Day 6 was the day the work started to feel bigger than one person. The ideas were no longer abstract. People were reaching to solve workplace bullying. Offers of help were coming in. And with that came a new problem: if this movement is going to matter, it needs structure.
Today was about admitting something difficult: the number of people offering support, sharing their stories, or expressing interest in solving workplace bullying had outgrown what one brain and an ad hoc notebook could hold. Names, conversations, follow-ups, introductions, ideas—it was all starting to blur.
So I did something unglamorous but essential. I spent a chunk of the day building a simple contact system in Notion. Nothing fancy. Just:
- A contact list with names, roles, and organizations
- A way to log conversations and notes
- A field to track last contact date and next step
- A priority tag so I know who I need to speak with first
For each person I added, I sent a message—thanking them, reconnecting, or nudging the conversation forward—and updated the “last contact” field. It was slow and admin-heavy, but it turned a vague sense of “lots of people are interested” into something concrete and trackable.
The other powerful piece was using AI to support this work. I began experimenting with tools that can transcribe calls and summarise meetings into key points. This isn’t about outsourcing relationships to machines. It’s about freeing up the part of my mind that used to panic about forgetting details so I can be fully present, empathetic, and human in the conversations themselves.
In parallel, the website went live-ish. Two pages:
- A simple home page with a video
- A form to gather feedback and interest
- A blog page with no blogs yet
That blank blog page stared back at me like a promise and a pressure. I realised I needed to write the first entry tomorrow. I didn’t. Time ran away. I spent the whole weekend playing catch-up. Too much to do, too little time.
But even that pressure taught me something important about sensitivity, empathy, and the emotional cost of this work…
Empathy, Sensitivity, and Self-Protection
Empathy has always been both my gift and my burden. I don’t just understand what people feel; often, I feel it with them. That level of sensitivity sounds powerful, and in some ways it is. It’s part of why I can walk into an office and sense the culture almost immediately, or know things I shouldn’t about how someone feels and what someone is going through. It’s why I can “spot bullying a mile off” in a room, even when nothing explicit is being said or done, and why when I coach I know things that haven’t been said. It doesn’t mean I am special, just practiced, lot’s of people have this skill, some may not even know they can do it.
But extreme empathy has a cost.
Over the years, I’ve learned to avoid certain people and environments because they simply overwhelm me. In particular, I’ve kept my distance from people whose relationship with alcohol mirrors what I saw in my stepfather. Not because I lack compassion, but because being around “alcoholics” with unresolved issues drags me back into emotional territory that feels too close. Their pain echoes my past, and my nervous system reacts as if I’m back in that house again.
The result? My circle is small. Close family. A handful of friends. Very few new deep human connections. I gravitate toward people who are not emotionally complicated because, around them, I don’t have to work so hard to regulate myself. Being less “on alert” feels like relief.
It’s a form of self-protection that makes sense when viewed through the lens of trauma and sensitivity. But it also raises a question: how can someone who sometimes struggles to be around emotional complexity lead work that is fundamentally about emotional complexity?
The answer, for me, lies in boundaries and in how empathy is used.
When Empathy Meets Workplace Bullying
Empathy and sensitivity are double-edged swords in the context of bullying:
- On one edge, they make it easier to notice what others miss: the tight jaw in a meeting, the forced laugh after a cutting remark, the way someone withdraws when a particular colleague enters the room. Because I absorb emotional undercurrents so quickly, subtle bullying behaviour rarely slips past unnoticed.
- On the other edge, they make the work heavy. Hearing repeated stories of humiliation, exclusion, or institutional betrayal doesn’t just inform me—it lands in my body. It activates old memories and nervous system responses that are difficult to switch off and this can manifest itself as illness. Colds, flu, Covid that I seemed to get about 4 times!
But empathy, used well, is not about drowning in other people’s feelings. It’s about understanding them enough to respond with clarity, respect, and courage. It is also about standing up for others, not from a place of saviourhood, but from a belief that people deserve environments grounded in dignity.
Sensitivity to bullying means:
- Noticing micro-aggressions and patterns long before they become formal complaints
- Feeling the “off” energy in a team and being curious about what’s driving it
- Recognising when someone’s performance “problem” is actually a psychological safety problem
This is why emotionally intelligent, sensitive people are often the first to see bullying—and the first to burn out if they feel powerless to change it.
Respectful Environments and Emotional Bandwidth
All of this brings me back to respect.
A truly respectful environment is not one where no one ever gets frustrated or makes a mistake. It’s one where:
- People are spoken to as human beings, not resources
- Emotions are acknowledged without being weaponised
- Power is exercised with responsibility, not domination
For highly empathetic people, these environments are not just “nice to have.” They are survival conditions. In a bullying culture, the emotionally sensitive are often the first casualties—they either get crushed or they leave. In a respectful culture, they become early warning systems, culture shapers, and some of the strongest advocates for fairness and humanity at work.
The irony isn’t lost on me: the very sensitivity that made me avoid emotionally chaotic people is the same sensitivity that positions me to see, name, and work on bullying. The key is not to numb that part of me, but to build scaffolding around it—systems, boundaries, allies, and tools—so it doesn’t get flooded.
That’s what today’s Notion build and AI experiments were really about. Not just tracking contacts, but creating a container for the emotional weight of this work so it doesn’t collapse in on me.
Too Much to Do, Too Little Time
As the weekend loomed and the to-do list expanded—write the blog, refine the website, follow up with contacts, record videos, keep learning, keep thinking about bullying, get a job, get a contract, get paid, pay the bills—I felt that familiar pressure: there is more here than one person can hold.
But that insight is the point.
Workplace bullying is not going to be solved by one person, one framework, or one company. It will be solved by a network of people—victims, bystanders, leaders, HR professionals, consultants, researchers—who are willing to look honestly at what’s happening and commit to change.
Today, my system grew a little: a contact list, a live website, a rough infrastructure for managing conversations and ideas. Tomorrow, the blog. After that, more conversations, more learning, more refining.
If you’re reading this and recognise yourself as deeply empathetic or sensitive—someone who spots bullying before others see it, someone exhausted by carrying what others feel—you are exactly the kind of person this movement needs. Not as a sponge for everyone else’s pain, but as a guide, a witness, and a voice.
And if any of this resonates with you—feeling overwhelmed, spotting bullying from a mile off, trying to care without burning out—comment, share, or reach out. This work is too big for any of us to carry alone.
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