Encouraging Bullied Hearts
I live in a community of bullied hearts. They are in the process of recovering and at different points in the journey. But the problem with a bullied heart is that it doesnβt take suggestions well.
βIf you move that to the left, it will be balanced.β I made the suggestion because the person I was sharing with HATES things being unbalanced. Despite all of her boasting about getting better, she cringes when unbalance shows itself.
βIf you donβt like it, just say so.β She huffed dramatically to emphasize how demanding I could be.
I tried two more times to make a simple suggestion before I walked away.
It was walk away or come apart, and if I came apart around that bullied heart, I was going to take her down with me.
By walking away from the situation, I create balance again. With balance, peace arrived. With peace, a little revelation.
They are different from me.

I know, shock, right? Despite knowing that we are all different and unique, there are times when it seems like common sense to do things the way we expect. When people donβt do things the way we expect, then we get annoyed or distracted or want to go rant to the internet about how we only had three things on the to-do list, and they werenβt doing anything on that list (at least not the way we wanted it done).
For the record, Iβve never done that. It was a friend.
We push and prod and impose our expectations on the very people around us that weβve been encouraging to be unique. The results are rarely pretty.
Iβd never thought about it before, but now I see that even trying to shove someone in our box of expectations is a form of bullying.

Understanding the Bullied Hearts
Iβve been thinking a lot lately about bullied hearts and what that means for a life.
Webster defines a bully as someone who insults and overbears with noise and blustering menaces. I say you could stop at noise and overbearing, maybe a little blustering thrown in for good measure. Bullying doesnβt have to be mean or ill-intentioned, it just has to be the determination of one heart to dictate the path of another heart.
As Iβve been leaning into my unique design and building out my #WhiteBoardofWorldDomination and BIG DREAM goals, Iβve started to see how being bullied has held me back and where it has held me back.
Reading through books and sitting through training about the mind has made those truths even clearer for me.
I donβt do what I know to do because somebody somewhere along the way (maybe even me) fed something into my heart that told me I couldnβt or shouldnβt or wouldnβt. And that lie became the truth. It bullied me into a box of disbelief.

Breaking Through the Bully Barrier.
I am retraining my mind to believe the promises instead of the lie. Every morning I get up, and I speak the promises aloud. Throughout the day, I find myself needing reminders, especially in those areas where the lies have been the loudest.
But try as I might, I canβt fix the bullied hearts around me. I can feed them hope and encouragement. My healing example can be a light to their darkened struggles. But I canβt fix them.
And anything I say can and will be used (for them or against them), so I have to be alert and aware around the bullied hearts.
Which is why sometimes walking away is the only way.
And watching my words to be heart-driven words of hope and encouragement is the other way to break through the bully barrier. Or it fuels the spark of light necessary for the hearts to find their own way through.
Speak softly and in love to the bullied hearts you encounter. And remember, the bullied heart may be the one in you.

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While we all need to have tougher skin and not perceive ourselves to be perpetual victims, there is equally (for balance!) no place for bullying. And you are correct – it comes in many forms. It manifests in demands that you conform even in the slightest of details to the whims or desires of another. In truth, we have no right to our expectations of others at all. No one owes us anything. We only owe ourselves the effort to be the best possible version of ourselves.
Thanks for the comment, Tom. I definitely agree that we have to be all in for the best possible versions of ourselves!