STEVEN SPEILBERG
“And I was lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly wanted to do. But I didn’t know who I was. How could I? And how could any of us? Because for the first 25 years of our lives, we are trained to listen to voices that are not our own. Parents and professors fill our heads with wisdom and information, and then employers and mentors take their place and explain how this world really works. And usually these voices of authority make sense, but sometimes, doubt starts to creep into our heads and into our hearts. And even when we think, ‘that’s not quite how I see the world,’ it’s kind of easier to just to nod in agreement and go along, and for a while, I let that going along define my character. Because I was repressing my own point of view, because like in that Nilsson song, ‘Everybody was talkin’ at me, so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my mind.’ And at first, the internal voice I needed to listen to was hardly audible, and it was hardly noticeable — kind of like me in high school. But then I started paying more attention, and my intuition kicked in. And I want to be clear that your intuition is different from your conscience. They work in tandem, but here’s the distinction: Your conscience shouts, ‘here’s what you should do,’ while your intuition whispers, ‘here’s what you could do.’ Listen to that voice that tells you what you could do. Nothing will define your character more than that. Because once I turned to my intuition, and I tuned into it, certain projects began to pull me into them, and others, I turned away from.” Spielberg’s 2016 Commencement speech to Harvard Grads
DEVYN RUSH
“When I was being bullied at school, I would take all the mean things everyone said to me, and I would say them to myself 3000 times. What happens when you say something to yourself over and over again?… You start to believe it. I remember the first time I tried to say “I Love You” to myself. I looked in the mirror and said it. It was so painfully difficult. I didn’t believe it. But then I said it again. And again. And again. And now, after saying things like “I Love You” and “I Am Enough” 3000 times, I really believe it. One of my new affirmations is, “I have no room for negativity. I am filled to the brim with love!” I’m helping myself believe new positive affirmations all the time. It’s just like working a muscle.” From Devyn’s I AM ENOUGH bullying and suicide prevention school assembly & mini-concert for Hey U.G.L.Y. – Unique Gifted Lovable You
DON MIQUEL RUIZ AND DON JOSE RUIZ
“If your beliefs are telling you, “I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m old. I’m a loser. I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I’ll never make it,” then don’t believe yourself, because it’s not true. These messages are distorted. They’re nothing but lies. Once you can see the lies, you don’t have to believe them. Use the power of doubt to challenge every message that you deliver to yourself. “Is it really true that I’m ugly? Is it really true that I’m not good enough?” Is this message real, or is it virtual? Of course it’s virtual. None of these messages come from the truth, from life; they come from distortions in our knowledge. The truth is, there are no ugly people. There is no good enough or strong enough. There’s no universal book of law where any of these judgments are true. These judgments are just agreements that humans make.
Can you see the consequences of believing yourself? Believing yourself is one of the worst things you can do because you’ve been telling yourself lies your whole life, and if you believe all those lies, that’s why your dream isn’t a pleasant dream.” From the book, “The Fifth Agreement”
ALISHA ZALKIN
“I pray that one day we live in a world where we are encouraged to experience the full human emotional spectrum without shame, guilt, or judgment. Where we don’t have to fear our inner demons, darkness, and suffering, but rather hold one another in the space for true healing. A world where we can stop pretending life has to be perfect every damn day, and we can let down our walls and surrender to the truth. A world where we are encouraged to take the time to breathe deeply in silence without distractions, and connect to our light, because ‘the light gets in through the cracks.'” Facebook
DEREK HOUGH
“I was bullied as a young boy. They would tie my ankles up with a very rough rope and hang me in a tree upside down, spit on me and call me names, even hold a gun to my head. I
didn’t tell anybody — my parents or teachers or friends or sisters. I know now that the worst thing you can do is suffer in silence.” GLSEN Gala
DEMI LOVATO
“I had a really tough time when I was in middle school. People would write ‘hate petitions’ [about me] and send them around to be signed. They’d have CD-bashing parties of my demos. They’d come to my house, stand across the street and yell things. It was a very emotional time for me, and all I wanted to do was get away.” People Magazine
CHRISTINA HENDRICKS
“I had the worst high school experience ever. I went to a very mean school and was bullied like crazy… If I could go back and tell my 14-year-old self anything it would be, ‘Don’t worry. You’re going to be doing exactly what you want to be doing and those people who are a***holes now are still going to be a***holes in 20 years. So let it go!’” UK Mirror
CHRISTIAN BALE
“I took a beating from several boys for years. They put me through hell, punching and kicking me all the time.” People Magazine
ANSEL ELGORT
“I went through a lot of bullying in middle school and it made me so upset all the time. I hated my life. I hated everything. I live in New York City in a high building with a little terrace. I’d go on the terrace and I’d look off the terrace and I literally just thought about jumping off because I hated living so much. It does make it so hard when your that age and everyone is being mean to you at school and you have to go to school every day and deal with people being mean to you. You feel like what you have to say isn’t important and that you’re not important. The way that I coped with it was making another group of friends outside of that group of people who were mean to me so that I had some sort of support system. Then I focused all my energy on acting and dancing and singing and music so that I felt like I had a purpose that sort of took me out of it and made me forget about it a little bit and it made it a lot better.” BystanderRevolution.org