We are a particular kind of machine that protects itself at all costs. There’s no chance of escaping the machine; it’s what we have to work with. The only way to really work with the machine is to completely leave it alone and stop trying to change it. Liberation isn’t liberation into anything else—it’s liberation from identification. We might not remember a lot of the bullying we experienced, which may have left us with shame. We take over the bullying process from imprints we get as children and can spend a huge amount of time and energy trying to prove that we deserve to exist. We bring this with us to the spiritual path. Feeling the entire construct of self-bullying in the body can show us that we are doing this to ourselves. There is no “me” or ego sense other than the pattern of tension we perpetuate in our bodies. To fully get in touch with this can dissolve and release it. The inner bully goes easy on us when there should be more discipline and is hard on us when it should lighten up. To be a friend to ourselves is to challenge the ways we keep ourselves comfortable and to comfort ourselves when we habitually beat ourselves up. We can draw on microdoses of Truth to interrupt the process of self-bullying and bring ourselves back to the reference point that there is literally no “me.” The habit of fixating on the idea that I must be something other than exactly what is present is self-bullying. The idea that “no self” is something unknown, far away from us, some goal or achievement, is fundamentally wrong. We all have a point of reference for it. When we give ourselves the space to line up authentically with exactly what is true for us, we create an opening for others to set down the self-bullying process. Rick is a national speaker and author of 7 Rules You Were Born to Break, The Perfection of Nothing, You Have the Right to Remain Silent, and other books.