Be thankful for our luck when we cross paths with a bully. Bullies make us wiser, better, and enlightened if handled with care. The saying that ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’ missed the mark. From my experience, what doesn’t kill us can make us happier, and I have a formula to turn our biggest bullies into our most euphoric states of mind.
I was bullied during my term at university, badly. I wish we had the following formula then that I’m about to share with you now.
Love the bully so much that our heart bursts at the thought of him or her. Meditate daily, repeating the words, “I love …” and naming our bully, allowing our whole physical being to swell with the vibration of love.
Celebrate that our bully may very well be adored by his or her guardian angel, assuming everyone has a guardian angel. Better still, become our bully’s guardian angel.
Laugh gently at our bully’s antics, knowing full well that everybody has issues meant to be mastered. Better still, see the bully as our beloved innocent child who has yet to learn a better way of being. Guide him or her with patience, love, and understanding.
Contemplate our bully’s beautiful traits, refusing to judge or even consider their negativity. Find everything special about the bully, breaking through that barrier that otherwise prevents us from seeing their spectacular gifts.
Even empathize with their stance against us, enough to feel compassion, enough to see how we might become better people through self-correction, yet not taking the bullying personally. It’s a balance that creates inner peace.
Find a way to be of service to the bully. St. Catherine of Sienna would bathe her ailing bully. So, give a gift, do an act of service, say sweet words, offer time together, offer a warm touch, or perform any other selfless act. Provide these loving things for our bullies.
But the bully may likely not respond in kind. Don’t worry. I’ve written the above to help condition us for the greatest state of mind: happiness. That state requires we control our minds, plucking out any negative emotion as soon as it arises. It means immediately snuffing out anger, resentment, jealousy, frustration, sorrow, or any kind of pain, however real. That means smiling, laughing, loving, and feeling joy instead of any negativity. For example, forced warm laughter shoots off endorphins and automatically shifts our thoughts. Make warm laughter our period after most every sentence.
Bullies may not just be people. They can be memories, actions, thoughts, worries, and inanimate things, too.
So, let’s apply the formula for spiritually handling bullies: give love, control our minds, and create for ourselves constant happiness. What doesn’t kill us will make us happy. And if it does kill us, perhaps we’ll be greeted with infinite heavenly rewards.
