I was bullied as a kid. That experience shaped me. For a large part of my childhood I didn’t believe I had the right to be who I was. I wasn’t allowed and didn’t allow myself to have an identity, and when I tried to have an identity, it wasn’t shaped internally but externally to meet the requirements of others. When I was finally able to understand and realize who I was/am that became something extremely precious to me. Something that needed to be protected and something I wasn’t going to allow anybody to take away from me. I came to the belief – which I still hold to – that any violence directed towards me is a challenge to who I am and my right to be who I am. This “right” to be who you are, without question, is at the core of what I teach. If who you are doesn’t cause hurt and pain to others, then nobody has the right to challenge that. Who you are shouldn’t be defined by your need to be “right” in every interaction you have e.g., there are times to stand up for who you are, and there are times to walk away etc. Being who you are shouldn’t be used as an excuse for being an arsehole, unless that is who you actually are. Who you are and your identity should be something much more. Something you actually value and see the worth in. Something that is internally rather than externally defined, and something that is worth defending when challenged. When confronting someone who is prepared to use physical violence against you, you are dealing with an individual who isn’t viewing you as a person but as an object or vehicle for them to use, in order to achieve their own means/ends.  

                Many people are too apologetic about who they are, including some of their actions. I remember reading about a case where a sexual predator used to hang around supermarkets/grocery stores looking for people to victimize. He specifically looked for women who apologized when someone bumped their shopping cart into theirs i.e., who vocally took the blame for someone else’s infraction. His belief – and he was shown to be correct in this – was that those who did this were so averse to any confrontation that they’d avoid one by taking the blame/responsibility for something they hadn’t done. Once he’d witnessed such an interaction, he’d wait for the person in the parking lot and abduct them by simply telling them that they were coming with him etc. There is a big difference between being polite and courteous and signaling yourself out as a potential victim. Whilst we shouldn’t live our lives as if we are in a prison yard being watched by predatory individuals who are searching for someone to victimize, we should realize that there may be occasions when we are in an environment/location where there are predators who will pick up on certain actions and behaviors which may see them identify us as potential targets. As a general rule, we should apologize when we are wrong and not readily accept blame when we aren’t. That should be part of our identity. This doesn’t mean we need to establish ourselves as right when it’s not questioned; nobody likes that guy and we’re more likely to escalate situations that would otherwise be benign.

Emotionally/physiologically, fear and anger are pretty much the same thing. It is how we interpret our emotional/physiological state that defines whether we are angry or fearful. This is the difference between “feelings” and “emotions”. How we interpret the same emotional/physiological state determines whether we are in fight or flight mode. If we “feel” scared we are in flight, if we “feel” angry/aggressive we are in fight mode. This means we have the potential to flip a cognitive switch and realize/understand that we have a choice and are in control of how we view a situation/confrontation. We can choose to see ourselves as fulfilling the submissive role or we can decide that the challenge to our identity is met with the full force of who we are i.e., with righteous anger. Righteous anger doesn’t have to manifest itself as an uncontrolled verbal and physical outburst. It can be displayed by simply enforcing a boundary, that if it were crossed would compromise who you are. Simply saying “no” to a request made of you, should not be seen as rejecting someone but rather as an establishment of who you are. Saying “no” isn’t being impolite or rude, it’s something that establishes your identity in the eyes of the other party.

In any communication you make to someone there are three parts at play, a process that happens largely subconsciously: there is the message itself, your identity, and your belief about how the other person perceives you. Often when dealing with aggressive and/or challenging communication, the other person’s perception of you becomes overly important i.e., you don’t want to be seen in the way that they seem to perceive you. This can see us acquiesce to demands that we don’t want to meet, or possibly over-react to demands that have no challenge to who we are e.g., we may say “yes” to a demand/request we’re not comfortable with or enforce a boundary that isn’t actually being crossed or challenged etc. When we understand who we are and can put our identity back into our communication rather than over-react to what we believe other people’s perception of us is, we are able to communicate more effectively, as whilst we need to recognize how others see us, we make sure that this isn’t used to define us/who we are. If that communication involves a challenge to our identity then that is the time – appropriate to context – to respond with righteous anger and to have in your head the mantra of “not me”.