Identify types and tactics of bullies

Learn to identify and label different types of bullies and the tactics they use.  That will give you power.  You’ll know what you’re up against.  You won’t second-guess yourself.  You’ll be able to align and focus your energy and action.  You’ll get the help you need. Some ways many people think of bullying are:

• Mental, emotional, physical bullying (including harassment and threats).
• Verbal bullying, non-verbal harassment, physical violence (attacks on people, pets or things).

But I focus on 5 types of bullies and their tactics:

1. Overt bullies.
2. Covert bullies.
3. Cyberbullies.
4. “Professional Victims.”
5. Self-bullies.

Often there are no clear and fixed lines between these types of bullies and bullies often use different tactics.  I don’t include sexual bullying as a separate category because that can be done using all the tactics.

Overt bullies act out in public.  They’re easier to see and to get evidence against.

Covert bullies are sneaky, manipulative and controlling.  They abuse in secret; it’s much harder to get evidence against them.

Some of the techniques overt and covert bullies use:

• They get out of control and throw temper tantrums (like children).  They’ll have physical or verbal explosions or give the “Loud Silent Treatment.”  They get power by anger and rage.
• They indulge in personal vendettas and scapegoat victims.
• They make harsh judgments or remarks or put-downs.  They’re experts in personal criticism and negativity.
• They talk down to people.  They push sensitive places in order to make other people feel bad.
• Their feelings matter; yours don't.  They make the rules; you don't.  Their reasons make sense; yours don't.  They're right; you're wrong.
• They’re instigators.  They pour gas on the fire, get other people to fight and they create “uproar.”  They’re splinters.
• They’re control-freaks and turf protectors.  They’re always right and righteous.
• They’re relentlessly negative, critical, naysayers who are impossible to please.  They complain until they get attention.
• They tease, taunt and use name calling put-downs.  They use people as emotional punching bags.
• They make nasty, ugly, vicious, snide jokes or cut you down, followed by “I was just kidding” or “You’re too sensitive” or “I didn’t mean anything bad” or “I was only having a little fun.”
• They mock with non-verbal, disrespectful “editorial” comments like eye rolling or snorting.
• They form school yard cliques to cut out their targets. They’re passive-aggressive.  They manipulate, triangulate, and stimulate unhappiness and drama.
• They spread rumors, gossip, innuendos and lies.
• They’re great debaters who never let you win.  They’re antagonistic, boundary pushers who do the minimum and undercut authority and systems.
• They always blame others.  Nothing is ever their fault.  They have endless excuses and justifications while showing little-no improvement.

Cyberbullies are hostile and personal.  They encourage or organize “mobs” to pile on.

“Professional Victims” – most people overlook this category.  Professional victims act fragile and have hurt feelings in order to gain power and control.  People walk on egg shells near them.  They’re hypersensitive, spoiled brats who cry and blame.  They’re hysterical Drama Queens-Kings.  They make a big deal over things you think aren’t worth fighting about.  They use shame, guilt and anger.

Self-bullies beat themselves up all the time.  They feel unworthy and have low self-esteem.  They wallow in self-questioning and self-doubt, and stay stuck and insecure.  They’re easily manipulated by overt and, especially, by covert bullies.  They’re the hardest people to help.

Please watch the following YouTube videos:

• Five Types of Bullies
• Types of Bullies - General

Knowledge is power.  Learn to recognize all types and styles of bullying so you can protect and defend yourself and your children.

Protect your personal environment from pollution.  Get bullies out of your personal space.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Stop Bullying Diet Saboteurs

Sue Shellenbarger’s article in the Wall Street Journal, “Colleagues Who Can Make You Fat,” focuses on people at work who try to sabotage coworkers’ diets.  People reported that colleagues and bosses made them uncomfortable admitting they were on a diet 23% of the time. In contrast, dieters said they were uncomfortable admitting that they were dieting to people in personal life – friends, relatives and spouses – 63% of the time.  That is, there are almost three times as many diet saboteurs among those who are closest to us.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Diet saboteurs use many techniques.  They:

• Tease, taunt and mock.
• Criticize, pressure and manipulate.
• Gleefully predict failure.
• Get upset because we’re spurning their offerings of fatty, starchy, sugary, calorie-loaded food.
• Lecture that we’re harming our body by dieting.

The article says that these saboteurs usually mean well.  I disagree. When diet saboteurs continue harassing and abusing us relentlessly, they don’t mean well.  They’re narcissistic bullies who have their own agenda that they think is more important than ours.  They’re righteous. They know better and they’re out to change us – usually by beating us into submission.

Typically, they try to sabotage our diets because:

• They may feel abandoned because we no longer eat the same food with them.
• They may be striking back because they take our change as a put down of their old habits.
• They may feel jealous that they’re not losing weight.
• They may see our being thinner as a threat.
• They may simply not like us and are finding another reason, excuse or justification to mock, ridicule, or put us down.

Who cares what their reasons are?  Understanding their reasons won’t help us stop them.  After the first time we’ve asked them to stop, their reasons for continuing now become excuses and justifications for continued harassment, abuse and bullying.  Bullies always find excuses to continue inflicting pain.

What’s wrong with this picture?

1. People who are closest to us – toxic spouses, family, friends – are the most relentless saboteurs.  Things are not as we would wish. Notice that I didn’t say, “Things are not as they should be.”  Things are as they are.  That’s not what’s wrong with this picture.
2. What’s wrong with this picture is that people feel uncomfortable and that feeling keeps them from doing what they need to.  Their discomfort is their excuse to become victims.

As William Boast said, “It’s important that people know what you stand for.  It’s equally important that they know what you won’t stand for.”

Don’t debate or argue with their justifications.  Don’t accept apologies unless their behavior changes.  They won’t change their behavior; they won’t give up their desire for domination and control.  Instead, stop bullies or get them off our Isle of Song.

These bullying spouses, family members and friends are telling us to examine what kind of behavior we will and won’t allow around us and our families.

To have the wonderful lives we want, we must stop bullying behavior in our personal spaces.  We wouldn’t allow family members to push an alcoholic to have “just one drink” and we wouldn’t allow family abusers or perverts access to our children.  The need to stop diet saboteurs is no different.

Of course, we can start resisting gently by asking them, one-to-one in private, to stop. Or we could ignore it or laugh it off in public.  Those approaches become tests of them.  Do they stop or do they identify themselves as bullies?

We know what doesn’t stop bullies: ignoring, minimizing, conflict-avoidance, begging, bribery, defeatism, forgiveness, appeasement, understanding, unconditional love, the Golden Rule.  Relentless bullies misunderstand our kindness. They take our “rising above” as weakness and, like sharks or hyenas, they’re encouraged to attack us more.

Their relentless attacks force us to confront the central issue: which is more important; good behavior or bad blood?  And when they continue their abuse, bullies force us into an all-or-none choice.  Are we willing to defend the behavior we need to have, even if it breaks the old family dynamic, the code of silence that enables the nastiest spouse or relatives to continue getting away with their abuse for the sake of, “family?”

That choice thrusts us into the second stage of maturity – we’re called upon to decide, as independent adults, what behavior we will or won’t allow into our lives, no matter what the relationship is called.  We’re called upon to have more confidence and self-esteem.

For some examples, see the case studies in “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up,” “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” available fastest from this web site.

Since all tactics depend on the situation, expert coaching by phone or Skype helps.  We can design a plan that fits you and your situation.  And build your will and skill to carry it out effectively.

Being Judgmental: Do You Need More or Less? – Quick Quiz

Being judgmental has gotten a bad name and for good reasons. Our whole world has experienced the horror wrought by people who felt superior and righteous in destroying other people they thought were inferior or even non-human.  Also, in our personal lives, we’ve experienced the damage done by arrogant, righteous spouses, parents, relatives and others who always knew best and felt entitled to taunt, tease, harass, bully and abuse us or to cast us out.

However, it’s a mistake to use these examples of righteous people with poor judgment as proof that:

1. The process of making judgments is bad.  It’s not.  It’s necessary.
2. We should accept all perspectives and ways of living in the world as equal or as equally valid.  They’re not.

But that’s all abstract.  The real questions are whether we need to be more or less judgmental and which of our judgments are worth keeping and how.  Take the quick quiz.

Before you take the quick quiz, see “Being Judgmental” as having four parts:

1. Discerning; making judgments, estimating what the consequences of some action will be, deciding what we like and what we don’t like.
2. Deciding which ways of behaving are acceptable in our personal space.
3. Making these boundaries in our personal lives stick.
4. Getting righteous, indignant or angry when people do what we think is wrong or dumb, or when they don’t do what we think is right or good or best.

Understanding this process, we can now take the quick quiz to help us decide whether you’re being bullied and whether to be more or less judgmental and in which areas of our lives:

1. Do you ignore early warning signs and get stuck in situations that are painful?  Do you distrust your own judgment?
2. Do other people often tell you what’s right or what you should do?  Do you need to act more on your own judgment and listen less to other people?
3. Do you feel like other people or one other person runs your life or decides what you can or cannot do?  Do you accept harassment and bullying?
4. Does someone else have more control over your time, money, friends or activities?  Do you try to understand, compromise or give in but they don’t?  Are you anxious, stressed or afraid of what they might do?
5. Do you need to get angry before you act?  Do you often feel guilty or ashamed afterward?
6. Do people ignore, laugh, argue or avoid what you want when you insist that they act in certain ways in your personal space?  ?
7. Do people trample over your boundaries?  Do they get away with not changing?  Do you let them stay in your life?  Do they wear you down?  Is life an endless struggle?

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions – if you feel bossed and controlled, if you get taken advantage of, if you’re the one who almost always gives in or tries to make peace, if you rarely get your way, if you have to justify everything you do or ask permission before you can do anything – then you’re not protecting yourself enough, you’re not being judgmental enough and you’re not acting based on what you know in your heart-of-hearts to be true.

If you answered “yes,” to most of these questions, you need to act firmly, courageously, strongly and skillfully on your own judgments.  You need to build your confidence and self-esteem.  You need to take power over your own actions, whether the other person likes it or not.

Many people ask, “But how do I know if I’m right or fair or normal in what I want?  How can I demand what I want when I’m not sure I deserve it or if I might be selfish?”

That way of thinking leads us no where.  That way of thinking puts us under the control of someone else who thinks they know better than we do.  There’s no chance for happiness down that path – only submission.

The path that has a chance of yielding happiness and joy and fulfillment is the path of being discerning, of having more and better judgments, and of making our judgments stick in our lives.

Getting angry, righteous and indignant are motivation strategies.  We typically generate those feelings to get ourselves angry enough to act.  The problem with that method of motivation is contained in “The Emotional Motivation Cycle” (See “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up).  This method usually isn’t effective long-term.

Instead, a better method is shown in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”  Trust the signals from our guts when they’re just at the level of irritation or frustration, and use the effective five-step process.  When we act based on that level of emotion, we’ll make better plans and carry them out more effectively.

That doesn’t tell us how to accomplish what we need; that doesn’t tell us how to get free from oppression we’ve previously accepted, but that tells us that we must.  All plans and tactics must be designed to fit us and our specific situation.  That’s why we need expert coaching and, maybe, legal advice.  But now we know the direction we must set in our lives.

During Divorce: Six Things to Tell Kids

During the typical arguing and fighting leading up to deciding to divorce and during the divorce process itself, what should and shouldn’t you tell the kids?  When you think there’s still a chance to salvage the marriage, should you tell them nothing is wrong so they don’t worry?  Should you re-assure them that you and your spouse will be together forever?  In a nasty divorce, should you tell them what a rat your soon-to-be ex-spouse really is?  How can you protect the kids from being scarred and totally messed up later? Whatever you decide, you must deal with each child and situation as unique and design your answer to deal with each child’s questions in an age appropriate way.  And keep adjusting as they grow older.

Think of the process as your needing to peel layers off the children’s concerns.  One concern will lead to another or maybe you’ll return to a previous one.  Saying something one time will not be enough.  You’ll have to return to some issues, depending on the individual, many times.  But don’t make a problem where the child isn’t.

You’ll think very differently if the divorce is amicable or if it’s a nasty, vicious, vindictive power-struggle to the death.  In one case, you’ll probably say “We” a lot while in the other you’ll probably say “I” a lot,.

If it’s an ugly situation, don’t pretend that your ex is perfect.  Be truthful and distinguish between what behavior the kids can count on and what’s just your opinion.  Always ask them to check things out for themselves; like little scientists.  Help them think of reasonable tests; who keeps promises, who’s on time, who are they afraid of, who can they rely on, who blames, shames and guilt-trips?

Some guidelines, not rigid rules:

1. Don’t allow the “Big Lie.” When the children sense that there’s frustration and tension that sometimes boils over into anger, bullying, abuse or violence don’t deny their kid-radar.  Don’t tell them everything’s fine and that they’re wrong.  The most important verification they need is that they’re sensing and seeing reality.  They must know that there is trouble and that they can sense it.  For example, “Yes, you’re very smart, you can sense what’s going on and your radar is accurate.  That skill will help you the rest of your life.  Sometimes, I don’t tell you what’s happening or why, because I want to keep it private or maybe you’re too young to understand yet or I don’t want to upset you unduly.  But I want you to ask me if you worry about anything.”
2. The most important assurance they need is that they can be fine. For example, “I know this can be scary and hard and you’ll have lots of questions.  Over time, I’ll answer them as best I can as we work out our new living arrangements.  But the most important thing is that you dedicate yourselves to having great lives.  Never let anything get in the way of that.  No matter how scared or upset you might get, overcome it.  Make sure that you’ll look back on this tough time as just a speed bump in your lives.  Make sure that you’re not bothered much by it.  Your parents’ fights have nothing to do with you.  You’re not the cause of them.  You’re fine.  We just don’t get along.  Your job is to grow up and get independent and find someone you will get along with.  And that this tough time isn’t a big deal in your life.”
3. Help them overcome uncertainty, insecurity, anxiety, fear and panic. Assure them that you’ll always care for them and take care of them, in whatever way you can.  For example, “We’ll figure out how to be together and be safe and have good times.  I’ll always see that you have the things and the opportunities you really need.  It’s always hard when we’re in a transition or in limbo waiting to see what will happen and you don’t have control.  Your job is to focus on what’s most important for you right now and that’s not the emotional turmoil you’re living in.  The turmoil isn’t your doing.  Your job is to take charge of what you have control over; your moods and attitudes and efforts, which means school.  Make this turmoil as small and colorless in your life as you can.  Don’t step into it; stay outside of it.  This is good training for you in mental and emotional-control.  These are the number one skills you need to learn in order to be successful later in life.”
4. Help them deal with mean, nasty kids who taunt, harass or cut them out. For example, begin with developing their inner strength, “Not having as much money as we did or having some other kids act mean because your parents are divorcing is not really important.  You can be invulnerable.  You may feel like you need to be liked or be friends with those kids now, but when you’re out of school, with 70 years of life ahead of you, you won’t care what those kids think.  You won’t want to be friends with those kids.  More important, you’ll see that they’re acting like jerks and you’ll decide never to care what jerks think.  You’ll have the freedom to go anywhere and be with anyone so, of course, you’ll choose to be with people who love and like you, appreciate and respect you, and who treat you better.”  Follow up by making sure the school principal stops this bullying.
5. Some other questions they might have are: Are all marriages doomed, will I choose the wrong person just like you did, will we kids be split up, can I stay at the same school, will my other parent move far away so I never see them again, whose fault is it, do I have to take sides, will I still have grandparents, will I still get birthday and Christmas presents, can I use guilt or my temper tantrums to manipulate you, will I still have to brush my teeth?  Don’t give into them or give them everything they want because you feel guilty, want them to like you more or think their lives are too hard.
6. Don’t use your kids as your best friends, confidants or therapists. Don’t use them to comfort yourself or as pawns in a vicious struggle.  They’re your kids; they’re not adults or lovers.  Take your emotional pain and baggage somewhere else.  You have to be a responsible adult, no matter how difficult that is.  If you can’t, you should consider making safer arrangements for them.  For example, “This is too painful for me to talk about.  Sometimes I get tired and stressed out, and I blow up or lose it.  I don’t mean to.  When I’m like that, don’t take anything I say seriously.  Suggest that I need a time out.   Your job, children, is to look away and focus on your own tasks so you can have great lives as you grow up.  No matter how hard it is, you have to focus on school and getting skills so you can take care of yourselves when you’re adults.  That’s what’s important.  Your future is what’s most important to me.”

The big message is about the wonderful future they can have.  The big message is that they can/should/must decide to let this roll off their backs.  Even though it’s happening to them, they can be resilient. They can move beyond it and create wonderful lives for themselves.

We adults make a mistake if we worry that when bad things happen, the children are automatically guaranteed to have huge problems later in life.  Looking at them as too fragile and helpless to resist the effects of a difficulty, divorce or trauma is like giving them a terrible thought virus.  It’s easy for them to catch that virus.

Actually, our responsibility is to protect them from that too common virus.  For example, they might tend to worry that since a classmate is so traumatized because their parents are divorcing they’ll be messed up also.  You might say, “No.  You’re strong and wise and brave and you have me to keep reminding you that you’ll be fine.  Stop bullying yourself.  Take power over yourself.  So choose to be fine; dedicate and discipline yourself.  Choose to be successful, no matter what.  That’s my wish for you.”

Tell them stories about ancestors or great people who overcame the same or even worse situations in childhood.  For example, “Don’t be victims of what happens to you.  Be one of the ‘Invulnerables.’  Did you know that a study of 400 great people born in the 19th and early 20th centuries found that most of these people had absolutely horrible childhoods?  Yet they were not destroyed by what had happened; they were invulnerable.  They became much stronger.  They had great lives – including wonderful marriages.  You too, my beloved children, can choose that path for yourselves.  Please do.”

Since all tactics are situational, you’ll need expert coaching rather than just guidelines.  We’ll have to go into the details of specific situations in order to design tactics that fit you and the other people involved.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids” have many examples of kids growing up under very difficult situations and learning to take command of themselves.  For personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Stop Bullies: Ignore Their Excuses, Justifications

Jane’s sister, Betty, seemed to have been born with a vicious tongue.  She attacked everyone relentlessly.  Holidays with the extended family were a misery for Jane and her family.  Nobody, not even their mother, stopped Betty.  Everyone was afraid to complain directly to Betty.  If they did, Betty would turn on them even more spitefully before. According to Betty, nobody’s children were good enough – they were all ugly, stupid, ignorant, mean or bad.  They were too fat or too skinny; they ate too much or too little; they ate too fast or too slow.  They dreamed too big for their non-existent talents.

Betty laughed joyfully when she pounced on someone’s mistakes, no matter how trivial or irrelevant.  Their choices were always wrong, their clothes and manners were wrong.  Betty always knew better and rubbed everyone’s nose in it.

Some of Betty’s reasons excuses and justifications for why she was so hostile were:

• “I’m right.”
• “Those are my feelings.  It’s my honest opinion.  You wouldn’t want me to repress how I feel, would you?”
• “You're too sensitive.”
• “I’m doing it for their own good.  You’re too soft on them.  They’ll never get better if you don’t correct them.”
• “I had to take it when I was a kid.  It’ll make them stronger and tougher.”
• “They have to learn to take it.  They’ll get it like that in the real-world.”

Of course, everyone can have a bad day and be grumpy.  But with Betty, it was everyday and it was relentless, hostile and mean-spirited.

The family had many reasons, excuses and justifications for why they allowed her to behave the way she did: “That was just the way Betty was and had always been.  She’d probably been hurt a lot when she was little.  She was probably jealous and couldn’t hold it in.  If we say anything, it’ll only get worse and it’ll split the family into warring camps.”

I’ve seen many Betty’s of the world use the same reasons and excuses as justification on one side and, on the other side, many families use the same words to forgive bullies when they harass, taunt, abuse and verbally, emotionally and physically batter family members or people at work.  Bullying spouses and teenagers, and toxic parents and adult children are masters at giving excuses and arguing forever.

Bullies want us to try to argue with their reasons, excuses and justifications.  The more we argue, the more we’re engaged without their ever changing.  If we make a good point, they’ll change the subject and give another excuse or cite a different time when they were right.  They’ll never admit that they need to change; that’s how we know they’re bullies.

Or, if we challenge them, they’ll explode and make our lives miserable.  And it’ll go on forever until we give up and simply accept the abuse.  That’s how we know they’re bullies.

Or, if we challenge them, their feelings will be so hurt that they’ll withdraw into a very loud silent treatment.  And it’ll go on forever until we give up, admit we were cruel, promise never to attack them again and simply accept the abuse.  That’s how we know they’re bullies. What can Jane do?  Remember, all tactics have to be designed to fit our specific situations, what we want to accomplish and the limits of our comfort zones.

Jane once asked Betty not to say anything to Jane’s children; Betty was hurting them and Jane had told them take it because Betty was their aunt.  But Betty hadn’t changed.  Finally, Jane decided that she wasn’t going to expose herself and her family to any more of Betty’s abuse.  She’d end the unrelenting negativity, harassment, criticism, blame, shame and guilt-trips.

She decided to use a stepwise approach that had been successful with a friend who’d acted like Betty.  At each step Jane would get more firm.  About half way along the path, Jane’s friend had changed rather than lose Jane’s friendship.  If Betty didn’t change, Jane would simply avoid any occasion to be together.

Jane’s steps were:

1. Once again, she asked Betty to stop talking the way she did and to find nice things to say.  She asked Betty to be nicer, kinder and more polite to family than she would be to strangers.  But Betty didn’t stop.
2. She didn’t debate or argue with any of Betty’s reasons, excuses or justifications.  She simply said that she was asking Betty to change what she said.  But Betty didn’t stop.
3. She told Betty she wanted her to feel differently but if she couldn’t, she still wanted her to take charge of her tongue and to repress herself; being an abusive bully is worse than repressing herself.  But Betty didn’t stop.
4. She told Betty that if the brutality continued, she wouldn’t come if Betty was present. That would cause a rift in the family and it would be Betty’s fault.  Betty didn’t stop.
5. Jane told the family she’d decided that she’d never let bullies treat her and her family the way Betty did.  She had to take charge of keeping them safe from people who polluted their emotional environment.  She asked them to choose the behavior they’d support even if that meant they all told Betty to change or they’d stop inviting her.  Jane reminded them of what Mr. Spock said, “Never sacrifice the many for the sake of the one.”  But Betty didn’t stop.

At each step, Jane felt that she was being more and more firm, and more and more clear about the consequences.  Jane was not making emotional, but idle threats; she did what she’d promised.

Jane decided that behavior was more important than blood.  More important than victimizing her children by subjecting them to their Aunt Betty’s viciousness, was setting a good example by protecting them from abuse.  She didn’t want them to experience the anxiety, stress and discouragement that had accompanied visits with Betty.  That meant they didn’t see Betty any more.  That also meant they saw the rest of the family only on one-to-one occasions when Betty was not present.

Over the years, Jane saw that the rest of the family still made excuses for Betty’s behavior.  Sometimes someone would argue with a specific statement or reason or excuse, but Betty would argue forever and not take back what she said or how she said it.  They still looked for psychological reasons for why she acted that way, as if, if they knew why, they could say some magic words and Betty would be cured and become civil.

Over the years, the same conversations were replayed after extended family gathering except in Jane’s house.  There, Jane and her family had a wonderful time; free from criticism, bullying and abuse; free from the endless re-hashing of Betty’s latest attacks.

Once Jane had cleared the abuse out of her family’s life, they were able to find friends they loved being with.

With expert coaching and consulting, we can look at individual situations and plan tactics that are appropriate to us and to the situation.  We can overcome the voices of our fears and self-bullying.  We can overcome childhood rules to give in to or argue with bullies’ excuses, reasons and justifications.  We can become strong and skilled enough to stop bullies in their tracks – even if those bullies are blood relatives.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” has many examples of adults getting over their early training and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).

Stop Bullies: Unconditional Love Won't Work

I learned by personal and professional experience that unconditional love doesn’t stop real-world bullies.  But others learned the same lesson over 2,500 years ago. Of course, we all have those bad days when everything seems to go wrong and we’re so grumpy that we take it out on the dog or anyone we meet.  But with people like us, a yelp of pain, a kind word, a straightforward appeal, an expression of empathy or sympathy will bring us to our senses.  We’ll be genuinely contrite, make amends and not repeat the behavior again.  But, of course, we’re not relentless, real-world bullies.  We just had a bad day.

Relentless, real-world bullies aren’t stopped when we show them love and kindness.

In fact, they take our love and kindness as signs of weakness and an invitation to increase their bullying.  Here are two ancient examples:

1. In “The Analects,” 14-34, Confucius says: “Requite injury with uprightness.  Requite kindness with kindness.”
2. The “Mahabharata” says, “If you are gentle, [bullies] will think you are afraid.  They will never be able to understand the motives that prompt you to be gentle.  They will think you are weak and unwilling to resist them.”

In other words: If you turn the other cheek to bullies, expect that bullies will misinterpret your moral high ground for weakness and be encouraged to taunt, harass, abuse and attack you more.  If you’re willing to have your cheek slapped, then turn the other cheek.  Or if you think that another part of your anatomy is meant by the saying, be prepared to have your cheek bitted by a jackal.

But don’t believe me or the ancient wisdom.  What’s your experience?

Suppose you classify into two groups:

1. Those who responded to your kindness and love with kind and loving behavior.
2. Those who responded with suspicion blame and further attacks.

Suppose you label the first group “people who act nice to me when we act nice to each other” and suppose you ignore the reasons, excuses and justifications of people in the second group and simply label them as “bullies” or “predators.”  Would that give you a better idea about how to respond effectively and successfully to their behavior?

And what’s your take on history?  Suppose you did the same classification to famous historical figures.  Suppose you though if, for instance, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, General Custer, Cortez, Pizarro, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, the Inquisition and thousands more would have had their lust for power satisfied, and stopped their brutality and conquest if they were faced with kindness, appeasement, begging, bribery or love?

Oh, I forgot to mention all of the martyrs of every religion, race, color, creed, ethnic group or gender.  And how about those wildebeests crossing that crocodile infested river?  Or a limping zebra being watched by lions and hyenas?

So what can you do?

1. Don’t be anxious, afraid, discouraged, depressed or suicidal.  Don’t be angry at the way the world is.
2. Simply requite injury with uprightness.  Be strong, courageous, persevering and resilient.  Stop bullies in their tracks.  Of course, your tactics will vary with the situation.   But your inner qualities and your will and determination will be the same.

With expert coaching and consulting, we can overcome the voices of our fears and self-bullying.  We can overcome childhood rules that aren’t appropriate to our desire to thrive in the real-world.

We can become strong and skilled enough to resist being targeted by bullies and to stop bullies in their tracks.  We can look at individual situations and plan tactics that are appropriate to us and to the situation.

“How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids,” has many examples of children and adults getting over their early training and then stopping bullies.  For more personalized coaching call me at 877-8Bullies (877-828-5543).