Day 16_Selma's Way

Today let's begin with an act that stopped bullies in their tracks without a single blow.

Go to the video and watch the unconventional way Selma fought and won her battle. She refused to allow kids to steal her dignity and sense of value when they made fun of her appearance.

Tell us what you thought about the video when you've finished watching it.

What did you think about Selma's method to overcome her tormentors?

Bullying isn't where we're aiming here.

What we're examining in these steps is the way Selma hung onto her sense of dignity, overcoming hatred with love. She never lost sight of who she was.

She knew how to defend the best part of herself without allowing a sense of shame, offense, self pity or any other negative emotion to get her down. She maintained composure and wore them down instead.

That's a big one. Defeating hate with love. That's the high-water mark.

Look at it this way. There's evil in the world. Evil thrives on spreading hatred. Sometimes it even seeps out of us. Sometimes we see it coming out of family, friends and/or neighbors.

When we're the ones on the receiving end, we tend to drop back, build a wall and nurture a grudge until it emerges as rage and bitterness. If allowed to happen, that means evil won.

Has this ever happened to you? You can be honest here. It's a struggle for most everyone.

Selma saw things from a perspective of inner strength. She had the courage to fight the hate coming at her with love.

How did she do that?

She was humble. Not humiliated. Humble. Noble. Confident enough about herself that she didn't have to prove anything.

She knew something most of us wish we knew at her age:
*Cockiness is not your friend.
*Mistrust and self protective walls are not your friends.
*Getting down on the same level of others who express hateful sentiments is not helpful.

That kind of pride squashes love as it tries to be better than the other person.

If we're really honest, we have to admit that the real motive is to defeat the other person in some way, to make them look bad, to make them look inferior.

If the focus is to be superior to the other person, then how can you treat them with respect, much less love them?

Take a moment to examine your interactions with a person you have the most conflict with.

Do cockiness, self protection or vindication play a part in the escalation? If so, how?

Hmm....here's where you need to be brutally honest with yourself.

How much do you really want to be loved for who you are and to love in return without feeling the need to protect yourself?

Do you really want to have a sense of stability?

The kind of emotion we're talking about is a feeling of contentment, feeling complete, a sense of well being. Everything is working together with a great balance or rhythm. It feels solid.

Get a visual of peace in your mind. What does it look like in your world right now?

Joy is a natural expression of that kind of stability.

It's a happiness that's confident in who you are, where you're going and who's going with you. It bubbles up from feeling a sense of peace that you're headed in the right direction.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how much joy are you experiencing right now?

Get quiet for a moment. Tune out the clutter inside your head and any voices that may be saying 'you can't' or 'you don't deserve'.

Get a mental image of what it would look like to have a life where you feel loved, experience a sense of complete well being and feel really good about that.

Write about what you saw in the space provided.

How willing are you to lay down self-protective tendencies and let a little more love in?

What are you going to do to prove this to yourself?

It's not yours until you fight for it and win. You're a fighter. You can do this.

We'll leave you with that one.