Last week I summarised some of the stand out things for me at the Pro Blogger conference. This week I want to examine one of those more closely. Heather Armstrong from Dooce had talked about what it was like to have trolls and haters stalking her online. It was confronting and awful to know that there are such haters out there. Her message was simple. They need our compassion and she’s right.

And it doesn’t just happen online. There are people out there in dark places in their life. Full of sadness or anxiety, people suffering depression or mental illness. They project their suffering onto others through vitriol or mean remarks, they pick fights, spread rumours and seem to enjoy seeing others uncomfortable.

What we need to remember is that when people are nasty to someone. its saying everything about THEM not you. They are hiding hurt. If they are online they are hiding behind a computer, faceless and nameless, but they are human and people are suffering.

Last night whilst writing this post, I saw online a comment from a brave blogger who bravely shared how she had left an angry vitriolic comment once on a blog post of someone she didn’t know. She described how sad she was at the time.

She realised she knew nothing of this persons life and it was a wake up call or her. She sought a mental health plan, and started to fill herself up with love and compassion.

I know that when people are hurtful, its hard not to react. When I had the Basketcase, I was astounded at the way people spoke to us over email when something went wrong. Swearing and yelling, its was awful. Until we discovered something useful. Whenever we got a really nasty or angry person, we called them up. NEVER was the person as nasty as what they had been online…

The next time it happens to me, I’m going to try really hard to move into my compassion. I don’t know how well I’ll do, but I’m going to do my best.

Until next week
Much love
Andy xxx