Preventing Bullying: the Role of Emotion Management
When it comes to bullying, often times, people talk about the key role prevention plays. Prevention is important, but it is not the only thing we should educate our kids about bullying. Before bullying occurs, we prevent it; after bullying occurs, we deal with it. Self management for emotions and the process of gaining confidence are extremely important after bullying occurs; failure of emotion management and confidence building process directly cause the failure of the healing process for the victims. Therefore, not only must we teach our kids all about prevention during those lesson of bullying, but also we must recognise that emotions management and confidence lessons are less vacuous and, in fact, more useful material to educate kids at school. Touched by this urgent issue, I'm compelled to present an argumentative essay about bullying.
Emotion is a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Although we are not our emotions, which means we cannot control them by turning them on and off , we still have the ability to make a choice. Before making this choice, we need to first understand how strong emotions are and how much it can help and hurt us at the same time. Emotions can assist us make decisions. “Researchers have also found that people with certain types of brain damage affecting their ability to experience emotions also have a decreased ability to make good decisions”. Just like what we often hear, emotional decisions are usually not as appropriate as logical once. When emotions are strongly involved in decision making, emotions tend to hurt us more than advantaging us most of the times. However, according to Charles Darwin, “emotions are adaptations that allow both humans and animals to survive and reproduce. When we are angry, we are likely to confront the source of our irritation. When we experience fear, we are more likely to flee the threat. When we feel love, we might seek out a mate and reproduce”. He gave this example to point out his theory which emotions help us survive, thrive, and avoid danger. “Emotions serve an adaptive role in our lives by motivating us to act quickly and take actions that will maximize our chances of survival and success”.
The important role emotions play in our daily life explains why we need to learn about it. One of the side effects of being bullied--leaving us with negative emotions thus became a severe problem. In fact, negative emotions are the potential cause of depression, which people do recognise as an effect of being bullied. Though managing emotions is not easy, famous psychologist Jen Sincero published her book “You are a badass” in 2013 illustrating her special ways of managing emotions and boosting confidence. One way of managing emotions is in fact achieved by shifting and venting. “Go somewhere alone and far away other people and beat the hell out of a pillow or a mattress or some other soft, inanimate object that won’t hurt your fist or punch back”. Another way of managing emotions is to basically let it go. Sincero pointed out some things that we currently feel strongly influenced by are actually very likely to be forgotten in the future by us. Most of us can barely think of the person who freaked out us or pissed us off three years ago. There is really no point for us to make a huge rama out of the event that is going on right now if it isn’t eve going to be as significant in three years of time. “What you choose to focus on becomes your reality”. Choosing and comparing are actually big culprit in the failure of managing emotions. Avoiding comparison thus becomes a big part in managing emotions. We tend to compare people’s “outsides” to our “insides” which is completely unhealthy. “Unless you’re really close to someone, you can’t use their outward appearance to judge the reality of their life. People carefully curate the social media versions of their lives, and do the same with the lives they live out publicly”. People don’t necessarily show their true emotions on their social media. Seeing those happy faces of others while we are experiencing sadness is a comparison that definitely does not favor the circumstance. Famous psychologist Will Hall published an article in 2012 explaining his personal experience of being bullying and a successful healing process he went through. Hall points out firstly, being alone is a huge disadvantage in emotion management. “I find an ally who’s on my side and will listen to and witness me. I might ask them to listen to what happened, and also sit with me as I meditate and work on myself around this.” Then he explains that he gave himself a lot of compassion by reminding himself that he is a survivor and a vulnerable human being; of course, most importantly, he loves and ought to love himself. And last but not least, expectedly, he talks about how significant the express of his emotions was during his healing process. Hall gave himself encouragement to vent emotions, including ugly or vulnerable emotions, that have a hard time coming out. He doesn’t censor himself too hard because he believes all human beings should have negative feelings. He shared with us that he found yellign in his own car helpful. “All emotional expression has body sensations as part of it”. Will Hall worked to keep connected expressing the strongest emotions. Will also further suggest that in human relationships, expression of emotions is very important which might involve emotional expression through body language. For example, various facial expressions can possibly have link to particular emotions we are experiencing.
After the emotional healing process, it is time to sought our confidence back because people who bully tend to react to their hurtful words and actions. Obvious sign of low self esteem and confidence tend to be the targets oftentimes. Maxwell Maltz once said “Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand brake on.” In some ways, gaining confidence and self respect back is the most efficient way to prevent bullying from happening again. Theoretically, there are many ways of gaining confidence. In fact, visualizing yourself as you want to be is significantly helpful in the confidence building process. “Visualization is the technique of seeing an image of yourself that you are proud of, in your own mind. When we struggle with low self-confidence, we have a poor perception of ourselves that is often inaccurate. Practice visualizing a fantastic version of yourself, achieving your goals”. On the other hand, questioning our inner critics also help in the process. Our thoughts are the most powerful tools. “I think, therefore. I can create awesomeness, Or horrendousness. But the bottom line is that it’s though our thoughts that we create our realities. It is also why buying into whatever illusion you’re living in in the present moment is selling yourself so short if it’s anything less than what you truly desire”. Some of the harshest comments that we get come from ourselves, via the 'voice of the inner critic.' People struggling with low self-confidence possibly are caused by their inner critic being overactive and inaccurate.
“Strategies such as cognitive behavioral therapy help you to question your inner critic, and look for evidence to support or deny the things that your inner critic is saying to you. For example, if you think that you are a failure, ask yourself, “What evidence is there to support the thought that I am a failure?” and “What evidence is there that doesn’t support the thought that I am a failure?” 'Find opportunities to congratulate, compliment and reward yourself, even for the smallest successes”. As Mark Twain once said, “ A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.”
In conclusion, emotions and confidence are not only associated with each other but both play an important role in bullying curing process. Education about bullying should not only contain prevention but also teaching of emotion management and confidence building skills. Most negative psychological effects bullying brings to us is due to the poor ability of self emotion management and low confidence. Healthy emotion and confidence build the potential for a strong person.
