I'm going to have to disagree with your disagreement.
> I got my kids used to not caring about insults by actually insulting them. Things like "You are a moron!"
I do that too, although just because its fun rather than for any other reason. But your kids know that is friendly banter with you. It's quite different to your boss calling you a moron and insulting you all day.
So you might say, well if my boss did that then I'd leave, fuck them. And I'd be the same. However, not everyone is in a position to be able to just get out and quit.
And that doesn't even address the far more insidious ways people use words to hurt you. Telling other people you're a moron, building up an undeserved contempt. This is what bullies do and it's not so easy to shrug it off. When they get a significant number of people in on it then you can't escape it and feel like a fool. This is the source of my shyness and anxiety about talking to people. Even though I try to push down those feelings I still feel awkward and on guard because for a few of my school years ANYTHING I said unguarded would be pounced on and I'd be laughed at.
Then there's gaslighting and other verbal lead ons where you're sweet talked into believing you're a moron. I don't have any experience with this.
> The best approach is to turn those words into irrelevant noise. To go from that, to have words affect you for life? No, that's a big mistake.
I wish this were the case. Toot toot for you if it is, but for many it's not possible, I think perhaps you could take a more sympathetic view - what has worked for you does not work for everyone and perhaps others had a difficult time when they were more vulnerable to it and that left an unshakable impression on them.
> It's quite different to your boss calling you a moron and insulting you all day.
I can definitely understand that. At the same time, I know, without a doubt, that this approach has worked for at least one of my kids. He told me this much a few times after being bullied and pretty much viewing it as a laughable event rather than taking it seriously. And, in fact, the bullying stopped very quickly because he did not engage at all.
> I think perhaps you could take a more sympathetic view - what has worked for you does not work for everyone and perhaps others had a difficult time when they were more vulnerable to it and that left an unshakable impression on them.
Yes, of course, I understand everyone has different life experiences.
I am simply sharing my, our, experience. The perspective might be useful to some or not one person. At the very least someone might have seen what I had to share and, perhaps, understood they might have the power to change the way they interpret what they are experiencing.
It's like being afraid of heights. All else being equal (circumstances, balance, physical condition, health, age, etc.) the only difference between a person who is afraid and one who is not, is in the way the brain interprets reality. That's it. Nothing else. Train the brain to modify that interpretation and going up a tall skinny ladder goes from a horrific paralyzing event to no problem at all.
Bottom line: I really think we need to understand that these things are only real if we make them real. Easier said than done, of course. I don't see that as a reason not to try to, carefully, slowly, go up that ladder and see things differently.
> I got my kids used to not caring about insults by actually insulting them. Things like "You are a moron!"
I do that too, although just because its fun rather than for any other reason. But your kids know that is friendly banter with you. It's quite different to your boss calling you a moron and insulting you all day.
So you might say, well if my boss did that then I'd leave, fuck them. And I'd be the same. However, not everyone is in a position to be able to just get out and quit.
And that doesn't even address the far more insidious ways people use words to hurt you. Telling other people you're a moron, building up an undeserved contempt. This is what bullies do and it's not so easy to shrug it off. When they get a significant number of people in on it then you can't escape it and feel like a fool. This is the source of my shyness and anxiety about talking to people. Even though I try to push down those feelings I still feel awkward and on guard because for a few of my school years ANYTHING I said unguarded would be pounced on and I'd be laughed at.
Then there's gaslighting and other verbal lead ons where you're sweet talked into believing you're a moron. I don't have any experience with this.
> The best approach is to turn those words into irrelevant noise. To go from that, to have words affect you for life? No, that's a big mistake.
I wish this were the case. Toot toot for you if it is, but for many it's not possible, I think perhaps you could take a more sympathetic view - what has worked for you does not work for everyone and perhaps others had a difficult time when they were more vulnerable to it and that left an unshakable impression on them.