God rebuilds,from the rumbleHe restoresthose humble. He regenerates,the broken soulHe heals and mendstil it’s again whole. God reconstructs,hearts shatteredHe recoversa life fractured. He reshapes,the mind fraughtHe remoldsevery thought. God rebuilds,souls, minds and heartsHe restores . . .all the broken parts! ~~~~~~~~ 1 Peter 5:10 But the God of all grace,who hath called us untohis eternal […]
God Rebuilds ~ — Tonya LaLonde
Targets, hold on tight, God’s got your back!
Succeed Without Tripping Over Your Shadow Each of us fall victim to self-sabotage in some aspect of our lives, whether we realize it or not. This type of sabotage can be conscious or unconscious, causing us to ruin our hope of attaining the thing we most desire. We might blow our diet by eating a […]
Overcome Self-Sabotage: — Joan Wiley
“I know my worth. I’m priceless.”
~ Unknown ~
I thank the Lord for the blessing of living in one of the free states
The states in which there are no restrictions nor silly mandates
Where we still have respect for The Lord, the law, and our fellow man
Where humanity still remains intact and we give each other a helping hand
We dance, we sing and we shout making a loud and joyful noise
Smiling as we hold our heads up high and walk with purpose and poise
We remain ungagged and have freedom to come, do, and go as we please
Yes, we’re blessed because we’re prosperous, happy, peaceful and free
Our hearts, they sing the patriotic song “My Country Tis of Thee”
We rejoice at our backyard barbecues and parties with family and friends
We make it an point to hug, pat each other on the back and shake hands
We live our lives relaxed and at peace thumbing our noses at the tyrants
We work, we play because we know they’ll never extinguish our vibrance
We dance together, We sing together, we mix and we mingle
We talk, we laugh, we eat out, we date, and our church bells jingle
Red, Yellow, Black, and White we all come together and unite
The togetherness we all share is their failure to distinguish our light
Our fire burns bright what a blessing it is to live in our part of the world
In our part of the country only happiness, peace and prosperity can unfurl
We preserve our autonomy over our bodies joyfully and without a care
Of the tyrants’ evil master plan we have been long made fully aware
Popular Sovereignty is the shield that protects us from their tyranny
It allows each individual state to preserve their peace, freedoms, and liberty
We smile as we watch the DC tyrants contort and seethe with anger and hate
Oh, what it is to live freely to thrive and flourish in a free state!
You stand safely across the room and shoot me a threatening glare.
Stay mad at me because your overinflated opinion of yourself, I don’t share
You scream, threaten, name-call, hurl personal attacks, and swear
But only because deep down you already know that I don’t care
How it pains you to realize you can no longer get in my hair
Be careful bully, take a pause, stop for a breath, don’t run out of air
You might as well sit down, bully, take a seat, just grab yourself a chair
You squawk real loud but down below you don’t have a pair
How sad that your labeling, judgements, and verbal insults were made in haste
Maybe you think that what’s below your nose makes up for what’s below your waist
A heaping spoon of your own terrible medicine you’re finally getting a taste
As your time, energy, and breath, you foolishly continue to waste
You choke on your anger and hate as I calmly and silently grind you to a paste
Hey bully, how does it feel to lose control, how bad does it taste
Unforgiveness is like taking a bitter pill that poisons your spirit, then your mind, then your body when taken daily.
A Bitter Pill to Swallow — From Behind the Pen
Once again, we have another blockbuster article from Kym Gordon Moore. She talks about the importance of forgiveness and what it feels like to hang on to grudges. I held onto a lot of grudges for a long time and, let me tell you, it’s like dragging around a ball and chain. This post really hit me in the heart because everything she says is dead on and I stand by the mantra that forgiveness is freedom. It’s taking back your power and control over your life. Try it! You just might love it!
Gossip is purely judgmental and includes hasty generalizations about the target’s character and private life, which has nothing to do with the school, community, or workplace. The purpose of gossip is to control the target’s status by demoting the target on the social hierarchy.
Another purpose of gossip is to justify any punishment of the target by promoting a collective view that the victim doesn’t deserve respect, dignity, or humanity, but only abuse and hostility.
And once a target is viewed to deserve abuse, others will always escalate it!
Gossip has another benefit. It tightens group connections, gives higher status to the people who are privy to the negative information, and sets expectations and norms in the group as to how they should treat the target.
Through gossip, the group establishes, maintains, or changes social infrastructures. Gossip promotes unity and shared negative perceptions of the target. With the use of it, the group will foster justification for hostility. Therefore, no one in the group considers their actions as bullying. They will only say that the target “deserves it” and say they were reacting to “an evil enemy.”
People tell others to keep it secret, but they also ask them to inform the group of any new information and updates that concern their target.
Realize that it serves to provide bullies reaffirmations that their perceptions of the target are correct, that the target deserves abuse.
Gossipers will often cover their bad behavior with a slight confession of guilt by beginning their sentences with things like,
“I know I shouldn’t say this, but…”
“Poor thing…”
“Bless her heart…”
They will acknowledge that the target is a human being, but only because this gives them the green light to go on talking and helps them to feel less like the creeps they are.
It’s true that reputation doesn’t equal character. But it can effect life. Understand that the rumors may, in fact, be false and there may be zero credible evidence to back them up. But if pure speculation best fits the bullies’ goals, that’s what they will go along with.
In the late stages of gossip, all bystanders will become willing co-conspirators. Gossip brings scandal, which means to assassinate the target’s character, integrity, mental fitness, and worth as a student, worker, neighbor, or human being.
Anyone who questions or disbelieves the lies will immediately become an object of bullying as well. Nobody wants to be isolated, so this forces others to stay in line with the running narrative.
And if the target attempts to defend himself or speak out against the abuse, it will be used against him.
Unfortunately, at this stage, the only way for the target to ensure his safety and escape the abuse is to leave the toxic environment and go to a new place where he can start anew, establish new connections, and reinvent himself.
Remember the character, Chris Chambers, in the movie “Stand by Me.” Although he was a great kid, he was considered a rogue and a thief. Remember the scene where he was crying to his friend, Gordy, telling him about how he got his bad name and wishing he could go somewhere where no one knew him.
During the conversation, the character of Chris Chambers, played by River Phoenix, tearfully tells Gordy that a member of staff took the lunch money out of the teal but he got blamed for it solely because of his family name. It was heartbreaking to watch.
And sadly, that happens a lot. In a majority of cases, targets must leave the school, company, or community to heal and to rebuild their lives.
With knowledge comes empowerment!
Interview on “Life Without Limits” Radio Show with Tom Russell.
https://radio.securenetsystems.net/cwa/index.cfm?stationCallSign=W4WN
“I did not ask for the things I’ve been through, and I certainly didn’t ask my mind to paint and repaint the memories in the form of flashbacks.” The majority of people who are living with trauma wish they could simply forget the past. But the fact is we can’t just wipe the slate clean, […]
No, we Can’t Just Forget the Past — Don’t Lose Hope
Judgemental girls tauting fellow student
First, let me say this. If your friends are allowing themselves to be used by your bullies to get personal information and deep secrets about you and your life, then they aren’t friends at all. What they are, is a bunch of traitors, back-stabbers, two-faced sellouts!
They’re worse than enemies because, with enemies, you know exactly where you stand with them. Therefore, you know it’s best to keep your distance from them, or better yet, tell them to keep their distance from you. You know to keep these people out of your life.
Not so with traitors. A traitor will be sneaky, and they’ll make it a point to stick close to you so that they can continue to get juicy information about your life, with which to report back to your bullies with.
So, what are ways bullies use your so-called friends to bait you?
1. They have them ask you questions- personal Understand that these traitors won’t seem nosy when they ask you. They’ll act concerned for your well-being. They’ll have you fooled, thinking they really care about you when they’re only trying to gather your private information.
2. They have them stick extra close to you. Your so-called friends will latch onto you like a tick to a dog. This is so they can watch you closely and scrutinize everything you say and do. They will also try to find out who you associate with besides them, who your family members are, where you live, everything.
3. They have them go through your belongings when you aren’t around. Oh, yes! Your fake friends will go through your purse. They’ll go through your notebook to see what you’re writing in it, and they’ll snoop through your email. When they’re visiting you at home and you must excuse yourself to the bathroom, don’t be surprised if they even nose through your mail. They may even swing by the night before trash pick-up day and grab your trash after you set it out by the street to be picked up, then take it somewhere safe and snoop through it.
4. They have them hawk your social media profiles and pages. Sadly, many people must a lot of things on social media they really shouldn’t. Or they post things that are too easily taken out of context. In the early days of Facebook, I’ll admit that I posted a complaint from time to time- posts about bad service, idiot drivers, and ignorant people (without name-dropping, of course). Although I didn’t post anything personal, it still wasn’t good policy. Understand that these are posts that can very easily be taken out of context, so it’s probably better to keep any complaints private.
If nothing else, realize this- anyone who claims to be a friend while doing any of the four above-mentioned sins has no place in your life and if you find out they’ve betrayed you, it’s time to ditch and switch to new friends.
It’s best to make friends outside the bullying environment. Then you can show these new friends the awesome you that you can’t show in the environment you’re bullying in.
And understand that when you drop these people, you might be friendless for a while, but think about this. Did you have any friends in the first place while your fake friends were betraying you? Wouldn’t you rather be alone than to deal with fakers who only pretend to be for you when they’re really siding with the enemy?
With knowledge come empowerment!
It takes two to tango, but only one to lead the dance.