Stand up!!

#SayNoToBullying

April 15, 2019 /

On April 10th communities across the world united in wearing pink. To show being proud of diversity. Raise awareness to stop homophobia, transphobia and any and all forms of bullying. The beautiful day was dubbed The International Day of Pink. It began when two straight high school students saw a gay student wearing a pink shirt being bullied. The two students intervened but wanted to do more to prevent bullying. They decided to purchase pink shirts and a few days later got everyone at their school to arrive wearing pink, to take a stand in solidarity. Their message was “anyone can bully, anyone can be victimized by bullying but together we can stop it”. Each year on the second Wednesday of April, millions of people wear pink to show we are not tolerating any form of bullying and to take a stand against it! Discrimination comes in so many forms… Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism and sadly much more. The Day of Pink has been described as “a commitment to being open minded, accepting differences and learning to respect each other”. Such a beautiful message! Bullying creates hate, violence and can heartbreakingly sometimes leads to suicide. I did some research on bullying victims and the correlation to suicide. Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University. (insert sound of my heart breaking) Another study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying and according to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying. 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of a fear of being bullied. That last line is disturbing… 160,000 kids stay at home EVERY DAY because they are afraid of being bullied!! How devastating and quite frankly, disgusting! We are in the year 2019! We have levelled up so much with technology, education, resources but yet as human beings it is getting worse? It is mind boggling to me! For me personally, being mean or disrespectful to anyone hurts my heart! Isn’t love and kindness so much more gratifying than judging and hate?! On April 1st, I started a training course for two weeks for my profession. The first day my wonderful teacher asked us students to shout out some classroom rules so we could better learn and enjoy our time in class. Respect, having an open mind, no judging.. those were just a few we gave her. When I say the last two weeks were such an amazing time filled with camaraderie and positive energy is an understatement! Those three rules were implicated to the fullest and we were all from different walks of life. Backgrounds of Guiana, India, China, Portugal, Nigeria, Jerusalem and many more, and that wasn’t even the slightest focus in our minds apart from when wanting to happily learn about each others culture. We learned, laughed and had fun together as humans who share this earth. It was one of the most enjoyable times in my life and I have made some great memories and life long friends. Isn’t that the way it should be!

I did some research on Canada alone and what I found was pretty disturbing considering we are thought of around the world as the country filled with kind people… 64% of kids had been bullied at school. 12% were bullied regularly (once or more a week). 13% bullied other students regularly (once or more a week). 72% observed bullying at school. 64% considered bullying a normal part of school life. 20-50% said bullying can be a good thing, that it makes people tougher and is a good way to solve problems. (How horrible) 25-33% said bullying is sometimes OK and that it is OK to pick on losers. 61-80% said bullies are often popular and enjoy high status among their peers and 90% of parents are familiar with cyber bullying… those stats are cringe worthy!! They are all pretty tummy turning but the one that got me the most is 61-80% said bullies are often popular? Big question mark there!! HOW do we live in a society that thinks bullying is cool?? In this day and age of amazingly inspiring rallies and protests for great causes, how are we falling short on thinking mean people who want to make others feel bad to make themselves feel better, are cool?? I’m sure we all have been victims of bullying somehow, it is not solely children who go through it. Adults go through it as well. We all sadly can experience some form of bullying from anyone.. work and school peers, strangers who don’t know anything about us, on social media and sometimes even from friends, family or partners. I will never understand how making someone feel small, hurting their feelings, saying awful things, can make anyone feel good! Take that and compare it to saying loving, kind and uplifting words and really which one is more gratifying? I’m sure most of us would say the latter, so why is bullying still one of the biggest problems we face today?! Unfortunately, one person alone cant change the ways of the world but if we all start to do our part in putting a stop to bullying maybe it can lead to a snowball effect of kindness. We all have our days, someone makes us mad, we’re in a bad mood or whatever the case but if we proactively try to not spew it over onto someone else that is a start. There are so many of us on this planet and we will not all mesh well together, in those cases use the “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” method. Freedom of speech is a huge privilege in our free world for sure. As a blogger I am grateful for that, we sometimes need to speak about uncomfortable things to help ourselves heal, throw awareness out into the world hopefully helping others in the process but to actively pick on people for the way they dress, who they like, if they like books as opposed to sports, their nationality etc. is not something to be considered “Cool”. That to me is the total OPPOSITE of cool! Cool is liking people BECAUSE they are different from us, being kind for no reason, making someones day better with the smallest act of kindness!! I also found that the top form of bullying is name calling at 63.5% but the second is shoving/hitting at 40%… I will never be able to comprehend how putting your hands on someone in a hurtful way is satisfying. It is very scary to think we live in a world that some people are okay with these things. For those of you who have experienced bullying of any kind or still are, you are not alone. Many of us have, in all different shapes and forms. It is hard as humans to not let others affect us, even if they aren’t people we love. I read a quote the other day that said “peoples behaviours towards you are a reflection of themselves, not of you!” Try to remember that! You know who you are, don’t let anyone ever change that! Bullies are NOT cool. They are people who like to make themselves feel better by making others feel small, that is definitely not cool! Life and people are beautiful and yes there are gonna be some terrible times or mean people that pass through our lives but try your hardest to focus on the people who know who you truly are and love you. I heard in a TED talk that when we hear or see unloving things we should try not to dwell on them because as humans we naturally do, but to focus on the love we do have! Friends, family, peers, a pet.. there is so much more love than hate in our lives! Know that when peoples bad actions affect you and make you sad that’s actually because you have a beautiful heart and if it’s hard to handle speak to someone, don’t hold it in! Also, if you see someone else getting bullied, let someone know or ask them how they are doing. Standing together against bullies is an amazing thing that we should all be proud to do! To the two students who started The Day of Pink, you are amazing and how proud you should be of yourselves! I will forever wear pink on that day and so should all of us to stand up against bullies and live together in solidarity towards an inspiring and beautiful cause!!

If you are experiencing bullying or know anyone who is, there are so many resources to contact so you can express your feelings with no judgement or find more information that are all totally anonymous. Don’t be afraid to speak up! You are stronger than you think!

www.stopabully.ca
www.redcross.ca
www.kidshelpphone.ca
1(800)668-6868

Peace, love & it’s cool to be kind xoxo

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