How To Navigate Adult Bullying In Your Personal and Professional Life [Episode #806]

This week’s topic is: How To Navigate Adult Bullying In Your Personal and Professional Life

This is an important topic to bring up in today’s world, as we navigate adult bullying in the workplace and in your personal life. A survey conducted by the Harris Poll found that 31% of Americans have been bullied as an adult, and 43% of those said that the behavior had become more accepted.

This is something that we want to bring attention to and highlight today instead of sweeping it underneath the rug, because we all deserve not only love, but respect. It’s a very important part of our wellbeing and our health. Today we’re going to provide some tips and tools on approaching this sensitive and important subject.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Jordanna – Kansas City

Hey Kimberly, Thank you for the podcast, I love it so much and look forward to every Monday and Thursday. I wanted to ask you about being bullied as an adult. It seems like at my work and home life I feel bullied in certain ways in most of my relationships. What can I do to stop this from continuing to happen?

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Namaste loves. Welcome back to our Thursday Q&A show. I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far. And our topic today is in the emotional wellbeing category. It is an important one to bring up today in today’s world, and it is How To Navigate Adult Bullying In Your Personal and Professional Life.

So a survey conducted by the Harris Poll found that 31% of Americans have been bullied as an adult, and 43% of those said that the behavior had become more accepted. So this is something that we wanna bring attention to, we want to highlight today instead of sweeping it underneath the rug, because we all deserve not only love, but respect, and this is a very important part of our wellbeing. It’s a very important part of our health. So today we’re going to provide some tips and tools on approaching this, um, this sensitive subject, but it’s a very important one that we talk about.

Please leave a review on iTunes and Subscribe

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Q&A: How To Navigate Adult Bullying In Your Personal and Professional Life

All right, let’s get into our topic today around adult bullying. And this phrase came up the other day. I was zooming with a friend and she was talking about this bully, and I was like, wow. Like she used this term and she’s a grown woman, and she was really talking about her brother bullying her in regards to some family issues that were going on. And I could really feel it in my heart. I could feel the weight of that, but sometimes we, we say that, oh, you know, someone is being unkind or thoughtless or whatever. But bullying has, uh, you know, has some really serious repercussions and effects on our health, especially when it’s repeatedly happening. So we’ll get into that today, because again, it’s something that really needs to be addressed.

Question around the topic of: How To Navigate Adult Bullying In Your Personal and Professional Life: Hey Kimberly, Thank you for the podcast, I love it so much and look forward to every Monday and Thursday. I wanted to ask you about being bullied as an adult. It seems like at my work and home life I feel bullied in certain ways in most of my relationships. What can I do to stop this from continuing to happen?

Our question today comes from Jordan Jordana in Kansas City. Hi Jordana, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your question. And sending a big virtual hug out there to the Midwest. You write, Hey, Kimberly, thank you for the podcast. I love it so much. I look forward to it every Monday and Thursday. I wanted to ask you about being bullied as an adult. It seems like at my work and home life, I feel bullied in certain ways. How do I stop this from continuing to happen?

05:01 So we will get into this further with the tools and tips. I wanted to call out some research and also to highlight that this is not necessarily uncommon. As I mentioned, a survey conducted by the Harris Poll found that bull adults are being bullied at levels similar to adolescents, and this is reducing Americans ability to function well. So again, 31% of Americans have reported being bullied as adults, grown humans in different areas of their life. And 43% of them say the behavior has become more accepted. So this found that those that were bullied as adults found that 71% of them suffered from stress. 70% experienced anxiety and depression, 55% reported a loss of confidence. 39% suffered from sleep loss, 26% suffered headaches. 22% experienced muscle tension or pain. 19% reported a mental breakdown, and 17% noted an inability to function day to day, calling in sick frequently.

06:23 So the more research went on to show that bullying had a harmful effect, not only on the people involved directly, but also on bystanders and those witnessing bullying at the workplace, for instance, at an increased risk of developing depressive symptoms over the subsequent 18 months. So this lends more, you know, credence to the fact that we are all connected. And when we feel something that is wrong and doesn’t feel right or natural, again, seeing bullying taking place, it affects us. Even though we’re not in the situation directly, we can feel it in our hearts. This is one of the reasons I personally struggle to watch movies. I I really don’t watch much at all, because I can feel it in my body when someone’s being hurt physically or emotionally. I take it in and I’m definitely far more sensitive, perhaps, than the average person that can, you know, watch movies and be fine and let them go.

07:38 But you know, much more so if something is taking place in the real world before us life. So this is a serious thing to address, not only for ourselves, but those around us. It’s painful, it’s, you know, turbulent, it’s violent, and we take those energies into our body, and it has a very real effect, as we can see here from the physical symptoms. It has a real effect on our physical health, on the levels of inflammation and stress hormones and our cardiovascular health, our endocrine system, our digestive health. I mean, it really has this cascade effect.

08:23 A 2013 study on emotional abuse and intimate relationships found that the effects of emotional abuse were just as detrimental as physical abuse. So emotionally, um, putting someone down, swearing at someone, raising their voice, all these different aspects of emotional abuse were incredibly impactful. Again, doesn’t mean you have to show bruises to experience abuse and bullying by these words, by hurting someone emotionally. It was shown to be, um, incredibly detrimental. We feel that intuitively, but there’s actually research backing that up.

10:13 Now, this is quite troubling. This is a study from 2019 conducted by the workplace. Bullying inti in institute found that workplace bullying in the United States was so high that 35% of workers had experienced bullying firsthand, and 15% of workers had witnessed it. So this is higher than the Harris poll number. And it found that the negative effects of bullying impacted everything from mental health, job satisfaction and organizational outcomes. So it means that this was actually, of course, affecting how, you know, performance at work was going on besides the personal effects of each individual, which of course we wanna address first and foremost. And this just shows the ripple effect again. And, and when I was putting together this show, I was shocked at how common this is. So if you’re listening to this right now, and you are, you know, thinking to yourself, Hmm, I wonder if what I’ve experienced is bullying.

11:38 If there’s a question mark there, it’s really important that we look into that, because the fact that something’s coming up for you, or if you’ve witnessed it, or if you know of someone you know, a close, someone close to you, or someone has said to you, Hey, there’s this, you know, stuff going on at work, it’s really important that we just don’t let it slide. It’s not okay to be bullied. And bullying can be, um, let’s define it now, a little bit more. Adult bullying for first of all, can often be masked because the person that’s bullying or being bullied can start to think, Hmm, is this in my head? They can start to have self-doubt around it, and they can start to sort of, um, push it down or ignore it, because adult bullying is a bit more taboo than teenage bullying or adolescent childhood bullying, which is, you know, very much okay to talk about in, you know, with your, your child’s teacher or the principal of the school or whatever it is.

12:41 Adult bullying can be a bit more intimidating to bring up a, especially if it’s with a boss, an intimidating colleague, a romantic partner, or even an unruly neighbor, right? It can go on to, um, lots of, um, different relationships in our life. We can start to feel this weightiness of, oh, you know, addressing it feels like a really difficult conversation. There can be some shaming with social, um, acquaintances that we worry about, but it’s, again, really important because it can lead to, uh, just feeling that we’re not worthy. It can lower our confidence. It can feel threatening. It can literally affect our, um, how we feel in our personal space, in our space, our desk at work, or even at home. And so there are many different forms of bullying now that I wanna be more specific about. So, bullying is defined as anything that makes you feel oppressed, belittled, humiliated, or de-energized.

Different Types of Adult Bullies

13:56 So there’s a lot more information in the show notes over at mysolluna.com, if you wanna take a closer look. So, tangible material bullying means where someone is using their formal power, like their job title, they’re a boss or a manager, and they have some sort of authority over your finances, over your bonus, over your pay, your ability to, you know, dock your pay, for instance. And they use that authority to intimidate you inappropriately. Verbal bullying is when someone is shaming you or using words, throwing constant criticism your way. Um, cruel teasing. And sometimes this type of language can also cross over into sexism, racism, homopho, homophobic comments, threatening comments. Then there’s passive aggressive bullying, which sometimes, you know, can feel a little bit more murky. And this is the most cunning type of bullying in certain ways where it seems that they’re acting, um, amicable on the outside.

15:09 But they can be engaging in potential activities like gossiping, sarcasm, hurtful jokes, rolling their eyes, making rude facial expressions, ridiculing their victims. By mimicking this, could, they can also target you or another individual isolating that one person which makes that person feel anxious or insecure. So if this type of behavior is repeated, remember that sarcasm is really veiled anger. It is not okay to be continually called out like that isolated, targeted, this, this is not okay. And then of course, there’s cyber bullying, which is, you know, can be something that adults experience as well. Harassing emails, text messages, social media. Of course, we live in a tech world, so this is part of life. And then physical bullying is, um, where someone of course actually commits violent acts of domestic physical or sexual violence, but also throwing and breaking objects around you. That is a physical, um, form of bullying.

5 Signs of Adult Bullying in Personal Relationships

16:33 So here are some signs to, um, be aware of in terms of, of bullying, cuz sometimes, again, we need a bit more support here. And pinpointing, if this is really happening, we can, you know, especially those of us that are sensitive and tend to, um, not wanna assign blame, or we tend to blame ourselves, it can be a little bit more murky. So the first sign of adult bullying is that your opinions are being invalidated. If you feel like you’re invisible, that you’re not being treated equally in terms of your thoughts, like you’re a shadow, um, this is one sign, right? You in any sort of relationship, it’s important that you’re heard and that you’re seen. So if you’re constantly feeling like this invalidation, hmm, that’s something to really consider. The second sign is that your life choices are always under judgment. What I mean by that is, um, your boss or your, you know, coworker or your partner is always sort of, uh, looming over you and your choices saying, you’re doing this all wrong, putting you down constantly, judging every little move that you make, which of course will not feel good.

18:06 The third sign of bullying is a constant underestimation of your accomplishments. So this is emotional, always downplaying or taking credit for your work, or let’s say you complete a really, um, challenging work project, sort of making it seem like it’s not that big a deal, not giving you any compliments, you know, brushing it aside and sort of just undervaluing you. Number four, constantly being told what to do. So this of course, can take place in many different contexts in your personal relationship as an adult. This can translate to your partner telling you who you can meet with, how you’re supposed to dress. You know, how you’re supposed to present yourself or your work boss manager saying, okay, do it exactly this way. Don’t do it this way. Making it so specific and illogical and demanding that it’s really, um, you know, in your heart of hearts, you can tell that this crosses a boundary.

19:14 This is not okay. And then number five, this is, uh, you know, the one that is the most obvious, but the one that can be really difficult and challenging to face for different reasons. And I say this with the deepest of compassion and love, physical abuse. Um, the National Coalition against Domestic Violence shows, of course, the numbers are very high for women, but also for men to experience physical violence, including slapping, shoving, pushing any sort of physical mistreatment. And this can go on in the workplace as well.

What to Do if you are being Bullied at Work

So the first step of what to do if you are feeling bullied in any way, is to recognize that you are being bullied. So the whole first, first part of this show is to help bring awareness to this, not only if you are being bullied, but if you are witnessing bullying, as we mentioned. There’s of course, you know, we, we wanna stand for what is right, and it also affects your health as well.

20:27 There’s a ripple effect of this violence, of this aggressive behavior. So we wanna recognize that and remember that, um, it’s not your fault. It’s easy to take the blame on yourself, especially if you’ve let it go on for a while. So forgive yourself and forgive yourself if you’ve been witnessing something for a while, because right here and right now, the light of awareness can shine. And so we recognize it, we wake up to it, and that’s really the first important step. And then the second step is to recognize and realize that you can change your response. So we can’t be responsible for changing someone else’s behavior, especially if they don’t want to change, but you can change how you respond. So this is important to compli, to contemplate, to consider the whole situation, to step back. And you can journal about this, you can talk to a therapist, a counselor about this.

21:37 You can talk to a trusted third party at your workplace or in your personal life about what is going on. But it’s important to get really clear about how you want to respond to this and to let that person know that this is not okay. So I am not a bullying expert, but I would say, you know, for me personally, um, I would, you know, I, I was bullied as a child physically once, and it happened on a bus, and it was this boy, um, this little boy, Philip was kind of hitting my leg and then laughing and kind of making it this joke. But I did end up with bruises across my leg. And, you know, as a child, it’s something you can tell your parents and have it be handled. You don’t have to have those difficult conversations. So it is more challenging to have conversations, but it’s important.

22:43 And sometimes, again, it’s situational. It might be going to an even higher up person than your boss, um, if this is happening in the workplace, going to a higher manager, whatever it is, or addressing it directly. But again, this is something that I would encourage you to consider carefully and to get some professional help, support opinions if you aren’t sure exactly how to change your response. But simply knowing that your response has to change is something that’s really important to integrate inside of you. And of course, if this is in your personal relationship, um, some, some support there, you know, outside professional support may definitely be warranted, especially if you find yourself in a potentially dangerous situation. It might be something you address outside in a public space or, um, you know, again, there’s, there’s definitely ways of going about this in the best way.

23:42 And so I would encourage you to, to go further than this podcast to figure out what that might look like. The next part of this though is learning how to set boundaries. So this is something that we all have to get really good at. I’ve done shows, I’ve interviewed different experts around boundaries, which we will link to in the show notes. But whether this is happening on a subtle level or a not so subtle level, it’s really important to be firm and assertive and to hold those boundaries. So let’s say for instance, the boundaries are happening in cyber bullying. There are, there is blocking, there is, you know, not allowing texts or emails to come through certain hours of the day or just cutting people off, right? Just saying, this is not okay. If you’re gonna talk to me this way, I’m not gonna respond.

24:36 So whatever context it’s taking place, it’s really important to be clear with the boundaries. Now, there is some research around eye contact. Eye contact is significant because bullies have to take you more seriously when you are rising up and facing someone directly. Now again, this can be very challenging. This can feel, you know, emotionally like it’s too much. That’s why I mentioned before, please get professional guidance and support here, but if you feel that you can handle looking someone in the eye and seeing, you know, this is isn’t okay, what you’re doing, I don’t feel good about this.

25:22 It sh you know, research shows that that bully will have more empathy when they can see your face and your eyes. It makes you a real person. So again, this is situational for each, you know, specific situation, but that is something to consider. And then another part of this is picking and choosing your ba your battles. You know, not everything has to be addressed in, you know, the same way we wanna consider the, um, the type of bullying and the severity of it and how often it’s happening, and so on and so forth. So if it’s happening once in a while, like an annoying family gathering, you might just want to take, keep your distance from that person, you know, versus the repeated bullying, of course. So sometimes our energy is better spent just, you know, moving away. This does not apply if it’s a regular occurrence, as we mentioned.

26:22 Um, which does need to be very much addressed. If it’s happening daily, weekly, you know, biweekly several times a week, whatever it is, it does, it is the active part of your life. And so we don’t wanna shove that one underneath the rug. Another aspect is to document the offenses. It’s important to write them down. So that should it go to the point down the road where you have to file a complaint or a police report, in some cases, you wanna be clear and specific with dates and what happened in the incidents so that you can really have this clarity. And it’s not just a he, you know, they said, this other person said situation, but really clear clarity is part of, you know, the containment here of standing for your self-worth and your self dignity and your self-respect, which is so important.

What to Do If You’re a Bystander

27:21 So also remember that if you’re a bystander, you can also employ and you’re witnessing the bullying, bullying, you can apply some of these protocols as well. You can check in privately with a bullied person first, and, um, you know, handle it how you best feel, whether that’s going to a higher authority. Of course, you don’t wanna put yourself in danger or harm’s way, especially when there’s physical abuse. But it’s also important to consider, you know, I know this isn’t okay, what can I do about it? What’s the best course of action? And it’s not gonna come from a place of reactivity. We wanna sit with it and consider all the options. But, you know, take action as we feel is best, because when something isn’t right, we don’t wanna shove it underneath the carpet, so to speak, and it’s going to affect our health as well and our conscience, you know, we need to stand up for what is right.

28:24 And this is part of the interconnectedness of all of us. All of us deserve that love, care, and respect. And if it’s not being doled out, then we need to, you know, act in accordance with that. So I wanted to, um, you know, our attention of our show today is to highlight this sensitive topic and to bring it out of, you know, the taboo because it is common, 31 to 35% of Americans experiencing this in some way. And it’s not just, you know, around certain groups. This is, you know, something that can be happening in any sort of workplace and in different relationships around you. So take the time to peruse the show notes, go into some more research if you’re really interested in this, passed this show on to someone that you’re concerned about that may be witnessing bullying or going through it themselves. And remember that, um, you know, therapy and guidance and counselors can be really helpful when it comes to really, um, tackling this situation. But the intention of this show was really, um, around highlighting and bringing awareness to it as well. So I will be back here, as always

Kimberly: 29:40 Monday for our next interview show. And until then, please take advantage of the many resources and offerings we have over on the website, willing to other podcasts. I think you would enjoy articles, guided meditations, and food recipes, and many other offerings on there. I send you lots of love. I’m also at on social at _KimberlySnyder and sending you infinite love and appreciation. Namaste.