Bullying - Rising Above The Bully At Home.

By the time I turned 19, I was alternating between latent fury, murderous rage and docile demeanor. Why?

• Latent fury rises when my father starts to threaten any one of us, but wouldn't carry through with it.( once we grew up, he had resorted to threats and abusive belittling and psychological pressure).
• Murderous rage just hits when he threatens my mother, because he couldn't follow through on his threats to us.
• Docile demeanor, I know he wouldn't let me go with my friends, so I'll be a good girl, (yes daddy, no daddy) for as long as he is home. My mother knew all about it and she had no problem, so I'm gone, as long as I get back on my mother's time, she'll cover.

One morning, he was "carrying" on and on, just harassing my mother verbally. We were cooking, and having a lovely conversation, he called her aside and they were talking. No problem there, right?

WRONG!! I realized that he called her aside to chastise her for no reason all! Go figure! After all these years he was still pushing her to tears. That murderous rage hit! I stopped rolling out the dough that I was working on and stood watching for him to make his move. I had the rolling pin in my hand waiting to put a stop to it, once and for all.

He must have felt it, because he turned looked at me, froze and left the house quickly.

The rage left with him, and I slowly realized that I would have murdered my father if he hadn't turned and seen it in my eyes. It felt horrible! I was frustrated, I know what was right and what was wrong, so why did that just happen?

After that my only focus was to get out of my parents home.To know what it was like to make my own decision, to be me, away from the influence of my controlling father.I knew that I needed to be on my own to figure things out, so I left home to create my own space.

For a while, I was in limbo. I felt empty, lonely and miserable, but I was free and that, alone, was my salvation. My freedom kept me from going insane.

In my misery, my mind took me to the only place where I had felt happy and accepted. It took me to our spiritual teachers. This is where I got my inner strength from, we practiced intense meditation here, lots of time to reflect on whatever you choose!

I crave the peace of mind that the intense meditation offered, I can escape to a beautiful place in my mind,all of my own creation every time .

Plus, there are teaching sessions that teaches non violence, peace, love and happiness. All of which I sorely needed to get stronger and to lose the fear that one day, my father would come and drag me back home.

After experiencing the power of mediation, I would go to my own quiet home. Here, I get to be my own boss, make my own decisions and there was no one to chastise me. I would go over everything that happened at home over the years, and I would get angry, or I would cry it out. Eventually crying won out and I cried myself to sleep and I would wake the next morning feeling stronger. More focused and less erratic.

After my "psychological convalescence", I felt renewed and empowered, and eventually, I began to lose some of my anger. I was no longer afraid that there is someone in the shadows waiting to "tear" me down. I was able to relax, and see beauty every where around me. Here are some of the things I saw heard:-

• The birds, the uniqueness of their songs, I realized that they were communicating with each other and the colors in their plumes, I thought of the amazing design of every living thing and how they were built to facilitate their function in life. When I was at home, the birds just sounded noisy.

• Flora, the plant life around us, different types fulfills different uses and needs.
• Human nature, the different types of lives that we all live and the amazing adjustments that some of us can make if we choose to.
• Human ingenuity, should we choose to embrace it. It is wonderful to think about the advancement and evolution that can come from letting our brain do it's work, allow inquiring thoughts to flow.

Below, I have included a video on meditation, for your listening experience. I hope you find it interesting. The pictures to the right shows how you can empower and focus your thoughts on one focal point, along with some positive thinking suggestion to use. You can use prayers to help you focus too.

For my personal life, the power to change so much! These are some of my resolutions for empowering myself.

• Clarity in life, on becoming a parent, my kids comes first. What they say, what they are feeling, etc.
• What makes me happy, my kids' happiness.
• How am I going to achieve that? Love, love, love.
• Understanding, talk about it quietly. Talk, talk.
• For self confidence, support them even if I know that they will fail.

I now, instinctively abhor any form of violence. Basically any parenting style of my father's is unacceptable. Hiding blindly behind religion is not going to happen in my household, you do something wrong, stand on your own and own up to it!

I made the decision to nurture, educate and care for children. My resolve -

• To be positive, so that I would get positive out comes.
• To form personal associations that would only create harmony and happiness.
• To be focused on making a happy life for me and people around me.

These are the main building blocks of my life. I have found that it is not so easy to maintain them, but I still stick with it. I hope that anyone who read these hubs would see that children are individual humans that needs to be respected and guided, not beaten into submission.

Check your parenting methods.

1. Is it causing your child undue stress?
2. Are you bullying your kids in the name of love?
3. Always trust your teenager to make the choices that are right for them.
4. Lead by example, your learns more from observing your words and actions.
5. Remember you can only advise and guide your children.