I have experienced bullying in some form my whole life. I was born knocked kneed, bow legged, club footed, and pigeon toed and by all rights should not have been able to walk normally. Thanks to the Shriners they were able to get me there but not without a lot of hardware and corrections. I learned how to walk with full leg casts, then had Forest Gump braces and the most hideous corrective shoes that no one should be forced to wear. My grandma, Dorothy, used to paint my shoes every Sunday night to match my dresses for the week. She would say ‘just smile pretty and be sweet and no one will notice your shoes.’ For years she did this. Fast forward to Jr. High School, I was bullied for being the new girl, bullied for looking like a boy, bullied for being a top cheerleader (even had death threats), and for not being in the smoking crowd. It continued for four more years into high school. When I finally go to leave for college thinking it would all be done…. NOPE more mean girls! They bullied me because I moved into a private dorm room. Onto corporate America, yep more bullying. I spent years believing somehow, I deserved it. I remember once I asked my mom why I never became a mean girl because there were so many of them in my life. She responded by simply saying, ‘because your positivity would never allow it’. I never spoke about being on the receiving end of so much anger and hate. I always felt if I said it out loud then there would be truth behind their words. I held my head high and carried myself with grace and style during the day and cried myself to sleep at night. The voice inside my head and heart believed if I admitted to being bullied then I somehow deserved it. Besides, even I did tell someone, the answer would have been consider the source and move on.

When I became a coach and worked with youth, they would talk about the times they had been bullied or picked on for one thing or another. I would say to them, ‘you are smart. You have amazing strengths and characteristics that you bring to the table every single day. It’s not about you. It’ about the other person because happy girls don’t do that.’ It is a constant reminder that hurt people hurt others. With girls, they carry the words forever. Each one weighs more than the last. Those words never ever go away. They resurface every time a trigger pops up. We carry them into everything, every relationship, every achievement, every loss, and we pass them on to our children. They never go away. It takes years of hard work, lots of love and positive reinforcement to drop the battle armor. There are 3 billion women worldwide and at some point each and every one of us has been bullied and shamed by another female.

I want every person who has ever felt the sting of a bully to feel empowered to move through life with gratitude, happiness, optimism, and positivity. I want them to understand and experience the impact of kindness, gratitude, and joy. I want them to know they have all the power to change the world one positive act at a time. This movement will only have its greatest impact if we build each other up, share our stories and strategies, and teach each other the importance and difference of gratitude, joy, happiness, kindness and love. It just takes one hero. Be that hero!