Sunday, September 16, 2018

My Daily Reflections: Pity the Bully







So many bullied people 
It means there are so many bullies.
Why oh why are there so many bullies?
What sorrow creates the bully?





I heard once that the child who is bullied
By their emotionally wounded parents
Becomes a target for the school yard bully.
But imagine, what pain the bully
Must have had to endure
To become a bully.

Bullies all around
Bullies at home
Bullies in friendships
Bullies in families
Bullies at school
Bullies in the workplace
So many bullies
Bullies all around

Why does our society work on this level?
Why do people like to exert their power?
Why do the sensitive souls have to languish
In anguish?

The struggle to survive all the bullies
Seems at times insurmountable!
Bullied all my life I strove
To reach my children with love,
To teach empathy and compassion

And yet I raised another bully,
Who started bullying me at age of 7. 
I thought it was just childish ignorance
A lack of comprehension.

Teaching kindness did not work
Unconditional acceptance failed
Love lavished never solved anything
Demonstrations of compassion failed
Or maybe I failed to make myself understood

The taunts got worse as she matured
Always comparing me to other parents
Always I was the least satisfactory of all.
Always I was the one that caused her
Embarrassment simply for being me.
Always the message that I was not good enough
Always the message that if only I were different
Then maybe she could tolerate me.

Bullies, bullies all around me.
First the elders
Then the peers
And finally the younger generation

The common denominator me
What is it about me that invites
The bully to enact
Their hostility upon me?

Is it my meekness,
My humility, my desire to get along?
Is it my lack of boundaries
Or my desire for peace?

Why can’t we all just get along?
Why must my spirit be stomped beneath
Cruel words of judgment and comparison
For you to feel relief?

Slowly I learn that maybe my pain
Is less than your pain. 
My pain is to suffer at your hands.
Your pain is that you only find relief
When harming me and others like me.

My pain evaporates when I recognize
My strength,
My empowerment,
My ability to rise above your taunts,
To walk away.

As I recognize the value
Of my own goodness,
My kindness,
My ability to love even when hurting
As I heal
I transform
Things become more clear to me
On my path of love and compassion.

Your need to cause me pain
Is an illusion that never ends.
You believe that you prolong my torment
Never realizing
That in doing so
You are the source of your own torment.
 
Your only relief is finding another to torment
And then another
And then yet another.
For the hole of emptiness within,
The one that drives you to hurt others
Is a never-ending pit of self-deception.
Unexplored reasons for your anger
The invisible rut of your existence.
Suppressed and unexpressed emotions
Leaking out in hurtful speak.

I used to feel sorry for myself
Until I came to understand
That your life is worse than mine.

I only experience your hate filled
Excretions of pain
On those occasions when
I am in your presence.
When the vileness
Of your inner thoughts
Passes your lips
In outward condemnation.
Or sometimes
When I reflect upon,
Our past together
And the nature of the hurting things
You said or did to me

You however live it constantly
Unendingly,
Even in your unknowingness,
Your buried hate is your soul mate,
It is your constant companion.
You have no relief.

You cannot walk away from yourself.
Every time you look into the mirror
You see that person who copes in life
By tormenting others.

Do you ever wonder
Why you drive people away?
Do you ever wonder where
Those mean thoughts originate?

Do you ever wonder about
Your own dissatisfaction?
Or does hurting others make you blind
To your own deep inner hurting?

How would you respond
To know that I pity you?
To discover that I
Would rather be the victim
Of your bitter spitefulness
Than live with the anger
You carry buried
Festering away inside, 
The way you are doomed to do.

I can compassionately love you
My tormentor
Knowing that my torment
Though open and apparent
Is healable, transmutable,
Transformational.

Whereas yours is deceptive,
The cesspool of existence
You call your happy life
Influenced by unresolved issues
Things you fear to look upon
Things you keep buried in darkness
Because they are the essence
Of who you have allowed
Yourself to become.
Your vindictiveness
First a place to hide away from
Emotions too scary to face
Has become your prison.

I pity you,
The bullies of my life.
And I am grateful every day
To be your victim,
And especially I am thankful
That I am not you.
  
By Renate Dundys Marrello
2018 - 09 - 15 


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