No bullies, no victims

Recent conversations with friends prompted me to dig out a brochure I’d created at the tail end of my career as a marketing communications consultant. Somehow, in the intervening years, this brochure had taken on a luster as a kind of piece de resistance capping my career. But looking at it now, I felt it hardly deserved special mention!

I realized it wasn’t the brochure that was noteworthy — it was the healing that had occurred while creating it that deserved a place of prominence. It’s a healing that is worth saving and sharing because it vividly demonstrated the futility of accepting the prevalent notion that we all—adults and children alike—operate in a world of “bullies” and “victims.”

One of my clients, the CEO of a large organization, had a reputation for being a bully. However, in the two years I’d been serving as his consultant, he’d treated me with nothing but the utmost respect. Then one day, out of nowhere, he yelled at me in a meeting. I was shocked, but didn’t react.

Then, on the way home, I started ruminating: Was I finally seeing what everyone had always said about him? Maybe he really was just a bully. After that, my fear of another outburst made me wary and guarded around him. I became tongue-tied, inarticulate, and reticent to speak.

Shortly thereafter, I presented a prototype for a brochure he’d hired me to create. During the presentation, he made a point of criticizing the project from every angle. Since I’d given both time and careful attention to this project, I was devastated.

When I left the meeting I began to pray.

My prayers started with asking God for the humility to know both how to proceed with the project and how to restore my amicable relationship with this man. Permeating my prayers was this statement from Science and Health: “Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought.” While this statement was familiar to me, I’d always thought of it in the context of praying to find physical healing. For example, I had understood it to mean that I should think of myself as God’s likeness — in other words, spiritual and all good, as defined in the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible. Recognizing this fact would adjust the way I saw myself—first mentally and then physically—and result in Christianly scientific healing.

But this time, I understood “Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought” in a whole new way. It suggested to me looking outward —thinking of others as God’s likeness. And that likeness could not be a bully. Since God is Love, His likeness, male and female, must be loving, generous, and cooperative. God simply didn’t make bullies or, consequently, victims.

I realized that in this view of God’s creation, we are all equal in value and prestige. Equality is a God-given right, regardless of job title. God’s children do not compete or put each other down. We are not in conflict. Furthermore, life is not a game of musical chairs, where there’s not enough good to go around! We each have everything we need, directly from God. From this correct spiritual vantage point, it becomes clear that no one can lack anything—ideas or resources—so there’s no motivation to be greedy or selfish.

This inspired view brought a flash of insight: Instead of going along with the idea that my client was a bully, when I looked at him I could instead see only God’s likeness — the image of good, the expression of Love.

The dread of confrontation with the “corporate bully” soon melted away; I no longer felt trapped in a victim’s role. When I walked into our next meeting — where I would again present the prototype brochure — I was prepared to see the “image and likeness” of God. That was my viewpoint throughout the presentation. My client no longer acted like a “bully,” but instead was a perfect gentleman, respectful, polite. I recognized the man I’d known all along; we had a normal professional exchange. And although no major changes had been made to the brochure since the initial meeting, he enthusiastically approved the prototype brochure.

Expecting to see God’s likeness in everyone we encounter, we can interact within our families and communities freely, unencumbered by fear. It’s possible to see everyone’s priceless purity, which was there all along, and drop any sense of being victimized or bullied.

God's image:

Science and Health
495:15-16

King James Bible
Gen. 1:31 (to .)