Today is “Stand Up Against Bullies Day” so it seemed highly appropriate to publish this article that I have long been sitting on wondering whether to publish or not on a site used for my business.
Bullying is something I have long hated since I was the target of bullying from a young age.
The name calling started at age 7 but as my peers and I got older the bullies got nastier. By the time I was 9, whenever our paths crossed I could expect the encounter to be unpleasant, upsetting and intimidating. This continued until I moved town and school by the time I was 12 years old.
I had absolutely NO idea these experiences had so deeply affected me until I attended a Facebook LIVE training course with Taz Thornton in January 2017.
I was there to learn the confidence and skills to produce LIVE video on Facebook to help promote myself and my business and we started by creating a timeline of our lives. The positive events were shown above the line and the negative below. Then we were asked to highlight where the key stories lay. The bullying years just leapt out at me and I knew I had to do a video about that. I was shocked at the emotions that came to the surface when I did the practice run but I carried on and did indeed do my LIVE Facebook video about my childhood bullying experiences. I had an emotional few days thereafter I can tell you.
Not long after making the video, I unfortunately experienced those same feelings when I had a moment of bullying from a well respected “pillar of society” in a simple phone call. I now realise just how deeply bullying can damage a person’s wellbeing, confidence and self-esteem. I am truly grateful that social media was not around when I was a child. I feel so much for the children out there now who suffer bullying and have to deal with it in the context of social media and the internet.
To save you looking on Facebook for it, here is my video. #StandUptoBullies
It has been more than a year since I made this video and I have come a long way in engaging with others and putting myself forward but it is still something I have to work on.
Since then I have done a fair few Facebook Lives – some better than others – and I have done a good number of public speaking events at 4N meetings. This has been quite a journey but one I am very glad I have taken.