When Your Self-Esteem is Attacked

While we all know that we shouldn’t pay attention to the things bullies say, protecting our self-esteem isn’t that easy when faced with someone who is dehumanizing and denigrating you.

Bullies put people down. It’s what they do.  Their reasons for doing this vary, but it basically has to do with power. They may be trying to hide their own insecurities by pointing out the flaws of others. Or they may simply be grooming someone for social exclusion.

When you are targeted by a bully it is hard not to take it personally. After all, you are being ostracized by a group when this happens and we feel ostracism as physical pain.

Plus, we all have our flaws and most of us are insecure about our flaws so when someone points it out we are only too willing to agree with them.  

Finally, if there weren’t something wrong with you, you wouldn’t be targeted, right?  Wrong. Even if there is nothing wrong with you, you might still get targeted. Often bullies just chose people out of convenience, not because of any dislike of the individual. Their methods of attack have to do with the most convenient ways to socially ostracize a person. It is rarely personal.

If you are being bullied, what are some of the ways to raise your self-esteem?  The first thing you should do is to learn how to get bullies to leave you alone. (See The Bully Vaccine book for information on how to do this).  If you can stop a bully from bullying you, you will feel empowered and will know that the bully is the person with the problem not you. It really does amazing things for your self-esteem.

Beyond that Psychology Central has several suggestions on what you can do. (see: http://psychcentral.com/lib/how-to-raise-your-self-esteem/)

One way is to slow down on personalizing what is happening. This is why you keep being told, this isn’t about you – it’s about the bully and their problems. The more you can feel sorry for the bully being so damaged they behave poorly, the less you will take their behavior, which is targeting you, personally.

Another way to help your self-esteem is to acknowledge your emotional reaction but choose your response. Yes, being told you are a horrible person hurts. But that doesn’t mean you have to retaliate or show that you are hurt. Choosing your response helps you to be strategic in your response (which is important when you are trying to get the behavior to stop).  It will also help you to appear more professional in the workplace. While the other person is acting like a school yard bully, you are a professional adult – that’s something you can and should feel proud of.

For more information on how to protect yourself and your children from bullies check out the Bully Vaccine Project website.

Dealing with an annoying co-worker – humanistically

The single best way to deal with an annoying co-worker is by cultivating compassion for them, followed by a commitment to be professional even when it’s hard.

Your coworker is who they are. You might find them annoying, but so what. You are a professional.  Your job is to figure out how to treat your co-worker with the respect they deserve. After all, you are annoying to others too and you expect to be treated with respect. Don’t you. No one is not annoying. Some people are just more annoying than others.

The next time you feel annoyed, remind yourself, this person is a person and is flawed and may not be able to help it. And then remind yourself that you have your moments too. Feel sorry for them, think about how you would want to be treated in those moments when you haven’t been your best, and actively reach out to your coworker in a genuinely kind and professional way. You may be surprised to find that their annoying behavior was actually in response to your annoying behavior. It happens a lot.

If you change and stop being so judgmental and obviously annoyed, your coworker may be less stressed around you and if they are less stressed, their annoying habits that they manifest when stressed, won’t occur.
So again, consider that you might be part of the problem. Consider your coworker with the compassion you reserve for the people you consider fully human and commit yourself to behaving professionally regardless of how other people act. In other words, be kind. It’s not all about you.

Ethics requires courage

As a Humanist parent, like all parents, I want my son to succeed. More importantly, my hope is that he will become ethically courageous. I know that he will be well served if he can become confident in himself. 

Whether it is dealing with bullies or doing the right thing in a difficult situation, the problem seems to be one of confidence. If they are confident in themselves, they will have the courage they need to stand up and be ethical.

The problem with this is that teaching kids to be confident doesn’t help them. That is because confidence isn’t something you can teach. It has to be earned. The real question we should be asking is how to encourage kids, and adults for that matter, to learn the skills they need so that they can overcome the challenges they face so that they can become confident as individuals. The answer is in the root of encourage. And that is courage.

With my son, our biggest challenge is to get him to try. He has fears and in order to teach him new skills, we have to help him overcome those fears. Even learning to ride a bicycle required him to overcome the fear of falling. Our job is to help him find the courage to try and try again until he succeeds. As he succeeds, he gains confidence.

The same holds true to being an ethical person. The will to be good is there. The challenge is to be courageous enough to stand up for what is right. There are no shortcuts that work.

Part of being a Humanist is to choose to live life courageously. We don’t expect things to be easy. We expect to have to work to overcome the challenges we all face in life. So don’t focus on helping your child to be confident. Help them to be courageous instead. Having courage will serve them better throughout the course of their lives than being overly confident will.

How do you find courage? How do you help your child overcome his or her fears to become courageous?