Taylor Swift said, “If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.”
Unfortunately, most of us don’t have her ability or celebrity to fight back. To escape workplace bullying 77% of targets quit their jobs, get fired, or transfer to another area within the same company. This number seems high until you understand that 61% or workplace bullies are the bosses!
According to the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) 19% of Americans are bullied in the workplace and another 19% witness the bullying. It is estimated that 61% of Americans are aware of abusive conduct in the workplace. And yet 29% of employees targeted remain silent. As many as 40% of targets are believed to suffer adverse health effects.
Bullies think they have magical powers. Author Patricia Evans refers to bullies and controlling people as “spellbound”. A spellbound person believes that he or she can manipulate another’s behavior to better suit the spellbound. And they can. A human is born with the ability to detect an emotional state or reaction (feelings), the ability to sense things physically (sensate), an ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning (intuition), and the ability to use one's mind to consider or reason about something (thinking).
When the individual being targeted ignores, has doubts, or has been taught to disengage from one or more of these four abilities, the bully or controller can successfully control that individual. Or as author Jodee Blanco writes in her book Please Stop Laughing at Me , “What a desperate, pathetic fool I was. Time after time, my ‘friends’ had shown me their true colors. Yet, I still wanted to believe they were sorry for causing me pain.” .
Destroy the bully’s magic spell! Becoming self-aware, recognizing your own inner truth and practicing mindfulness can help an individual avoid the spellbound bully or controller. Evans refers to these individuals as “Spellbreakers.” The spell-breaker doesn’t think ‘what is wrong with me?’, but rather ‘what is wrong with you?’. A healthy self-concept discourages bullying.
Evans says, “Spellbreakers…can spot the spell pretty fast, even if they don’t have a name for it. They feel uncomfortable or angry when they observe or experience oppressive behaviors. They feel an aura of unreality when someone says one thing and then later pretends to have said something quite different. They have a sinking feeling or feel apprehensive.”
Evans recommends you don't respond to nonsense as if it made sense. “If someone defines you, say either:
- What?
- What did you say?
- I heard that
- Nonsense
-
What are you doing?”
Perhaps Taylor Swift got it right, “If they don't like you for being yourself, be yourself even more.”
References:
2017 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey:
http://www.workplacebullying.o...
Evans, Patricia. (2002). Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who Try to Control You. Adams Media, Avon, MA