Photo Courtesy of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement

On December 14th, 2012, Scarlett Lewis tragically lost her six-year old son, Jesse, in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. This was one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history, as the community lost Jesse, 19 of his first-grade classmates, and six educators. In the wake of tragedy, Scarlett Lewis established the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, which advocates for social-emotional character development to teach both children and adults how to live a Choose Love lifestyle and empower them emotionally, mentally, personally, and socially. Today, the program reaches all 50 states and over 100 countries, serving over 2 million children. In Scarlett’s interview with Jejune Magazine, she explains the Choose Love Formula, how we all can implement the formula in our daily lives, and the most important steps we must address in order to abolish school shootings. Read on to learn more about how Scarlett is teaching all of us to Choose Love!

Where are you based?
Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

You have a very powerful story. We are so sorry to hear about your son. Can you please tell us a little bit about Jesse, what happened to him, and how this sparked you to start the Choose Love Movement?
December 14, 2012 was the day I experienced every parent’s worst nightmare. My six-year-old son, Jesse, was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy alongside 19 of his first-grade classmates and six educators. It was one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history. Law enforcement officials have told me that Jesse courageously used his final moments to heroically save nine of his friends.

At my son's funeral, I asked every person in attendance to replace an angry thought with a loving one and to always thoughtfully respond with love in any situation. Since then, I dedicated my life to raising awareness of mental health issues and making the world a safer, more peaceful and loving place by building a culture of love, resilience, and forgiveness into our communities at a time when it is needed the most. I established the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement and became an advocate for social-emotional character development to teach children (and adults) how to live a Choose Love lifestyle and empower them emotionally, mentally, personally, and socially. Our programs are in all 50 states and over 100 countries, serving over 2 million children. I wanted to make sure that every child always has access to the essential life skills that I know would have saved my son’s life. The former student who perpetrated this tragedy had been bullied, isolated, and neglected for years. The tragedy could have been prevented, as can so much of the suffering that we are seeing in today’s world, by teaching our children the skills, tools, and awareness that can help nurture and heal them and enable them to thrive, even in the most difficult times. Adults need to have these tools, as well.

You truly raised a hero! Do you know what inspired Jesse to write “Nurturing Healing Love” on the kitchen chalkboard?
Much of the chaos in the world stems from lack of love. My young son, Jesse, left a powerful message on our kitchen chalkboard shortly before he died: 'Norturing Helinn Love' (Nurturing Healing Love). I believe this was a spiritual awareness and an answer to what could have prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy. The words were phonetically spelled because he was in first grade and just learning to write, but the meaning to me was clear. If his shooter had been able to give and receive 'nurturing healing love' the tragedy would never have happened. Those three words are in the definition of compassion across all cultures. Love is synonymous with peace. Both are a choice when we are socially and emotionally intelligent.

Photo Courtesy of the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement

Can you tell us about the Choose Love Formula, and what it means to you?
The Choose Love Formula is a way of life and comprises important character values: Courage + Gratitude + Forgiveness + Compassion-in-Action = Choosing Love. It can be used in any situation to promote personal empowerment, resilience, and connection, providing children and adults with the essential social and emotional learning skills and tools to help them become more engaged and more confident. We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can take our personal power back in our thoughtful response. Choosing love helps to create a safer, more peaceful and loving world.

How do you go about teaching the Choose Love Formula to people?
The Choose Love Formula is so easy to teach and even easier to learn, which is the reason Choose Love messaging can so quickly spread throughout entire school districts and into homes, communities, and even workplaces. The Pre-K through Grade 12 For Schools program offers a series of reinforcement lessons and activities for each of the values extended over the course of the school year and scaffolded to build upon each other year after year. We also offer free, bite-sized video lessons for families and communities on our website to explain the basic concepts. We reinforce the values through social media and the distribution of 30 Days of Choosing Love calendars that are loaded with activities that anyone can do! We also have rubber bracelets inscribed with the Choose Love Formula so kids are reminded of it every day when they wear them. It’s so amazing to see kids learn it and then share it with their family and friends. It has a powerful ripple effect!

How can individuals reading this interview implement the choose love formula in their own lives?
The values in the formula can be used at any time to manage your response to a situation. It’s not hard to be courageous, grateful, forgiving, and compassionate if you practice them every day which, in turn, will help you become happier and healthier. The very willingness to try choosing love is an act of courage, the first part of the formula! Next time you’re feeling frustrated, worried, or angry, try instead to think of something you’re grateful for — even if it’s just the air that you breathe. That, too, is implementing the Choose Love Formula. Making the decision to let go of something or someone who has hurt you, even if they’re not sorry, is practicing the forgiveness part of the formula. And putting aside your own busyness to notice that someone else needs support and doing something to help them is practicing compassion in action and putting the formula into practice. The Choose Love Formula is so easy to implement in all facets of our lives and the positive results you’ll experience are practically instant!

How is the Choose Love Movement helping to prevent school shootings?
When you look at the pathway to violence, it generally starts with a grievance and can end in an attack. Much of the focus has been on hardening schools; however, there is an increased understanding of the importance of a school’s culture in keeping kids safe. When a school has a connected, compassionate, and loving culture, this can prevent a grievance from happening or, if one does, the educators and students have the skills needed to manage the grievance before it escalates.

How do you know you are getting the people you need (aka people with potential violent outbreaks) into your program?
We are always raising awareness of our free resources and trying to reach as many people as possible. Ideally, everyone in school should take part in the program, learn the formula, and practice it. We have a program for parents and community members, as well, and are always continually broadening our reach. The essential life skills taught in the program can benefit anyone, at any age. Teaching social and emotional skills, tools and attitudes can reduce and prevent mental illness, bullying, and many other issues, and it has a long-lasting impact.

Have you ever run into someone you worry could turn into a shooter? What did you do/ would you do in this case?
If a person were at risk to become a shooter there are almost always many signs. The Sandy Hook School shooter, for instance, was extremely anxious, had no friends, was bullied, and was always alone. It was reported that he was isolated, played violent video games, and did not have close family ties. There were other factors, as well, but if someone had been emotionally connected with him they might have been able to prevent the shooting. I certainly believe that if he had the coping skills he needed to manage his pain, the tragedy would have been prevented.

Do you have any stories as to how the Choose Love Formula has been implemented in others’ lives?
My new book, From Sandy Hook to the World: How the Choose Love Movement Transforms Lives includes how three states (Hawaii, New Hamphsire, and Connecticut) had the courage to fully embrace Choose Love and successfully implement its programming in their schools. The program is being taught in every state and in over 10,000 schools. I also include life-changing stories of people who have been personally impacted by the Choose Love Movement, including a young man on the brink of suicide who was saved after learning about our Movement at his high school, and prisoners in a Connecticut prison who had no hope or direction who have found the key to freedom through choosing love and are living a new life behind bars.

Do you have any advice for people who have been impacted by school shootings?
A school shooting is a devastating event that can impact not only those directly involved but the entire community; it can also trigger PTSD in others who are outside the community. It is very important to seek help after a traumatic event because oftentimes people assume they’re fine but they are not. It's important to have at least one trusted adult in a child's life, and in an adult's life, too, that you can reach out to and ask for help, talk about the incident, share feelings, and analyze all that you are dealing with internally and externally. These unfortunate events have been happening consistently now for many years and counselors and first responders have been trained to deal with the aftermath, but it is up to each individual to seek help and then follow through with it when we are in need.

What do you think is the most important step that needs to be done to help reduce and abolish school shootings?
I believe in order to stop school shootings we must address the cause, which is unmanageable pain in the shooter. Implementing a comprehensive character social-emotional development program in every grade level, such as the free Choose Love for Schools program, will provide essential life skills that individuals need to manage difficulty in their lives and to have the courage to be able to learn from, grow through, and be strengthened by, every experience they face.

With everyone learning from home we had the longest time in recent US history without a school shooting. How did this feel to you? How did it feel once they started up again?
I knew that once schools opened we would see shootings on a regular basis. They aren’t a ‘new normal’ anymore, now we expect them. This is agonizing and frustrating to me as each one is 100% preventable.

How did COVID-19 affect your program?
COVID caused the world to experience high stress and anxiety levels. Immediately, my team and I went to work to create “Choosing Love in Our Brave New World,” a free social-emotional wellness program to support educators and students as they navigated the start of the 2020/21 school year (it can also be used at any time). This special reentry unit helps transition students back to class or to support them during distance learning and find their way into the new normal of education. We created it with particular awareness of the current events and environment, and fosters the development of a growth mindset and perseverance. Lessons incorporate trauma-sensitive, healing-centered language and practices which are based on the latest neuroscience and post-traumatic growth research. Lessons can be taught as a whole or in smaller parts throughout the day or the week. This gives educators the choice and flexibility to use components of the lesson and customize them to their individual needs. The goal of this special back-to-school unit is to provide transitional support from any trauma or stress that students may be bringing back from an extended break as they begin to immerse themselves in a new year of learning.

How can we apply the Choose Love Formula to the current COVID situation?
We can have the courage to face our fear and practice the self-care needed to stay positive. We can practice gratitude by shifting away from fear-based or angry thoughts by thinking of something we are grateful for. We can forgive ourselves and others to take our personal power back and free ourselves from the burden of guilt or shame. We can step outside of our comfort zone to help others and in doing this we will have chosen love and done our part to make the world a safer, more peaceful place.

How can people reading this interview get involved in your program?
Depending on what you’re looking for, we have so many different ways people can get involved. You can start by visiting our website (www.ChooseLoveMovement.org) to learn more about the many ways you can contribute to our exciting worldwide growth. We offer free resources for schools, the home, communities, athletics, and the workplace. Plus we have Experiential Educator Workshops; an Ambassador program for adults and youths; A Daily Dose of Love, an e-newsletter showing real-life examples of Choose Love values at work; a Choose Love podcast; and a Choose Love Book Club. Perhaps the easiest way to become part of the Choose Love Movement is to simply make the conscious choice to turn your next angry thought into a loving one, and invite others to do the same.

COVID has been hard on mental health around the world. Do you worry there will be an increase of violence as we emerge out of this?
Homicides increased 30% last year in the US. The social distancing mandate was the opposite of what we needed as human beings. We are social beings and without one another, we are diminished. This can increase anxiety and untreated anxiety can lead to mental illness. When we feel as if we have no control in our lives, we begin to blame others which leads to helplessness and hopelessness. In this condition we become angry and this can lead to rage and violence. In hindsight, the message should have been to physically distance ourselves but make sure we stayed socially connected.

How can we take care of our own mental health as well as each others?
It is essential that we stay consciously aware of what we’re thinking. Our thoughts impact how we feel and this in turn affects how we show up in our relationships and how we behave. By coming to the present moment, the here and now, we let our brains know we are safe and we can get in between what is happening and how we respond. This is how we can choose love in our response. When we do this, we are in control of our emotions which positively impacts others as well. We can help others by reminding them to be aware of our thoughts and to replace negative ones with gratitude. Be mindful of the words you use as well and make sure they are positive. When you hear others saying something disparaging or negative, gently remind them to be aware of their messaging and how it can impact themselves and others.

How have you stayed positive throughout the pandemic?
I continued to remain close with my family, spent a lot of time with my animals and working in my garden and growing vegetables. I saw friends and made a point to get a hug from my older son, J.T., every day! Working each day to offer a solution to the issues we face is healing for myself.

What is your motto in life?
I believe we’re here to learn from both joyful and painful experiences and take that wisdom and use it to help others. The amazing thing is that when we do this, we help ourselves as well. I practice the Choose Love Formula every day. I practice courage consciously when I am nervous or afraid to do something outside my comfort zone. I shift the focus of my thoughts from negative to positive using gratitude. I am continuously forgiving either myself or someone else and every day I am using my story to help others which is compassion-in-action. In essence, I am choosing love for myself and others and taking responsibility for what’s going on in our world which enables me to be part of the solution. This gives me hope, even when things look grim. And hope is indispensable. Jesse left a message for his older brother that said, ‘Have a Lot of fun.’ I would say this is my motto. I have fun every day. In fact, I try to have fun in everything I do!

To learn more about Scarlett Lewis and the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, please follow them at the links below:
Website: chooselovemovement.org
Facebook: @JLChooseLove
Instagram: @chooselovemovement
Twitter: @ScarlettMLewis
LinkedIn: Scarlett Lewis

Scarlett Lewis is Teaching Us All to Choose Love