I think the people that bully you only get to win when you give them so much room to get inside your head. It's bad enough that they bully you physically, but to allow their bullying to extend beyond that, to make you feel bad to your core, well, that's like giving your car to someone who is stealing your wallet.

I get it, though. If you could just turn those feelings off, you would. It's frustrating to allow people, especially people who make us feel bad, to get inside our heads. I've found that for the people who've disappointed me, who've made me angry, etc....that when I find a new perspective on them it's given me access to better feelings than anger for them.

For me it comes from one simple truth: everybody is doing the best they can with the resources they have available to them. The key of that phrase is the second part: "with the resources they have available to them." When someone does something selfish or bad, it stems almost entirely from something in THEM, not ME.

So how messed up is a person on the inside who feels they have to bully someone else? What kind of crappy life do you think a person like that might lead? I think when you begin to see the humanity inside of a person like that, it gives you more access to compassion for them. No, it doesn't make what they are doing right. No, it doesn't drive out all the anger or frustration you might feel. But it does soften your heart towards them a little. And sometimes it allows you to forgive them, because you see them as a another wounded person and not a perpetrator.