Stand Strong: You Can Overcome Bullying (and Other Stuff That Keeps You Down) by Nick Vujicic Page B
Authors: Nick Vujicic
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either ignore it or don’t use it well. This is the space where you can take control, make smart decisions, and put yourself in a position to determine your own destiny.
So when you get angry at a bully or your parents, you don’t have to lash out. You can choose instead to step into that space between feelings and actions and ask some very helpful questions, such as:
•
Why am I angry?
•
Is lashing out the best response? Will it help more or hurt more?
•
What are my alternatives?
•
What can I say to make things better?
•
What can I say that will be beneficial for the long term?
When you use the space to think about your response and to decide what is best for you over the long term, you are practicing self-awareness and self-control. This is called “response flexibility,” and it is a sign of emotional intelligence.
This is really very simple to do, and after you do it several times, it can become a habit, a very good habit. The basic idea is just to think before you act on negative feelings or emotions so that you can figure out the best response for that particular situation. If a bully gets in your face, the best response is probably not to scream back or to get physical.
Easy for me to say, right?
Sure, the easy thing to do is to respond emotionally, but is it the smartest thing to do? Will it cause you only more grief and maybe even physical pain? Would the smarter response be to calmly talk to the bully to defuse the situation? Or would it be smarter to get a safe distance from the bully as quickly as possible?
Every situation is unique, so there is no one answer regardingthe best response. But by mentally stepping into the space between your feelings and your action, you can better assess the situation, let go of the emotion, and more logically figure out your best options.
T HE B ULLY IN Y OU
Here’s something to consider: your negative emotions can be like bullies inside you. They try to provoke a response from you that may not be in your best interest. So if you simply do what those bad feelings stir you to do, you are just giving in to another bully in your life.
This thought occurred to me after I read an e-mail sent to my website by Dominic, who said he was fifteen years old and lived in Southeast Asia. When I read his story, I saw that at first Dominic let negative emotions bully him into doing things that weren’t in his best interest. He gave in to that inner bully and it didn’t work out very well for him, but later, when he thought about his response, he did something that helped him a lot.
When Dominic was in the ninth grade, he liked a girl and thought she liked him too. Then he found out she liked another guy who was a friend of Dominic’s. That made him feel angry and depressed, so he shut both of them out of his life.
Dominic felt even worse after the girl and his friend becamea couple. He would see them being affectionate at school and become even more depressed and angry. It didn’t help that other classmates knew he’d liked the girl and they talked about how he’d lost her to his friend. That made Dominic feel like a failure, he said.
“I didn’t have anyone. I cried from time to time, my grades went downhill and I dulled my pain with alcohol,” he wrote. “I started to believe what people said about me, that I was a failure and not worthy to live, that I should just die, disappear, go away.”
Dominic couldn’t help feeling sad about his situation, but he let his feelings bully him into acting in a self-destructive way, didn’t he? He said in his e-mail that he first realized there were more positive ways to respond after watching one of my videos on YouTube. He saw that I’d overcome my emotional inner bullies brought on by my disabilities and made the decision to lead a more positive life. Dominic began changing his response to his own feelings and changed his life in the process.
One day, after the school prom, he and the girl and her boyfriend
So when you get angry at a bully or your parents, you don’t have to lash out. You can choose instead to step into that space between feelings and actions and ask some very helpful questions, such as:
•
Why am I angry?
•
Is lashing out the best response? Will it help more or hurt more?
•
What are my alternatives?
•
What can I say to make things better?
•
What can I say that will be beneficial for the long term?
When you use the space to think about your response and to decide what is best for you over the long term, you are practicing self-awareness and self-control. This is called “response flexibility,” and it is a sign of emotional intelligence.
This is really very simple to do, and after you do it several times, it can become a habit, a very good habit. The basic idea is just to think before you act on negative feelings or emotions so that you can figure out the best response for that particular situation. If a bully gets in your face, the best response is probably not to scream back or to get physical.
Easy for me to say, right?
Sure, the easy thing to do is to respond emotionally, but is it the smartest thing to do? Will it cause you only more grief and maybe even physical pain? Would the smarter response be to calmly talk to the bully to defuse the situation? Or would it be smarter to get a safe distance from the bully as quickly as possible?
Every situation is unique, so there is no one answer regardingthe best response. But by mentally stepping into the space between your feelings and your action, you can better assess the situation, let go of the emotion, and more logically figure out your best options.
T HE B ULLY IN Y OU
Here’s something to consider: your negative emotions can be like bullies inside you. They try to provoke a response from you that may not be in your best interest. So if you simply do what those bad feelings stir you to do, you are just giving in to another bully in your life.
This thought occurred to me after I read an e-mail sent to my website by Dominic, who said he was fifteen years old and lived in Southeast Asia. When I read his story, I saw that at first Dominic let negative emotions bully him into doing things that weren’t in his best interest. He gave in to that inner bully and it didn’t work out very well for him, but later, when he thought about his response, he did something that helped him a lot.
When Dominic was in the ninth grade, he liked a girl and thought she liked him too. Then he found out she liked another guy who was a friend of Dominic’s. That made him feel angry and depressed, so he shut both of them out of his life.
Dominic felt even worse after the girl and his friend becamea couple. He would see them being affectionate at school and become even more depressed and angry. It didn’t help that other classmates knew he’d liked the girl and they talked about how he’d lost her to his friend. That made Dominic feel like a failure, he said.
“I didn’t have anyone. I cried from time to time, my grades went downhill and I dulled my pain with alcohol,” he wrote. “I started to believe what people said about me, that I was a failure and not worthy to live, that I should just die, disappear, go away.”
Dominic couldn’t help feeling sad about his situation, but he let his feelings bully him into acting in a self-destructive way, didn’t he? He said in his e-mail that he first realized there were more positive ways to respond after watching one of my videos on YouTube. He saw that I’d overcome my emotional inner bullies brought on by my disabilities and made the decision to lead a more positive life. Dominic began changing his response to his own feelings and changed his life in the process.
One day, after the school prom, he and the girl and her boyfriend
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