 |
| Now, you just shush while I powder your nose just a little bit. |
:: Think of covert bullying as behavior that makes someone feel
like they are not welcome in a social situation and manipulating
behavior as a way for the aggressor to get what they want.::
Heather, The Helpful Counselor
Some weeks ago
on the NFAB Facebook page, I posted a photograph that prompted one of the users
to ask, "Did you know all your friends before moving to
Mexico?" Like a bag of powdered doughnuts, Mexico keeps offering me
the precious and the plentiful. I am feeling especially grateful for the
kindness of strangers - the lovely women and men who share their lives with me
in Mexico. In fact, I think you will sense that I am pretty much love
gushing over them. Coupled with my attachments in Austin, my tribe is my rebozo.
We carry and cradle one another into a lovely woven wrap, offering the finest
in artisan love.
If contrast had
not appeared on the scene, I would not know the extent of my tribe’s scarcity,
nor how much I benefit from their loving ways. Through my work in
the States in schools, I was exposed to relational aggression on a daily
basis. There is a continuum, and though I had witnessed two young women
beating the crap out of one another, what I generally observed were the more
subtle forms of bullying that are meant to isolate a peer from the social
circle. Bullies are, as a rule, not subtle and yet because we are so acclimated
to lower levels of violence; it takes a trained observer to pick-up on these
cues. The individual being pushed from the nest will have the most
difficulty convincing others' of what they are experiencing. The bully's
friends, and they do have friends, with their utterly different experience,
don't see it at all.
There is a bevy
of literature on relational aggression so I won't recap what you can research
for yourselves. What I do want to capture is my gratitude for having a
very deep bond with those that share their lives with me. Their common
and variegated threads create the coziest of places to simply be alive.
Here is a short list of their resiliency skills, using the convenient outline
offered in The Four Agreements:
- They Trust Themselves
The magic that
underlies this skill is that no one is a threat. When a
transgression takes place, they don't freak out, perseverate nor attempt to
tackle the knotted. They are so solid in their own integrity that they do
not need to defend nor reject. Their rebozo, like the Dao, is the mesh
that enfolds, allowing nothing to slip through, in or out, the most opened
sections of the weave. No one, tribe or otherwise, is ever forsaken.
Mistakes in perception, behavior and choices are allowable because there
are no mistakes, only opportunities to grow.
- They Ask Questions
They break the
mirrors of themselves. Some of the richest lessons are offered by those
who have led different lives. There is no assumption that their own
understanding is the ruler to measure others lives. Each new person
or relationship that is revisited, offers them an
opportunity to give and receive. The physical nearness of the other matters
not. The expectation of a long term alliance matters not.
What most concerns them is that each moment of an
interaction is fully alive. In those moments, they correct assumptions being made about them, by
themselves or the other.
- They Are Impeccable With Their Word
They use the
word to elevate themselves and others. The words that flow from their
lips are confined to their love of their own lives and the celebration of the
smallest achievements of those around them. They are seekers of the
deeper parts of themselves, still growing and always leaning towards loving in
each moment. They embrace relationship. They are comfortable that
their own standard of conduct is applicable to themselves alone. They
have no need to influence the alliances of others.
- They Do Their Best
Every moment
there is an opportunity to do it right. The tribe is filled with fierce
beauty, unafraid of their own shadows or the ones that lurk in doorways.
Even when we have been
separated for a thousand years, I knew my friends in Mexico, because my friends in Texas trained me well!
Create the life
you want!
The Broad
