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| Image: Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net |
The thing is, I don’t tell people to feel sorry for bullies
to help the bully. I give this advice to be compassionate because it helps you
as the victim. Being compassionate with
the jerks of the world is something you do for you. It’s actually rather selfish.
Feeling compassion for jerks helps you in two main
ways. First, it helps you to not be
bothered by them. It’s easy to get upset when someone is calling you names and
being mean. But once you realize how pathetic they are, you stop being upset
and you start feeling REALLY sorry for the name caller. And yeah, that just
makes them even more mad. That’s their problem not yours. Once you feel
compassion for them, all their taunts, threats and name calling just bounce
right off of you. It’s like having an emotional force field. The more the bully
rails against you, the more pathetic they seem to you. Your compassion isn’t
helping the bully, but it is definitely helping you.
The other reason to feel compassion is because in order to
get a bully to leave you alone, you need to stop reinforcing the bully. It’s
nearly impossible to do that if you are emotionally invested in what’s
happening. Feeling compassion for a bully allows you to respond to them in an
emotionally neutral way – which is essential if you are going to get them to
leave you alone. Again, it isn’t going to make the bully a nicer person, they
will most likely direct their anger to another victim. But being compassionate
will help you not be a victim and again, that’s good for you.
Compassion is a powerful emotion. It helps you focus outside of yourself and onto the needs of others. And paradoxically enough, this outward focus is REALLY beneficial to you as the practitioner of compassion. Being compassionate really is a selfish thing to do. But selfish in a good way.
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