Many years ago, I conducted a course on "Overcoming Bullying" for Years 9 and 10 at a High School.
We received such good success that we were asked to put a submission to other schools. At the conclusion of our submission, one of the comments we received was "We already teach kids how to stand up for themselves."
"Excellent" I replied. "Can you please explain how you do that?"
"We tell the kids to stand up to the bully."
I know what the result would be there in most cases! ☺
I often hear people say "I need to learn how to stand up for myself".
"How would you like to do that?"
"I need to tell people what I think. If they're annoying me, I need to tell them to leave me alone. If they do something I don't like, I need to tell them I am not happy."
This is called "being assertive".
I'm not in total agreement with this. While there may be a place for it some occasions, there is a better way.
Imagine a student telling a bully what he can do with his or her harassment! This will only fuel the fire as the bully is looking for confrontation.
Telling off some person who has annoyed you will often lead to ill-will and confrontation.
So Why Do We Do This?
We tell someone off to get them to stop what they are doing and this in turn makes us feel good.
Which means we weren't feeling good before we told them off.
It's our way of gaining some form of control - which means we didn't have that control while they were annoying us.
So, if you don't have to be assertive with another person, who do you need to be assertive with?
You Need To Be Assertive With Yourself
If someone is annoying you or doing something you don't like and you are reacting, who is controlling how you feel?
They are. Their actions are causing you to feel angry or upset. Sure, you are allowing them to do this - and you do that because you are unable to control how you feel in that moment.
If someone is annoying you, ask the question "Who has the problem here?"
If the answer is "them", the next question is "Do I need to be a part of their problem?"
If your answer is "No", let it go.
It's important to control your thinking before trying to control the other person.
For example, in the case of the person being bullied, we gave them understanding on why the bully needs to show dominance. We also raised the level of self-esteem with the ‘victims' so that whatever the bully said or did had no impact on them.
Result: a teacher was observing a student being bullied. The student stayed calm, listened to the bully and then walked away. The teacher asked the student "How come you didn't react?"
The student replied "It's not my problem" and kept walking.
Beauutiful!
One of the best traits you can have is the ability to let others be themselves and you control how you think and what you do.
This way, there is no confrontation and no negative reaction as you are aware that what others say or do does not have to impact on you.
