Ep #23: Bullies, Victims, and Vulnerability

Welcome to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast, the only podcast that teaches men the cognitive mastery and alpha-mindset that it takes to become an influential and irresistible man of confidence. Here’s your host, certified life coach and international man of mystery, Kevin Aillaud.
What’s up, my brothers. Welcome back to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud. Today, we’re going to do part three on our contrast episodes. So, just a very quick recap, two weeks ago, part one was on blame versus responsibility and we were examining circumstances in terms of the model; the model being circumstances, thoughts, emotions, actions, and results. Part one was blame versus responsibility and how circumstance affects blame versus responsibility for the beta condition or the alpha state.
Part two, last week, was on expectation versus result, and we were looking at results, obviously, because results are how the alpha state recognizes what is and how expectation is a product of the beta condition. Today, we’re going to talk about the bull victim versus vulnerability, and we’re going to take a closer look at actions in terms of the model.
Next week will be part four, and part four we’re going to look at emotions, because what we’re really looking at is the manual versus requests. And we’ll get into that next week. But, very quickly, let’s look at the universal truth. Yeah, we’re going to look at the universal truth again. I know, this is so important because this is the foundation. This is how you elevate your alpha, with the knowledge of and alignment with the universal truth.
So, again, guys, here’s the thing; the universal truth for how life works, how every single person is affected, the same way we’re all affected by gravity, I mean, this is the truth for everyone is that circumstances are neutral. Circumstances are out of our control. Circumstances are facts and circumstances are the past, the present, the world basically, and other people, what they do and what they day. Those are all neutral. And they are separate from our thoughts, emotions, actions, and results.
We do not have control over our circumstances. We do not have control over the past. We do not have control over the present, and we do not have control over other people. What we do have control over is our cognition, our thoughts and our thoughts will create our emotions, our emotions are what drive our actions, and our actions are what determine our results.
Now, our results will sometimes reinforce the original thought. We call that confirmation bias. But all thoughts are a choice. All thoughts are within our control and all thoughts are a choice. Circumstances may trigger thoughts if we are in the beta condition, if we are unconscious of our thinking and in the beta condition, circumstances can trigger thoughts, but thoughts are still a choice. And from our alpha state, we can choose our thoughts that will create the emotion we want, to drive the action we want, in order to get the result we want.
And today, we’re going to talk about bullies, victims, and being vulnerable. So, the bully and the victim. Now, I’m going to start with the truth that bullies and victims suffer from the same beta condition. That’s why the bully victim is in contrast to being vulnerable.
In our current culture, we vilify the bully and we lionize the victim. Our perception is that they are opposites and we treat them as such. We punish the bully and we console the victim. But the truth is, bullies and their victims are both acting in response to fear, which is caused by the beta condition. They are two sides of the same coin and they create a symbiotic relationship with each other. The bully cannot exist without the victim and the victim cannot exist without the bully. They depend on each other.
It appears our aim as a society is to stop bullying, when in fact, we can end bullying when we teach people to stop being victims. So it’s kind of backwards. We’re trying to stop the bullies, when in reality, we can just help the victims realize that they’re not victims, and that will stop the bullying because one cannot exist without the other.
Think about bullies as being like a fire in your fireplace or in a fire pit. The victims are the oxygen that the fire consumes. So the more oxygen you have, the bigger the fire. The more the victims respond to the bully, the bigger the fire gets, the stronger the bully gets. And our society is trying to put out the fire by blowing on it. They’re trying to put out the fire by allowing the victims of the bully to think that they are victims. We are allowing our victims to take the identity of victimhood while we attack and try to stop the bully. It’s backwards and it’s been very ineffective. The best way to stop this fire is to remove all oxygen, is to create a vacuum. So what we want to do is remove the victim and the bully dies.
Now, let’s get into contrast. I’m going to start with the bully. So, remember the universal truth, actions come from emotions and emotions are created by thoughts. The action of the bully is in his response to his thoughts. There is nothing the victim is doing to create his actions. His action is solely a response to the emotion of fear and the thinking that creates the fear.
So, why is the bully in action a manifestation of fear? A bully is determined by actions first of all. So let me explain this; there is no such thing as a person who is a bully. A bully is not a noun. It is a verb. No one is a bully. People only behave as bullies or with actions that are bullying.
A person is not a bully. I want you to understand that first. This is just a manifestation. It’s a symptom of a thought. The behavior comes from fear and the sentences in the brain that I call the beta condition. So remember, the beta condition is our survival brain. It is necessary for humans due to our animal nature. It is our survival brain and it says to us, “Don’t leave the cave. Stay here. Stay away from predators. Stay away from the elements. It’s warm in here. It’s safe here.”
The bully behavior manifestation is due to a lack of understanding of the universal truth. The thing is, no one ever taught us the universal truth, and in fact, we have been taught the opposite of the truth. The truth is that our emotions are caused by our thoughts. we are taught, and we continue to teach our children, that other people have the power to make us feel a certain way.
So, let me back up for a second and talk about emotions. I’m going to tackle emotions in another episode, but I just want to quickly give you an alpha male tenet. The alpha male tenet is we don’t want things, we want the way we think we will feel when we have things. So all of life is about minimizing suffering and maximizing joy. I don’t want a million dollars in my bank account, I want the way I will feel and think when I have a million dollars in my bank account. I’ll think there’s no more stress around money, I’m finally financially free, I’m not worrying about having to work as I age, I’m being able to enjoy life more, et cetera.
The one million dollars in the bank is neutral. It’s just money in a computer. It’s just circumstance. It is meaningless until I have a thought about it and that creates an emotion. And since life is all about emotions and how we feel, we go back to the universal truth. We have been taught and we teach our children that other people have power over how we feel.
For example, you may have heard this – I’ve heard this. I’ve heard teachers and parents tell children to apologize for hurting another kid’s feelings, or asking if that other kid hurt their feelings. Maybe you’ve heard this. I’ve also heard adults in my coaching, but also just in general in my life, say I can’t feel loved unless someone loves me. I’ve heard them say he hurts my feelings when he doesn’t call or she makes me feel jealous when she talks to other guys at the gym.
And of course, this is all erroneous. It’s all in violation of the universal truth. No one is creating an emotion inside of you. You are creating your emotions by the way you’re thinking about the circumstance. You’re creating the emotion of jealousy based on what you’re thinking about your girlfriend talking to other guys at the gym. It’s not her doing that, it’s the way you’re thinking about it.
So this illusion leads to the beta condition and it creates, in the beta condition, the thought, “Well, if someone else has the ability to control how I feel and I don’t want them to hurt me emotionally, I’d better hurt them first.” This is the bully manifestation. The bully manifestation comes from an insecurity that thinks that I, or me, the ego, myself is less than or is inferior or in some way worse than the you, or the other person.
And in order for me to prevent you from taking the upper hand, which is also an illusion created by the beta condition because there is no better or worse, then I have to strike first and I have to put you down. I have to attack you verbally and emotionally. This is the bully manifestation created from a feeling of fear caused by thoughts arising from the beta condition.
Hear me when I tell you this, guys; if you’ve ever been bullied before or if you’re a bully yourself, hear me when I tell you this, because this is true, the bully is suffering. The bully is not the enemy or the villain. The person who bullies is just as much a victim as the person they are choosing to bully.
Now, when we go to this adult or child and tell them that they are wrong, that they’ve performed poorly, or that they are bad for what they have done because they have been bullying someone. We are putting strength to the beta condition that created the thoughts that led to the bully manifestation in the first place because we’re putting them down. They’re already down, do you understand? They already think less of themselves, so they’re striking first to prevent themselves from being hurt. And by putting them down by saying they’ve done something bad, we’re adding oxygen to that fire.
Now, what about the victim? The victim is also in a beta condition. Their behavior is in response to the bully because they believe. The actions of the victim is created by the emotion of fear as well. Their thoughts, the victim’s thoughts which come from the beta condition are that what the bully is saying is correct. They fear what is being said about them or to them is true.
So, once again, we have a violation of the universal truth. The victim is in violation of the universal truth. We have a human being who is living in an illusion and doesn’t understand how life works. In the case of the victim, the illusion is that the bully is creating the emotions and the thoughts by what they are saying and doing.
There is not a separation of thoughts from facts. There is not a detachment from what other people say or do and the way you choose to think about what other people say or do. And once again, we teach our children the opposite of the truth. If I ask a child, did what that boy said hurt your feelings, of course the child is going to say yes. The child doesn’t understand that there is no correlation between sound waves traveling through the air, which are words, and the molecules vibrating in their body, which are emotions.
We actually teach the illusion when we force the bully to apologize. And this solidifies the illusion because we’re teaching the child victim that the other person is the cause of their emotional pain. And what does the child victim grow up to be when they become an adult? Follow me here. Follow me from the premise to the conclusion.
In an effort to not get their feelings hurt, most children who were bullied as kids will either become bullies themselves as adults, they’ll strike first to prevent themselves being hurt, or they become people-pleasers, which are emotional manipulators and liars, or they develop the victim mentality which creates a bully in their mind that lives in their mind all the time and sees the entire world as attacking them.
So you can see that both the bully and the victim, are suffering from a lack of knowledge of and alignment with the universal truth, my friend. Brothers, that is why knowledge of the universal truth and elevating your alpha is so important. It moves you. It shifts you. It creates an entire paradigm shift, a momentous leap, I’ve said it before, of cognition from victimhood to victorness – I’m going to say to vulnerability. Because both the bully and the victim, they’re both operating from this beta condition, they’re both living an illusion of how life works and this will inevitably cause suffering.
Now, before I move onto the alpha state, I just want to mention here, the victim mentality exists without an external bully. The bully can be yourself. In fact, the bully is always yourself, truthfully, there is always a bully for there to be a victim. And sometimes, the bully is your own mind, the sentences in your brain. Even with an external bully, it’s still the sentences in your brain that are making it mean whatever it means to you, what this person is saying.
So this is more of the beta condition, you know, creating fear to keep you safe. When someone is operating in the victim mentality, it means that they see bullies everywhere. It means that they believe the world is against them.
Now, this is not true. The truth is that they have create an unconscious belief system that puts themselves at war with themselves. It is all internal, both the bully and the victim living within. And this is, in essence, like I mentioned, the ultimate truth because what other people say and do is always a circumstance, is always neutral.
You have to think about their actions as bullying for you to be a victim, when in truth, their actions are circumstances, and I’m going to talk about this more at the end of the episode. But let’s get into the alpha state.
The alpha state transcends suffering. That is why I teach the alpha state. That is why I do what I do, to end suffering for you, for all of my students, all of my clients. If both the bully and the victim are suffering, then how does the alpha male behave? What is the actions that are manifested from cognitive mastery and alignment with the universal truth? And it might surprise you to hear, but the answer is vulnerability.
Vulnerability means the state or quality of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked emotionally or physically. And I like this definition. I like it because it means, from your alpha state and in alignment with the universal truth, you are aware that you have no control over circumstances, which include the behavior of other people.
Other people can act however they want, and they do, all the time. People do what they want all the time. You can do what you want at any time. Unlike protecting yourself from other people hurting you emotionally, which is an illusion from the beta condition, you cannot protect yourself from other people’s actions, other people are always going to do what they want.
So, unlike trying to protect yourself, because you don’t need to, because no one can hurt you, only you can hurt you with your thoughts, the alpha state allows for vulnerability. The alpha state remains exposed to the possibility that other people might attack you, and from this position of vulnerability, you can accept the attack for what it is.
It is the suffering of another human being. It says nothing about you, nothing at all. It is a manifestation of their suffering. Rather than protecting yourself as a people-pleaser or as a liar or as a manipulator or as a bully, all the things that victims and bullies do, vulnerability allows you to remain exposed and behave without fear.
Vulnerability allows you to love in spite of what other people do because it doesn’t affect who you are and it provides you with the knowledge that what they do is not who they are. It’s only a symptom of their thinking. And when you really understand that, when you really get that, when you really know that other people’s behavior is not who they are, it’s just their thoughts, and oftentimes their misguided thoughts, their beta condition, then you can love them in spite of what they do.
It doesn’t mean you have to be around them, but you can still love them and you don’t have to fear them, and you certainly don’t have to fear them hurting your emotions, hurting your feelings, because they can’t. The beta condition gives away your power. So behaving as a bully or as a victim gives away all of your power.
The bully gives his power to the victim because without the victim, the bully can’t exist. And the victim gives his power to the bully, because without the bully, the victim can’t exist. They feed off each other in a dependency of suffering. The alpha male empowers you to live in the universal truth. Behaving in vulnerability means and maintains your power over yourself. Whatever happens will happen. What other people do is about them.
I maintain who I am no matter what other people do or say. I am not afraid to expose myself to emotional attacks. I am simultaneously an immovable object and an unstoppable force. That’s what it means to be vulnerable.
So, along the lines of these episodes, I want to leave you with some hows – how to increase your vulnerabilities and supervise the beta condition that leads to either bullying or victimization. And I’m going to give you three today.
Number one, other people’s actions are about them, not about you. This comes back to the universal truth and I cannot say it enough, I will not say it enough, I will continue to teach the universal truth because it is the premise of the ending of suffering. It is how we end the human condition around suffering. Be conscious of the universal truth.
Where do actions come from? They come from emotions. All action is driven by emotion. And where do emotions come from? They come from thoughts. All emotions come from thoughts. There is nothing you are doing or have done that is causing anyone to behave in the way that they are behaving.
Now, they might think otherwise. They might think they’re behaving in a certain way because of what you did or what you said. And at times, you might think otherwise. You might think that someone else is behaving because of something that you said or you did. But, this is the truth, brother, that is in violation of the universal truth. That is the illusion. That is the illusion that we’re taught as kids and it creates a very powerful limiting belief; a limiting belief that is very difficult to undo in some cases.
It’s a violation of the universal truth. It does not hold. The truth is actions come from thoughts, not from circumstances. You are their circumstance, just as they are your circumstance. Remember, circumstances are other people and other people’s behavior. So you are their circumstance and they are your circumstance. What they do isn’t because of you, it’s because of what they are thinking. This is the truth and the truth will set you free.
Number three, what other people say isn’t true unless you believe it to be. Remember, thoughts are a choice, always a choice. All thoughts are a choice. So what other people say is a circumstance. It’s just data. It’s just neutral data. It’s not true for you unless you choose it to be true.
Let me give you a really simple example, a very simple example. Let’s say you’re wearing a green t-shirt and some guy walks up to you – maybe it’s friend of yours. Maybe it’s somebody you respect so it means a little bit more to you. But somebody walks up to you and says, “That is the dumbest orange t-shirt I’ve ever seen. You should be ashamed to be wearing that in public. What are you, some kind of damn fool?”
Now, you’re wearing a green shirt, so you might be thinking, “What is this guy talking about? What do you mean? This shirt is green, bro, what’s wrong with him? Is he okay? Maybe he’s colorblind, or maybe he’s just having a bad day.” But you certainly wouldn’t think that it had anything to do with you because you don’t believe him.
In fact, what he said was unbelievable because you’re wearing green and he hates orange. For some reason, he doesn’t like orange. So you just don’t believe him. The power is in the belief. If you believe what you are being told, you are falling into the victim trap. Believe what you choose to believe, my friend, not what other people tell you, because as I just said, what other people say is about them. What other people say and do is coming from their thinking.
Number three, the last one, allow people to say and do what they want. This is acceptance. This is the recognition that other people are circumstances and beings of free will. I mean, look, you’re an adult. You don’t want other people telling you what to do, right? And the same goes for everyone else. Let other people behave the way they want, even if it is from misguided thinking. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Allow yourself to be open and exposed to their emotional attacks.
And here’s why, because you can use it to test your alignment with the universal truth. Set yourself into the alpha state. Align yourself with the universal truth and immediately separate what they say from what you make it mean. So, someone says something to you, so what? Ask yourself, so what? What do you make it mean?
Do you make it mean that there’s something wrong with you so that you’re a victim? Do you make it mean that there’s something wrong with them so that they’re a bully? Or, do you make it mean nothing at all, neutral words, sound waves, atoms colliding in the air created from vocal chords and landing in your eardrums, which is the alpha state, neutral circumstance?
That’s what I’ve got for you today, brothers. I appreciate you being here with me on our part three of our contrasting episodes. Next week, we’re going to finish with part four, we’re going to talk about the manual versus requests, and if you want to listen to an episode to preempt this, then I would recommend going back to our part two episode on being in a relationship, because I did talk about the manual there, and I’m going to look at the contrast between manuals and results. And until then, elevate your alpha.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you enjoy what you’ve heard and want even more, sign up for Unleash Your Alpha – your guide to shifting to the alpha mindset – at thealphamalecoach.com/unleash.