Michelle Renee

Change Your Attitude & You Will Change Your Experience

2008-08-25T22:52:00.000-07:00

My daughter is a cheerleader for California All Stars, an elite academy that makes the cheerleading I used to see at high school football games look like elementary age patty-cake. When she injured herself in a bike incident and couldn't cheer she began to huff and puff about going to practice to support her team. She said, “I will be bored and I won’t learn anything.” My response was “Change your attitude and you will change your experience.” This direction will help to shape her attitude for years to come.

I explained to her that if she went into that gym with her eyes and attitude open she would see the things others were doing that didn’t look sharp and what looked amazing that she may want to try and emulate or incorporate that would help her perform her back-tuck perfectly. By the time she got home her coach had emailed me and said her attitude was great while she was there. My daughter shared with me that she actually learned a lot just by watching. Without changing her attitude her experience that day would have been completely different.

There is a direct link between our attitude and the way we behave. When people come in contact with us they see the outer expression of our inner attitudes. Since our actions are based on our attitude towards any given situation, attitude must be considered one of the key ingredients for success, not just in business but in recovery, relationships and life in general.

Let’s look at some great success stories. What was their attitude towards success, life, relationships, healthy boundaries, and balance in their lives? Why did they succeed? Was it their skills alone? In most cases successful individuals have a driving attitude to succeed. Milton Hershey failed many times before getting his chocolate bar just right. Donald Trump was bankrupt. The Chicken Soup for the Soul guys were told “no thanks” more than a hundred times before they got their one “yes”.

It is even a well-known fact in the medical community that a positive attitude along with laughter produces what has been determined to be a "miracle drug" within you. So, what is your attitude? Be brutally honest with yourself here. Do you live thinking that any situation is an opportunity for success or do you believe that sooner or later something bad is going to happen? Do you have self-limiting beliefs from your childhood such as the “I will never be anything and don’t deserve abundance” or look at things as "too much trouble," "there is nothing I can do?" Or do you say "this is an exciting door opening for me and I am going to take this opportunity to shine"?

Obviously, we first must realize that we need a reality check and need to do some serious internal housekeeping and take emotional inventory. But knowing we need to isn’t enough. Without action you won’t break free from the behaviors that keep you from crossing that finish line of your dreamBIG goals. I knew, even on that bus in the middle of the Egyptian desert, that I must WANT to and ACT to correct past programming and in turn my attitude and my experiences. The most practical way to change attitudes is through repetition, which is how attitudes were developed in the first place, like breaking a bad habit and having a negative attitude certainly qualifies as a bad habit!

Remember, it takes 28 days with continuous, consistent and positive re-enforcement, to break a habit. Another powerful tool to change attitudes is affirmations and, once again, actions to back them up and I have a great story to share that proves my point.

I was in Chicago recently to be honored as an inductee on the La Rabida Chilren’s Hospital Survivor Wall and be an advocate for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. While there, although Harpo was on summer hiatus I asked the taxi driver to take me to Harpo Studios. He looked at me weird and told me no one was there. I didn’t care.

I needed to go there and stand in front of the building, visualize the seats filled, the parking lot full, me walking out and shaking hands with Oprah and being an articulate, insightful, informative and inspirational guest for the Oprah Show. I took a picture in front of the sign so that I could put it on my vision board next to my affirmation that states am excited to be invited as a guest on the Oprah Winfrey Show to share my journey and inspire millions of people and I believe someday that is exactly what will happen.

Continuous use of positive affirmations have a tremendous influence on how we see ourselves; how we see ourselves impacts our attitude; our attitude impacts how we act, how we act impacts our success.

Developing and following an action plan to accomplish your goal with positive affirmations to guide you is great. But the big secret: be shameless. I was shameless going to Harpo while they were on hiatus. I didn’t care. Inside I knew why I was paying for a taxi to drive me to an empty parking lot. To me, the parking lot was full, the audience was there, Oprah was greeting me and I was amazing.

Going from homeless teen and hostage survivor to where I am today took vision, guts, strength I didn't even know I had and a whole lot of soul searching. Don't see yourself where you are. See yourself where you are positively headed with an attitude of success and slowly you will see your life changing, your experiences becoming more vibrant and positive and loving, personally and professionally. What I discovered was this very simple formula: While juggling, balancing, breathing and being shamelessly ambitious in setting my intentions, a positive attitude combined with actions, affirmations, visualization, skills and goals result in success. If you want to ready more, visit my website at www.Michelle-Renee.Com and sign up for my newsletter, 8 Week Teleclass and pre-order my upcoming ebook, "How To Be Your Own Success Genie."

My Mango Aha Moment

2008-03-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

I recently spoke at the Woman's Journey to Wholeness Retreat in Santa Barbara. People always ask if I prepare for my speaking engagements or topics and I suppose I do if you consider the incredible drive from San Diego to Santa Barbara preparation.

The earth is still black, trees still stripped and charred along the road as I drove north. But incredibly there is the most vivid shades of green, new life, rising up through the darkness of the earth. Flowers of yellow and orange and violet were sprinkled across the hills to my right and to my left, the blueness of the ocean. It was breathtaking. I called my friend Sally and described to her my road trip and told her I wanted to hop out of my car and take a bite out of the scenery.

That statement reminded me of my "mango" moment just a few weeks before.Since the violent kidnapping of my daughter and me seven years ago, a crime that forced me to face my life of child abuse and teen run-a-way life, I have been on the path of purpose, awakening, and a spiritual uncovering that has allowed me to fall in love with life, God and finally discover self-love for the first time. I was in my kitchen eating one of my favorite fruits, a mango. It was gorgeous...the color, the scent, the sweetness. But it was also messy. It was dripping down my fingers, my chin and onto the counter. I know, a neatly sliced mango is probably the proper way to go. But I I just had to take a bite right into it, my teeth sinking into the center of it as though I picked it myself. In that moment I realized that to me, life is like a mango: sweet, delicious, sexy, and sometimes messy, but so worth biting right into and getting all over you!

When I shared this with the participants at the retreat and told them my story, my journey and how now I embrace my MANGOliciousness, the response was humbling to say the least. I didn't prepare what I was going to say, the Universe did. So, here's to taking a bite out of life and getting it all over you!

Michelle Renee is the Author of Held Hostage: The True Story of a Mother and Daughter's Kidnapping. Available at all major booksellers and on Amazon.com.

It's Not Just About Lunch Money Anymore

2008-02-05T12:34:00.000-08:00

When I was in school bully's were the mean kids on the blacktop. The ones waiting after school to beat up on another kid that was usually no match for their size and strength. But there was at least a "safe zone" from school bullies: Home. Today, running home and shutting out the bullying happening at school isn't an option because bullies are popping up on the internet faster than ever.

Last year my daughter experienced a bit of cyber bullying when a kid posted a bulliten online that asked all the kids in her school that viewed it to make her life "hell" and call her names when she was at school. Even when I moved her to a new school, he posted another bulliten for the kids at her new school to see asking them to do the same thing to her. Soon, we discovered her so-called friends got in on it with him and were plotting to completely embarrass her during her first week at the new school. We cut and pasted the "online conversation" we discovered between the two girls plotting against her and took it to the school principal.

The plan was aborted and the girls apologized profusely. I think they all learned and valuable lesson but it was devastating for us both. But when I asked her yesterday what she would consider cyber bullying, first she corrected me and said "no one my age says cyber, mom" and than stated she didn't know. I reminded her of last years events and told her that would be a perfect example of "Internet" bullying.

Thousands of students every year embark on yet another scholastic roller coaster. There are many, however, who look upon the beginning of school with trepidation. They are the new kids, the shy kids, the kids who would rather be anyplace else but in school. Why? The reasons take on a myriad of variations, many are the kids who, as a result of embarrassment, shame, or fear, have either been, or fear that they will be harmed by their peers, or worse yet, opt to be by themselves because they believe they are alone and "the problem" is to big for them or anyone to handle. I'm talking about traditional school bullying. This crime happens under the roofs in what appears to be happy families. There's a ground swell of it within schools across this country. It's called "Cyber Bullying", or as my daughter called it, Internet Bullying.

Cyber bullying takes what used to be schoolyard insults, pushing, and shoving to a whole new, expansive, and very dangerous level. The cyber bully uses email, chat rooms, instant messaging, cell phones and text messaging to insult, demean, threaten, humiliate, harass, deceive, impersonate, and in many cases, posts lewd or embarrassing photographs online of their peer - while hiding behind a veil of anonymity that the Internet provides. On the middle school level, typical insults include comments like "U R ugly, U R fat, U R a liar, Nobody likes you, or make so and so's life hell at school tomorrow", however when kids reach 13, the comments are often sexual in nature, include profanity and detail true or untrue reports of promiscuity.

Unlike the schoolyard bully, these attacks aren't by some scary kid wanting to push his weight around. They can be by anyone or no one that the child knows. Tragically, it's sometimes by someone that the child thought was a friend. And unlike the schoolyard bully, a cyber bully can be comprised of one or many kids and by the time the posting hits the Net, literally thousands, if not millions of people have seen it, if it's been shared around the world. And unlike the schoolyard bully, the cyber bully hits their victim in the sanctity of their own home or bedroom - where they feel that they can't escape.

Greg Writer, CEO of CEN, Children's Educational Network www.childrenseducationalnetwork.com) , and a father of five, notes: "Often, kids are afraid to tell their parents for fear that their computer will be taken away or that their parents will make the situation worse. What they don't realize is that unless the bullying stops immediately, it can escalate and leave permanent psychological scars. That's one of the reasons CEN provides FREE Internet safety and education (http://www.KidSafe.com) with our Parental Control browsers (http://www.TUKI.com). Kids need to know how to navigate safely within this environment, so they'll know how to prevent and protect themselves from these situations. Additionally, we make it very clear to kids who might want to engage in this type of activity, that there are severe personal consequences to their behavior. For example, we want them to consider "before" they make poor choices that whatever is posted on the Net is there forever, and as much as they may regret later that they did this to someone, the damage is done and irreversible."

Experts in the field state that victims of these crimes suffer psychological trauma requiring professional help, many, like my daughter, have had to move to other schools, their mental state has resulted in their grades dropping; many are afraid to form close relationships with new people; and in more severe cases, suicide or murder has resulted. These are not just childhood pranks. These are serious crimes, and several states are enacting laws, such as Florida, making these emails felonies. In Pennsylvania, cyber bullying, harassment and stalking carry stiff jail sentences and fines for those convicted.

Cyber bullies need to realize that they may be able to hide from their victims behind screen names, but they cannot hide from law enforcement. Mark Franek, Dean of Students at the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia, explained the process very well: "Each time the Internet is accessed, an IP (Internet Protocol) address is established. The 12 numerals punctuated by the 3 periods is the electronic fingerprint that can be accessed by the authorities to trace all electronic communications between computers and/or mobile phones. No computer or mobile phone - or its user - is really anonymous in cyberspace."

The Internet and cell phones have become, in large part, the fabric of the social lives of tweens and teens. As such, they are prime targets for this kind of attack. The first thing kids need to understand about Instant Messaging, and blogs (web logs) or live journals, is that the more personal information you give someone (sports they participate in, what school they go to or city they live in, wearing school mascot clothing in pictures, etc.) the more it can be used against you by not only those whom you wanted to read it, but by others whom you didn't. Whenever you type something online and press "send", you have just given up your privacy. Additionally, people online will pose to be people they aren't for purposes of deception and in many cases, to commit crimes - often stealing someone's identity in the process.

Parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, teachers...talk to kids about cyber bullying. Give them these helpful tips: Know that there are ALWAYS people available to help you that will make cyber bullies stop. These people are law enforcement; your school teacher, school counselor, principal; your parents or a nurturing, responsible adult; Cyber crime reporting sites such as: www.cybertipline.org, www.wiredsafety.net, and safety@worldkids.net.

Don't give out any personal information such as your name, your school's name or the name of any of the sports teams in which you play, your home telephone or cellular phone number, your address-- including the city where your other parent lives if they are divorced, your parent's office address, or the address of your school. Don't ever use your real name as your user or screen name. If you find that you are a victim of cyber bullying: Do not respond to the harassers directly because that is exactly what they want. Don't give them the pleasure of knowing that you're upset by it -- Stay cool. Save and print out all messages - Do not erase any emails. Report this crime to the police. If possible, report it as it is happening and remember, you are in control of your online experience. It is unacceptable for you to be verbally abused or threatened in person or online.

It's an unsettling thought for any parent to think that their child may be a victim of a Cyber Bully, or be one. As difficult as it may be to consider, parents and teachers alike need to talk about this subject at home and in the classroom. We need to raise awareness of this issue and be pro-active. At present, lawmakers are drafting laws to prevent and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes. Education, vigilance, and strict laws are key in disarming bullies.

Thank you to Children's Educational Network. Please visit Club TUKI to learn more about the safe, entertaining and educational features that they offer consumers.