- Clients come to my office all the time
and say the same thing, "You know I was bullied,
"30 years ago, I'm now like 45.
"My whole life is still affected by bullying.
"I never got over it, I've never recovered from it."
And I've always been interested in
what is it that makes some kids bully?
And what is it that causes some kids to get bullied?
(inspiring music)
What is the message that bullies give out?
And what is the message
that children who get bullied give out?
So even when they move schools,
they still get bullied.
And what I realised is that actually,
bullies, and kids who get bullied both have unmet needs.
So a bully's unmet need is I need to be important,
I need to be significant, I need to stand out.
And the kids who get bullied,
their unmet needs are I need to be connected,
I need to belong, and I also need to feel significant.
And when I work with kids who are bullies,
I never say, "Why do you do that?
"why are you behaving like that?"
I ask them, "What's happened to you?
"What's gone on in your life
"that's made you become a bully
"just to try to get these needs you have met."
When I work with kids who are being bullied,
I explain something to them,
"Look, this is your life today.
"But it's not your life.
"It's not your life for the rest of your life,
"it's just your life today."
Because kids who are being bullied,
and actually bullies who are both doing the same thing,
they're trying to make everyone like them.
And you know we try so hard to make people like us,
when in fact, here's a fact,
if you want people to like you, you have to like you.
When you can really, really like yourself,
and feel great about yourself,
other people will like you too.
We like people who like themselves.
We like confidence, it's really reassuring.
So, you must stop trying to make other people like you,
stop trying to impress people.
Instead, you need to fall in love with yourself.
'Cause when you start to change your thinking,
everything changes, 'cause guess what,
everything that's going on in your life
starts with a thought.
The problem is that when we're kids,
we form these thoughts, I'm not good enough,
it's my fault people don't like me.
It's my fault.
You see, as a child, you made beliefs with irrational,
with a mind of a little kid.
My dad doesn't love me so I'm not lovable.
My mom is always at work.
I guess work is more important than me.
So you can see a tiny kid looks around at their life
and says, "My parents prefer my kid sister."
"My parents like my older brother,
"he's better than me."
And you see, once you buy into these beliefs
when you're five, or six, or three, or four,
the problem is that you keep them.
And today we're gonna start changing those beliefs.
When you're a little kid, you needed to belong,
and you needed everyone else to meet your needs.
Now you're a bit older,
you can start to meet some of your needs yourself,
even if you start to just meet a few of these needs,
everything will change.
'Cause when you've been on the planet for just a few years,
by the time you were maybe five,
you had a belief that says,
I'm not like other kids 'cause I haven't got a dad.
You use the understanding of a small child
to say things like, "I don't have a dad, my mom's not here"
and you added to every belief something that all kids do,
for the rest of my life.
People don't love me, it will always be like that.
I don't have what other kids have for the rest of my life.
I can't get enough love forever, and ever, and ever.
And then you start to feel different.
And I tell all my clients the same thing, and it's true.
If you think you're different, guess what,
you're the same as everyone, because our greatest fear,
our greatest fear is to think we're different.
And if you think you're different,
then, hey, you're the same as everyone.
But when you buy into that,
I'm different, I don't fit in,
my mom's an alcoholic, my dad's always working,
then you start to get this belief that says,
what I want is not available to me.
And that's not true.
So here's a question, how old were you
when you began to think that you were different?
How old were you when you decided
that you were not like other kids
and the love you wanted, the things you wanted
were not available?
You see we set up all these rules for life where
even not eight years old, we set up these rules.
And you're gonna work out,
why did I get that belief?
When you haven't been on the planet for very long,
events happen.
And when the event happens, you make sense of that event,
you make sense of that event
with the mind of a little kid,
and you form a belief,
even though that belief really isn't true.
So, even if you thought you were ugly,
or poor, or different, or not the favourite,
or not wanted, or not loved,
that's not true.
'Cause we're all the same.
We all need to feel connected.
We all need to feel loved.
You can start meeting your unmet needs yourself.
And when you can do that,
everything is going to change.
When you can meet your unmet needs, it's a game changer.
(magical music)
People that are happy don't bully,
and that's the most important thing to understand.
So, yeah we all know someone
that seems to get a lot of pleasure from being a bully.
We see people who seem to get pride from being a bully.
But I know that isn't true.
I work with people all the time
who are full of guilt because they were a bully,
and they feel really bad about what they did.
But they were just unhappy.
And if you get bullied at school, or at home,
or online, you can still choose not to let that in,
no matter what else is going on in your world.
You get to choose.
(hopeful music)