School speaker discusses how thoughts of inferiority can lead to unhealthy behavior

All bullies and addicts have one thing in common – they believe they are inadequate in one way or another. Typically thoughts of inferiority result from common life events. This article explains how these thoughts manifest and have the potential to spawn bullying behavior and addiction. When Scott Gallagher was a child, he began to think there was something wrong with him. These thoughts started out simple enough. At first, in the second grade, he listened to a classmate talk about things he liked to do with his father. Gallagher took this experience and immediately came to the conclusion that the reason his own father didn’t live with him and his mother was because he was somehow inadequate. What Gallagher didn’t know at the time was that by thinking these negative thoughts, he was inadvertently causing himself to feel bad. Today Gallagher is an addictions expert and school speaker. He travels around the world teaching students about bullying and addiction through his addiction prevention and bullying program. As an addict and bully, Gallagher knows first hand the damage thoughts of inadequacy can cause. When he was in the ninth grade, Gallagher’s mother moved to a new town to be closer to her boyfriend. Already addicted to sugar and a bullying behavior, Gallagher found himself in a bad situation that he chose to make worse. One day, a teacher told the class that someone had stolen the answer sheet for a test. The teacher wanted to know who stole the sheet. No one admitted to the crime, but someone “pointed the finger” at Gallagher. “Eventually someone blamed me and I made up the belief that everyone started to believe that I was this thief,” Gallagher said during one of his bullying programs. Gallagher, however, is quick to point out that it wasn’t this event, but rather how he handled it that led him down the wrong path. “The tragedy is not that I got blamed for something I didn’t do. The tragedy is what I made it mean. Remember, I had already decided that I was bad, stupid and weak. Now I decided to add something more to it – that I was a loser,” he said. Gallagher let yet another thought of inferiority slip into his mind. He allowed himself to believe he was a loser and that it was his fault. “I made a decision in that moment that I must be a loser. I must be a loser because I was blamed for this and the whole school was turning against me,” he said. In reality, Gallagher said he now realizes that he wasn’t a loser, weak, or stupid. However, these were decisions that he made about himself. In turn, these decisions sparked feelings of pain that lead to his choice to engage in unhealthy behavior. “Shortly afterwards, I wanted to escape the pain I was feeling,” Gallagher said. “This was pain that I was feeling cause by my own thoughts. I escaped those thoughts by turning to chemicals.” Gallagher’s message is a simple one. Thoughts cause feelings. By taking control of your thoughts, you can chose how you feel. If you allow yourself to think you are inadequate, you open the door for painful feelings to creep in. These feelings wear a person down overtime and can lead to seeking relief in unconventional ways such as drug use, other addictions or bullying. In order to prevent these bad feelings, one of the things Gallagher recommends is focusing thoughts on things that make you happy. For example, Gallagher enjoys spending time with his dog. This makes him feel good about himself because his dog loves and appreciates him. By focusing on thoughts that fill yourself with good feelings, you protect yourself from the bad ones.