We tend to think that bullying comes from a person's background, how they were raised, their nature or from being abused. I recently read a study that was done on bullying. What I want to know is how did bullying become so pervasive and is it really a "top-down" phenomenon. In other words, is it just in schools or is it how we function in our world.
The leader then had to form a line with the shortest to the tallest, using every person on the team. The "leader" was the only one who could move members of the team into position. The leader had absolute power. There was also a cash price to the team that formed a perfect line.
Team members could be heard criticizing the leader saying things like, "We'll never win now" or "who picked him?" Researchers found that roughly 80% of all cases in which such remarks were made, the team leader immediately entered bully mode, saying things like "shut up", "Just do what I say" or "There's a reason that I'm the boss here."When things became very tense, the team leader could be heard asking a team member if he wanted to get hurt.
The conclusion of this study was that people aren't necessarily born bullies nor does buying come from a person's background, ethnicity or socio-economic status. We all have a part of us that can become a bully. but most of us have learned how to control that behavior or realized that we don't like to be like that. The study concludes that bullying doesn't come from within, it comes from without.
This got me to thinking about bullying. I was an elementary teacher and bullying was a constant topic. How to teach children not to bully, how to stop bullying and so on. Well, here is what I think. I think that bullying is a cultural problem that we all suffer from. In my first grade class, and all teachers please tell me it isn't so, one of the biggest parts of my job was to make sure these very small children walked in a perfect line without talking in the school's hallways. I would be very ashamed if the principal or another teacher walked by and my line was talking or out of order. These were 6 and 7 year old kids.
I think that we're all being bullied. We're bullied by the government, we're bullied by our neighbors, we're bullied by our peers and so on. This is not just a child's issue, its a societal issue. Many school principals are bullies because they've been pressured from above. Kids are learning to be bullies through their teachers who are bullied by school principals who are bullied by administrators who are being bullied by… and it just goes on.
Bullying is how most people get by. Christmas is coming up and all I can see are the crowds of people pushing each other out of the way to get what they want. They turn into bullies to get what they want because retail stores feel pressure to make more money so they've created situations where this will occur.
The only way that I can see a way out of this is through a surrender to love. I know you're probably saying to yourselves, "what?" But if we truly learn to tap into ourselves and love ourselves and are good to ourselves then we can be good to others. If we're good to others it has a domino effect. Then others are good to others. If we take time to be of service in our community, then we are combating bullying. Those people that we are serving will begin to serve others and it will be in a loving way just like we are doing.
I once heard a very wise woman say that the war we see around us is a reflection of the war within us. Centering ourselves and meditating causes us to be peaceful and serene. That energy is contagious. It really is only through prayer that we can change how things are. We can raise our consciousness to understand that bullying isn't just a "child's issue", it's a societal issue and it's a reflection of how we treat ourselves and others.
