News and information about bullies and bullying is not uncommon these days. There is a lot to learn. Hopefully appropriate and effective strategies are being understood and employed. But what about the tragedy of bullying yourself? Many of us are very good at being hard on ourselves, with high expectations to boot. And when we do not meet those expectations, how are we treating ourselves? As friend or foe?
Understanding the difference between forming the destructive versus constructive mindset can be helpful in working through the dynamic of self-bullying. The destructive mindset sets us up to establish an adversarial position in our relationships. As relational creatures, we also form relationships with ourselves. When we form a destructive and adversarial relationship with ourselves, we can be our worst enemy.
Since we, like everyone else, are not perfect, we will make mistakes. Any expectation we place on ourselves sets up the possibility of a potato. Some of these expectations may be reasonable, others not so. But regardless of the reasonableness, falling short of an expectation means there is a potato for us to deal with. Our emotions let us know a potato is there. The destructive mindset makes the person responsible for the potato be the potato. We blame ourselves. Of course this is irrational, because humans are not potatoes. Humans are humans! Our emotions detect potatoes, not humans.
When we form the destructive mindset against ourselves, we can be very harsh against ourselves. We may curse ourselves, hit our heads against something, or other behaviours. We may become depressed or be saddled with anxiety. Perhaps we are at risk of suicide. We are an enemy against ourselves. The stakes may be high indeed.
We are definitely interested in training ourselves to form the constructive mindset, especially in terms of our relationship with ourselves. In the constructive mindset, we are able to understand our emotions and disappointments rationally. This is because we are linking our emotions with the potatoes, making the potatoes be the problem, rather than making ourselves to be the problem. We become our best friend, with the ability to learn from our mistakes and to grow in wisdom from our experiences.
It is said that a way to learn is “learning on the street.” This is a way to learn from our mistakes. In the constructive mindset, we also become able to discern whether our expectations are reasonable or not, and make appropriate adjustments to our expectations if they are not reasonable. We are less able to do so when we assess situations destructively.
So let’s become our best friend. For the sake of ourselves and for those who love us, we must train ourselves to become as mentally fit as possible, to recognize and form the constructive mindset in all our life experiences. You are worth it!