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Bullies are the change makers for humanity

A few months ago someone that I cared about passed away. You may all remember her and probably saw something about it on social media. Her name is Jessica Ainscough. A day or two after she passed away, I wrote a blog post sharing my insights and perspective on her passing and it was met with quite a lot of criticism. For an entire day, I was slammed on Twitter by several Doctors and specialists in the medical faculty and it really affected me. Normally, I can handle quite a lot of confrontation and conflict but on that day, I crumbled a little bit. It hurt and I let them beat me.

Since that day and possibly also due to an accumulation of other situations like this in my past, I made a decision to be less controversial and to not state my opinions or views on topics that could be quite sensitive to the general public. I’ve held myself back and stopped myself from being who I am – someone who stands by his morals and principles, even if other people don’t agree with it.

So today, I am stepping out of my comfort zone and I am going to make another controversial statement. I spent some time yesterday trying to understand why I had such an issue with the word bully. I could list all the negative reasons for it, that validated my feelings but I had trouble figuring out what the upsides were of the word and even the whole concept. I knew that I didn’t want to be aligned with a global movement that wants to eliminate it, stop it or remove it from the planet so I’ve been avoiding doing anything within that space. That was until I realised what bullies actually are and what I want to do within that space to change the way the world perceives this issue.

Bullies are the change makers for humanity

They are people, just like you and me, who push for change on the planet and by the way, we’ve all been bullies in our lives. No one is exempt from being one. We have pushed people, challenged people, confronted people, teased people or animals, been authoritative over others and even hurt people. Every time we have taken that action or others have taken that action towards us, there has been a single unconscious or divine motivation for it and that is to help create change and to create progress.

I was bullied most of my life so it stands to reason that I would be against people who bully others but the truth is, I’m not. In fact, I am an advocate for the bully, not the other way around. It’s easy to play the victim in life. I should know. I’ve done it quite a lot but it is not easy standing in the role of bully. We get criticised for it, condemned for it and even punished for it. In what way does that ever serve a purpose? In my mind, I can’t work it out. As a result, I’m behind the bully and there are a number of reasons why. People who challenge others will do it for a number of reasons and until we are humble enough to see this, the cycle of bullying, in its current form, will continue to permeate through society for years to come.

People who bully others, in the simplest terms possible, perceive they are not getting their needs met, so what they do is push the boundaries of society in order to gain the recognition, validation and praise that they feel they deserve. They also often feel inferior and insignificant and will do whatever they can, sometimes in extremes, to humble the people around them who come across as superior so they can be seen and appreciated for who they are. They are also there to push people, who see themselves as weak, to stand up for themselves and take ownership of who they are, what they believe and what’s important to them. In truth, every time I’ve picked on someone, pushed someone or confronted someone, I did it for those reasons and those alone. I wanted to be valued and appreciated for who I am but I also wanted the other person to grow into themselves and be powerful in their own life.

It’s time we stopped trying to get rid of things we are scared of and take some time to start understanding them instead. This world is full of enough disharmony and disarray and in my opinion, it’s because we don’t take the time to understand our fellow human beings. We act superior, think we’re better, judge people and then proceed to condemn them and label them everything negative under the sun. The media does this and our governments do this and both of them feed their agenda to us in order to perpetuate this cycle purely for financial gain and while this is happening, kids are dying from gun violence in America, drug and alcohol use is going up and suicide rates are increasingly getting worse.

If there is one thing I want you to get out of this blog post today, it’s that you start asking people who challenge you if they’re ok or if they need to talk or if there’s anything that you can do to help them out. Let them know that you care about them instead of putting them down for trying to be seen and heard for who they are and see them as vehicles for change in your life because maybe, just maybe, they’re trying to help you be everything you wished you could be. Have a think about that one.

How 2014 has helped me learn how to be more vulnerable

16 months ago, I arrived back in Australia from living in Canada for one year and separating from the person I thought I would be spending my life with. I was broken, depressed and totally unsure how my life would turn around after what I’d been through. It was unexpected and not something I would have consciously chosen at the time.

Now, as 2014 is coming to a close and as I reflect back, I can definitely say that these last 16 months have been some of the most profound, nurturing, empowering and self-fulfilling in my life. For those of you who have experienced a separation, divorce or break-up that impacted almost every area of your life, this post is for you.

You would think that after what I went through, my desire to open myself up and connect with people would be something I’d prefer to steer away from. That may be true for a lot of other people but I made a decision that I wasn’t going to allow my past to dictate my future. I have worked hard at it this year and even though bits and pieces sneak in when I least expect them to, for the most part, my past is where I’ve left it – behind me.

With all the lessons I have learnt over this past year, there is one that stands out and continues to teach me more as I move forward into 2015. One of the challenges I’ve faced in my life, as a result of being bullied a lot growing up, left me feeling like I needed to protect myself and guard myself from pain, hurt and discomfort. As a result, I pushed people away and also tried so hard to change others in the hope that I could avoid feeling any of the confronting situations I might find myself in. The universe or nature has a way of making sure everything is balanced and my life was no exception. I was scared to drop my guard and be vulnerable and allow myself to experience hurt. Unfortunately and fortunately, I experienced everything I was desperately seeking to run from.

The pain of doing whatever I could, to run from what I perceived could hurt me was enough for me to say to myself – “It’s enough Greg! You need to make some changes.” And that’s exactly what I did and am continuing to do. The more I opened up and allowed myself to be more vulnerable, the bigger the opportunities that started coming into my life. I met someone who I love, who constantly and continuously encourages me, challenges me and inspires me to grow into more of who I am. I stepped out of hiding within my own business to give people a chance to connect with me, work with me and see what I can do to be of service to them. I even took a giant leap in my career towards to securing my financial future as well as the future of my vision and mission within my business and I started the journey of speaking and teaching which is something I love doing more than anything.

I am still a work in progress and there is still more soul searching to do but I am grateful for what I’ve done this year and where I am today. Last year, the idea of this all happening for me was a foreign concept but I couldn’t let all of that stop me from what I know I’m meant to do with my life and that’s to help people transform their challenges into opportunities, open their hearts and minds, empower themselves to be bigger and greater than they ever thought possible and to be inspired from within to go and share their magnificence with as many people as possible.

I’ve learnt that being vulnerable doesn’t mean I’m weak or that I’m necessarily going to be hurt by other people. That’s what I used to think. What I now know is that being vulnerable takes courage and strength because it means I’m putting myself out there, letting people in and even inviting challenge, pain and conflict to be a part of how I live my life.