achieve our goals and our growth in the shortest amount of time possible."

Looking back, there is no doubt that each of my bully experiences were windows of opportunity for learning-they were all pretty much the same (life script!) and were based on ostracizing someone. It pretty much went like this: the "in group" decided like didn't like someone, and if you were friends with that person or continued to stay friends with that person, then you were on the receiving end too.

The first time I experienced this I was in elementary school, and I'm sorry to say that I gave in. The next time I experienced it, I gave in as well. The next time I experienced it was in junior high school, and I didn't give in that time-I had always felt extremely guilty for what I had done in elementary school. For two years I was on the receiving end of a group of bullies, and I lost most of my friends. But I didn't back down this time-I stuck with my friend, learned the lesson, and I never had to go through this particular scenario again. In fact, when I was in High School, I had lots of friends from many different cliques.

So how did I deal with it during those two years of constant bullying? During those difficult times, I tried my best to ignore them and continue on with my life-I never let them see that what they were saying had any impact on me whatsoever. I wasn't "fun" for them because they got no reaction from me. I didn't lose all my friends, I still had a few, and they were a great support group for me, although I had no idea what a "support group" was at the time. I noticed that my particular bullies like to strike when you were alone, so having other people around definitely helped. I continued with my life and pursued the things that I liked best-I joined clubs, I took the classes that I knew would help get a job when I graduated from high school, and I excelled at those classes.

I developed a great deal of confidence and self-reliance during that time, and I met a lot of other people whom I eventually became friends with. But to put a stop to the "bully window of opportunity" repeating for me, I had to take a stand for what I believed in. I had to learn not to cave into peer pressure-that was my big lesson to learn and the bully experience was the tool for me to learn it.

We all have different lessons that we want to learn, that we planned to learn, during this incarnation. The best way to figure out how to stop attracting the same unpleasant circumstance, be it a bully situation, or something else, is to do a mini-life review and look for life scripts and patterns. Once you spot them, examine how you acted or re-acted in each situation and make adjustments in your behavior. Changing the way you deal with a situation that keeps repeating itself is the best way to complete a lesson and go through a window of opportunity.

And remember, we planned the bullies in our lives-hard to accept, I know, but becoming aware of our part in planning unpleasant experiences will help us wake up faster, spot the windows, learn the lesson, and expedite our spiritual growth.(Sherri Cortland,ND)

picture : library.thinkquest.org