Hi Jana,

Thank you for sharing such an honest and personal story.

You sound like a beautiful person!

I’d like to try and answer your questions but also offer some advice if you don’t mind which I just hope may help you.

To answer your questions first this is does provide an answer but I think you can go beyond this which I’ll say after. As I think I saw above, firstly,  people with insecurities (most people) will not only see your apparent weakness as an opportunity to dominate someone and feel powerful (which their ego craves), but also your calmness may anger them if they see that as a weakness in themselves. This is all subconscious. So they have 2 reasons for attack. It’s built into their brain patterns to behave this way. It doesn’t make it right, but hopefully you see you are definitely not deserving of any attack and it is not a thought out reaction but unfortunately how we evolved as a species.

How you handle the situations is has 2 veey different approaches. To learn how to stick up for yourself and end an attack would normally have required help and encouragement from others (and it doesn’t sound like you’ve had that) and been developed over time. Hopefully you have some support now from your partner and any community you’re in, even this one. There’s a few stages to this. First of all you have to understand that you should not be being attacked, you don’t deserve it, you deserve only love. This is love for your self. You then have to decide on what course of action to take which depends entirely on the circumstances.  At work, bullying can be reported, but elsewhere it can’t unless violent. In both cases, it’s better you start to learn how to deter attacks and this is by loving yourself enough to want to defend yourself. Simply speak your mind and never stop. If someone says a nasty comment towards you keep your calmness, which is your greatest strength in these situations,  and ask for an apology or state that you didn’t like what they said. If you keep a clear head, stay honest, and just simply challenge comments in this way, you will appear strong not someone to be bullied.

You may find confidence to do this difficult to find at first but it’s simply retraining your brain to act like this. Martial arts, especially boxing, can help with confrontation confidence in a safe environment and is good for mind and body. Not required as it doesn’t sound like you would normally like this sort of thing but you may be surprised!!

Alternatively to the above, my more spiritual advice, is that your obvious sensitivity, kindness, softness, calmness is a gift you where born with. We’ve all got egos programmed through genetics and environment. They are all unique and this happens to be you at the moment. There is no need to want to change, no need to change, no need to feel hurt by others commenting, no need to compare yourself to others. To feel hurt by other comments is to allow them to control you. Only you should have control of your emotions. The hurt is in your own interpretation of their attacks. If you observe how they’re just programmed to behave this way and watch them play it out, instead of feeling hurt or attacked,  you may just feel sympathy for them having such little awareness of themselves. Personally,  I am like this. I’m very rarely attacked as I’m a very masculine tough looking guy but if it happens I am always calm and actually,  although this may sound crazy, I love anyone attacking me, verbally or physically (within reason!) as its an opportunity for a different experience that I find joy in. I may laugh or make a joke at someone if they are angry, I may apologise if I am in the wrong and actually agree with them, or I may simply tell them they are wrong. Whatever happens  I do not let it control me as I have learnt over many years, outside influences do not control my mind. If your joy is controlled by things that happen in your life, life is difficult.

Accept who you, accept where you are and accept what you do each day. You are perfect right now and do not need to change anything. You can of course change, but this is just choices changing your story of your life. Just a bit of fun.

Find joy in everything you do. Not happiness. Joy is that deep contentment you find when you are alone in the woods with animals. It’s always there with you. Search for it at more difficult times. This is when you can start to distance yourself from your reactive brain, the ego.  The more you do this, the greater the distance you feel from it and subsequently,  the less any thoughts effect your emotions. When this is working well, you will see you can no longer be attacked as you watch people fire at your ego. You can then just look at your ego from this distance and assess what was said, almost like it was not directed straight at YOU and act accordingly without feeling any change in emotion. Just some background of my experience, I have been bankrupt while responsible for a family, had medical emergencies with family, and recently had my wife want a separation while we still have 3 kids at home. I’ve never felt depressed, sad yes, but even at the worst times, I’ve been aware of the joy of life changing, giving us all a chance to adapt and experience new things. My wife and I have never had an argument or even shouted and we’ve separated with kids seemingly very happy with the changes.  People ask me if I’m OK often and I’m never aware of the emotions they mean. I just feel joy all the time.

So you can either learn to protect yourself, or use all these experiences to deepen your feeling of joy in this world and just enjoy being you.