How do I deal with bullying?

Bullying is bullying the only difference is in the geography, place, and ages.

Surviving bullying there is no one size fits all.

Surviving bullying in the workplace, school and sports.  It’s never easy. Being bullied or harassed no matter where you are, geography doesn’t mean anything. Where ever the bullying occurs, the damage is just as devastating to the victim. Bystanders have the power to change things if they too speak up.

We are social creatures and want to belong, be part of the group and be excepted by our peers. However when the leadership, the manager, the teacher or the coach are bullies that environment can quickly become toxic emotionally and physically destructive.

I don’t care how old you are you are responsible for your actions and words.

A bully at work, a bully on the court in sports, cyberspace and school, these are all bullies. With the same intent to wound, to have power over, to hurt and to destroy. It is never easy to navigate this violence especially with poor leadership or the bully is the leader, teacher, coach, manager, detachment Commander. After dealing with 20 years of workplace bullying, I’m still very saddened to realize that the world is continuing to deal with this epidemic of bullying and harassment.

There is never an excuse for abuse. Bullying is never okay.

No matter where you are what you are doing everyone makes mistakes, this is how we learn and grow. NBA players, CFL players, NHL players, students, children, parents co-workers (every one of us) learned through trial and error eventually becoming skilled and extremely talented. However in the beginning they made a lot of mistakes. Lots of mistakes.

On a personal note, the first time I wrote a ticket as an RCMP officer, it took me 45 minutes. I kept making mistakes, had to redo several times, was nervous, I wanted to be accepted by co-workers. Lots of pressure and little experience.
Of course, that is completely natural when we’re trying new things we make mistakes, even when we are getting better at our job we still make mistakes. Life is about learning from our mistakes.

Effective leadership is about acknowledging the success of individuals, not focusing on the failures or the mistakes. Yelling and screaming, humiliating, violence and threats do not make anyone work any better. Screaming at someone will not make them work any faster, humiliating someone will not make them feel any safer, shaming them isolating them from the group, or team, will not make them perform any better under that threat of violence.

We have to remember that not everybody in a leadership role, such as a coach, teacher, police officer, parent, or whoever may have the right abilities for effective communication and listening skills and or can show understanding. The ‘right stuff’ for leaders is having compassion, believing in collaboration, encouragement,  cooperative learning, having patience, recognizing everyone has their leadership style so do those who they are managed/trained. We are all different, yelling never works. Effective leadership is in being aware, mindful, creative in helping their staff/students/people to have self-compassion as they learn and grow in their perspective environments.

Yelling and humiliating someone is as effective as a fan a pile of papers. Not going to work, creates an atmosphere of fear.  No one wins

The power of your voice is important in taking back your power. At first, it can feel like a momentous challenge getting out of your comfort zone of a victim to speak up to the bully. So many people who are bullied will remain silent and yet if they only realize the power of their voice, their collective voice will create positive change. Doing nothing saying nothing changes and we have more victims and you, my friend, who is being bullied suffer in silence. Your mental health your physical health your relationships your school your work all suffer.

Bullies never stop unless they’re made to stop. Bullies never get tired of abusing others. Bullying never stops it increases and escalates.

I speak from experience and how workplace bullying and harassment slowly broke me down over the weeks, months and years which resulted in lost time with my family friends and myself.
Bullying creates stress, and long-term stress eventually wears you down, and your body starts to speak up if you don’t and you get sick. Over the years I develop celiac disease, five miscarriages thoughts of suicide and PTSD.

Speaking up became the only option I had to survive. However, I wanted to thrive to find happiness, to feel happy with life. Speaking up is about you staying safe too. If you feel unsafe wait, seek out support, a co-worker, or the police. Threats of violence and intimidation are a crime.

The first thing I did was to document.

The power of the pen. It’s important to document bullying and harassment. Dates, times, places,  when, where, who said what and any witnesses and the impact on you.  As you speak up perhaps others who are being bullied will find the courage and speak up as well.

Develop a positive attitude.  Yes, it is never too late to learn a positive attitude.

A positive attitude gives us resilience in life. It does not mean we won’t suffer, have sadness, loss or trauma, merely with the right attitude we bounce back. Instead of focusing on the negative try focussing on the little positive in life. Again this takes practice.

Learning to detach from their bullying behaviour takes practice.

Especially if you have never experienced bullying it can be devastating. Think of ways you can block out the negative words and attitudes and remain focused on the positive parts of who you are. It takes practice and time to learn to detach from these negative people and words. I used to look at the assholes who were yelling and think, ‘He is such an asshole, am I ever glad he/she/they are not my partner’. I would be curious as to what made them such an asshole? I would make the effort to not allow their words to penetrate my mental armour. Took time and practice.

Setting boundaries on behaviours I would accept and not accept.

You have the right to say ‘stop don’t talk to me that way.’ Encourage others to speak up. Seek out HR or other departments that handle complaints. If not satisfied keep going higher in the organization. Everyone is scared of the media. ha

Over the years I created my self-care tool kit to survive and thrive.

Knowing how to deal with your stress and anxiety from bullying also helps have a better happier life. We cannot change the bully but we can manage our emotions so that we can go to work/school deal with the assholes, do our best work at the end of the day, come home and still be loving and present for your family.

Self-care tools and strategies can be as simple as journaling, fitness, walking, bike riding, cartoons, reading a good book, watching something funny on NETFLIX or any show that makes you feel good ( this is different for everyone), baking, painting, being outside, playing with pets or children, hobbies that make you feel good.  At one point JAWS was my go-to self-care movie. It has changed over the years like the tools still work for me and then some change. Self-care is anything that makes you feel energized, happy, confident and like who you are today.

Speaking up is about knowing your safety is important. DO you want to file a complaint?

Filing a complaint to your HR, upper management, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Labour Board, lawsuit, in some cases the police are needed for criminal charges. Sometimes people decide to file an anonymous complaint. Know your rights, get education on policies and procedures and rules.  No one has the right to touch you or threaten you. Making the excuse ‘it is a joke or you are not tough enough,  is an excuse for bad behaviour and lacks accountability.

Learning effective communication and listening skills to speak up takes practice and self patience,

it can feel scary. Using ‘I’ messages to speak up to the bully.  Looks like this, ‘when you speak to me that way I feel humiliated, please stop.’ ‘when you make fun of me in front of my co-workers/teammates, I feel embarrassed, please stop.’ Find the rods that fit with who you are and what feels more natural. Again it takes practice. Either way, you feel empowered and so do those who remain silent. Fear paralyzes us from speaking up, and yet if we do nothing, it only gets worse.

If you choose not to speak up that is your choice. The idea is to know you have a choice. And everyone will do what they need to do to survive. I strongly encourage everyone to create their self-care tool kit for whatever is happening in their life today and in their tomorrow. Self-care is just that, taking care of yourself. Your self-care tool kit will look and feel different from mine and that’s OK. Seeking out positive supports, or professional help as you navigate through bullying and harassment is important. Sometimes we need medication to deal with the depression resulting from the stress of bullying.  None of us is invincible and bullying will eventually wear you down.  Again I speak from experience of years of workplace bullying and harassment.

Seeking out positive support in the workplace, teammates, family and friends is part of the journey to empowerment. Remember we can’t change the bully but we can change how we respond comment how we react and what we retain. Again it takes practice awareness to encourage.

Remember bullying is never okay. You deserve to feel safe at home, in the workplace, in cyberspace, in team sports and in public spaces.

If interested watch my TEDx Winnipeg presentation, “Tools to Survive Workplace Bullying.”