Is There a Bully in Your Brain?
By Nadine Briggs

Our minds never stop thinking. We are constantly bombarded with an ongoing dialogue from within our own minds. What are we saying to ourselves? Is all of it true? Are we always nice or kind to ourselves?

We all agree that bullying is bad and never to bully anyone, but how often do you or your kids think:

"I'm not good enough."

"I'm going to lose," or "I'm a loser."

"Why should I even try? I'm not going to be able to do it."

"She isn't going to want to play with me."

"He'll think I'm weird if I talk to him."

"I'm so stupid," or "I'm in idiot."

Whoa! When we really think about it, we speak this sort of language to ourselves on a regular basis. If anyone else ever said similar things to us, we would consider that person as a bully. It's a good thing that we have control over our thoughts, because our own internal bully has got to go!

Teach kids to listen for this type of self-deprecating thought pattern and change the channel in their brain.

Instead of: "I'm not good enough" say instead "why not me?"

Change "I'm going to lose.", to "I will try my best."

Instead of, "Why should I even try? I'm not going to be able to do it.", change the brain to say "I'll just try my best and if I can't do it or I'm not the best at it, I know there are other things I'm really good at."

Rather than thinking that you are stupid, consider what you might be missing and tell yourself that you will figure out the issue with further thought or assistance.

Remember that if you take a chance and the person doesn't want to play with you or thinks you are weird for talking to them, he or she is not somebody who you want as a friend anyway.

We have control over our thoughts. It's not going to be easy to change this pattern of thinking, but we can learn to overcome the the bully in our brain. We wouldn't treat our friends that way, let's not treat ourselves that way.