Imagine you’re in a classroom as a 12-year-old boy. Anxiously, you’re gripping the desk waiting for the 3 p.m. school bell to end the day. Your heart is rapidly beating when RING goes the bell and off you go running as fast as you can to get home to rip off the urine stained sheets your mother has publicly hung out to humiliate you in front of your peers and neighbors. You’re often bullied now for being a chronic bed wetter, a condition you can’t control, and a Jew in an anti-Semitic neighborhood.
It’s crushing, with daily defeats attacking confidence and joy. Your mom is a fierce bully.
There’s no one to help you. Yet, something inside of you gives you strength to believe your life can be different.
The cycle of bullying
Exactly, who is a bully? A bully is someone who often hurts and frightens others preying on “easy target” victims. Such victims are considered inferior and can’t fight back, and that’s tormenting.
This torment is learned behaviors and beliefs passed down generations. It’s a cycle of bullying we must eliminate, starting with toxic beliefs.
These beliefs are like broken pieces of glass locked inside us, sometimes buried so deep we aren’t aware how they are cutting away at our self worth and controlling our actions.
We all can agree we each have suffered at the hands of a bully. We’ve experienced being hurt from bullies and even being a bully ourselves. For some individuals being a bully is a way of life, while others refuse to lead or live a bully’s life. It becomes a deliberate choice: Abuse or Love.
Abusing is easy. The strength of love takes courage in a higher presence of being. A higher power that’s the ultimate power in our universe. There are incredible role models who have endured horrendous abuse yet took the path of love: Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, Christina Aguilera, Patrick Stewart, Charlize Theron and Michael Landon are such role models.
The strength of love prevails
What fascinates me about the story of the 12-year-old living in an abusive household is my father, Michael Landon. He suffered bullying throughout his life, which haunted him until the day he passed, speaking to his deceased mother as if she was beside him while he was dying. Dad passed away on his mother’s birthday, July 1. No matter the scars, the strength of love prevails.
Today, bullying is out of control; innocent lives are attacked daily. What is to become of our youths’ future?
The answer lies in remembering who we are. We are created in a Higher Power of Love. God. Whatever name you may use, there is a Higher Power and that power is LOVE.
The strength of love that resides in you and me. It’s easy to forget. It’s been forgotten, and now it’s time to remember who we really are so we unite in purpose to bring out the best in one another rather than the worst.
It’s easy to be cruel. It’s easier to be naive. I’m here to remind us we are created in this love that’s the strength of love! I’ve seen this presence. Felt the power. My father witnessed this Higher Power at my death bed when I needed a miracle. It was granted through a promise dad made to God. Michael Landon devoted his life to serving God teaching lessons through television about the strength of love used against bullies, to better lives and future generations.
Simple tools
I’ve discovered simple tools to diminish bullying effects. Just imagine we are created in this Love. It releases anger and hurt that eats away at us. Instead of allowing toxic habits and people to hurt us, we look inside and see what it is that attracts this abuse. Equally, the righteous, abusive bully – where is this anger really coming from? Get honest!
This brings us to see gratitude rather than injustice. Gratitude allows for the strength of love to prevail over wrongful thinking. Having a mind set in gratitude is liberating. It opens us to take moral inventory and see outdated beliefs easily hiding. It’s these hidden beliefs that sabotage us to make unhealthy decisions based on anger and hurt that gets passed down. So it’s vital to clean out these old beliefs allowing healthy, positive beliefs to renew.
It’s this process of eradicating old, cyclic toxic beliefs and pass on positive love that creates strength in love. We need this now.
I invite us to unite believing in the power our role models used to eradicate the bully’s cycle. We can deliberately bring out the best in ourselves and others, especially when most tested.
Lastly, believe: “Love, it’s what lets us live on. It’s the most powerful force in the universe. Don’t ever take it for granted.” -Michael Landon
Cheryl Landon is a Coronado resident and is a daughter of actor Michael Landon.
