Of course, I ran with that, I was being irritaining. Cool. I was irritating her and entertaining myself.

So I thought about it more today and it occurred to me that the words ‘bullying’ and “teasing” might perpetuate themselves because they freeze us into thinking of two players, a victim and a perpetrator. Calling someone a bully always presumes that someone has been wronged.

I hope you are following me so far. I hope so, because this is going to be good.

So what about using  a word that doesn’t imply that there is a victim, like    

irritaining 

or

aggrataining.

 If you are being irritaining or aggrataining, it is something you are doing to yourself, not me. You are intending to aggravate or irritate for the purpose of entertaining yourself. Victims make the mistake of thinking that the bullying is about them and they personalize it, when it is really all about the bully looking for some cheap thrills.

Something like masturbating – you do it to yourself and for yourself. Only difference is that irritaining  is a public behavior. At least one other person has to  be a witness. Masturbation can be public too but fortunately it doesn’t have to be to be effective for most of us…circle jerks nonwithstanding.

So there you have it. I have solved the bullying problem ;) If we change terminology bullies are going to start to look like public masturbators, right?

Before you dismiss that notion, consider this:

The method of using ridicule to eliminate a behavior that violates ethics but is accepted by the culture has a lot of precedent. See The Honor Code by Kwame Anthony Appiah. Slavery, foot binding in china, and dueling were all practices that were accepted  in their time as normal and necessary. We look back and cringe, but Mr. Appiah explains how honor codes developed around these practices, and how their absurdity only came out when a critical mass of people began to point out that the emperor has no clothes.   A lot of people knew these practices were wrong, but it was only when people began  to ridicule them that they were abandoned.

The naked emperor,  in this case, is the bully. He or she  is publicly masturbating, and we can start to point it out.  Coining some new terms like irritainer might be a start.   Bullying behavior, after all,  has an obscene feel to it,  like public masturbation would.

So give it whirl. Just don’t have too much fun doing it or you will become an irritainer yourself.

Beware the sociopaths

Here is the rice:

http://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_stories.html

I apologize for only serving curry before.

I can lead a horse to rice and curry, but I can’t make it eat both.

 Even harder is actually getting agreement with the other people involved that you are going to use the method, in other words, you have to be able to negotiate well.

So  here it is:

Six Thinking Hats® is a simple, effective parallel thinking process that helps people be more productive, focused, and mindfully involved. And once learned, the tools can be applied immediately!

 You and your team members can learn how to separate thinking into six clear functions and roles. Each thinking role is identified with a colored symbolic “thinking hat.” By mentally wearing and switching “hats,” you can easily focus or redirect thoughts, the conversation, or the meeting.

	The White Hat calls for information known or needed. “The facts, just the facts.”
	The Yellow Hat symbolizes brightness and optimism. Under this hat you explore the positives and probe for value and benefit.
	The Black Hat is judgment – the devil’s advocate or why something may not work. Spot the difficulties and dangers; where things might go wrong. Probably the most powerful and useful of the Hats but a problem if overused.
	The Red Hat signifies feelings, hunches and intuition. When using this hat you can express emotions and feelings and share fears, likes, dislikes, loves, and hates.
	The Green Hat focuses on creativity; the possibilities, alternatives, and new ideas. It’s an opportunity to express new concepts and new perceptions.
	The Blue Hat is used to manage the thinking process. It’s the control mechanism that ensures the Six Thinking Hats® guidelines are observed.

  One way to implement this that I actually haven’t tried is to listen for what hat someone has on as you listen to them. This will require you to have your blue hat on. You can put on the hat that they have on and roll with it. If they switch hats, you can switch with them. At a certain point, if you’d like them to try a hat that they haven’t yet, you can ask them if they’d be willing. If you have been a good listener, they are more likely to do so than if you hav just been debating with them or listening passively.

One of the only emotions that I have found that can override anger is disgust. When we are angry, we think our shit doesn’t stink. This is the great illusion. But if anyone has ever caught you on audio tape when you are angry, how did you sound to yourself?

I am betting you felt something like disgust, or embarrassment – a mix of fear , sadness and disgust.

So even though we know this, it is not easy to remember in moments that tend to provoke anger in us.

The other day my daughter held up a mirror to me while I was walking toward her and said,” Look Dad, it looks like you are watching yourself on your own reality show.”

It was funny. I’d love to have that kind of perspective of myself, on the outside looking at myself. I bet I’d avoid a lot of the bad behavior that seem so natural and so right when I am wrapped up in them.

I think that with mindfulness training you can work to build up this capacity to be watching yourself while you are in the moment.

Problem is – mindfulness practice is boring. It is so much easier to just get caught up with stuff and let your brain go into reactive mode rather than stay in re-reactive mode.

Boredom is a form of disgust coupled with anxiety about being understimulated by something.  

Confidence to be able to cope with boredom that might arise comes from practice. It is a bit like the slight disgust you might feel cleaning up a mess. It is just more disgusting to leave the mess so you do it. To not practice mindfulness is really a decision to live with the ugliness of anger and other emotions unchecked and often leading to harm. It is disgusting, but since it hasn’t happened yet, the slight disgust of practicing mindfulness now and systematically throughout your day trumps your efforts.

So I think I need help with this.. some Divine assistance with this purification process which requires that I get messy to be less disgusting when it counts. No room for pride here.

A local dairy farmer from my hometown , Louis Escobar, was known to say to his young farm hands who might have hesitated to shovel manure, “If you are afraid of shit, you are shit.”

I can imagine that first day of work for those kids, showing they weren’t shit.. they were more than shit, they were above shit, they could do this shit, shovel shit, and not quit. It gave them a new perspective on themselves, some new ability to step outside themselves and do what it takes.

We need more teachers like Louis Escobar.

So eventually I asked, ” What ‘s it like for you to feel this way?”

Client said . ” It sucks.”

Ok – now the ball was rolling.

 Only a psychotherapist really understands why that was a good thing to hear from someone for the purpose of helping them.  

Actually – Jim Camp and his students would get it.

I’d try to explain it to the rest of you, but to tell you the truth…I don’t care

If you think you get it, give it your best shot in the comment section. Prove me wrong. If you don’t care – join the club.

I have been warning for years that anti-bullying laws will never put a stop to bullying, ultimately cause more harm than good, and have the potential of bankrupting our schools. Actually, it’s not the schools that will go broke. It’s the rest of us who end up paying the bills. And it’s an outrage. How dare our professional representatives take it upon themselves to fight for counterproductive laws that are going to waste our money! Is that why we pay dues to our professional associations?

When a school loses a bullying lawsuit, it can cost us millions of dollars. But even when it doesn’t, it can still cost us hundreds of thousands. News just came out of Columbus, Indiana that a federal lawsuit was dismissed and a settlement reached with a girl who complained that a boy bullied her by spreading sexually explicit rumors during one year of high school. The school district determined that the school properly followed anti-bullying policies, and the defendant vehemently denied any wrongdoing. But to prevent further waste of money conducting court hearings, the school district caved in. Their insurance agreed to pay one hundred thousand dollars to the girl, and the boy’s insurance, fifty-thousand. But the insurance (which means the rest of us) is paying, so why should the school district care. Do you think that if the school staff and the boy’s parents had to pay from their own pockets, they would have ever agreed to a settlement? But people have little difficulty spending Other People’s Money.

You wanted anti-bullying laws? I hope you are happy. Now we have less money for holiday gifts. Except for the lucky girl, that is. And the lawyers on both sides.

In five minutes or less, I could have taught the girl how to make the rumors stop. In fact, with no expenditure, every remotely normal kid in the country could learn how to stop rumors in their tracks by reading the chapter on rumors in my free online manual. But no, we want the government to protect our children from rumors, so we pass laws that not only fail to solve the problem but escalate it.

The parents of the girl claim that the school “did nothing” about the bullying. You will see the very same claim made by every parent that files a school bullying lawsuit. This claim is based on the unfair and completely unfounded accusation by the founder of the bullying psychology, Prof. Dan Olweus, that bullying goes on in schools because they do nothing to make it stop. But because his words are considered gospel truth, everyone believes this nonsense. The schools, of course, deny that they “did nothing.” And they are right. They did intervene to make the bullying stop. As did virtually all the other schools that are defendants in bullying lawsuits. Because when they intervene to stop the bullying, the reverse almost always happens-hostilities escalate. Anti-bullying laws are what political scientists call “unenforceable laws.” Like Prohibition, the harder we try to comply with them, the worse the problem becomes.

And the reason is obvious. You don’t need a PhD in psychology to understand it. If I get the authorities involved against you because I don’t like the way you are treating me, are you going to admit your wrongdoing and accept punishment? Of course not. You will defend yourself and try to prove that I am to blame. You will hate me and want revenge because I got the authorities against you. You will turn all of your friends against me, too, and try your hardest to make me look like scum on Facebook. The more time that goes by till the investigation process is over, the further I will sink into depression. In fact, both of us, and our families as well, will become miserable. And if we go to court and get lawyers involved, the hatred and misery go up exponentially.

So if you want to maximize the suffering of school staff, students and their parents while wasting our precious money, continue lobbying for tougher anti-bullying laws. When the schools have no money left for education, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

The article above was written by Dr. Izzy Kalman in Psychology Today. website: http://bullies2buddies.com

“Discipline often consists of two features:  an increase in safety and an increase in anxiety. Safety is enhanced through a child’s knowledge that the parent is actively involved in a situation and has the knowledge and experience to manage it. Anxiety is increased when the parent’s decision is at odd with the child’s wishes and thus may create frustration and conflict. Such conflicts may generate uncertainty about the meaning of the parent-child relationship, especially when the child is unclear about the parent’s motives. To enhance personal safety, the parent is wise to value the probable value of the following:

>The parent should convey her decision regarding discipline with an open and confident stance, with clarity and information regarding her motives and the desired consequences. The intent of her communication is not to elicit agreement but rather to give the child the information that he needs to make sense of her decision. A focus on gaining the child’s agreement may well communicate a fear of differences and conflicts and generate more confusion and less clarity for the child.

>The parent should be open to her child’s perspective, so that he knows that she has confidence in her choice regarding what is best, while still knowing her child’s wishes.

>The parent is wise to convey her decision with empathy for the frustration likely to occur due to the conflict between what the child wants and her decision. This will enable the child to experience understanding and comfort over his distress regarding the discipline, and to accept her decision more easily. “

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtYuzE01E1A&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Her:  We need to talk.

Y0u: Damn right we need to talk.

 Wow. Imagine her surprise. She expects you to get all nervous and cower, but you are chomping at the bit. There is no conviction behind your words, you have never needed to talk in your life, but that doesn’t matter. You are in a great position. Let’s hope you can get creative quick.

This may not work with certain women, so you need to have a range of responses at your disposal.

So lets role play another response:

Her: We need to talk.

You:   take her hand gently, look into her eyes, and say , ” I am so sorry. I want to change.”

You may get out of even having to talk without even knowing what is bothering her.

Ok – another role play.

Her: We need to talk.

You: Ok, but first I need to change my underwear.

Her: Why?

You:  run out of the room sobbing , ” I shit myself.” 

www.campnegotiationinstitute.com

You need to listen

  “  …how you go out there, you should be the same at all times…it didn’t matter if it was the first play or the last play or we were down by 42. I was going ot be the same player and I was still going to give everything I have. Because that’s all I have to give. “   

(  from www.bookwormroom.com)

Who really cares what his religion is, that is just a great mindset.

- be the same at all times…at all times… be the same…give everything

  So interesting – his equanimity comes from an almost reckless kind of commitment to spare nothing of himself – to just give it all,  at all times.

All doubts and questions and challenges that might arise have the same answer.. to be the same at all times..to just give everything.

Wholeheartedness.