Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny. – Ghandi
We all go through the same trials while sorting out and making sense of our lives, but how we go through them and where we end up can be completely different. Listening to our inner voice and owning what we know, trusting what we feel, and standing by it isn’t always easy to do. In fact, it’s much easier to second guess, give in, and give away. Not surprisingly many people and entire movements meant to help us get back in touch with our intuition, inner knowing, and wisdom can be found everywhere.
Unfortunately, there are times when all the “help” can come across as force or an air of knowing better. This is where we come face to face with a soul bully. Recently I met such a person, and in all honesty, it caught me completely off guard. That’s because a soul bully often comes in the guise of a kindred spirit. They show a face of receptivity and inclusiveness but carry a darker agenda. What may have begun as good intentions got twisted somewhere along the way in the shadow side of helping which can quickly turn to pious condescension.
If we aren’t paying enough attention others can run roughshod over our process and person. Yes, we’re all flawed, all doing our best, but a soul bully is a bit different. Their intentions are clouded by their own self-doubts and feelings of lack that end up spilling out onto the rest of us. Underneath the guise of helping lurks an urge to prove something and the feeling they have to know more than everyone else. That’s why their help turns into overriding what we think or feel or know about ourselves with an added implication that somehow we’ve been doing it wrong until now. As if we are not smart enough, sensitive enough, or deep enough thinkers to figure ourselves, our lives, and the world around us out. All said with a smile and in the name of having our best interests at heart of course.
But the truth is soul bullies aren’t really looking to help at all, they’re looking for approval and control. They want us to agree with them and then tell them how perceptive they are. It’s narcissism with a twist. This can be a deep spiral into darkness if we can’t tell the difference between genuine help and manipulation. Thankfully it’s easier than you think to distinguish the difference. All we have do is check in with how we feel. If something doesn’t sit quite right, trust it. Honor what you’re feeling and stay with it until the situation becomes clearer. Not playing along can stop a soul bully in their tracks. It took me a couple weeks to see through mine but looking back some level of discomfort was there from day one.
The bottom line is the more secure we are with our own voice and our own wisdom the less tempted we’ll be to believe someone else knows us better than we know ourselves. Then when someone comes cloaked in seemingly greater authority and deeper knowing we won’t automatically jump to second-guessing our own truth. And this is why soul bullying can throw us for a loop. It comes disguised in service of something good, of the something we’ve been looking for, but leaves us wondering or confused or feeling inadequate. The polar opposite of what we were expecting.
For me it’s a reminder to look closely before blindly believing. Not everyone has our best interests at heart. Although it may not be someone’s intention to harm, judge, or bully their harsh words and narrow perspective can have a real effect on how we see ourselves and how quickly we begin to doubt what we know. What it all comes down to is what it always comes down to, paying attention to what resonates with us and what repels us. It’s up to us to know the difference and choose wisely about who and what we let into our world.
Stay attuned to your truth, it’ll keep the soul bullies at bay.
kb
