Dealing with a bully at work

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” - Martin Luther King, Jr

NeuroCoaching helped me overcome a major setback when I became a target of a powerful bully at work‼️

Once in a meeting, I had the courage to put in doubt what she was saying. I will never forget her look 👀 when I said those words.

Her cold, piercing blue eyes 👀 looked at me very briefly saying “you are dead💀 ‼️ “. I noticed that, but then forgot all about it, thinking she’ll get over it. But she didn’t. Not even after I admitted that she was right and my doubt was wrong. I was already in her black book 📖

She started a campaign to undermine my reputation, my authority with my team, my job security, my financial and physical well-being.

It was a full-on cold, calculated, systematic, and sustained personal attack. On me and on my boss, whose position she wanted.

At first I didn’t realise what was going on. But I noticed a change in other colleagues’ behaviour. People who used to be friendly, suddenly were not able to look into my eyes👀 .

The atmosphere became glacial. I started to feel uneasy but still didn’t fully understand what was happening. I tried to talk to her. I wanted to understand what I might change in my behaviour to be able to work with her. I met with a tough rubber wall. Nothing I could do or say would penetrate the wall of indifference. Everything would just bounce back on me with no effect on her.

One day I found out what had been going on since that fatal meeting. I discovered proof that she was actively undermining my position when I heard her telling my team not to listen to me, and telling them to withhold information from me and from my boss.

I began to feel physically sick. I would lie in bed 🛌 feeling unable to get up, completely exhausted and feverish. But no fever‼️🤒. It was like a serious case of flu, but without the symptoms. I felt unable to move, or to do anything. I was unable to get out of bed and completely unable to work. This lasted three days. Three days in bed 🛏. But no sickness – just complete exhaustion, physical, emotional and mental. Later on I learned from a friend that my experience was not an uncommon response to bullying and was known as a breakdown episode. As it turned out, my three day breakdown episode was not nearly as bad as these sometimes are.

After this I said “no way”, I am not going to sacrifice my health for my job! I started to react. I am not someone who’d get easily scared and I fought back by reporting the bully’s behaviour to HR. The human resources representative talked to my team, asking them about the episodes when they were told not to listen to me and to withhold information. They denied everything. They lied to the HR person out of fear of this increasingly powerful and influential bully.

I went to see my doctor. I told him about what was going on. He said: just leave! As soon as possible! But what to do in the meantime? He prescribed medication. Before going to the pharmacy, I checked the medication online and found that it was a pill for heart disease! I didn’t go to the pharmacy.

I turned to NeuroCoaching… I would yawn, stretch, relax, ground myself in my highest values on hourly basis. Each time it was like resetting the brain. I felt the heavy weight lifted off my mind, a wave of relaxation wash over my brain and I would be refreshed and focused for the next hour.

I also tried to find something positive in the bully. No doubt, she has a high level of knowledge and experience, there were things I could learn from her. In some ways it was a shame we couldn’t work together. Also … she has very beautiful hair. I started to call her “a lady with beautiful hair“.

I tried really hard to find positive aspects in the situation. There always are positive aspects. I am now really glad and grateful to the lady with beautiful hair that she pushed me forward!

I decided to enrol in the NeuroCoaching course in order to help others overcome stressful situations, often beyond their control, faster and in a better way.

Thanks to NeuroCoaching strategies, I was able to gather the strength and energy needed to deal with the bully at work. I needed to focus on doing a good job, building alliances and looking for a new opportunity at the same time.

It took a long time for the situation to develop. It took me a long time to realise that it was bullying. It took a long time to give up on the comfort zone that was no longer comfortable. It took a long time to decide to leave a workplace I loved for almost 10 years. But I also realised 10 years is too long and I was becoming a “dinosaur”!

It took a lot of energy to keep positive in a situation where someone is trying to put you down every single day. Where you know that she’s spreading rumours and you can tell from colleagues’ changed behaviour. Where you get demoted to lower and lower assignments. Where everything seems against you. You start having doubts about your own capabilities.

I tried to stay. I tried to resolve the situation by talking to the bully. I tried to gather evidence of her behaviour. She was too powerful and inspired fear in others. Nobody wanted to talk against her and preferred to lie. The situation seemed surreal.

In the beginning, leaving felt like a failure. But I needed to preserve my health. That was my priority. And moving on to new challenges was now due anyway. Deciding to leave took me a long time. But I was lucky enough to find another job quite quickly. In a much better company where people appreciate what I do.

But the trauma of the bullying didn’t end there. I needed more NeuroCoaching to deal with this trauma. Also to start feeling better about the working environment in general. Bullying can leave deep wounds of self-doubt, self-criticism and self-blame. It took me a long time to understand that the bully is to blame, not you!

I found NeuroCoaching provided me with a set of tools for dealing with traumatic memories by disrupting the traumatic memory reconsolidation in a deeply relaxed state of mindful awareness.