Using Logic-Mindfulness to Help Heal from Emotional Abuse

Thinking Logically can Help Heal Wounds

If there's one thing that provokes deep emotion - it's the bully.

Unfortunately, bullying seems to start as soon as a person begins to integrate with society. And many times, the reason is very, very simple: The victim of the bully is somehow perceived as different.

Maybe the young person stands out because of what that individual is not. Perhaps that individual is uncoordinated, or un-athletic. Perhaps that individual has poor eyesight, or hearing. Perhaps that person has an impediment, or a disability. Regardless of the reason, the bully feels the need to use their appearance of superiority to enhance themselves and diminish the other person. It's emotional - regardless of the amount of negativity, it's rooted deeply in emotion.

Bullying is not confined to children, however. Bullying can ,and does, happen in colleges, at work, in homes, in public places - wherever there are people, there's bound to be a bully. And the end results are always the same: Discouragement, Retraction, Isolation, loss of confidence, and avoidance. And invariably, you begin to forget the good things you are, or simply not believe the good things you are,  and only concentrate on the bad things that you are, which leads to a very, very skewed perception of your reality that changes who you are, and eats at you little by little, like a slowly growing cancer.

I was a bully victim in my youth, be cause I was different - and by the very people that were supposed to be the ones you'd think you could trust not to be bullies. I'm talking about the kids of the Church.

Not that they did not have "good reason". My clothes were different, coming from a poor family. My athleticism was nearly non-existent, since I was in non-traditional education. My behavior was non-conformed, because of a great deal of time away from church. In short, I did not fit the mold. I did not "cut the cheese". I did not make the grade to get into the cliques of youthfulness, where acceptance and coolness are everything, and maturity and wisdom are literally non-existent. It's never a good feeling to be the target of any form of bullying.

What a bully says to you does not define you. It does not validate their beliefs. And more than anything, it does not determine who you are, or what you can or cannot accomplish. A bully runs on emotion, who has not learned yet the skills of being logic-minded. And because their analysis of "you" is not logical, it's not "logical" that their opinion of you is truth.

 Using the skills I have learned, the reality of what I went through in the Church with bullies is this:

I was raised and born in a cult environment. That's a fact.

I was not the only one messed up. That's a huge fact. A lot of problems were brought on by the doctrines themselves, and the result of buying into those doctrines and how it affected entire families.

Nearly everyone, in some degree or another, was as messed up as I was. Even the most liberal of the families. We all had our issues. We all had our problems. We all had our struggles. And we all had our own methods to deal with what we went through. Because we all were in the same authoritive, dictatorial way of life which rejected so much of what living is about, and separating ourselves from just about everybody except for those just like us - how could we be expected to not have difficulties? To think I was the only one who was different than the others just couldn't be the case. Once every one of us went into "the world" into school or into work, it didn't matter who we were. Each of us were the oddball. Each of us were the one kid who didn't keep Christmas, or Easter - or participate in any "worldly" thing, or were kept home from Friday night or Saturday activities. Each of us were the different one. Every one of us was the target. And when we all met together at church - the misplaced anger from their experiences was then targeted to the weakest of the church group. In short, we all went through it. This doesn't excuse them, or any bully. But it does help to understand the emotions that were hidden in all of us.

There are causes for every situation, and logical explanations for every question. And thinking back, using logical mindfulness, instead of emotion-driven butt-hurt, can lead to discoveries that pop out that emotion can be quick to consume. If we can get past the emotions that consumed us with the things that have hurt us so much in the past, and look at things with logical-mindfulness, the only effect can be realizations that will help you see things in a new perspective, that can only benefit with healing and recovery.

When you use logical mindfulness to those moments that brought you the most hurt, it can help a great deal to cope with those who haven't yet mastered the skill of the resource of logic-mindfulness, as you put yourself in their shoes, and realize that the root cause of their behavior isn't because you are who you are - it's because they have not accepted and do not like who they are, and using you as a target of their own insecurities.

The ever hurtful people I remember were such ornery, cantankerous kids in the youth group of my past are all grown up now, with children, and some with even grandchildren. There is truth to the phrase "this too, shall pass". To everything there is a season. And regardless of the paths that we have taken in life, nothing can change the way that it was. The only thing I can change is what i do with the memories I hold with me today, and the life that I have in the years to come. And using the tools of logic-mindfulness in the way I address the past, and the ability to change the future, there's progress, a little at a time.