12 September 2017

I recently had a dream where I was running from someone who likes to tease and mock others to make themselves feel more powerful. In a family or in a work place, when someone is being negative like this, and does not stop after being asked to, then there are structures and systems in place to isolate and then terminate the negative person. In my dream, the authority figure was not doing their job to protect the rights and safety of their group and they didn’t want others to find out so instead of fixing the problem, they started bullying too.

What I realized when I was working through the metaphors of this dream, is that I just used to tolerate a lot of bad behaviour for a long time, thinking I suppose, that the person will realize what they are doing is negative and they will change it. I was wrong in the past though. People don’t change their negative behaviours if they don’t have a conscious and they don’t want to grow or improve themselves.

So the important thing dealing with this kind of person is to say, “No” and to set firm boundaries so they understand when they are crossing a line. When they cross that line there are clear consequences. In the case of harassment, you must first tell the stalker, “Stop calling me!” for example and ONLY if they call you after that statement can you “legally” call the situation stalking.

The key solution to my dream is that I waited a really long time to tell the person NO and the situation escalated worse & worse. So what I can do to solve this is just realize where in my life I am running from someone negative, metaphorically speaking, and how I can stand up and say NO! STOP! with my own authority.

If the situation is one of abuse, saying No and setting boundaries is likely meaningless to the abuser.

But the really positive thing is that if there is not abuse and the individuals really want to go deeper in the closeness of the relationship then saying No is a good way to communicate something that is important.

It’s also important to remember the positives. During an argument or in a moment of fear, it is sometimes hard to remember the positives but with attention and diligence it is possible to find enough positives to turn the whole situation around.

Try this the next time you feel someone is pushing you to your limits. Take a deep breath. Tell them No. And look for the positives. Tell the positives to the person and see what great depths open up in the relationship.

Some really magical things can happen next!