Posted April 11, Reviewed by Michelle Quirk. Last month, in my post Self-Confidence Vs. Self-Esteem , I wrote that I searched for the source of my introversion by mentally backtracking my childhood history. I noted that I was bullied in elementary school by older kids because I was attracting them by the low self-esteem they could read on my face, and how my self-esteem was low because my mother bullied me at home.
I concluded by sharing that I was learning how to re-parent my inner child in order to overcome the limiting beliefs acquired back then that continue to control me today. I have continued my inner child healing work by recalling as many details of my childhood as possible.
And, over the past month, I had two related epiphanies. I remembered how my parents frequently yelled at me to hold my shoulders back. In this syndrome, the chest sinks and the heart area collapses making the breath shallow and slow.
The bullies at my school may not have been reading low self-esteem in my face; they may have noticed my stooped and bent-over posture as I walked to school every day. As I approached in my defensive posture, it did just the opposite; it signaled the bullies that someone weak and powerless was coming their way.
And, like hyenas finding a wounded gazelle on the Serengeti, they attacked often and viciously. It was more than the bullies It all began in the weeks before I started elementary school when the older kids in the neighborhood told me that I should prepare for getting spanked a lot by my teachers and the principal see my post: Bully Victims Are Created by Unstable Households.
