THE WISE BUTTERFLY’S WAY TO A HEALING
Volume 12

Many children, including some of us, were once bullied at school. Apart from reporting to the school administrators, your child also needs your support emotionally. There may be a combination of emotions that children feel in the event of being bullied. Anger, feelings of injustice, isolation and sadness are the most common emotions that may appear.

Nowadays, children often keep things buried deep in their heart. They avoid telling parents many things, especially as they approach the challenging teen years. This is why parents need to motivate them to speak up. Here are some ways that you can work on that.

Step 1

Parents of a bullied child need to handle their own emotions first before they can assist the child. You can’t bring her out of her emotional state when you yourself are feeling emotional.

Finding peace and having a compassionate heart is the first step for parents. Accept that it is your child’s journey to learn to express, to stand up for herself and to learn to be compassionate as you too learn along with them.

Step 2

When you have found peace and love in your heart, guide your child to express her emotions. Lend a caring ear whilst being as attentive as possible. Some children stop sharing because parents don’t seem to be interested when they speak. This is one of the reasons they feel discouraged and stop sharing anything at all. Once you are aware of the bullying in school, gently prompt your child to describe what happened. If this doesn’t work, try a different approach. Share your own experiences of being bullied, of someone else’s experience or even of a bullying incident you witnessed. Highlight the lessons learnt from them. Work on creating an open communication channel with your child.

Here’s the simple rule – in order for them to open up to you, you have to be open with them first!

Step 3

Guide your child to accept what has happened. Accepting doesn’t mean that we are in agreement with what the bully did. It’s more about accepting them as who they are and leaving the past in the past. We wouldn’t know what the bully has gone through at home. Maybe they grew up in an abusive environment or they came from a broken family. See the bullies through the gentle lens of love.

The only way to stop the bullying that happens with your child is to heal the emotions that they have stored in their body. This is the reason why they keep attracting bullies in their lives. To change the situations, they have to change their emotions and to forgive!

Wise Butterfly Meditation

A gentle fun meditation can be used to help a bullied child. You may guide your child through the process shown below, or join her as a way to motivate her to do it.

1. Prepare a safe space for your child and you to meditate.
2. Guide her to sit cross-legged. Ensure her back is straight.
3. Get her to take a deep breath that goes all the way into her belly, expanding like a balloon. Hold the breath for awhile. Then breathe out slowly.
4. Ask her to take 10 deep breaths with eyes closed. Give a word of praise if she is doing it correctly.
5. Encourage her to imagine herself becoming a wise butterfly that’s flying back to the bullying incident. As the wise butterfly, what is her message for herself ? Can she feel love and forgive everyone involved?
6. See this wise butterfly flipping magical glitter from its wings. The glitter is falling on everyone in the vision, blessing them with peace and love!
7. Ask her to take one final deep breath. Then, she should give a big smile, come back to the room and open up her eyes.