Someone very important to me called in the morning in tears. She had a horrible experience with her manager at work. Some young bully who had a bad day and had to pass on his misery to my loved one.

So I started to think what can we do when something like this happens. Our nervous system has 3 ways of reacting to threats; fight, flight or freeze. When we are in a work environment it is not always appropriate or possible to fight 🙂 or even flight (even if that is exactly what we would like to do), so we are left with freeze most often.

Here are a few exercises that would help you balance your nervous system quickly after and incident with a bully.

-Breathe!!! Even if you are frightened try to focus on your breathing, that will calm your nervous system down so you can remember those great witty answers that usually only come to us when we are telling the story to someone else later.

-Ground yourself! Feel your feet on the ground, this will help you to be in connection with your body and not dissociate or panic, it also helps remind your body that if you need to run you Can!

-Boundaries! Practice having good boundaries, stretch your arms out front and on the side and feel your own safe space. If you practice this when not in a threatening situation it will be easier for you to have them when you are in one. Sometimes imagining a protective bubble can be helpful. Also practice saying no to people or telling what you want or what you do not want.

-Have a good support system. Knowing where to go for help and having support is very important. Family and friends need to know what is going on. They can always send you silly cheerful text messages to cheer you up :0 }

Remember no-one has the right to bully you!

If you experience bullying contact a helpline, or myself on the bottom of this page.

xoxo