REBECCA DEMPSTER: Hello, from Resileo. I’m Rebecca. I hope you’re happy and healthy wherever you are. But if not, if you’re struggling at this moment, particularly with bullying, I hope this video will help.

If you’ve experienced bullying at work as a humanitarian, you are not alone. Sadly, bullying and harassment are all too common in our sector. There are way too many reports of toxic work cultures in NGOs and UN agencies. And not surprisingly, these environments can have a very negative impact on the wellbeing and mental health of humanitarians. So, in this video, we’re going to talk about how to cope with the emotional and psychological impact of bullying. We’re not going to get into practical actions that you might take if you’re being bullied at work, so things like documenting, or deciding whether and how to report. But those are really important considerations.

So, I put a couple of links below this video to help you navigate your way through a toxic work environment, if that’s what you’re dealing with. Let me start with a definition of “workplace bullying” so we’re clear about what we mean. Workplace bullying is a pattern of behaviour in which people are repeatedly mistreated at work. That might involve a group, so, for instance, when one person is targeted by a group of others. We see this with exclusion, someone being left out of work and social activities, being gossiped about, made fun of. It could be one on one, where one person repeatedly behaves unreasonably towards another. That happens with peers.

So, for instance, a peer sabotages your work by not sharing vital information or giving wrong information. Or it could be from a supervisor towards their subordinates, or having a supervisor who shouts at you, constantly criticises you, micromanages, or takes credit for your work. The psychological and emotional toll of workplace bullying is pretty huge. For most people, it’s very distressing, and can have a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing, even after the bullying has stopped, or they or the bully has left that work environment. Many people who have been bullied at work end up suffering from depression or develop problems with anxiety. Some are traumatised by what they have gone through, and that’s not really a surprise.

We spend a huge chunk of our waking hours at work, especially in the humanitarian sector. When those waking hours are spent in an environment that isn’t safe, it’s no wonder that our mental health will be affected. Most of us who experience bullying also worry about it outside of work. We replay interactions with the bully or bullies. We try to anticipate when it will happen again or figure out how to make it stop. So, we really never get a break. Instead, we stay in a state of fear and stress. And over time, that really takes a toll on our wellbeing.

So, let’s talk about some ways that you can cope with that negative impact and protect yourself as much as possible from the emotional and psychological toll of bullying. First, though, I want to be really clear that in offering you suggestions, I’m not in any way suggesting that you should or can tolerate bullying. This isn’t about making you tough so that you can put up with terrible treatment at work. You should not be mistreated at work, or anywhere, for that matter. So, I’m not suggesting that if you just do these things, it won’t bother you. I remember being asked that once by someone, and it really broke my heart.

This person came to me and asked for help learning how to be OK with being bullied by a colleague. And I’m not saying that’s impossible, but it’s really hard, because bullying is abusive. It’s hurtful. It’s traumatic. And coping skills don’t change that. They can help, but they don’t change that what’s happening is wrong and potentially harmful. And I say that because I don’t want you to feel like you should just be able to cope, and the problem is you, and you’re not tough enough. And that leads us to the first coping strategy, which is validation, and specifically, validating your experience. Validation means to confirm the truth of something.

So, when I say validate your experience, what I mean is to acknowledge that you are being bullied. When we validate our experiences, when we acknowledge what we’re facing, we are communicating to ourselves that our experience is real, that we are not imagining things, that we can have faith in our own eyes and ears. It may seem simple to validate your experience. You know you’re being bullied. But the nature of bullying is to undermine us. Bullying can leave you questioning yourself. And even if you’re really clear about what’s happening, you may face invalidation from others. The person bullying you or the organisation you work for may downplay it and try and convince you it’s a misunderstanding.

I read recently about a senior manager in a large NGO. He was finally fired after years of creating of toxic work culture. And in his apology, he said something to the effect that, while he recognised his behaviour was wrong, it was done with the best of intentions. And that, my friends. Is invalidation. It’s gaslighting. His excuse was that he was motivated to bring in funds and raise the profile of the organisation. No, sorry, that’s not a valid excuse for bullying, because there is no valid excuse for bullying. It is possible to do excellent work and be an excellent leader without bullying.

And when you experience that bullying is invalidated, it’s not only confusing, it can be painful, and add stress to an already difficult situation. So, naming bullying for what it is, is really important. It doesn’t mean you accept it. It means you acknowledge your reality, even if other people won’t acknowledge it. So that’s number one. Validate your experience. Our second coping strategy is closely related, and that’s to validate your reaction. Just in the same way that validating our reality is important for our wellbeing, validating our thoughts and feelings and behaviours is really important. That means recognising that our thoughts and feelings make sense, that our reaction to what is going on is understandable.

Validation helps to protect your self-esteem and your trust in yourself. If you reject or dismiss your reaction by thinking that you’re being too sensitive or not tough enough or whatever else you might tell yourself, you usually end up feeling worse because you’re impacted by the bullying and by the invalidation. I think, again, it’s important to recognise that invalidation can come from other people as well. You may be told that you’re overreacting or to just forget about it or get over it. That’s just what work is like. And if that’s happening, it’s all the more important for you to validate how you’re feeling. If you are invalidating your reaction, then let me say this really clearly. Workplace bullying is brutal.

It can have a serious impact on mental health. It can be traumatic. You are not imagining how bad it is. It really is that bad and that hard. You’re not crazy. You’re not weak. And you need to tell yourself that. Remind yourself that many other people who have been bullied have felt the same way that you do. Your reaction makes sense. So, validate your experience. Validate your reaction. And our third strategy is to recognise that it’s not your fault. Recognising that bullying isn’t our fault is really important to cut through the unhealthy and unhelpful messages we might be receiving.

People who are being bullied can get caught up in trying to figure out why it’s happening to them or what they can do differently to stop it. And I’m not saying that there aren’t steps you might want to take to reduce being in the line of fire of the bully. But ultimately, bullying is about the person doing it, not the person on the receiving end. You are not being bullied because you are deserving of it in some way, because you’re incompetent, or stupid, or undeserving of a job. There’s just no excuse for bullying. If you are truly terrible at your job, you still don’t deserve to be bullied. That’s not an appropriate response to poor performance.

The behaviours that comprise bullying, like yelling, criticism, micromanaging, those behaviours don’t motivate and pull the best work out of anyone. So, remember that this is not your fault. Our fourth strategy, the butterfly hug, is a really helpful strategy for regulating the emotional distress that comes up with bullying. It’s something you can do immediately following an incident of bullying. In those moments when your distress is high, you feel anxious, shaky, tearful, try doing a butterfly hug. I’m not going to go into details on the neuroscience of the butterfly hug. But I will say that the butterfly hug helps to synchronise the two sides of your brain.

And it shifts you out of the part of your brain that is responsible for fear and stress, which is why it’s so effective. It’s also really simple to do. Let me show you how, and you can just follow along. So, you’re going to make a butterfly with your hands like this by interlocking your thumbs. So, your hands apart, and then cross them, and interlock your thumbs. Bring your hands to your chest, with your fingers resting just below your collarbone. Take a deep breath in. Let it out. And now tap gently with one hand and then the other hand, not both hands at once, alternating one hand, the other hand, in a slow, steady rhythm. You can close your eyes.

You can add in some soothing self-talk. I’ll get through this. I’ll be OK.

Keep doing it until you feel calmer. If you want to do this more subtly, if you’re at your desk or you’re in a vehicle with your colleagues, you can put your hands on your upper arms like this and tap gently in the same way, one hand, and then the other hand, or even tapping on your knees or thighs. Just remember, cross your arms so that your left hand is tapping your right side, and vice versa. And that brings us to the fifth and last tip for coping with bullying. Get some emotional support. Bullying can be really damaging to our mental health. As I said before, it can make you feel hopeless, isolated, depressed, anxious, traumatised.

If you find yourself being bullied, I really encourage you to consider where you can get emotional support to help you through it. It could be a counsellor or therapist, but it doesn’t have to be. You could get support from family, from friends, from your religious community, even from colleagues. So, I would suggest that you have at least one outlet for support outside of work, especially if your colleagues are facing the same toxic work environment you are. What you’re looking for is someone who can hold space for you, someone you can be vulnerable with, someone you can talk to about how you feel, about how the bullying affects you.

That someone should be a supportive presence in your life, someone who you trust, who is emotionally mature, and makes you feel safe and cared about. So here are our five strategies as a recap. Number one, validate your experience. Name bullying for what it is. Two, validate your reaction. Your thoughts and feelings make sense. Three, don’t blame yourself. Four, use the butterfly hug when you need to. And five, get some emotional support. Our field has a long way to go in addressing bullying, but I hope this video will help if it’s something that you’re facing right now. And if you are, my heart goes out to you. Remember that you’re not alone.

And if you know anyone else who is being bullied, please share this video with them. Feeling alone and isolated makes it so much harder to cope. So, if you share this video, you can let them know that you see them, you understand what they’re going through. And remember that at Resileo, we believe that resilience is within your reach. Take care, and we’ll see you in the next video.