A question that we frequently receive, both in workshops
as well as through our YouTube subscription service,
is how do I deal with an abusive boss?
My time at work is turned into a hell.
I have a boss who's irrational, emotionally unstable,
abusive, vindictive, unfeeling, insensitive,
unkind, punitive and on, and on, and on and, of course,
we could substitute any other kind of role for that.
We all had growing up abusive teachers,
people...teachers who would kind of almost take a sadistic pleasure
in pointing out the student's mistakes,
embarrass them, humiliate them.
There are abusive parents, abusive authority figures throughout,
but almost all people who work, at one point or another,
have an experience where their supervisor or their boss
is abusive, either directly so...sometimes sexually abusive...
or indirectly so just by virtue of an attitude.
And, of course, this kind of example,
which abounds in our life
is not any different from any other experience
that we have, whereby we believe that people in our lives or
in a more general sense,
the world outside of us has an effect on us.
Workbook lesson, I think it's Lesson 70, speaks of how salvation
is recognizing that there is nothing outside that can affect us.
There's nothing outside that can make us guilty or be in pain,
and nothing outside of us that could
give us pleasure or give us peace.
When we have an abusive situation in the workplace, our feeling...
our temptation is always to feel unfairly treated,
and most of you are more than aware of the line in the Course
where Jesus says beware of the temptation
to perceive yourself unfairly treated,
because when we do that
we are clearly seeing the Sonship through dualistic eyes.
We are making a dichotomy where there's a bad person
who is committing a sin that becomes the cause of my distress or
the distress of others, meaning that they are sinful,
which means I am innocent
because the ego thought system
is built on the idea of one or the other.
If someone is sinful the other must be innocent or sinless.
And so if I am in an abusive relationship,
whether it's at home, whether it's the family
I grew up with, or in the workplace,
it's tailor made to bring the ego joy
because clearly now I have found the villain.
I am innocent, which means someone else is sinful.
Now this does not mean necessarily
that one should lay down and be a doormat.
We're not talking about behavior, we're talking about an attitude.
We're not saying that a person should stay
in an abusive relationship, whether it's at work
or whether it's in a personal relationship.
This also does not say that you should leave.
What it is saying is that whether you leave or you stay
is a decision that should not be made
until you could be relatively ego-free.
I say "relatively" so that you don't feel you have to be
totally ego-free, which the Course never demands of us,
but relatively ego-free to the extent that we recognize
that I am never upset for the reason I think...
Workbook Lesson 5.
I'm never distressed for the reason I think.
I never feel abused for the reason I think.
I never feel unfairly treated for the reason I think.
That before I could know behaviorally what I should do...
I should speak to my abusive boss, I should leave my job,
I should do something else, before I do anything behaviorally
I should try as best I can to get to that quiet center in my mind.
That's where the Holy Spirit is. That's where Jesus is.
That's where our Teacher is.
And going to that quiet center means
I'm willing to suspend my belief that I am right.
So that another sentence that Course students
are more than familiar with is do you prefer that you be right or happy?
That when I am sure that my judgment of this abusive boss is right
I will never be happy, except from my ego's point of view...
happy that I found another bad guy and I emerge as the innocent victim,
and then getting a lot of people allied with me.
But there's no true happiness there,
because how could there be happiness where there's pain?
How could there be happiness where there's accusation...
where there's judgment?
How could there be happiness when I am denigrating my own self
and saying I am weak and vulnerable and the victim of forces
or people beyond my control?
So what you do with an abusive boss or any situation
which is perceived as causing you pain or discomfort
is as quickly as you can go to your Teacher
and say please help me look at this the way you look at it.
As Jesus told Helen once,
the prayer should be help me look at this brother
through the eyes of peace and not judgment.
This does not excuse people's irrational behavior.
This does not excuse people's abusive behavior or people's egos.
It simply means that someone's choice for an ego
has nothing to do with my peace of mind,
and if I believe it does, that's the lie and that's my problem.
Not what you have done or what you have said,
but the fact that I have chosen the wrong teacher...
the ego that would teach me that I am right in my perception
that I've been unfairly treated.
The only one who could treat me unfairly is myself,
when my decision-making mind chooses the wrong teacher.
That's how I am treated unfairly.
And since I am the perpetrator of that
I am the one who could change it,
and I change it simply by realizing I was wrong.
Thank God I was wrong.
There's another way of looking at this situation.
And the more peaceful I could become with my new Teacher
Who is the Teacher of peace,
then I will know what the appropriate behavior would be in the situation.
So first we want to go within
and then we let the love within our minds
extend through us and guide our behavior.
And there is no right or wrong in behavior,
but there is certainly a right or wrong teacher.