Had I known how to express Yoga in Kindergarten when I witnessed my first case of bullying, I would have had all eight or so of those little snot-nosed meanies drop and give me 10 Chaturangas, a full blown Ustrasana, and then a mighty Vrksasana while they all held hands and beamed love from their heart chakras towards the six year old they were tormenting. I remember this little boy like it was yesterday. This poor boy smelled like urine, was always dirty, and never said anything. I remember walking into the school to get a drink of water and around the water fountain was a mob of children standing around the water fountain while this poor, very smelly, and very sad little boy towerd above everyone on the stepping stool in order to reach the water spout. He looked so exposed and so vacant. As I walked in all I heard was,"No one will EVER be your friend!" I felt a jolt in my heart and then I heard a voice in my head say,"Don't do it, don't do it, they'll make fun of you too." Then out of my throat chakra I loudly exclaimed,"I"LL BE YOUR FRIEND!" I'm not really sure what happened after that, maybe I just blocked it out of my memory, but I do remember feeling complete compassion for this boy and was insanely proud of myself for doing the "right thing" at the expense of my own Elementary School Experience.
The bullying experience and suicide of Phoebe Prince is one I can relate to, so much so, I've taken myself back to the 8th grade and re-lived the experience in my mind, my heart still remembers the pain, and I still wonder where the compassion was in these people? Like Phoebe, I was the new girl, 15, and popular with the boys. I was called names (yes, even whore and slut just like Phoebe), stolen from, threatened, egged and Oh My the rumors were XXX rated! I'm not really sure how I made it to school each day, except that I had a few really close friends who loved to laugh (laughter makes everything better, it's the Universal band-aid). I would go home every day and cry, not understanding how anyone could treat another person so horribly. I'm not even sure I ever told my parents what was going on, as they had worries of their own. I do remember falling in-love with Norma Jean (Marilyn Monroe) around this time and would listen to the original Candle in the Wind song from Elton John's 1973 Album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Maybe the fact that Norma Jean (That's who she is to me) committed suicide kept me from "going there". I also thought a lot about the little boy from Kindergarten and wondered how horrible things must be for him if it was this bad for me? Surely there were people who had it worse? At least I had friends I could laugh with. At least I felt compassion in my heart, even for my bullies. I did not know it then, but I was already living the philosophy of yoga, the best I could at age 15,and it carried me through. I did not start practicing asana until age 20, but yoga philosophy was already intertwined in my spirit.
Compassion is the expression of the deep understanding that we are all connected and that we belong to each other. Bullying comes in many forms and adults do it just as much as children do, only adults are usually much more subtle and easily rationalize their behavior. I won't even read Gossip Magazines anymore, because, as I mentioned in my recent entry about gossip, it's also a form of bullying.
So, for Phoebe Prince:
