Scarlett Lewis

I truly believe that our purpose is to take what we have learned through our lived experience, both good and bad, that translates into wisdom, so take that wisdom and use it to help other people. Every single one of us has a unique story. We see the world through a different lens, and we all have this incredible story that we can use to help other people so other people do not have to suffer like we did in order to get the benefit from the lessons that we learned. There is actually a scientific term for that. It is called vicarious post traumatic growth. It is a gift that we give one another, and I believe that is what our purpose is.

I did not want to join an existing movement. I was asked to, and it probably would have been an easier thing to do than creating my own, but I thought that did not work for my son and that has not worked for other kids. Our system is failing kids, so why do the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I am going to look to the root cause of the despair, of the pain and suffering that leads to not only the violence that murdered my son, but also substance abuse and mental illness and homelessness, all of these diseases of despair that actually can be reduced and prevented by the right kind of education early on.

The amazing thing about Choose Love is that it has spread by word of mouth and referral of our programming, and we are now in over 14,500 schools. We are being taught in every state in the United States, and in some states we are the number one taught essential life skills program, and then in 120 countries, which is really incredible. I truly believe that our purpose is to take what we have learned through our lived experience, both good and bad, that translates into wisdom, so take that wisdom and use it to help other people. I truly believe that is why we are here on Earth. Every single one of us has a unique story. We see the world through a different lens, and we all have this incredible story that we can use to help other people so other people do not have to suffer like we did in order to get the benefit from the lessons that we learned.

I believe that choosing love is inherent in our purpose. I believe that we either make decisions out of fear or out of love. What I have learned from my personal experience and being able to look back on my life from what I know now, I realize that almost every decision I ever made, and I am talking about bigger decisions like jobs, like relationships, were made out of fear, and after Jesse's murder I made a decision to make decisions out of love because those outcomes look vastly different. I truly believe that if we could learn to choose love as a thoughtful response, that is a direct path to finding meaning in our pain, as well as then launching us into purpose.

The formula starts with courage, and that is the courage to face whatever difficulty you are having in your life, to pause, to get curious, and ask how is this going to help me grow, what am I going to learn from this, how am I going to be strengthened by this situation. Of course, Jesse showed us a tremendous example of courage when he stood up to the shooter who had just murdered his principal and guidance counselor right outside of his classroom door and then turned to come into Jesse's classroom. He killed his teacher, who was standing right behind him, and then his gun ran out of bullets. During the short delay, Jesse directed his friends to run, and he is credited with saving many of their lives. So we talk about that courage, that example of courage, that is the capacity for courage that every single one of us has. He was a six year old little boy. Think about that. We all have that capacity, and that is the capacity to stand up and face difficulty, uncertainty, doubt, and feeling like we are not worthy.

I think one of the struggles that I faced in finding my purpose is that it came out of my son's murder, but I am so grateful for that silver lining, for that gift that I found there, and then come to find out that that is where purpose can come from, through pain, finding purpose in pain. Through my research on what happened to my son and how to prevent it proactively, I came across a term called post traumatic growth. This is a scientific term that describes how we are designed as human beings to grow through difficulty, roadblocks, and challenges in our life. That is how we are designed. So now the Choose Love movement is teaching kids, giving them that understanding that yes, you are going to feel pain, but it is there for a reason. It is to help you grow. That takes some of the fear away from the challenge in your life because our natural inclination is to resist and avoid pain. Finding my purpose in life, and that is a tremendous way to heal and to live.

We create safer and more loving communities through groundbreaking social and emotional learning (SEL) and character development programs.

My purpose is to spread love, to teach people how to choose love as a thoughtful response in every situation, circumstance, and interaction. I came to my purpose through the murder of my six year old son, Jesse McCord Lewis. He was murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his first grade classroom alongside 19 of his classmates and six educators, in what is still the worst mass shooting in US history in an elementary school. I came home from that day and found a message that Jesse had written on our kitchen chalkboard that he left for us. It was three words, nurturing, healing, love, written phonetically. He was just learning how to write in first grade. The message was incredibly clear to me that that was the solution to what had happened to him, and that if we could focus on love, that we could overcome the darkness. So I took that message and started spreading it in schools, homes, and communities around the country, around the US and the world.