ProBlogger Training Event 2015

We have all been online long enough to have encountered criticism from people whose faces we will never see. Some of it is constructive, and some if it is awful, anonymous assumptions and slurs that we do our best to ignore. Sometimes our emotions prevent us from making a distinction between that which could be helpful and that which is just plain bullying. I have spent 14 years confronting both—from comments to emails to websites to actual forums dedicated to me and my character—trying to figure out the best way to pick up and move on when I encounter something particularly vicious. Because it isn’t going away. There isn’t a cure for it. It cannot be fixed or stopped. Learning how to deal with both is a factor of life that our children will have to endure on a scale we never did, in ways we probably can’t imagine. I’ve tried and failed many times to react in the best possible way and have finally learned that “reacting” isn’t the answer. The answer is something much more fearless.