Boundaries and Bullies
Article Summary
Kathie discusses a time when she let her boundaries down and ended up in the victim-victimizer cycle with others and herself. “I teach this stuff! Why am I doing this now?” Learn how Kathie released herself from this vicious cycle and how you can too. Learn about boundaries, guilt, and forgiveness of yourself and others in this article.
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Thanksgiving Weekend
There I was at Thanksgiving dinner dwelling on that negative thought. And again just 5 minutes later eating delicious food and thinking that negative thought. This negative thought dwelling started the day before Thanksgiving and did not end until this morning.
I swear it felt like I thought every 5 minutes on constant replay, over and over again. Why was I doing this? I teach others how to NOT do this. Why couldn’t I control it? It was because I was busy bullying the crap out of myself.
Boundaries
What do I mean by bullying the crap out of myself? I had gotten into an argument with our massage therapist at work. She in fact had yelled at me via voicemail that Wednesday.
I have to admit it was my own fault. I was wrong in the text I sent her that day. I was very wrong, in fact. But….there’s always a but.😉 And that is where my bullying was taking place.
That ‘but’ right there has everything to do with my boundaries. They had been crossed too many times. I was weak and this gal took advantage of the fact that I did not control my boundaries. That is my responsibility.
Bullies would rather be right than kind. Every. Single. Time. I had been bullying myself over this text message since the moment I sent it. I said things I shouldn’t have. I told her exactly what my plans for the future were. I even told her that I was going to start sharing the time with another therapist who was charging a lower cost. My reasoning had been “I was being honest” I thought. But it hurt her in the process.
She came back at me with a vengeance! She yelled at my voicemail for a total of 2 minutes and told me that I was basically telling her to f**k off. She yelled and yelled and told me what a jerk she thought I was.
And I had been wrong. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to tell her why I did this. But it was too late. I called her back and as I was trying to apologize and explain myself she hung up on me in anger.
Victim-Victimizer Cycle
She immediately blocked me from texting her. I checked Facebook the next day and she had removed me as a friend. She was pissed and she was on a roll. She was in victimizer mode! She was probably bad-mouthing me to my fellow team members. Clients she had become very close to. Read more victim-victimizer articles here!
Boundary #1 Crossed
In fact, she became so close to these clients that she started scheduling them on her own. She told me how she had scheduled them all for Tuesday, November 29th. She was proud of herself for doing so. Even though I told her that we were stopping massage until the new year.
This is important to note here, she crossed a boundary I had set. I had a reason for canceling massage until the new year. I had several reasons in fact.
Boundary #2 Crossed
That late October afternoon, she texted me a 3-minute and 22-second text voice message telling me how she needed the money from us. She went on and on spilling gory detail after detail about how her business is being charged more for her rental space and Christmas was coming and she needed this money.
Please note, she encroached on my boundary by telling me information that was not my responsibility. I talk about responsibility all the time. We are responsible for our lives and when we take on others’ responsibility we run into the risk of taking on their problems.
This is the very reason you do not tell other people who are not your therapist, your family, or your close friend your personal problems. It is not their responsibility. And you run the risk of playing victim or victimizer when those problems are not fixed by the other person.
Boundary #3 Crossed
The real problem started in early October. We have a schedule for the massage and this gal wrote on the schedule something to the extent, ‘Please show up for your appointment it costs me when you miss your appointment. with a little smiley face.’
This really irritated me. And because I did not respect my boundary I said nothing.
She cannot do this type of thing. Why? This is a place of business. This is to be expected. She knows this but I think her victim got the best of her and she started forcing things. This is from the book Power vs Force, something I talk about often too! Read more power vs force articles here.
This massage person takes up a lot of our time - getting ready for the massage, booking her appointments (which were slowly diminishing), and making sure people show up on time. We are also a place of business. We cannot just take breaks when it is easy for her and spontaneous meetings happen from time to time. While we both seemed to try to work together I felt she was getting too much for too little. And my third boundary had been crossed.
Bummed Out
Back to Thanksgiving weekend. I was so bummed out over this entire situation. I knew I was wrong for texting her that way. It was like a big FU as she said in her voicemail. I knew I needed to take responsibility for my actions but how could I?
It wasn’t until this morning that I realized how I could do that. I was bullying myself so badly. I kept dwelling on this argument. I asked myself, “How can I practice kindness to myself?” Because remember a bully would rather be right than kind. I was bullying the crap out of myself. How could I be kind?
I knew I couldn’t write her. And I also knew I couldn’t call her. She wouldn’t understand, she’d probably hang up on me, and I rarely express myself correctly at the moment with a bully. So I began writing her an apology letter explaining my intentions. I did this in my mind and in Notion.
Journalling to Heal
I wrote this letter as a blog post and the healing it granted me is tremendous. I mean, I teach this type of thing for crying out loud! And my mind was getting the best of me and the best of my weekend.
Remember when healing the mind needs to reason and process. My mind was going bazerk trying to reason my forgiveness. Journalling is a great way to reason and process emotions. Here’s a great article on healing the mind, body, and soul.
What happened here is a classic victim-victimizer cycle. It happened inside of me and it happened with her. If a bully would rather be right than kind how does one diminish this?
Diminish the bully in your mind
Start with clear boundaries. Boundaries are there to keep you safe. How did I not protect myself?
I let her “bully” me into staying in the month of December. She did so by taking it upon herself to schedule the clients on her own. She also told me TMI (too much information) about her own problems that were not my responsibility.
I bullied myself by thinking about all of these horrible things taking place. I pictured her texting my team members saying what a bitch I was for taking away her services. I was wrong but it was left open-ended because she shut me out.
Yes, I was wrong about the way I texted her. Guilt is a funny thing. We talk about it all the time in Reality Transurfing. Vadim Zeland the author of Reality Transurfing says, “apologize once sincerely and be done with it.” I could not apologize to her but I could apologize to myself. I needed to get there and this blog post helped me do that. Read more Transurfing Articles Here.
Lesson learned: hold your boundaries as best you can. I did that to the best of my ability. But I see now that by letting my boundaries down I caused too much heartache for everyone involved.
Moving forward now, lessons learned. I will do my best to pay attention to my boundaries. I will do Ho’oponopono on all involved. And I will let go of that guilt which is what holds us in that negative pattern of bullying.
Thank you for spending part of your day with me. I’ll see you next time! Peace out and Namaste.
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