Confessions of a Bully
The classic bully was actually a victim first.
Tom Hiddleston
Hello, my name is Tonya Dawn…and I’m a bully.
Well, I like to think I used to be, but sometimes the knowledge of how to manipulate people runs so deep that I find myself invoking those skills without realizing it. Maybe it’s like any other addiction and the best you can hope for is to actively and consciously choose not to indulge. Regardless, with the current state of the world and conversations popping up about tactics and techniques people use to bend, mold and break others to their will, I figured I might as well come clean. For whatever reason, the concept of bullying continues to emerge in my conversations. I talk to a lot of parents who express concerns about today’s school environments. Discussions around personal safety inevitably turn to bullying as the root cause of violent activity endured from peers. Even conversations about political undercurrents and the state of the economy get peppered with the word “bully.” It’s an easy word to throw around, but a very difficult concept to define and address.
The conversation recently hit home when my stepdaughter confessed pent-up fears over treatment she endured at school. My own fears and helplessness rushed back at me as I remembered being an adolescent in the midst of teen angst and power exchanges.
Wow, what a world.
I looked at my husband in the face and said, “I don’t know what to tell her. Nobody has really solid, practical, powerful advice to offer kids. I remember the crap adults told me when I was that age it doesn’t work!” He looked at me and very calmly said, “Honey, then what are you teaching people?”
Bam! It’s amazing how a simple question can chance everything. I pulled myself together and remembered I was no longer a 12 year-old girl and I DID have some valuable experience. This is kind of my thing, after all.
But instead of giving her advice, I confessed. I explained to her how energy and power exchange works and how our tendency is to take energy from people when we feel like we don’t have enough of our own. I told her that when I feel small or disempowered, I take it out on her dad or her little sister. I explained that I don’t have to use violence to make them feel small like me. She looked shocked. I asked her if she knew why I did that. She shook her head and I explained that those are the two people in my life who aren’t going anywhere.
It made me sad to confess, but it’s the truth. When we start to feel our own control slip through our fingers we search for the closest object to take back power. It’s ironic and it doesn’t really work, but for whatever reason some of us do that. Parents do it to children, spouses do it to their mates, bosses do it to employees, teachers do it to students and “friends” do it to each other.
This energetic “hot potato” happens seamlessly and powerfully through so many daily exchanges that we accept it as normal. We use sarcasm, passive aggressiveness, veiled threats, discipline, and totally socially-acceptable conversation patterns to suck goodness from each other because it provides temporary soothing to the gaping wound of our disempowerment. And we wonder why our kids “bully.”
THIS is the level at which these conversations need to happen if we have any hope of empowering our children to stand on their own and develop true personal POWER. THIS is the level of honesty and confession we must accept if we hope to eradicate the pervaise power-sucking behavior of our society. THIS is what runs underneath the onslaught of anger, violence, fear, and instability we all feel and desperately want to ignore.
My name is Tonya Dawn…and I’m a recovering bully.
About the Author: From the corporate world to the spy world and from rape victim to motherhood, Tonya Dawn Recla embodies the definition of personal power. She holds a B.A. in intercultural communication and M.A. in education/critical theory from Arizona State University. Her current projects include finishing her second book, The Dragon Queen, and providing intuitive consulting to her decision-making, change-agent clients (TonyaDawn.com). She and her husband currently travel the world with their 3 year-old daughter.
