Guest, Holly Brown, discusses "Could you be an adult bully?"

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

818-572-2910. Good day, good day, good day everyone. How are you on this beautiful Tuesday or whatever day it is? You're listening to the program. We are having a heat streak here, hot streak here in Atlanta. It's like 90-plus and it's only what, May 16th? Which reminds me, happy, happy, happy Mother's Day. I know it was Sunday, but you know I love moms, even though I'm not one other than to four-legged Charlie sitting next to me. So happy, happy, happy Mother's Day, and I hope you had a beautiful, beautiful celebration. With your family on Sunday. But yes, it is a gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous spring day and I'm very excited that you're here because we have an awesome conversation today with our guest and it is one that I hold dear to my heart and I never try to forget the kind of the topic of discussion that we're having today around adult bullying. But before we get to that, just a few smaller things. Deborah is in the house, so if you're out there and you have questions, you have stories, you have challenges specifically around adult bullying and this conversation, please feel free to put it out on our Facebook page or out on Twitter. You can even send your messages privately. This is a touchy subject for many, so if you need to do a private message on Facebook or shoot me a direct message on Twitter, Deborah would be able to see those things, but at the same time you could always email me too, BernadetteBoas@sheddingthebitch.com. And I would just make sure that Holly, our guest, received those whether it's during the program or afterwards. Of course you always have an opportunity to call in if you're listening live, 1-818-572-2910. Again, we don't need to mention your name, but at the same time, if you need help, I— we really all just want to provide you that support in the Shedding the Bitch community in order to get your questions, stories, or challenges addressed. So be sure to leverage that. And you can be on blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and today's episode, scroll down and you'll find a chat room. And I'm always live on the chat room and watch it throughout the program. So many of you will just chat in your question there as opposed to getting online, and that's fine too. I'll bring it up in the conversation, again, never having to mention who you are if need be. All right, so over the next couple weeks, we have a couple of great conversations coming up. And before we dive into today's, Donna Signorelli, I— introduced her topic of conversation over the last several weeks, and I'm really looking forward to talking with her. She leads up a cause called the Custody Project. So you can go online. And being that it was Mother's Day week and really honoring those mothers out there, we certainly want to support those mothers that might be in the midst of some real custody battles or real issues with your partner or your spouse. As far as the children are concerned. So the Custody Project really focuses on those women, those mothers who have children and they're trying to find resources to help them through some difficult legal visitation and other, just supporting those children during those challenging times. So that'll be next week. And then a returning guest that you all love and I love too, is Jeffrey Tobias Halter, and he is kind of a spokesperson, and he's an expert when it comes to leveraging women in the workplace. His book, Why Women, is all around the business case and helping companies and executives to realize just the value and the return on investment that is quantifiable, let alone qualifiable, of leveraging women in key roles, especially leadership roles in organizations. So, he'll be coming in— actually, I'm going to— he's here in Atlanta, so he'll be coming into my studio and we're going to videotape that and maybe even go live during the program to ensure that you definitely have an opportunity to engage with him in that conversation. And then we open up June— do you believe it? It's June. We're almost halfway through. Through the year. And it will be Ask Bernadette. So that will be the first Tuesday of June. So be sure to start posting your questions, stories, and challenges, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, wherever the case might be. Is it about your career? Is it about your business if you're a business owner? Is it about something going on in your life? If I can't answer them, I will also have time to go out and get expert resources. At the same time, it's an opportunity to get your questions answered right away and then get even more detail during that 1-hour program of our Shedding the Bits program in order to get even more tips, advice, and sometimes, just sometimes, tough love. All right, so I want to get into this conversation, so I'm going to leave it at that. I kind of want to tell you a story first. It will be brief and then we'll get— we'll take a break and we'll get into this conversation. But there is this woman who after 25, 30 years in what she deemed to be a very, very successful career, all of a sudden one day walked into work and was fired. Now, no real explanation. Just basically, you know, you're not welcome anymore, you're not needed anymore, and we're moving on to, you know, other individuals, and you no longer have a job. So she leaves, and very perplexed, spends many months kind of digging deep trying to find out why. Why was she fired? Why did she just lose her career? Why did a mentor of hers of 12 years, who was also her boss, all of a sudden throw her out like bathwater, losing many friends, let alone the career, as a result of the fact that now she doesn't have that corporate identity and all the nice posh trappings that come with it. So in her self-discovery, she realizes, in a lot of pain and a lot of shame and a lot of disgust and a lot of humiliation and a lot of regret that she was the ultimate corporate bitch. Now it didn't just play out in her business career. It played out in her business— oh, I'm sorry, her personal life as well. And she was devastated at the fact that for so many years, even decades, she had no clue. And if she did, she didn't want to acknowledge it. So this conversation today is key because your behavior, your actions, your words matter. And our guest is going to kind of help you get a clue as to whether it's you or somebody else if you're acting out in an adult bullying way. Now, I want to share with you that that individual, that woman, that had it all, lost it all is me. I spent the last 8, 9, 10 years not trying to make up for things, but more so trying to process and understand that and really find the individual, the woman, the business leader I want to be and I deserve to be and you deserve to have as a whatever capacity. Therefore, that's why this conversation is very key for me because I know that people don't recognize themselves as a bully. If you don't like that word, you don't like the word bitch, you don't like whatever word it is, you just at least need to be open to the idea that maybe there's some behaviors and actions and words that you're using that might be projected as ineffective and unproductive and could eventually have severe impacts on your life. So in our conversation with our guest, "Could You Be an Adult Bully?" it's all about, in its most distilled form, that bullying is simply one person projecting his or her own insecurity onto another. And this destructive coping mechanism can endure into adulthood. Adult bullying can damage, and I will say will damage, you professionally. It'll damage your connections, your friendships, your self-esteem, and even your earning potential. And it is quite common. In fact, you may be a bully and not even realize it. So listen for— and you're going to learn the ingredients of adult bullying. Why do people bully? How does changing this behavior begin? And what are some examples of adult bullying? Because, again, you may not recognize them. You may not understand them as well. I didn't. So the rich question before we go off onto break and come back and introduce our guests, the rich question I want you to keep in mind is what behaviors or actions or words Have you been maybe commented about? Maybe someone came to you and said that they weren't happy with, you know, how you handled something, or maybe they weren't, they weren't, you know, they weren't real comfortable with how you approached them or how you communicated with them, or even in email how, you know, it was received in a certain way. Now, I don't want you to, you know, worry about whether or not you recognize that as them telling you you're a bully or not. I just want you to kind of think about as we go through this conversation with our guests, do you have current behaviors, actions, or words right now in your day-in, day-out life at home or at work that could be projected as a bully? All right? And then your rich tags with us today would be adult bullying and shed the bitch. Okay, got it. All right, so we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back, we're going to introduce our guest, and I'm going to make sure you have all the resources to reach out to her. And if you do have any of your own questions, stories, or challenges, you'll know exactly where you need to go to get the answers to your, to your situation. All right, we will be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate-sized clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. All right, let's get into this. Could you be an adult bully? Holly Brown lives with her husband and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she's a practicing marriage and family therapist. Her blog, Bonding Time, is featured on psychcentral.com, a mental health website with 1.5 million visitors per month. Now for more information in regards to that, you can go to Holly Brown's books.com. And in her latest psychological thriller, This Is Not Over, two women clash after a house rental gone wrong in an escalating war of words that leads to a shocking conclusion. Welcome to the program, Holly.

Hi, thanks so much for having me.

Oh, I'm so looking forward to it. This conversation, as I mentioned, is dear to my heart, um, for ways that people are often surprised that I actually acknowledge. So help us and help the listeners really understand right off the bat, what is adult bullying?

Adult bullying, I would say, has 3 main ingredients. So there's being intolerant of differences and there's denigrating other people to boost your own self-esteem and then shutting down your empathy in order to do that. So I think of— the shutting down of empathy as a really core aspect of it, especially as I think people in general are noticing that our society is moving in a meaner direction. And a lot of things happen online, but I feel like the meanness online can also bleed into real life where there's just a situation or just situations where people, they don't really think how it feels to be another person, where they're not taking other people's perspective, where we're just taking our own and we're sort of taking our own interests above all other people. And so I think that that That sort of psychological part of it is really important to notice because that's part of what makes all the bullying behaviors happen is that psychological process.

Sure. Now, I kind of couldn't scribble fast enough, but after that intolerant of other people and before setting down of empathy, there was a second element there. I just want to make sure we've all heard. What was that second element?

Denigrating other people to boost your own self-esteem.

Ah, yeah, that's an important one. Denigrating other people. And it's amazing how— well, we're going to need to talk about that. I won't even say that right now because people view denigration as a very varying behavior. So setting down of empathy, what does that look like? 'Cause a lot of people do confuse kind of their behavior. They don't even recognize it. They don't see that they're acting out in a certain way. And that setting down of empathy just hit me hard. How would you help people visualize what that looks like when you set down empathy?

It looks like when you see online trolling and cyberbullying and you see those dogpiles of people just insulting other people. As if they're not talking to a person, as if there's not a person who's the object of what they're saying. I think that that's where it's happening. And I think you can notice it internally when you have, when there's no "on the other hand." You know, when it's kind of like you're exclusively looking at it as if this person is this way, and there's no, hmm, maybe something's going on in my perspective of that person, or my perception of that person, or what else might be going on for that person. So I think it's a healthy way to approach our lives and ourselves and other people to say, "Hmm, but what else am I not seeing? What are my blind spots?" And I think when people shut down their empathy, they're not interested in doing that. They're not interested in recognizing that it's a perspective, that you are inhabiting a perspective. It's not the reality or the truth of another individual. It's the perspective you're adopting. And if you're adopting a perspective that makes someone only awful and therefore worthy of being mistreated, then something's going wrong in your perspective. Because everybody deserves to be treated, you know, as if they're a valuable human being, right? So if you're not doing that, then the problem isn't them, it's your perspective.

Yeah, I absolutely— and I'm picturing, and I know we're going to talk about examples, but I'll just throw out mine right now when it comes to this because I would never have said it in a way or described it saying, okay, I was setting down empathy. But I used to, you know, when I was in that state of being, so to speak, and yes, I was definitely a bully. You know, even when it came to road rage, for instance, someone like kind of cuts me off and they're— I mean, I got myself so worked up and so angry and was just violently angst is the only way I can project it. Never considering the fact that, you know, that person might be on, you know, rushing to the hospital or that person might be you know, having a heart attack while they're driving. You know what I mean? And I just never considered them. I just considered the impact it had on me and I didn't like it and therefore I just would lash out on it. Would that describe kind of setting down empathy?

Yes, actually that's— yeah, that's a really good example because I think it gets into the other part of the bully mentality which is this tendency to feel morally right. Like as if they're teaching someone a lesson. Like the victims are asking for it in some way, right, because if they they hadn't come into traffic in that way, da, da, da. Like they need to be called out and they need to be corrected. And so there's a— the bully actually often feels that they're retaliating. They don't, you know, like if you were maybe in the corporate environment where you had, you know, people that you were supervising and you felt that they weren't doing their best job, you might feel like you're morally right to come down on them, you know. And that whereas another way to approach it would be like looking at what's going on for them, how do you encourage them, how do you hold them accountable without humiliating them. And so I think that one of the ways that adult bullying kind of differs a little bit from childhood bullying, because I don't know that children are actually convinced they're morally right. They're just sort of acting out. They're doing what they're doing. But adults, I think, are much more likely to think, "I don't like that person and I don't need to hide it and they deserve what's coming. They deserve for me to be brutally honest with them about what kind of people they are." You know, there's that moral sort of rectitude is is, I think, part of what really is a big part of adult bullying.

Right. Right. Well, I can't argue that, although it makes me feel even— it drums up some things that I went through, like trying to discover all this stuff about me, which is fine. And that's what we want, right? That's what the purpose of our conversation is, to get people to really start kind of considering kind of their behavior, if it isn't a bullying style, what it's not only doing to other people but what it's doing to themselves. Right? So how— I mean, how common is adult bullying? I mean, we know how common kid bullying is, but how common is adult bullying out there, whether it is in the social arena or in a workplace?

I think it's hard to get exact figures. I mean, I think that there— I think sometimes there will be— I saw there was like a BuzzFeed article that had a study where they were looking at 2,702 respondents talking about how they had experienced Twitter. And just the percentages were kind of astounding in terms of how many had been targeted. Like I think it was at least 55 of them had been targeted by abusive tweets or direct messages. And the list of kind of the things that were were being done, I mean, a lot of it's misogynistic in nature, a lot of it's homophobic, racist. A quarter reported death threats. A quarter said there were tweets encouraging them to kill themselves. Women tend to get threatened with rape, you know. So there's— so I know, like, in that, it tends to, you know, be especially extreme. It's much harder to identify in terms of in the workplace, like, because there's such a wide variety of behaviors, and some are not obvious. Like, a big one, I think, among adults is for people to feel that they're just being ignored, that they're not worthy of being acknowledged, that they come into the room and people don't interact with them, that people are not interested in them, that they're humiliated in the way people just sort of overlook them. So those— kind of the isolation and the ostracism. And so that's a part of it. So it's hard to— I think it's a hard thing to quantify, but it seems clear that it's on the rise. And I don't know if it's in part because people feel free to do it in their online personas. And then some of that anger, you know, kind of trick— and that willingness to cross those lines I think then trickles into your in-person behavior as well. That if you're shutting down your empathy in one arena, that it can transfer to others. So it's hard to get exact numbers, but I definitely— I think in general when you talk to people, there's a feeling that it's— just things are meaner than they were. Right, right. Do you find that as well?

Oh, no, absolutely. I just— well, one, I think there's more exposure to it. There's just more kind of in-your-face ways for people to do it. I mean, yes, and I think that there's just the environment out there right now of, you know, some significant leaders of the world, business, government, whatever, are not helping the situation. And then I think that, you know, there's just— people don't know how to handle it and don't know how to manage it, and therefore it continues. So yeah, I think there's definitely an elevation of it, you know. And not only that, but society has changed, right? I'm sure you've seen this where, you know, women, for instance— I mean, the world's gotten really ugly even with women, to women because of the fact that now they're out in the workplace and now they're in a competitive environment and now they have their own ambitions and greed. So it's all kind of, you know, kind of combining on top of one another. Do you have some simple examples of what you've been seeing as far as adult bullying is concerned that maybe, you know, some people might be able to relate to and/or at least get their head wrapped around?

Yeah, I think that a lot of them definitely come from social media. And I think in the social media realm, a lot of it is about kind of a public shaming. And that, like what I was mentioning about sort of feeling morally right and being rightfully outraged, that that feels good. And that a lot of people sort of band together and they unite in this virtual outrage and the feeling that their behavior is justified, the victim brought it on themselves, and they kind of do this sort of internet dogpile. So I think—

Yeah.

—there's the famous one where Donald Trump, when he hadn't yet secured the Republican nomination, he became irate with Megyn Kelly after the Republican debate, and that there were lots of tweets about her being overrated, and a bimbo, and unprofessional, and he dubbed her Crazy Megyn. And so there were a lot of people who— I think she said it was a very terrible and frightening year for her afterwards, that she got a lot of hateful threats on social media, and she would worry when she walked down the street with her children and a lot of it was about rape. And that is a disturbing theme that a lot of times, like about how people will rape you, and about tweeting the location, trying to look at people's locations so that you can say where they are so that people can conceivably go rape them. So that's like an extremely disturbing sort of trend. And I think for sort of less famous people, I saw an article in Huffington Post about a 36-year-old woman who had received an anonymous note that was mailed to her house. And it read, "Women who weigh 300 pounds should not wear yoga pants." pants. She actually turned it around and she shared the note on Facebook which was really cool. She said, "I'm a sensitive woman and I despise this kind of cruelty." And all of these other people would post pictures of themselves in leggings in solidarity. So that's one of the kinds of stories that I kind of like where social media is not always like a force for evil either. It's like you can find this community of people who also know what it's like when you don't conform to exactly how you're supposed to look and the weight you're supposed to be and those sorts of things. But I do think I think sort of the fat shaming, slut shaming, parent shaming, I think that that's something that's online, but also just in the zeitgeist of kind of being out in the world that people have an opinion about how you're supposed to look, and how you're supposed to be acting, and how you're supposed to be raising your kids. And I think that people getting together and kind of all gossiping about how other people are doing it, or how they're doing it wrong, I think that we've all seen those kinds kinds of things in social circles where you feel like it's hard to break into a mommy's group. It's hard to break into certain places where there's a feeling that you have to conform in a very specific way or you'll be left out. So that was just kind of a range of things. So I was curious if any of those struck a chord with you where it would be good to talk more about them. I was just giving kind of an overview.

Right, right. Well, and I think what touched me was social media is an animal in itself and we definitely will talk about that. I'm just also kind of very curious about, well, obviously as a practicing marriage and family therapist that you are, and I want everybody to go to hollybrownbooks.com. You won't necessarily learn a lot about her there about her therapy practice. That's what we're going to talk about. But definitely take a look at— I'm interested in the slant of how she's using her expertise and experience in her books, which are very cool. We're going to talk about those, too. So we have a lot to talk about. But, so what— how did your practice and the work that you do kind of steer you in this focus on adult bullying? That was very interesting to me.

Yes, I've definitely worked with people who were in really toxic work environments, and then I work with people who are in toxic home environments. So, and that there's, you know, abusive elements in, you know, some people they have abusive elements in both, and then it's like we're trying to figure out how to extricate them from all of that stuff. And I think one of the things that I've noticed in my practice is that it's really sad is that I think I think once people are bullied, their self-esteem drops and then it makes them more likely to be bullied again because it's harder for them to— it somehow becomes harder for them to recognize those sorts of environments because they tend to believe the idea that they have things coming to them. Once you believe that you deserve it, you don't think of it as you're being bullied. You think of it as people are sort of treating you badly because that's who you are and because that's how people have always treated you. And so I think that that's a theme I've definitely noticed in my practice. And so some of it, they're people who are having online experiences, but sometimes it's people who it's in the home, like I said, and some of it's people in the workplace. But I think their ability to sort of recognize that it's not them is a big part of what we're doing, or that the part that is them is the part that has sort of mistakenly believed themselves to not have worth and value, and therefore it's becomes really hard to assert themselves and hard to remove themselves from those environments. So there's a lot of self-esteem work tends to be involved with, you know, with victims. And then I've had some experiences where I've worked with people who've had to discover, like you were saying, that the way they were relating to people in the world that they had felt justified in doing, that they didn't name it as adult bullying, you know, and they felt embarrassed and ashamed when they recognize that's what it was, you know, and it took a while in therapy to be able to use that word with them without feeling like they're going to sort of, you know, flee and think that I'm being, you know, super judgmental of them. But I think eventually naming it as such, I think, becomes empowering because they can say, I don't want to be this kind— I'm not in fact this kind of person, so this behavior isn't representative of me, and so I need to change all of these other things so that I'm behaving in line with with the kind of person that I want to be and with the kind of world I want to create.

Right. Now, what makes— so I can kind of get a really clear idea of how people land up in your office to discuss kind of the family, marriage, you know, maybe child interaction, communication that might be perceived as bullying, but how do people show up in your practice when it comes to them maybe from a business perspective that they may be kind of on this cusp of being an adult bully? You know, is it because, you know, their job's at risk or someone mentioned something at work that they, you know, that they have a— that they're, you know, have an issue that needs to get addressed or something's going to happen? I mean, how do business professionals kind of wake up to the idea that I might need to get some, you know, some therapy work to kind of identify what's going on and what's impacting me negatively when it comes to my role.

It's— what I found is it's rarely the presenting issue. So it's rarely the thing that they're coming in saying, like, I think there's something really wrong with the way I'm interacting, you know, with my team, or, you know, they— like they often come in and think they're unhappy at work or maybe they've gotten a bad evaluation or, you know, or they can tell things aren't going very well. But they don't— it's very rare that they come in already like self-aware and knowing I'm a big part of the problem. You know, so I think that's the interesting part of the work is how to sort of finesse it, you know, so that you're not again making someone feel really judged and wanting to get away from you, but instead that they recognize that you're actually on their team and you're trying to help them better their lives and feel better about themselves too, because they often don't know they have a self-esteem issue either. They think that they're— like if they're successful especially, that they— because I've done some work with folks who are out in Silicon Valley and all these big tech companies and are doing are really, you know, doing well. And so they often don't think of themselves as having a self-esteem problem. But I think often that's the heart of why they're interacting with other people in the sort of negative way that they are. So I think coming around to helping them understand how they really feel about themselves and that they really want to feel better and that they don't want to derive their positive feeling about themselves from sort of how they beat down other people. Around them, that that's— because it's not a lasting thing. Like, if you get your self-esteem from denigrating other people, it's like almost like you need another fix. It's just not permanent. You always need to go back and sort of try to build yourself up some more. It's just— so it's not really the way to long-term feel better about yourself. It's like the way you have to keep interacting with people in this way to keep reminding yourself, "I'm really okay and they're really not." So I think getting into those issues, it's— it can take a little while, but then it's really great work when you get there. Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I've never— I didn't see a therapist, you know, and I don't believe I ever needed to because I worked through it myself and kind of was willing to confront all of that stuff. But everything you're saying has hairs come from making my hairs on my arms raise up because it's exactly how I was and exactly what I needed to do in order to then move move forward. And I'm often asked— it's funny because I'll be asked, and I don't know if you hear this or your clients do, but I'll be asked like, do you really think people can change? Do you really think you're no longer a bully? And I'm like, yeah, you know, of course people can change. And no, I don't— I'm so far from that person anymore, um, that I can't even believe I was ever her. But I was. And, you know, I'm not going I'm not going to deny that. I'm just not going to live it any longer. So that's very interesting, very interesting. All right. We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, I really want to address and have Holly speak to just how social media is playing a role. We've touched on it. We've talked about it, but I definitely have some questions for her in regards to that. So we'll be right back with Holly Brown, and please go to HollyBrown.com. Books.com. And because we're soon going to be talking about her amazing books, we'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, confront, and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Bernadette's book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium-sized businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at mediarelations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch Shedding the Bitch Radio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back everyone. We are talking with Holly Brown, who is a practicing marriage and family therapist. She's also a novelist, and we'll get to that in a few minutes. And yet she's also an expert, and that's the question I've been wanting to ask an expert when it comes to bullying. So would you say, Holly, that your bullying focus—because it now is translating into your writing—has come as a result of your practice, or is there any kind of personal experience maybe that you dealt with that then kind of led you in that direction of helping in this area? Specific area?

Fortunately, I haven't had much— many personal experiences in terms of bullying, and even in terms of, you know, the cyberbullying. And I think I haven't— I think I hung back and I wasn't terribly involved in social media for a long time because I was very conscious of the potential, you know, for that. And it's a shame because it's a way, you know, since I've gotten more involved, and it is a way to connect with people. And there is a lot of positivity that can come your way as well. I think the most— I think there was one time where I actually had done a post that was about gun violence on my Psych Central blog, Bonding Time. And there were a lot of really angry and nasty comments that came through on that because they— I was largely talking about gun violence as a mental health problem and approaching it as where money needs to go in terms of mental health. So I did not think I was making any comment on the Second Amendment or these particular issues. And people who were strong on that were really angry, and it was shocking because it was the most comments I had ever gotten on any post ever, and they were incredibly hostile. Wow. And so I ended up— And I sort of wrote anyone who wanted to engage around the mental health aspects of gun violence, and how gun control interact. I said you can interact with me about that, but anything personal basically got deleted. So that was kind of a little bit stressful. But I did, and you know, when you do get that thought about like, hmm, does anyone live near you who's like toting a gun? So it does make you a little bit nervous. And I would say, but it was really only that one post, so it's certainly not a very extensive experience, because none of those people appeared to ever comment on any other posts that I wrote. But I think, so that was a little bit of a, of the flavor of it. And I was grateful that that was sort of the only flavor I had of that. But it did let me know what that experience of feeling a little bit hunted was like. So it was a good empathy builder in that sense for other people that I was working with, or the population I was writing for on my blog. So yeah, it was kind of eye-opening in that way.

Damn, damn, damn, damn. And what's amazing to me, and I was thinking about it while you were mentioning that, you used the term mental health a few times, and I want to remind everybody she has a blog, Bonding Time. You can just go to psychcentral.com and look for Holly Brown, and her blog is Bonding Time. It's a mental health website. So what always stuns me, and I'd love your opinion as to how you approach it, but when people hear the term mental health, like mental health around guns, they automatically go to it as a negative, like you must be talking about the degradation of mental health as opposed to talking about the working, the empowering, the enriching of your mental health. You know, do you see that, that it's often, you know, it's often perceived and received as a negative as opposed to what it's meant to be, and that is to be empowering your mental health and not necessarily looking at it on the negative side of the world?

Yeah, I think that people who— when they still feel a stigma against therapy, I think it's people who are thinking of it as something's really wrong with me and I'm going to go and I'm going to get this diagnosis and it's going to sort of follow me around. And it's gonna, you know, it's a scary idea of something being wrong with me. I think that there's both the sides that it can be a way that you sort of are preventive, right? The way that you kind of look at the ways you think and process and, you know, like grief therapy. I think grief is a really sort of a universal experience, right, after a loss. And so therapy can be a way to just help you move through that, you know, like and be as healthy as possible about the way you do it. And so it's not saying there's something long-term wrong with you. But I do— I actually think of diagnosis as a really empowering idea, because I think if you're able to say, oh, there's a name for this cluster of symptoms, right, for this experience I've been having, and there's other people who have that same experience, and some of them are really brilliant and wonderful, and, you know, and there's a large community and there's people and there's no reason to be ashamed of this aspect of myself. It's just that everybody's working, you know, having to work from something, right? Everyone's having to work through something and figure out how to sort of maximize their potential and minimize their deficits. I mean, we've all got to work with that. So yeah, I do think that sometimes that's where the stigma comes in is the idea that it's like it's saying that something's really wrong with you and maybe they feel fear that something's wrong with them that can't be improved upon. And I, like you, totally believe in change and have seen amazing changes in people. So I believe it can all— we can always be improved.

Absolutely. And the fact that, you know, this whole industry is based on, you know, trying to go at it in a more proactive, self-aware way as opposed to, you know, feeling as if you're going to, you know, kind of be labeled, so to speak, which I really want to address that because you said something, you used the term "follow me around." So I had been to a therapist when I was in my 20s and I lost a very close friend and I was having issues with it. So I don't hide from the fact that, hey, I'll be the first one on someone's couch or whatever when it comes to helping me work through a problem. Unfortunately, a lot of people aren't like that. So let's just make sure everyone is really clear, and I'll let the expert answer this question. The conversations, the— you're capturing it in a piece of paper or on your computer. Therapy is a very confidential, privacy-protected service, correct?

It is, except there's a few caveats. One is if you're using your insurance, Theoretically, I think that the insurance plan could ask for progress notes or other sort of documentation to say why they're paying for the service. I have not— I used to be on insurance panels. I'm not anymore for a variety of reasons. But they could ask for— I've never seen them ask for progress notes where they knew specifics beyond the diagnosis code, you know. But theoretically they could. You know, so there, you know, and there's some, like, there's some exceptions to confidentiality, but they're about, like, harm, you know, if I, you know, if the therapist felt you were, you know, a danger to yourself or others, if there was child abuse or elder abuse or— so for the most part, it is a really confidential process. And you have to sign a waiver to talk to any family member or something. So we can't release things to anyone in your life. For sure. That's just not— we could be sued. Right, exactly.

Okay, so that's what I wanted to make sure everybody heard. And plus, the healthcare industry also has a lot of privacy requirements as well, so it's not like they could be openly sharing unless there's a situation that calls for that, from like an employer.

Right, your employer should not have access to your mental health records. Right. Yeah, okay. Unless somehow there's— I don't know the rules with insurance and because your employer pay, you know, if your employer is paying, you know, I'm not sure that would be— and I don't know if that varies from, you know, from different comp— you know, by state to state, if, you know, I'm not entirely sure what they— my understanding is that they should not have access.

Right, right. That would be my understanding too, but it's been a while since I've had to had to, because even throughout my career when I did have corporate company insurance, I didn't hesitate. If I needed to go and see somebody, they could label me anything that they wanted. I just needed to get myself taken care of. So, you know, I mean, and that's just what all of you should think about is you just want people like Holly are there to do that. Now I want to talk about your book, but I do want to ask a question. Um, so do you work— so you have an active practice right now. So if anyone's listening and they're in San Francisco, can they reach out to you? They can.

Um, I'm in Alameda, which is right across the bay from San Francisco. So it's called the East Bay. It's where Oakland is, and Oakland's the other biggest city, like, on that side. Yes, but I am in the San in the San Francisco Bay Area. And it's hollybrownmst.com. Say that one more time. My website is hollybrownmst.com. So M as in marriage, F as in family, T as in therapist.

Gotcha. Okay. And do you do anything when it comes to really solving this adult bullying problem or, you know, whatever? Do you do anything virtually, online, on phone calls, or is it just kind of your practice face-to-face?

Yeah, I'm pretty much face-to-face, I think, because there's just so many nuances and body language and things that aren't captured, you know, on Skype or on video calls. So I like to be able to see everything that's going on and feel everything that's going on in the room. So yeah, I can find it. To in-person. Okay.

So, and the reason why I was asking that is one, making sure if anybody does have an opportunity to work with Holly, please reach out. More so, I just was very intrigued how you then took, you know, took this subject matter and then how I'm expecting that it kind of bleeds into your book, This Is Not Over. So tell us a little bit about your writing, because you have a couple of books. So tell us a little bit about your writing and your book, This Is Not Over.

Right. So it's my third book from HarperCollins. And so it's sort of an escalating cat and mouse between these two characters, Miranda and Dawn. And they first interact after Dawn stays in Miranda's vacation rental. So it's like, through an Airbnb, VRBO type situation. I called it getaway.com. And so Miranda accuses Dawn of leaving— yeah, because it is sort of in keeping with the theme of the book which is that Dawn kind of wants to get away from her real life and live like a rich person for these little spans of time. And so after Miranda accuses Dawn of leaving stained sheets and then withholds the security deposit, Dawn is incredibly offended. She fires back this angry email. And she doesn't get what she wants which is an apology and her deposit back. Takes it up a level, which is leaving a review called "Beware of Your Host." And it's deliberately designed to hurt Miranda's business and to strike back. And I think of that as sort of a common way that adult bullying starts with, for example, leaving a review that's nastier than it needs to be or more personal. And you have the excuse that it's somehow in the public interest and you're warning other people, but the intention is actually personal harm. And so she's trying to vindicate herself because as you learn about Dawn through the course of the book, one of the worst things you can call Dawn based on her history and her psychology is dirty, and that's what she feels. She's just been called. And so then Miranda is sort of like firing back and trying to say, "No, no, I'm not this person," and take down this review. And they kind of— they're going back and forth. And they kind of dehumanize one another because they don't really know the other person. They just know what they've Googled. So they know the other person's social media presence. And that can feel like knowledge, but it's not really, you know, because it just really serves to reinforce certain misperceptions. Miranda thinks that Dawn is a beautiful young gold digger when that's not really the reality of Dawn's life. And Dawn thinks Miranda is this privileged doctor's wife and that's kind of all she is. And there's all this other stuff going on for each of them that basically puts fuel in the fire and then they kind of keep escalating until there's sort of a mutually assured destruction happening between them.

Wow. And I loved your— last, very last teasing line that says, "You'll be surprised at the shocking conclusion." And that immediately, especially as a screenwriter that I am, I was like all of a sudden like, "Ooh, that I have to check it out. I have to check it out." So I'm assuming I can find it on Amazon. Yeah, it was a great hook. It was a great hook. Yes, yes. So I'm assuming it's on Amazon as much as it's on hollybrownbooks.com, correct?

Yes, it's everywhere. So it's in bookstores. If it's not in your local library, you can request it. It's good to support libraries. It's good to let them know what you want to read. Yes, it is. But yeah, it's available. So it's from HarperCollins, which means it's widely distributed pretty much everywhere. Right, right.

That's fabulous. And it's summertime, everyone, or we're getting close very quickly, so you're going to need that beach book. You're going to need that book to crawl, like, into your little cubby and just kind of get, you know, into this psychological thriller that is called This Is Not Over. And so you did mention a couple of other books, so everyone please go to hollybrownbooks.com. And check out her books in that regard as well. But we're not done. I'm just going to take a quick break and when we come back I want to talk to Holly about words and then I also want her opinion as to where she sees this whole idea of adult bullying going and are there solutions? What can we be doing individually as communities and then as kind of the world as a whole. No big feat at all. So we'll be right back with Holly Brown of— Holly Brown, the marriage and family therapist and novelist. And you have to check out This Is Not Over. We'll be right back.

You are listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. We are inspiring individuals around the globe to discover, connect, confront and shed their bitches of fear, insecurity, and negativity so they can create the riches in their career, business, and life they deserve. Be sure to check out Bernadette Boas' book, Shedding the Corporate Bitch: Shifting from Bitch to Rich in Life and Business, available on Amazon and sheddingthebitch.com. We also want to thank our sponsors, TSR Consulting, who offers a broad range of tax services for small small to corporate size clients. Go to TSRConsulting.com to learn more. And Parker House Virtual Services, who provides virtual assistance and social media support for small to medium size businesses. Email Deborah Parker at deborahparker78@gmail.com for more information. To become a sponsor or advertiser on our program, email us at media@media relations@sheddingthebitch.com. Shedding the Bitch Radio airs every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Be sure to go to blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitchradio and follow the program for all of the updates and announcements of our guests and show topics. Now let's return to Bernadette and Shedding the Bitch Radio.

Welcome back, everyone. We are talking to Holly Brown about adult bullying. Are you one? Do you know someone? Are you just not sure? It is something that's going to impact every area of your life, and if you have an opportunity to kind of clue into how your words, behavior, and actions are being perceived by others,. It might just protect you and prevent you from any kind of negativity and impact to your life. It could be losing a job, losing a relationship, not being able to get clients because of the way that you're being perceived by other people. Holly, you had mentioned the fact that This has everything to do with self-esteem. So what can our listeners right now be thinking about and doing when it comes to really working on their own self-esteem, even assessing it?

Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, with the bullying, in a way, it's talking about working backwards, right, because it's talking about that sometimes people who don't notice that they feel bad about themselves except that they suddenly realize, "Hey, why am I doing this to other people?" So I always feel like, you know, there's the, you know, every change pretty much starts with awareness and that with bullying it isn't just about disliking someone because you're welcome to dislike whoever you want, right? But it's about causing people harm because you dislike them and that there are a lot better ways to release negative feelings. And more importantly is like figuring out what's the source of the negative feelings, you know. What is it that you don't like in your life? What is it that you don't like in yourself? What is it that, you know, what is it that you need to learn to have more compassion for yourself about versus what is it that you need to actually change? So I think it's sort of taking an honest stock of yourself, and I, because I think that often people don't really do that, and that's why they're, in a way that's why people act out is because there's an avoidance of what's really happening, you know, that if you, you know, road rage, I think I think is a perfect example, right, is where like there's something else that you're really angry about that's not about that guy in the other car or that woman in the other car. And so it's looking at like what is really going on? What are you really angry about? You know, what is it that's really— you're really dissatisfied with? Is it you? Are you the thing you're dissatisfied with? So I think that like honest self-evaluation is where it starts. And I liked what you said about the fact that you did all the work without a therapist because I'm one of the therapists who believes that people can do lots of changing without therapy. And then there are other people where that way of doing, you know, the therapy where you come in and it's like a relationship with someone and it's like a, you know, kind of an ongoing process and an accountability that that's really important for them. But there's other people where that doesn't have to be part of it. But I think being able to do an honest self-evaluation is really critical.

Oh yeah, and let me make sure I clarify something, everyone. I am, you know, I'm a journal writer, so I've been journaling since I was like 8. So I use my books to just dump everything out. But at the same time, I should have said that for the last 9 years I also have a coach. I'll call her just a general coach, and trust me when I say she's not a therapist, but I certainly use her to kind of process my— and question and challenge my self-awareness. So I was never alone in my discovery process, but while at the same time, you know, I— it's not necessarily that I went to a formal therapist, yet I recommend it. I recommend it. I recommend it. Because having someone in your corner like a Holly to help you work through whatever issues it is, and it doesn't have Doesn't have to be just one issue. It could be, you know, over time when it comes to your marriage, your family, your kids, yourself, your, you know, approach at work. Therapy, I'm all over it. I'm all over it. Self-awareness is key and growth is key. So that's that. Well, we actually— gosh, I can't believe how fast time goes. This is a subject, like I said, is dear to my heart, Holly. So I will be reaching back out to you. Again, because I think it's something that we can always have a continued conversation on, and we can even evolve the areas of the conversation because I think what you say about self-awareness is critical, and the only way to do that is to talk about it and help people relate to one another. Would you agree?

Absolutely, and I would love to come back and talk with you some more. It's been really a pleasure, especially just I like your vulnerability in terms of saying, you know, your own growth process. And yeah, right, yeah, I'm an open book, man.

I mean, I might need therapy just because I'm just— I'm too, you know, I'm an open book. But anyway, I want to thank Holly Brown. I want every one of you to go to HollyBrownBooks.com, check out her book, because I'm telling you, it'll be the first thing I do after we're done. This is not over. It sounds extremely exciting, only because— well, not only because, you know, it escalates into a war of words that leads Leads to a shocking conclusion. Who would not want to read that? All right, everyone, next week Donna Signorelli is coming to talk about the Custody Project. Please go to thecustodyproject.org and check that out. And I want to thank Holly, I want to thank Deborah and all of you for joining us today, and I will talk with you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time on Shedding the Bitch Radio. Thank you, Holly. Have a beautiful week.

Thank you. You too.

Thanks. Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at sheddingthebitch.com. See you next week.