How Can Healing Arise from Tragedy?
Healing comes when you see the opportunity for growth
that a painful situation has provided.
Br. David Steindl-Rast
This week has been difficult for many of us. As we try to wrap our minds around a deliberate mass murder of children, we find that we cannot. It is hard to imagine the devastating impact on the families of the children lost and on the other children whose lives have been unalterably changed.
There is no short cut through this time of grieving. There are no platitudes that will make it easier. The best that we can do is to hold those people most affected in our hearts and minds, through prayer or blessing or sending love in our own way.
For some, this has become a catalyst to take a stand for changes in the laws that make it easier for anyone wanting to commit such horrendous acts to obtain the means to do so. This seems to be a time when our country is searching for her soul, and we each get to decide what role we will play.
As we worked through our thoughts and feelings about one more mass murder, Larry and I realized that we were reliving what we had been through before.
I revisited a post about a similar tragedy at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. It is a story about the healing and hope that resulted as the mother of one child turned her loss into a sense of purpose that has had a positive impact on the lives of thousands of children.
This does not diminish the current tragedy. It does invite us to see how, in the wake of any tragedy, we can find a way to create a solution that may lead to a more hopeful future.
How Love and Healing Arose from the Tragedy of Sandy Hook
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
- Aristotle
On December 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and shot and killed 26 people, including twenty children and six staff. Scarlett Lewis lost her son, Jesse, that day. Out of that unimaginable tragedy, she was inspired to create a program that has been changing the lives of students and educators world-wide.
When Scarlett returned home that evening, she saw that Jesse had written on the blackboard in their kitchen the words, “nurturing healing love.” As she tried to imagine how a 6-year-old boy could have come up with those words, she knew that they were a message for her. She realized that if Adam Lanza had been able to give and receive nurturing, healing love, her son would still be alive.
With the inspiration from Jesse’s words, Scarlett founded the Choose Love Foundation. She wanted to turn the tragedy of Sandy Hook into something that makes the world a better place, and she realized that the answer was to teach children how to live with love.
She became an advocate for character development and social and emotional learning (SEL), which teaches children how to manage their emotions, feel connected, and have healthy relationships. To develop a program, she contacted a doctoral professor, Dr. Chris Kukk, and a group of educators and child psychologists.
Dr. Kukk explained that social and emotional learning is helping children learn about what their emotions mean and how to handle them, and also awareness of what other people are feeling and thinking about. In the process, they learn to live with compassion.
When we think in a compassionate way, our bodies release a peptide hormone called oxytocin, which releases two neurotransmitters – dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine makes you feel high, and serotonin is calming. So, compassion makes us feel good, which supports the process of learning.
In 2013, Scarlett began The Choose Love Movement, which offers free social and emotional learning (SEL) to children and adults around the world.
The Choose Love Movement
The Choose Love Movement has a mission to create safer schools and a safer world by teaching people how to use nurturing, healing love in any circumstance. Children who have healthy and positive relationships, who can manage their emotions, and who have learned how to love one another, are not going to want to harm others.
The program teaches children and adults how to change an angry thought to a loving one, and to live a life filled with “Courage + Gratitude + Forgiveness + Compassion-in-Action.” These four values are easy to learn, and with practice, they strengthen the resilience of individuals and promote a safer, more peaceful and loving world.
Choose Love for Schools is a no cost education program for Pre-K through 12th grades, designed to create a safer, more connected school culture. The program teaches the foundational concepts and skills of social and emotional learning (SEL). The goal is to provide children with the knowledge, attitude, and skills they need to choose love in any situation. These abilities include:
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Understanding and managing emotions (self-awareness and self-management),
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Setting and achieving positive goals,
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Feeling and displaying empathy and compassion for others (social awareness),
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Establishing and maintaining positive relationships, and
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Making responsible decisions.
The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement™ began as a program for schools but has expanded into programs for home, for work, and for community. Two million people across more than 100 countries have already joined the movement.
Out of a horrendous tragedy, a world-wide movement arose that is changing the lives of millions of people and promoting a safer and more peaceful world.
Scarlett invites us to take the Choose Love Pledge - setting the intention to take our personal power back by Choosing Love in our thoughtful responses to whatever shows up in our lives. That choice may be the most powerful response we can make as tragedies occur.
Image: Jesse and Scarlett Lewis
Click here to learn more about the Choose Love Movement and how to get involved.
Click here to learn more about Scarlett and Jesse Lewis.
