We can only share what we are and feel.
Often, what we externalise is simply an extension of what is felt inside. Many a sensitive person has been the unconsciously selected and subliminally targeted by a bully.
To me, a bully is not an ogre or a monster, they are someone in deep pain revealing through their behaviours how far away or isolated from love they feel within.
When we are victimised or persecuted in ways emotional and even physical, we can think the other to be callous and cruel, but more often than not they are disturbed so substantially they are hurting intensely. Almost as if their own thoughts are screaming in pain; it overflows and becomes an outpouring to others. The other simply experiences what the abuser, for instance, endures daily, hourly, momentarily in their head and psyche.
Seen in this light there, it may remain inexcusable yet understanding arises for it is not in our nature to behave in such ways, at least not our higher nature.
One thing I realised when observing such behaviour in myself and in others, if only tacitly or marginally, was that some of the greatest harm I’ve ever experienced was my own thoughts I’ve held against and towards myself.
Indeed, whenever I have cringed at those who seem to violate the innocent and vulnerable, one of the things I learnt to do was to go within and look for the ways I had done this to my own inner child. I would ask how I had denied my own innocence, playfulness, purity, and feelings and seen how clearly and blatantly that affected by own life and healing journey.
Lessons abound everywhere and how we interpret the world and events and put meaning to it can often reveal whether the event will strengthen or weaken us.
Anything that happens to us can be utilised to make us better and stronger as we grow from and beyond it.
May the light of awareness shine brightly on us, in all ways!