How to Deflate a Bully

In novels, memoirs and screenplays, bullies create struggle, angst, frustration, setbacks and emotion. Your protagonist meets lots of bullies / antagonists on her way toward her goal. When she resists, denies, ignores, turns from, runs from, gives in to the bullies, she suffers.

Antagonists

Happens in our own lives, too. Think of an antagonist in your life right now. Someone or something or a belief or personal trait that prevents, restricts, limits, bullies you from what you most want. You make forward progress in other areas of your life and, always, with this one dream, desire, goal stay stuck or slide into the abyss.

Therein lies your treasure, gift, lesson. Trouble is, the next step in your own transformation demands you first look your fear in the eye. And, if that’s not enough, guided by the wisdom you gain there, take right action. Instead, we more often resist, ignore, turn from, run from, give into and suffer. Each time we suffer, we surrender our power to the antagonist. Each time we lose strength, the bully gains strength.

Inward Gift

What if the deeper gift, buried in the eye of all the drama and short-comings and muck and judgement we come face-to-face with, is not the bully, but our own image? We’re afraid of ourselves, our lacking, our greatness. Therein lies the only answer you’ll ever need — yourself and your own intuition.

Do you trust your intuition? Rely on your gut? Or, does logic and reason often bully you into dismissing, ignoring and criticizing what you know to be true. Do you run from other’s mocking, ridicule, and judgment by belittling yourself even when what you felt / knew to be true is proven right more often than not? Of course, by then, the tangible truth arrives too late, or so we think.

Go Deep

Instead of exaggerating the power of the antagonist and confirming what a mess you are, allow the outcome to bring you where you are now. Rather than inflate the bully by pointing to your flaws, deflate the bully by allowing the ruin to nudge you into listening to yourself. Go deep. Be still. An antagonist is only an antagonist when we allow them to achieve their conscious or unconscious goal of preventing us from our greatness. An antagonist is merely a tangible representation of our own fears and of what we must face before we can more forward in life.