Feeling under the gun? Don’t let the bullies win

As any therapist or frustrated mismatched couple will tell you, you cannot change another person. You can inspire them to change and support them in the process of changing, but you yourself cannot change them.

It’s no different with politicians or governments. You cannot force them to change. You can only change yourself and thereby change your own reality.

If you are being held at gunpoint and about to be shot, do you ask your attacker to hang on while you get 20,000 people to sign a petition saying you should live? I’d sign it for you, but it wouldn’t do much good. You’d probably still get shot, and reasoning with your assailant or appealing to his higher self or his conscience probably wouldn’t save your skin either. And it’s hard to convincingly threaten someone who’s holding a gun to your head when all you’ve got is words or tears.

Gunmen (and gunwomen) don’t usually respond too well to that approach. It’s bang, bang, job done, money in the bank—if they’re a hired gun, paid by someone higher up, as most serious gunpersons are.

Bullies or bullets: just a matter of degree

What we need to understand is that, for whatever misguided reason, our governments are deliberately harming us. It therefore makes no sense to try to convince them that what they’re doing is harmful, inhuman, criminal or destructive for everyone. They already know this and telling them so is a waste of our precious time—and a fabulous boon to their cause, since we keep ourselves distracted with a strategy that will never, ever work, while they get on with what they’re doing.

What we need to do instead is what we would ideally do if our relationship were not working: change our behaviour. In a relationship, that might mean walking out the door; it might mean making healthy new choices; or it might mean a conversation with some new boundaries being drawn, and then some tangible consequences if those boundaries are not respected. There’s no point in saying you don’t deserve to be treated like this and that you’re just not going to take it… if you’re still there taking it. It’s not very compelling, and it doesn’t command the kind of respect or outcome you’re probably gunning for, figuratively speaking.

But working merely with circumstances is still a bit like trying to change someone, since circumstances are the result of certain dynamics. They are never random. They are the inevitable outcome of some kind of dynamic that we may not realize we are perpetuating.

Perspective is everything

So let’s zoom out for a moment and look at the dynamics in our current global situation.

Forget about the actual circumstances and the players involved. Just look at what’s happening. We are being controlled through fear, civil liberties are being taken away, human rights are being violated, lies are covering up the truth, and we no longer seem to have a voice or a choice in how we live our lives. We feel powerless.

If we accept that only we can change ourselves, and once we finally understand that we must change if we want to survive, then what are we being challenged to do? What is the opportunity being presented to us? What is missing in us that allowed this situation to develop in the first place?

If we are secure within ourselves, with good boundaries, solid values, healthy self-worth, a strong voice, and a commitment to living responsibly with integrity and truth, making wise choices, respecting ourselves and others, saying NO to abuse or disrespect, protecting our natural environment and actually walking this talk, do you think we would be in this position of subservience today?

What if the current situation is the direct result of our progressive disempowerment, which paved the way for opportunistic political bullies to feed on the weak, meek and self-doubting?

We know how bullies work, and they usually back down when confronted by a greater force, because bullies are cowards who prey on people’s insecurities. They are rarely powerful in their own right, and they only win if people fear them and do not resist …or if people are generally fearful and timid, lacking confidence and thereby presenting an easy target.

Right now, many of us feel exhausted and defeated by the inhuman things happening in our world. We may verbally object in the strongest possible ways, but we are still trying to get governments and politicians to change and play nice. The main reason we feel defeated and emotionally spent is that we are not trusting or nourishing ourselves, spending time in nature or spiritual explorations. We are not feeding ourselves with positive ideas, inspiration, laughter, a dedication to the truth or faith in our capacity to make a difference. A great deal of our energy gets wasted on fear (which uses up more energy than almost anything else) when we focus on the horrors around us—sharing them, dreading them, talking about them, being outraged by them.

This weakens us physically and emotionally, collectively reinforcing our apparent powerlessness. Very little of our precious energy is being invested in ourselves, in collectively inspiring each other, in creating the world we want (versus focusing on the one we don’t) and in making personal choices that feed that ideal reality. Even if some of the worst offenders are removed, that will not change us. It will not create a more positive, healthy world where our humanity counts and we all suddenly feel empowered and fulfilled.

This is our challenge, our right and our responsibility—to power up, to find ways to boost our self-worth, address our insecurities, drop limiting negative beliefs, reconnect with nature, tap into our creative capacities, and change our minds about who and what we truly are.

Only we can bring down the bullies—by seeing what they really represent and rising to that challenge. New laws won’t fix this, and the rule of law has already collapsed, as a direct result of us losing touch with the laws that govern our existence. By that, I mean that we will only win when we understand and leverage the laws of the universe—the deeper truth about what we can actually accomplish with our hearts, minds and spirits, applying the principles of quantum physics, neuroscience and emotional broadcasting via our own electromagnetism, and using simple, practical tools for creating a world we love.

We are stellar stuff—the same stuff that makes up the stars and the cosmos. We are designed to be autonomous, stand-alone, self-sufficient units, no batteries required. Dependency is the exact opposite of autonomy. Being tethered to anything—visibly or invisibly—makes us dependent on that thing. We are no longer autonomous if we depend on it for our survival. That is where we now stand: dependent on a technology that is taking us down, that is providing the perfect means for the takeover that will leave us so powerless there will be no coming back from it, and on authorities that clearly do not have our best interests at heart or are compromised by dysfunction or fear.

Right now, we can make a comeback—if we choose autonomy over dependence; if we give up leaning on the digital crutch that keeps us weak; and if we activate the higher faculties that we are being pushed to reclaim in order to turn things around.

Being scared and scattered is a recipe for failure. If we are scared, we get scattered, which means we can’t focus, which means we can’t see what is really going on, tap into our higher selves or powerfully invest our energy in envisioning and creating the world we want.