Bullying – how can we unlearn being so mean?

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I saw an Instagram post from an old college friend who talked about how she screenshot a comment from a stranger telling her she would be a great keynote speaker and a year later, she is keynoting for the first time.

A few hours later, I stumbled upon a post by Humans of NY where a young man talked about the lifelong battle of his sister with anorexia due to the bullying by some young boys in school.

A few weeks later, I hosted an event for which I had to pray in the beginning. Towards the end of it, a woman came to me and told me that I have a gift when it comes to prayer and that I should nurture it. The following week, I was at Bible study and they needed a volunteer to pray. Usually, I would wait for someone else to volunteer but remembering what the woman had said to me a week prior, I volunteered to pray and again after the meeting, a few people came to me and told me I had a gift and that they are so proud of me.

Bare with me… I promise I’m getting to the point.

In all of these scenarios, the words spoken to another had impact. Whether positive or negative, we all have the power to build someone up or tear them down and that’s a big responsibility.

Earlier this year, I shared in a blog post that our words are more powerful than weapons but it bears repeating that the power of life and death is in the tongue! Even knowing this, we’re still walking around being killers. Yes, we’re in our households and communities killing dreams, killing confidence and self esteem because we are so judgmental and reckless with our mouths. And it starts on the playground as children.

Once we acknowledge that we are part of the problem, what can we do to fix it? I don’t have all the answers but if only we started looking at people with the same amount of love and grace that God looks at them, maybe we’ll be more compassionate. Only if we remembered how many times we’ve needed forgiveness ourselves, we’d be more merciful in our interactions with others.

It bears noting that we also have to learn to take people’s comments with a grain of salt because we shouldn’t allow someone’s meanness to kill the dreams God has given us. But I get it, we’re only human. Words hurt. So try not to be part of the problem.

Until next time beauties,