We are honored and grateful to have Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation spotlight the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement™ during the month of January. The Born This Way Foundation is all about Empowering Youth and Inspiring Bravery by promoting Mental Wellness, Positive School Climate, and Kindness through a multitude of initiatives. The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement™ meshes beautifully with the Born This Way Foundation as we strive to promote Social and Emotional Learning and the Message of Choosing Love to give students the skills to be compassionate, connected, empowered, optimistic and resilient.
Here is an excerpt from their Born Brave Blog:
For the month of January, Born This Way Foundation will shine light on an organization that gives us hope that we can choose love, even during the darkest days. The Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement was established in honor of Jesse Lewis, who was one of the 26 victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. The foundation was established to develop school-based educational programs to change our current culture of violence to one of safety, peace and love for everyone in our world. Scarlett Lewis shares her story with us.
Sometimes we go through things in life and we feel like we have no control. And it’s true, things happen that are totally out of our control. But we always have control over one thing – how we respond in any given situation. Take the murder of my 6-year-old son. He was killed in his first grade classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary, alongside 19 of his classmates and 6 educators. I couldn’t control the former student who killed all those innocent people, but I did control how I responded to the tragedy. Ultimately, I responded by starting a worldwide movement to choose love through a nonprofit organization I created in honor of my son – the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement. It was a process in how I got there.
If you haven’t already, we hope you’ll join our efforts by liking the Born This Way Foundation and the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement on Facebook and follow us on social media. We also hope that you’ll sign up for the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement e-newsletter to stay updated on our efforts and initiatives. Thank you for CHOOSING LOVE!
Ways to Choose Love
- Have the Courage to step outside yourself to help others.
- Be brave enough to do the right thing even if it may be hard.
- Stand up for someone who needs support.
- Have an “Attitude of Gratitude” by being grateful for people and things in your life.
- Find the good in yourself, others, and any situation.
- Give thanks to those that are important to you.
- Practice Forgiveness by letting go of the hurt and anger you feel towards others who may have caused you pain.
- Forgive yourself for mistakes you’ve made.
- Let go of angry thoughts and change them into loving thoughts.
- Try to put yourself in someone else’s shoes to better understand their feelings.
- Show Compassion in Action by having empathy for another and then actively trying to help them or ease their pain.
- Make a new friend or be a mentor to someone who needs one.
- Find something, even the littlest thing, which you can do right now to improve the world.
- Practice Inclusion instead of Exclusion.
- Do one thing every day to make someone smile.
- Spread messages of compassion and love on social media.
