one hard thing about my work is I get hate mail sometimes maybe you do too or maybe you just get
exposed to other people's hurtful messages and you feel kind of punched in the gut or
even outraged when you're just going about your business reading articles online scrolling through
your social media feed and then BAM people will say the meanest things even in a pandemic but
there is a miracle that's kind of going on right now with people rising up and helping each other
and taking big risks and doing everything they can think to do to help out but I've noticed that
especially if they're in a leadership role they still get blamed and attacked are you as sensitive
to this as I am my name is Anna Runkle I'm also known as the crappy childhood fairy and today
which I'm taping on day 20 I think the lockdown in my town I want to talk about another kind of
virus of sorts and that is the growing permission some people are giving themselves to tear down put
down attack and mock other people people they don't even know people with opinions they don't
agree with and probably opinions they don't even understand they're just lashing out we've all
seen it maybe you've even put your toe in it and taken part in it a little bit it's really
easy to do and it's almost encouraged actually but for those of us who grew up with childhood
trauma chances are that being exposed to this kind of thing is a trigger and what's so hard
about that is when we're triggered we can end up fighting back in a way that creates even more harm
not just for the other person but for ourselves I I hear from hundreds of people who have lost
years decades of their lives to being caught up in that fight attack mode fighting back and this
was always always a bad thing but now that we need to be working together to get through an
actual worldwide crisis we just can't afford the hate we can't afford to divide people over things
where we may not even know if what we're saying is true we can't afford to lose the contributions of
people who can help but who are getting too torn down to be willing to carry on we need each person
right now we need our ideas our goodness we need our willingness to step up and help and we need
the best that everyone's got inside themselves it's time to show it now so that one day when
this is all over we can be safe and free and in a better world than we had a month ago or even
right now so in this video I want to talk about how to take a stand against people who try to
tear you down in person or online or when you witness someone getting torn down by somebody
else because do you know that saying the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good people to do nothing so let's be the good people let's not do nothing let's take on the
haters okay I'm gonna teach you a formula that I use so stay with me here now first of all I just
want to say that most of what I experienced online is good you guys bring so much joy and meaning
into my life with your comments and emails and your encouragement and your expressions of you
know like relatedness that is the main thing that I experienced online these days I put a
lot of love into my work and I get a lot of love back so I'm really grateful for that and about one
in 10,000 messages I receive is a hate mail or a nasty personal attack okay for example do they say
Oh grow up everyone has trauma you little victim yeah they obviously haven't watched my videos and
they obviously haven't been through trauma or they call me crazy or fraud or one time under
a video where I was teaching about relationships a guy said that you're obviously too ugly for any
man to want you and then you wrote like the evil laughing wha-ha-ha-ha and even I had to laugh but
most of the other hate mail I get it's usually from women which kind of baffles me and there
are two main themes and one is who the hell do I think I am to try to help people or like what
are my credentials and - they complained that even though I give away hundreds of articles and videos
and tools and my free course and free group calls they complain that it costs money for some of my
advanced courses and you know they say this with a lot of name-calling and put-downs about what they
think I believe and I mean they don't have any idea what I believe because you can tell you can
tell they're just lashing out so I almost never respond to haters because it just gets them going
and they can end up polluting the whole community and they they'll go in and put they'll create fake
accounts just to put dislikes on everything you know and I don't want to let them come in and hurt
the people who have shown up here open-hearted and tender and willing to share themselves and working
on themselves that's not what we're here for and I mean considering no one here knows each other or
will likely ever meet it's kind of wonderful isn't it what a gift so if anyone here is listening to
this and you don't like this channel just go somewhere else you don't need to be here there
are thousands of sites on YouTube where you can trash other people you can vent how much you hate
certain people but here I teach what worked for me and I share science that I discover by reading
as a community this is how we do it we don't criticize each other we don't get it all into
political divisive Nisour ideological warfare we don't tell people what to believe or how to heal
not about trauma not about mental health we just let each person share their own experiences and
ideas ok so I'm getting to the juicy part so the other day I got this really yucky message
via email and it was someone who had downloaded some free thing off my website and then she got
an email a couple of days later about one of the paid courses and man this ticked her off she had
very strong ideas about what people should do and believe and she didn't think I was doing it right
she called me a couple of epithets now normally I would just delete hateful comments like that but
for whatever reason it was really bothering me and I broke my own rule and I wrote to her and I'll
tell you what happened with that in a minute but I want to tell you what I wrote if for no other
reason then it might be helpful when you take on a hater sometime either someone who is attacking
you or you hear someone else getting attacked particularly when it's someone who is out there
trying to make a difference doing their best okay we got to protect those people or at least protect
our common purpose in getting the people in our individual countries and throughout the whole
world through this pandemic when some stressed out person is inclined to blame or criticize or say
the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket or thinks they know how everything should be
done in this fast-moving chaotic situation and everyone else is an idiot you can say something
like this this is this is what I wrote to last week's Hayden dear hater okay I didn't say hater
I put their name I got your note I normally don't respond to this kind of thing but I thought today
that I'd try to remind you that when you say these things you are attacking a real person I know that
you're a real person too and I know you're trying to make things better so I just wanted to give
you some encouragement to try a better approach because of your work as a whatever they do you're
in a position to do a great deal of good right now and therefore I urge you to stop attacking
other people and instead give all your heart to developing the best in yourself now to do this
you can tell them this you might want to take a little time for introspection and ask yourself
and here I give a list of questions they go like this one if I didn't learn as a child how to offer
love encouragement and support how can I learn to share these things now with the people whose lives
I touch to when I'm feeling angry and scared how can I stop myself from tearing down other people
3 what is the best outcome that can happen for the people whose lives that I touch for is there
something I can do today to help bring about that best outcome 5 how can I opened my mind
to all the good that other people are doing or that they're trying to do six is there some way
I can help those people to be strong and to keep going seven what do I need to do to take care of
myself even as I serve others eight instead of the way that I feel right now would I feel differently
if I increased my focus on what is good and nine if I see someone making a bad decision or saying
something I believe is wrong or harmful what is a better approach that I can propose and how can I
share my opinion in a way that is likely to be heard and here's how it signed off because you
see and you put your name there we need you right now and not only that but we need the best version
of you so I hope you'll try your best to share your best in these scary times and then I wrote
with love Anna and okay I told you I'd let you know what happened when I sent this note to this
person who had been hating on me she apologized she said she was stressed out and she was sorry
and she even thanked me I wasn't expecting that and in fact when you take people on for engaging
in hostile behavior online you've got to kind of be ready sometimes her gonna there's gonna
be some blowback and you just got to be ready to like delete hi delete hide don't even deal with
it if that's the nature of it and don't take it personally right but when you engage with
angry people there's always the chance you're going to get anger thrown at you if you commit
to reflecting hope and encouragement for others to bring that positive presence everywhere you
go when you're talking to a friend when people are doing something nice for you when you're on
a phone call with the plumber and yes when someone is being unkind to you you just might reach their
heart when you hold your ground with kindness and you're not going to reach their heart and open it
when you meet hate with hate and you definitely shouldn't put yourself in a situation where you
could be hurt or abused but you can shine with the most powerful energy there is and the word
the best word we have for it is light right it's hope and positivity and a refusal to go along with
bashing other people stand up for other people have their backs even the ones you disagree with
this is the time to join together and each do our part to help get all of us safe and connected and
working together from where we are now to that happy day when we're free again we're gonna hug
we're gonna have coffee together there we're gonna sit in classrooms again and offices and
shoe stores and the single people will go on dates and the older people can have the young people all
come over to dinner again it's gonna be great you have childhood PTSD then you're especially
equipped to be compassionate towards people who are kind of getting freaked out right now we know
all about that so let's do our part to get to that happy day let's not take each other for granted we
won't tear down our brothers and sisters who are trying their best we're going to stand
behind them and work with them so that we can get through this as safely and quickly as possible