I was aggressively bullied over the weekend, and I want to tell you what I learned.
Content Note: This story includes verbal aggression, trauma response, and reflections on spiritual bypassing and speaking up after abuse. Please take care of your nervous system and pause if needed.
💛
I was walking my favorite trail behind our house — something I do multiple times a day — and decided to send a Marco Polo message to a friend as I walked.
Mid-story, I noticed someone coming toward me in the distance. Their hood was pulled tightly around their face, big sunglasses covered their eyes, and I didn’t recognize their dog — which was strange, because I know almost everyone (and their dogs) who frequent this trail.
Their dog, a hunting breed, ran ahead and got up in my space. The owner made no effort to call it back. I felt irritated by the disrespect and tapped my phone to stop recording.
Moments later, the hooded figure reached me. I stared, still agitated — and then, my body suddenly knew who this was.
Seconds later, she confirmed it.
“That’s right,” she said, acknowledging the recognition — and the tension between us.
Then came the explosion.
She launched into a screaming monologue, laced with profanities, character attacks, and even a challenge to fight.
“You got something to say to me? Say it to my face!” she yelled.
You might now be wondering what our history is.
Several months ago she wrongly accused and publicly shamed our family for something we had never done. I responded to her actions by privately sending a direct but civilized text message calling out her behavior and setting a boundary that it not happen again.
She never responded to that text.
Until now…when our paths literally and inadvertently crossed.
She continued raging as I stood there in absolute shock. This is someone I went to church with for years. Someone who would preach their values regularly from the pulpit.
As she walked away still screaming profanities and insults, I looked down at my phone to realize the entire showdown was currently being sent live-stream to my friend on Marco Polo! Unintended!
I stopped the recording for certain this time, making a mental note to delete it from my friend’s channel later.
I walked home stunned and shook. I told my husband what had happened, and he sympathized. He knows firsthand the unexpected reactions she’s capable of when she’s angry about something.
But then… then I played the recording.
Let me just say, hearing a story secondhand is nowhere near as powerful as hearing a recording. Not even close. Even he was dumbfounded to hear her violent words and tone.
It’s clear something deeper is going on for her and I don’t take her actions personally.
I hold compassion for her. Hurt people hurt people.
But that’s not what this story is about.
What I want to talk about is:
In clear synchronicity, just hours before that confrontation, I had spent the morning studying the Buddha’s teaching on “The Four Gates of Wise Speech“.
Before we speak, the Buddha invites people to pause and ask four simple questions—four gates through which our words must pass.
Is it true?
Is it kind?
Is it helpful?
Is it timely?
If a statement cannot pass through all four gates, he suggests that it may be wiser to wait in silence.
As I walked back home immediately after the confrontation, I kept running through those four gates in my mind. This woman’s behavior was outrageously inappropriate. What is the proper response to something like this? Do the four gates still matter in something like this?
At 5:30 a.m. the next morning, I awoke with a fully formed text message in mind to send in response to this most recent event. I wrote it out and contemplated the four questions for the rest of the day.
Was it true? Yes — I stuck to facts.
Was it helpful? Yes — people need to know when they cause harm.
Was it timely? Yes — I’d processed, spoken to others, and allowed space.
Was it kind?
Ok…
Can we talk about this question of “Is it kind?” Because this surfaced a lifetime of murkiness for me in what it means to be “spiritual”.
And I must say, having spent significant time in many spiritual communities (including Christianity, New Age Spirituality, and Buddhism), I see this dilemma in all of them.
Somehow, in our efforts to be spiritually enlightened beings, we can often spiritually bypass harm.
Especially when it has to do with any kind of abuse.
This is what happens when victims are told to just forgive their abuser. As if saying nothing and staying quiet and just forgiving someone is the true spiritual way.
But here’s the truth:
Jesus flipped tables.
And Buddha taught ethics.
And nowhere in the history of humanity when any significant moment of progress has happened, is it a result of someone just forgiving and staying quiet.
Martin Luther King.
Rosa Parks.
They didn’t just forgive the abuse of racism and segregation, stay quiet, and let it continue.
Susan B. Anthony.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
They didn’t just forgive the abuse of gender inequality, stay quiet, and let it continue.
And neither should we.
I look at all of these historical figures and would say that they mightily represent what it means to be truly spiritual. They always had the greater good in mind even if they wouldn’t live to see the fruit of their own labor. They spoke up regarding abuse and harm.
Now, here is where practicing wholeness comes into play. Because there is a middle way required here:
Sometimes in life, the spiritual thing is to stay silent.
Sometimes the kind thing is to stay silent.
But ABUSE is not that time.
Even if one doesn’t have the safety or courage to speak up for themselves directly to an abuser, please please please at least speak to another safe person and don’t stay quiet. This is not kindness to you or the abuser or anyone else they may harm in the future.
Stopping harm IS KINDNESS.
After a full 36 hours from the event, I sent her a text that met the criteria of the Four Gates of Wise Speech.
What happened is not what I was expecting.
When I went to copy/paste my prepared response to send her, my entire body went into massive activation. My heart was thudding, my whole body was freaking out.
NOT UNTIL NOW DID ALL THE TRAUMA SURFACE.
Several people have commended me on how regulated and calm I stayed during the confrontation and immediately afterwards.
Well…
PTSD can have a delayed effect.
It wasn’t until the very moment I went to speak up for myself 36 hours later that my body went into a full-on trauma response.
I pulled out my nervous system tools.
I let my body shake.
I let my body sob and cry.
I let myself use my voice.
I did some mild breathwork.
I did EFT tapping.
All to process the intense energy charging through my body.
What is so baffling to me was that in this situation, it felt MORE TERRIFYING TO SPEAK UP THAN IT WAS TO BE ABUSED.
And that realization hit me so deeply. I had so much empathy for my ancestors and my sisters in this world who have stayed quiet for any kind of abuse.
And though my situation may be light compared to so many, the nervous system doesn’t compare. The nervous system doesn’t compare stories or situations to know who deserves to really feel trauma and who doesn’t. Is your case bad enough or not? It doesn’t matter to the body.
And once that trauma was allowed to come forward, I finally began to feel what I didn’t feel in the moment it happened. Even today as I write this, I’ve had emotional flashbacks occurring in my body all day long. I’ll be doing ok and suddenly my body gets hit with a wave of a flashback.
There’s been some press in the past week regarding abuse in the religious community I devoted my life to for so long. I feel sickened that in 2025 abuse is still not mandatory to report by clergy. I feel sickened that so many times the advice given by clergy to victims is to “just forgive”.
The amount of courage it takes to speak up and speak out is one of the most spiritual acts one can do, and I long for the day that those who claim to be spiritual leaders can model that as well– instead of bypassing harm—which nearly always leads to more harm.
Forgiveness will always be an essential part of healing.
But it’s nearly impossible to forgive when you’ve had to silence your story or suppress your pain.
So if you’re reading this and you’ve been staying quiet about something—if your body is holding onto words that need to be spoken…
Let me tell you what I learned:
Your nervous system’s terror is not a sign that you should forever stay silent. It’s often a sign of how much and how long you’ve been holding it in.
The shaking, the pounding heart, the flood of fear that comes when you finally decide to speak?
That’s not weakness. That’s just your body finally processing what it’s been carrying.
Your voice matters.
Your boundaries matter.
Your truth matters.
And speaking it—even when it terrifies you, especially when it terrifies you—might just be one of the most spiritual and authentically kind things you’ll ever do.
You are loved.
All parts of you.
Namaste,
brooke