For the most part, I don’t like to think in dichotomies. Yes, some issues are black and white. Usually I see a lot of gray in between.
What I’ve been fortunate enough to experience for many years is a fundamental human decision that is clearly divided.
This decision is either/or. There is no in-between.
Every moment of every day, we either choose fear, or we choose love.
There are no gray areas.
We choose love. Or we choose fear.
And we always have a choice.
Victor Frankl, in my opinion, explained the power of choice best:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Choosing love, possibilities for growth and freedom open to us.
We experience love as kindness, giving, mercy, compassion, peace, joy, acceptance, non-judgment, unity and intimacy.
If we choose fear, our prospects become limited, seemingly dark and painful.
We recognize our fear as anger, abuse, disease, pain, greed, addiction, selfishness, obsession, corruption, violence and war.
Whether we open or close our hearts to love, it is a choice we make every moment of every day.
Over the past two years, I have thought a lot of how to help others see that space between stimulus and response, and to see that they have the power to choose between love and fear.
In a moment of serendipity, I found out about a program that has been around for ten years, the Choose Love Movement.
Started by Scarlett Lewis, whose six-year-old son, Jesse, was murdered in the Sandy Hook shootings, the Choose Love Movement has developed many resources for parents, teachers, and the community at large to learn to enlarge that space between stimulus and response.
The Choose Love Formula:
Courage + Gratitude + Forgiveness + Compassion in Action
I invite you to visit the Choose Love website and look at their resources. When you sign up to take a complimentary course, after answering a few questions, their first email to you will make a recommendation of a course to take.
The lessons in the courses are short and easy to approach.
These lessons can help us as parents, teachers and community leaders to teach our children fundamental skills of breathing and affirmations.
These techniques open a space in our minds and our hearts to allow us to choose love when we might choose fear instead.
Visit the Choose Love Movement website:
Over the next couple of months on my Instagram account I will be highlighting and reinforcing the Choose Love Formula and how to implement it with children. You might learn a few techniques for yourself, too.
Choosing love requires courage, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion, and over the summer I will be posting Kids Talk articles about these four strengths.
It’s time to choose love. We know what the alternative looks like.
