Taking Power Back from the COVID19 Bully

a bully will isolate you

a bully will threaten you and leave you

feeling

deathly afraid a bully takes

everything they can from you and

diminishes your hope and spirit

and a bully keeps coming at you and

coming at you

leaving you feeling helpless

covet 19 is the biggest scariest bully

of our time

and this particular bully is the worst

kind

because it doesn’t just go away

it’s altered your life and the life of

probably

everyone you know but you can’t let the

bully win

no you have to reset your compass

so that it’s no longer pointing you in

the direction

of what the bully is choosing for you

and your life

now i know a thing or two about bullying

i was a gender non-conforming kid

in south texas in the 1970s and 80s

i’ve been transgender now for 30 years

i know what it is to be bullied so

severely that i even bullied myself

i know what it is then to operate in

life from a place of fear

fear of loss fear of failure and a

variety of other fears

so i have four tools to help you

dismantle the fear

that the covet bully has instilled in

you

first though i really want you to

understand where it comes from

now remember when i said that a bully

isolates you

it hurts to be isolated to feel cut off

from other people you care about

early research is already showing us

the damaging impact that covet 19

isolation has on populations around the

globe

across age groups and demographics so

the fact that you’re hurting from

feeling alone makes a lot of sense

your isolation may even feel deeper if

you’ve experienced covet related

or other health problems you were alone

and physically diminished you felt alone

while trying to tutor your kids through

remote learning

or caring for a sick person or grieving

the loss of someone you loved

isolation depletes us but our story

doesn’t end with isolation

i said i talk about four tools you can

begin using now to reset your compass

point

away from this coven 19 bully has taken

away from you

the first is clarity mindfulness-based

cognitive therapy teaches

us that we can through mindfulness

become aware of our own thought process

including the irrational beliefs that

create the most disturbance

you can recognize these because they use

a lot of extreme words

i’m always getting knocked down just as

soon as i get up

i have no friends and nobody cares if i

live or die

i must be cursed nothing good

ever lasts in my life and maybe you’ve

got a word like should going on you’re

telling yourself things you should be

doing differently or doing better

when we start using a lot of this

language with ourselves it takes us down

a spiral

into despair holding us there

we have trouble seeing the light of our

possibilities of

all the power we have in making a

different choice

so to get really clear on this i want

you to close your eyes or cast your gaze

down to the floor

or at your hands take a deep belly

breath in through the nose

exhale through the mouth do this again

and spend a few moments focusing on your

breath

let the other stuff drop away for a few

moments and just

allow yourself to breathe now

a moment ago i mentioned those extreme

words that we tend to use when we’re

isolated in fear

while just continuing to breathe i want

you to now allow the extreme word

that’s been prevalent in your self-talk

to light up in your mind

always never should or whatever it is

i tend to envision this in a stop sign

because of how much an extreme work

keeps us from doing

so notice how you’ve internalized this

word

that the covet bully has placed in your

life and how you’ve now

made it your own and with this word in

the forefront

we’re proceeding with the next tool i’m

here to talk about

compassion continue to just breathe in

deeply through the nose and out through

the mouth

how many times have you used your

extreme word to beat yourself up over

the past year

you probably attached it to a hurtful

memory along the lines of

if i’d only stayed home i wouldn’t have

gotten her sick

oh if we wouldn’t have taken that trip

in 2019 we’d have been set financially

for when i was laid off

i wish i would have said i love you one

more time

notice the message you’re still carrying

and how it packs the force behind your

extreme word

you’re always you’re nothing or whatever

and please recall how this covet bully

showed up out of nowhere that there was

nothing in your life experience that

could have prepared you for it

hey i’ve been on the planet since 1970

and nothing prepared me for coped

so you made the reasonable assumption

that 2020 would look pretty similar to

the years preceding it

because experience is the best teacher

you only had your experience to prepare

you

now continuing that deep breathing i

suspect you’ll begin recognizing that

the losses which happened

this year were nothing that life had

prepared you for

therefore regretting the actions you

took or didn’t take based on a lack of

experience

it’s really not reasons to keep beating

yourself up

i think you know this already and you

may have even said something pretty

similar to someone you love

who was telling you their regrets of the

last year

and just as you hold someone you love in

compassion for losses they’ve

experienced this year

i want you to now hold yourself in

compassion for whatever you’re

regretting

talking to yourself as you talk to

someone you love

the third tool i want to talk about is

creativity this is where it gets fun

now people may have told you that you’re

not creative

they did that to me as a child and i

know my fourth grade teacher was right

about that leaf thing i made for the

fall festival

it was a hot mess but that’s not what

creativity is all about

creativity is being able to adapt to

life by forging your path forward

your way it’s moving away from the life

that the covet bully has defined for you

here’s how continuing with your deep and

intentional breathing

notice that dream or life goal that’s

been trying to get your attention

you’ve got something that’s been calling

out to you i suspect

although you may have used your extreme

word to bat it down

maybe the dream has been telling you to

go back to school or to learn a new

language

or to make plans for a physical move to

some place you really need to be

maybe it’s time to move forward in a

relationship or make changes to a

relationship that doesn’t work for your

life in its current form

whatever is coming to mind right now

whatever dream is now surfacing in your

awareness

as you hear these words don’t quash it

write it down quickly then spend some

time reflecting on what it means to live

in this dream

the sense of pride and choice making

that makes it real your instincts are

pulling you toward action

don’t shy away from your truth there’s

something

real here now the fourth tool i want to

talk about is sass

sass is you talking back to the covet

bully

sas is you making the steps forward

toward that thing you need most for your

life

the one you just identified using the

creativity tool

so now that you’ve written down the

thing you need the most

it’s time to start taking action on it

oh sas is the hardest tool to use i know

so i’m going to tell you a quick story

of a transgender girlfriend of mine

named sassy st james who began living

her truth as a woman back in the 70s and

80s

now you can imagine how life might have

been but i’m going to spell it out

anyway

she was ridiculed people threw rocks at

her

she was in danger multiple times

and yet sassy brought life wherever she

went

she was an entertainer a physical

comedian who figured out how to make

life work on her

terms she had humor she could dance

she had beauty and she didn’t let the

very transphobic world

she grew up and tell her how she should

act

she called herself sassy because she was

always talking back at the world

and if my friend sassy could talk back

to the bullying world that she grew up

in

you can talk back now to your coveted

bully

you can let your bully know that it’s

not defining life for you

and that you’ve got the tools now for

pointing your compass in the direction

of your choosing

so keeping that breath going and

focusing now on the dream you identified

with your creativity tool

it’s time for you to identify the

actions you’ll take today

tomorrow and as you move forward

don’t drop your momentum use this moment

to forge your path forward

trusting the dream that’s been trying to

get your attention all this time

you resist your bully each and every day

that you refuse to be diminished by it

no matter what it’s taken to this point

you refuse to let it take your worth

your right to choose your right to live

this big bold sassy life

are you ready to tell the coveted bully

that it lost

and you won