Facing down our Bullies

I am sure we each can recall in vivid detail the moment we faced down our bully. If you have never had to deal with a bully, then your life has been charmed, silver-spooned, and butter breaded in abundance.

Being short and skinny for a good part of my life, (the skinniness disappeared as I neared the end of my 20’s, the shortness stayed) I have had my share of bullies. I guess I looked easy to beat upon. I made up for my stature by having an exalted Mars and a loud mouth, short and aggressive in speech. A neighbour, whom I have known all my life, used to colloquially refer to me as a ‘warbeen’. A warbeen was trouble and not to be trifled with.

The age of social media has taken bullying to another level. We read about persons going as far as committing suicide because of online bullying. Keyboard courage reigns and the bully has a new platform to denigrate and belittle its prey for no reason other than that it can. The bully never acts in isolation, a choir of cheerleaders, like spectators at a dogfight, support and cheer it on. But we know, like a law of life, the bully always meets its match.

What about the other bullies in our lives, not those that we meet in our physical environment but those that battle us from the inside?

The bully of fear and trauma
The bully of weakness and wastefulness
The bully of depression and repression
The bully of lack mentality and non-belief
The bully of pride and ego

They tear at us, breaking down our defenses, making us less than who we are capable of being, yet cowering from a fight, we refuse to acknowledge them. These bullies, before long, take over our lives, causing bad health and problems, making us less abundant that we could be, less creative, less loving, less being.

As we recall the time when we faced down the bully in the streets and the sense of pride and power it brought us, so too must we face the bullies inside us and vanquish them once and for all.