In this episode, we discuss the fact that adult bullies do exist and I give tangible ways to ensure that you don’t become one. This episode is based off of my article that was published in The Candidly.

It was your typical Tuesday in the life of an influencer. I was sitting at a fancy blogger brunch, surrounded by the familiar faces of my writer, editor, and blogger friends and acquaintances. As we pushed around the food on our plates and sipped on Rosé, I noticed the mumblings of a conversation between, Nina* and Jane*.

Nina, “Yeah, the Kardashian’s made curves cool, but that trend is so over.” She then turns, laughs, points to me and says, “Haha, I mean, Candy has the biggest ass here!” My mouth went dry when the meaning of what she said had sunk in. Was she making fun of my body? Was she low-key calling me fat? Was she trying to make the others girl laugh at my expense? Was she exerting her position as the Alpha at the table? Is this was body-shaming felt like? It was clear that the answer was, ‘Yes to all of the above.’

I suppose she had expected the rest of the table to erupt into laughter with her, but when her mean-spirited dig was met with silence, she responded, “Oh, I mean, I wish my butt was bigger!” This back-handed follow-up comment really solidified her mean girl status.

My friend Eva* looked at me and mouthed, “Are you okay?” I nodded that I was but that was a lie. Even though the other girls didn’t join in on making fun of my shape, I felt a hot wave of shame wash all over my body. I bit my lower lip in an effort to stifle the tears that were threatening to break free from my eyes.

Here I was, an accomplished content creator surrounded by my industry peers at a professional event being reduced to feeling like a 12 year old girl in the cafeteria lunchroom that no one wanted to sit with. Weren’t we as adults, and especially as women, supposed to be evolved enough to not take pleasure in inflicting emotional and physical pain on others? Weren’t we supposed to know that bringing someone else down doesn’t bring ourselves up? Apparently not.

When I got back home after the brunch, I started to think about the roots of adult bullying and what was causing another accomplished woman to feel the need to belittle another accomplished woman in the presence of others. But more importantly, I thought of tangible ways to ensure that I never became like her. That I never projected my own pain, hurt, and insecurities onto other people as a way to temporarily elevate my own feeling of being less than. After all, ‘hurt people, hurt people.’

So in an effort to repurpose the pain, shame, and embarrassment that I felt that day, I’ve pulled together a few key insights on how not to become an adult bully.

Identify your own triggers and get some perspective
Getting clear on who you are and what makes you tick is imperative to harnessing your true strength and inner peace. When you’re able to be self-aware enough to know what areas in your life you still need to heal, then you’re able to identify when those triggers are being activated and address them with grace, love, and compassion, rather than lashing out at the nearest target.

Usually people bully other people because something about that person or experience triggers a pre-existing insecurity or wound within that person. Until we are able to heal our own wounds, we’ll keep wounding others. Actively working on your own self-awareness can be scary, tough, and at-times exhausting, but healing your wounds and taking back your power to choose differently when triggered is the work that we must do in order to become whole, healed, and healthy human beings.