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