bullying behaviors – Feminism and Religion

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I am watching my neighbor from a window as her body dissolves and disappears into a pile of dark smoke that rises up to the ceiling in a pink room. She leaves behind a bed full of human shit.

I had this peculiar dream a year ago in early August the night my neighbor died. When I awakened I could sense her absence. What surprised me was that I felt sad because this neighbor had never befriended me, although I had done my best to get along with her for so many years. There were things I liked about her; she had a good sense of humor, loved animals and plants, the color red. She could be explosive, and I understood that because I got openly angry too. There were periods during which time we had brief conversations but they were always punctuated by periods of what seemed to me to be inexplicable silences until I finally began to uncover a complicated and still incomplete story.

I could probably go on and on about this topic, so in the interest of education I offer the following information gathered in my own recovery. Why would I write about bullying at all? Are we not Goddess lovers, one and all? How would such behavior ever come into a spiritual path that believes all life is sacred?

Well, we all come to this path with all our old baggage. That baggage may include jealousy, fear, and a desire for the wrong kind of power, that which attempts to control others.

Bullying is not merely, as many believe, an occasional stinging comment made by a significant other at the breakfast table, a bad day with the boss, or children wrestling on the playground.

Bullying is cruelty deliberately aimed at others with the intent of gaining power by inflicting psychological and/or physical pain.

Bullying behaviors are varied: name calling, humiliation, spreading rumors, gossiping, public ridicule, scape-goating or blaming, isolating, assigning poor work conditions and job assignments, or denying holiday and vacation time in the workplace, or more obvious punching, hitting, kicking, taunting, ostracizing, sexualizing, or making ethnic or gender slurs, etc.

Continue reading “What to Do About Bullies by Deanne Quarrie”