Dealing with my inner bully
There are significant events in my life where things haven’t gone my way. What if I had done this? What if I had said that? What if I that thing didn’t happen? Usually accompanied by these inner thoughts are an inner voice, berating me for not doing something, not saying something or not making sure that thing happened. It’s a very common occurrence, especially as someone who constantly replays situations and events in my head. I have found myself doing this recently on a few occasions; I messed up at work and thought I had forgotten to do something critical; I was ghosted by someone who I was seeing for a couple months; I hated the way I feel and look. And in each of those situations, I noticed the negativity spread and take over my mind, and then the negativity started to beat me down.
Worryingly, I didn’t think anything of it. Little did I know that I had normalised that negativity in my head and beating myself up about these situations became commonplace. Initially, I would feel terrible. The dread would envelope me and I would begin saying things to myself that I would never dream of saying in real life. The words would start off loud but over time, they disappear and all that’s left is frustration and self-doubt and the feeling of wanting to fix it but paralysed to do anything even when staring at the solution in front of my face. I try to block out those feelings, shake the thoughts out of my head as though they are just rattling around in the old noggin and getting stuck in all the nooks and crannies. As I mentally tire from the endless endeavour, I retreat. The inner bully wins. My self-esteem and general confidence chipped away. And the cycle starts all over again when I inevitably next mess up.
That inner bully is someone who I discovered only recently. My colleague who also happens to be a counsellor with 10+ years of experience explained to me that the inner bully is usually a kid, someone who hasn’t quite yet matured but can put you down at the slightest turn. Everyone has an inner bully but their voice is different in different people. Some can be loud and demeaning, others can be more subtle and insidious. In any case though, they have the same effect and we need to find a way deal with them or else they can take up so much mental space that they stop us from growing and maturing as a person. We need to sometimes slow down and take notice when the inner bully starts having a go, and we need to deal with them before they get out of control and destroy us from the inside out.
I think without my colleague pointing this out to me, I wouldn’t have ever thought of my inner bully as existing. The negativity and self-doubt has always been a part of me but I don’t think I really had a way of dealing with it as the feeling would just go away. But I’ve learned that no action is still an action but it has to be a conscious decision. A decision to not indulge your inner bully but to stand up to it, notice what it’s saying and doing and then decide on your response. Have you ever stood face to face with your inner bully? How do you interact, engage and deal with it? Let me know if you want. Or don’t. It’s your life or whatever. Just be nice.
