Day 46 - Bullying in the office place (Part 1)

While working on a job site over the past week, I came across, what I considered to be very power eager, power ready, power hungry people, who seemed to exert their authority in the way that they spoke to another.

They were people that were in a perceived position of power and they took the opportunity to make themselves heard to the groups working whenever they could. I perceived that they spoke in a very condescending fashion, talking down and at people and a lot of what they had to say was complete bullshit and was not in common sense, yet no one tried to challenge them.

I looked at them like they were the enemy, they were the tyrants, they were the abusers, and I felt victimized by them. I felt like they were condescending and the specific tones that they talked in, and the directness that they approached their speaking with was an attempt to solidify dominance.

I felt like if they weren't their, that my experience of myself and everyone else would be so much better, like they were an unnecessary torture device and the cause of mine and others discomfort. And the entire time, I just wanted to either get a way from them, or put them in their place, or even wished terrible things on them as redemption for the abuse that I perceived they were perpetuating.

The interesting thing is that as much as I perceived them as evil, I was taking on this absolute hatred towards them myself that was based in the same evil self-interest. I wanted the worst of them, I wanted them to pay for how I felt, and I wanted to squash them for the manipulative ways I perceived of them to take, not realizing that 'it takes one to know one'.

So essentially I was taking no responsibility for the way that I experienced myself and I didn't see how the tones that they were using and the apparently invasive nature I perceived of them may have just been triggering certain energetic reaction patterns already existing within myself.

And I wasn't standing up for myself or others, all I wanted to do was silently stew within myself and wish the worst of them, because I feared that I would then be in the spotlight and the subject to the bullying. And so within that cowardly stance that I took, I in fact accepted and allowed bullying to place. In taking responsibility, I, through my non-action was just as much a part of the bullying as the perceived bully. And it was all through self-interest and trying to protect myself, instead of standing up and saying 'no, this is not acceptable'.