Focussing on a 'spot' can reduce the impact of being bulldozed by others
She was a bully. And while she never hit me, sometimes her words rained down like slaps. When I saw her coming, I wanted to hide.
She picked on me the most. Some of my friends thought that was because I was smaller than she was. Others thought she bullied me because she was jealous of me. But I did not really care what her reasons were. I just wanted the bullying to stop.
Beth, that is what I will call this girl, was not the first bully I had met, but I definitely thought she was the scariest. At one point, I was so afraid that I stayed home sick for a week. But she was just as mean when I returned.
What would you say to a friend who told you a story like the one I just told you? What would you tell your friend to do?
My friends encouraged me to pray.
Pray? Why not show the bully who is the boss?
But I had been bullied before, and when I had taken the time to seek a spiritual solution, I had always heard an answer that had changed things between the bully and me.
Turning point
One of the answers I had heard was to love the person who seemed so mean. Not love her behaviour, but love her the way God made her. Since God is good, we must each express goodness. Since God is love, how could a single one of us not be loving?
Beth had some qualities that I could appreciate. She was smart and a hard worker, and she loved animals. So I tried to focus on those things, and then look for more.
But there was a problem: I was still terrified of Beth. Sometimes, I would get so afraid in her presence that I could not think one good thing about her.
Spotting a way
Then one day as I prayed, I found a new answer - which was to stay focussed. And I liked that, because it reminded me of what I had learnt in my dance class about 'spotting'.
You 'spot' while you are turning. That means you pick a spot level with your eyes and keep focussed on it. Your body turns (this is called a pirouette), but you do not get dizzy because as your head whips around, your eyes always return to the same place.
I realised that, much like a spin without a spot, interacting with Beth without staying focussed left me disorientated, confused and afraid.
Then one day Beth was being really mean to me in front of many people, and I found I was not scared or upset or anything. I just forgave her without a second thought.
The only way I can describe it is that I felt so confident spiritually that I knew she must be, too. And guess what happened? A few minutes later, Beth stopped and apologised.
The founder of The Christian Science Monitor, Mary Baker Eddy, once asked, "Can height or depth, or any other creature separate you from the love that is omnipresent; good that blesses infinitely one and all?".
When I kept my thoughts focussed on love, I discovered the answer is no. Because love is always there for me. And love is there for you, too.
