Abby Connolly
“I need to save you from yourself,” he told her. “You would be much better suited in color guard, marching band, or wrestling, but not in a cheerleading outfit.”
Elyse describes the incident as being disgusting.
“I met that man for one hour when I was eleven,” she continues. “And I am 28, still undoing the damage that that one sentence had on my life.”
Elyse then makes a point that everyone should be reminded of.
“If you’re around humans in any way, I need you to understand how powerful your words are,” she points out.
“As easily as they can tear someone down, they can build someone back up. But it’s going to take a hell of a lot more work to build them up after you’ve torn them down.”
Elyse emphasizes how important it is to choose our words carefully when talking to one another, especially children. It can be so easy to make a passing comment on someone’s appearance that we may not even think of the next day, but it haunts that person for the rest of their life.
Elyse encourages her viewers to teach people how to love themselves, how they are beautiful, worthy, and that they are so much more than their looks.
“If I had as much attention poured into the things I was good at, that I cared about, that I loved, I would have been a completely different kid.”
Elyse then ends the video on a light note, revealing a picture of herself playing a cheerleader in her school’s production of Grease.
Even though the words of that substitute teacher had squandered her dream, she felt amazing up on that stage.
