TRANSCRIPT
Gissele: [00:00:00] Choosing love after the unthinkable.
Gissele: Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And we’d also like to take an opportunity to thank Yorkton Film Festival for voting our podcast Best Podcast Nonfiction for 2026, and Latin Fest Best Latin Podcast for 2026.
Scarlett: Wow
Gissele: Scarlett Lewis is the founder of Choose Love Movement, a non-for-profit whose programs have reached millions of children and educators across all 50 US states and 135 countries. Following the tragic loss of her son Jesse in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, she developed award-winning programs that teach people of all ages essential life skills rooted in courage, gratitude, forgiveness, love, and compassion.
Gissele: Scarlett is also the author of several books, including Nurturing Healing Love and From Sandy Hook to the World, and her work extends into schools, [00:01:00] homes, communities, foster care, corrections, and youth programs. Recognized with numerous honors and awards and featured by many major media outlets, she continues to speak internationally about the healing, resilience, and power of choosing love.
Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Scarlett Lewis.
Gissele: Hi, Scarlett.
Scarlett: Hi. So happy to be here. Thank you.
Gissele: Thank you so much for being on the show. Your story is so powerful. I was wondering if you could get started by letting the audience know for those who might not know about Sandy Hook, a little bit about Sandy Hook and what happened to your son, Jesse.
Scarlett: Yes, absolutely. First of all, thank you so much for having me and introducing this to your audience. It’s really exciting. So on December 14th, 2012, so that was 13 years ago, my six-year-old son was murdered in his first grade classroom alongside 19 of his classmates and six educators in what is still the worst mass shooting in an elementary school in the US
Scarlett: after that, [00:02:00] I realized that what happened was 100% preventable . I just knew that inherently, and it turns out that is accurate. And w- I decided that I would spend the rest of my life in search of how we can keep our kids safe and well. So that was the beginning of the Choose Love movement
Gissele: When you say that you believe there was 100% preventable, what do you mean by that?
Scarlett: I mean that in every case in every school shooting, there are always signs. and other people had feelings and saw issues that went unaddressed. And the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is no different. There were signs and things that were happening along the way.
Scarlett: One of the things that really bothered me personally in this situation in my own son’s murder, was that there was [00:03:00] never a motive assigned to that school shooting. And a lot of times if you follow these things there aren’t motives that are identified, and that really bothered me because I kept thinking, “If you don’t know why somebody is doing what they’re doing, how can you solve it?”
Scarlett: And it turns out we haven’t. And so what I did was look at what was currently in place, and a lot of times in our current system, we are very reactive and we focus on the problems. So even in school shootings, if you look at the Department of Homeland Security’s Pathway to Violence, it starts with a grievance, and then it escalates up, ideation, preparation, a few other steps to the attack end.
Scarlett: We’re very focused on the attack end with a billion-dollar industry that has grown up around active shooter drills and hardening schools. And I looked at that and I thought it’s [00:04:00] interesting that we do that for other things too, as, as well as mental health and substance abuse.” And I thought, “Wow, if you shifted part of your focus,” because that’s very important.
Scarlett: There are fires. We do have to put them out. But if we shifted some of our time, energy, and resources to the grievance end to address in a proactive and preventative way the root cause of the suffering, th- then we actually can reduce that suffering and potentially stop not only school shootings, but substance abuse and mental illness and so many of the other society issues of despair And so that’s where I’ve really focused my efforts because I saw that not many people were doing that.
Scarlett: That’s not traditionally in our methods. And although I will say, great news, it [00:05:00] is becoming more of a focus, and really because we’ve seen nothing else is working. When Jesse was murdered, I had lots of opportunity to speak on behalf of lots of different initiatives that were going on before my son’s murder, and I thought, “You know what?
Scarlett: No thank you,” because those haven’t worked. They didn’t work for my son, as well as his shooter by the way. And flash forward 13 years, they’re not working now. So I think a lot is in addressing the root cause. And this is a simple concept, but simple isn’t easy. It does take effort, and it takes all of us.
Scarlett: But you know what? We benefit as individuals as well as a society. We’re responsible for the world that we’re leaving our kids. And so this is actually a way that everyone can get involved to help create a safer, more peaceful, and loving [00:06:00] world
Gissele: I love everything that you said. There’s so much to unpack. I think the first thing I thought about was the fact that in many systems, not just like you said when you deal with a school shooter, even with women and violence the police wait until something has actually happened in order to offer protection.
Gissele: So we wait for something to occur and then react instead of being proactive. The other thing I thought about is the fact that like you mentioned, there’s a lot of invisible suffering that happens. And the school shooter, I think his name was Adam Lanza and and all these other children that are going through all of this suffering basically unnoticed ’cause there was lots of instances where that potential could have been stopped, but it wasn’t,
Scarlett: Oh, Gissele, can I even make, can I mention something there?
Gissele: yes, please do
Scarlett: When you say that, that’s very profound because in my research I’ve also spoken to school shooters because I wanna ask them what I don’t think anyone else is asking, “How did [00:07:00] we fail you?”
Gissele: Oof. Yeah.
Scarlett: You’re a
Gissele: And what was their answer?
Scarlett: You’re a child, in essence, and you weren’t born a mass murderer So how did we fail you along the way?
Scarlett: What were the needs that you had that weren’t met? And with all the conversations that I’ve had, I can boil it down to one thing. It’s that they didn’t feel seen. And if you think about it, that takes a bit of effort. Instead of saying as I walk by you, “Hey, Gissele, how you doing?” And walking right past, it means pausing.
Scarlett: It means being present in the moment, looking at you, hopefully in the eyes, and saying an open-ended statement s- to make you realize that I see and value you. If we treated every interaction as a sacred occurrence, which it really is, it would change humanity. And I think this is so [00:08:00] important. What I’m talking about are not difficult things.
Scarlett: They’re really actually very simple, and they’re also led by a message that my six-year-old son left on our kitchen chalkboard shortly before his murder that I found after, which profoundly changed my life and also informed everything that I’ve done every day since. Those three words are nurturing, healing love.
Scarlett: Phonetically spelled, because he was in first grade and just learning to write. I didn’t walk around saying those words. He wasn’t learning it in school. I believe that it was a message that came through him. But I immediately recognized it as the solution, and we know through now decades of research that connection or lack thereof is at the root of almost all suffering, including school shootings, mental illness, [00:09:00] substance abuse.
Scarlett: And there are things that we can do to facilitate connection and teaching kids these essential life skills is so vitally important. B- in essence, giving them an invisible tool belt that they can use for the rest of their life to be able to learn, grow, and be strengthened through painful events.
Scarlett: Because we’re gonna be experiencing pain. That’s part of the human condition. Nobody escapes it. It’s something I have in common with every single listener out there. Physical, mental, and emotional pain, we’ve all had it. We’ve all had our hearts broken. Maybe just a little crack, maybe shattered like mine.
Scarlett: But in actuality, that pain has a purpose. It’s there to help us grow. There’s a science behind that as well. And if we don’t know that, we fear pain [00:10:00] because nobody wants to be in pain. And we do everything that we can to resist and avoid or w- maybe even numb ourselves.
Scarlett: But in reality, if we can raise kids that understand that pain has a purpose, that are present with those difficult feelings, which is getting harder and harder with cell phones that give us an immediate dopamine hit through scrolling. But if we can be present with it and get curious about what that pain is offering us and learn and grow from us, and then go through this formula that we’ve developed to let the painful parts go, but to bring forward that wisdom we benefit from it, believe it or not
Gissele: Yeah. Absolutely. I wanted to mention the fact that there are many systems that we have, including the school system, that really doesn’t allow the getting to know each and every child. It’s like we have many systems where there’s so many people that are invisible, and I just wanna reiterate what you said, which [00:11:00] is this doesn’t take a lot.
Gissele: Sometimes it’s as small as an eye contact or asking someone how they’re doing that might make the difference between that person feeling connected or disconnected. But you’re right. We’ve created a world right now that there’s so much disconnection and We really struggle with having those difficult conversations and those difficult feelings, and you can see it in how we’re canceling one another.
Gissele: But that’s really the only way that we’re gonna get through any of the isms, through being able to lean into one another and be able to regulate ourselves enough to be able to sit and get curious. Because it seems to me that you got curious about the perpetrator of that school shooting.
Gissele: You got curious as to why that happened. Can you share a little bit about how you went from grief to that curiosity?
Scarlett: Absolutely, and I think that’s a really important point. with the algorithms that are behind the phones now, we are just given, the [00:12:00] content that aligns with what our beliefs are right now, and we become even further and further divided. There’s fear that’s being seeded in that process, and so fear is driving that division.
Scarlett: It’s actually narrowing our focus. If you look at what fear does to our brain, it’s very fascinating. It literally puts blinders on us so we have less tolerance to be able to handle other people’s views. So what is going on in our world right nowmakes sense because it’s being driven by an algorithm.
Scarlett: But the beautiful thing is we are so much more powerful than that algorithm, but we do need to have awareness of what’s happening, and then a few skills and tools in our belt. And curiosity is so valuable, and here’s why. Because the way that our brain processes information, it comes in from our [00:13:00] five senses, and it goes into a little region in our brain called the thalamus.
Scarlett: The thalamus acts as a relay station, and it sends that information to our prefrontal cortex and our amygdala, which is our fear center. Here’s the thing. Our prefrontal cortex is where logic and reasoning and the understanding of right and wrong, and really the wisdom is here, as well as in the heart.
Scarlett: The fear center is what keeps us safe. And so the fear center, for our safety, is four times faster at processing information than our prefrontal cortex. And if you look at it in context, that makes a lot of sense. So you’re walking along and you have a bear that comes out of the woods. Actually, yesterday I was walking and there was a raccoon that was weaving in the road.
Scarlett: I did not have to pause, get curious about that situation to determine what should I do. My brain flipped me [00:14:00] around and I went the other way. So it makes sense if we’re in physical danger. But what happens it also has the same effect when we’re in what our brain deems to be emotional danger. What can happen is that our amygdala gets hijacked, and that information doesn’t get to our prefrontal cortex, where our highest and best selves are able to thoughtfully respond, where also the brake on our instinctual reactions is.
Scarlett: That curiosity is key. And we all have triggers every day. It could be a look That triggers us. It can be a word, a situation. It could even be a memory that comes up a painful memory. And those triggers they’re happening in our amygdala, and the way to move through them to not be reactive, I say put up your metaphorical dukes if your life’s not in danger, is to pause.
Scarlett: We call this the pause and the [00:15:00] choice moment. This is what we’re teaching kids all over the world, which is so incredible, and adults. Pause, take a brave breath. That restores your autonomic nervous system. It stimulates your vagus nerve, which wraps around every single organ, which it, there’s nothing you can do to bring calm on faster than a brave breath.
Scarlett: And then you get curious. That curiosity stimulates the prefrontal cortex and allows for what we call a thoughtful response in love for maintaining your personal power in any situation, and not handing it over to the person who may have triggered you or hurt you. So in this sense, your question is, was about Adam Lanza.
Scarlett: I understood that hurt people. And to me first of all, I looked around and I saw so much blame, finger-pointing, and fault-finding on Adam Lanza and his mom, Nancy Adam, by the way, killed [00:16:00] Nancy before he left that morning from the home that they shared to go back to the elementary school that he attended to perpetrate the crime.
Scarlett: And I thought about that for a moment, and I thought there was so much blame going on, not just on Adam and Nancy, but on so many different things. And I thought, wow, the act of blaming is actually a way to not take responsibility ourselves. So in
Scarlett: other words, Gissele, if it’s your fault, then I’m saying, “I’m the good guy.”
Scarlett: And by the way, our brain looks for this narrative. “I’m the good guy. You’re the bad guy.” That means that it’s all your fault. But also it means that there’s nothing that I can do about it, that I’m a
Gissele: Yeah
Scarlett: And so I saw all of this, and it just didn’t make sense to me because I think maybe it’s because it’s the first time I’d ever sat quietly since I had kids, and I have a farm, and I had a full-time job.
Scarlett: I’m a single mom. I [00:17:00] really do think I did all this thinking because I finally had nothing else to do in this moment leading up to Jesse’s funeral and then a little bit beyond. And I thought, “Wow so all these people are blaming these different things.” But in reality i- and I said this in the, in one of the first interviews I gave, I said, ” I take my part of the responsibility for what happened to my son in his school, in my community.”
Scarlett: Blaming Adam Lanza and his mother yes, they’re 100% responsible for the choices that they made. Nancy paid for those mistakes that she made as did Adam. He killed himself after he murdered all those children when he heard the sirens coming. So I’m not saying that it’s not their fault but in reality, aren’t we all responsible for the world and the community that we live in?
Scarlett: And if it was all their fault , then it would never have [00:18:00] happened before, but it did multiple times, and it would never happen again, yet we continue to have school shootings. I can’t even say they’re our new normal anymore. They’re part of our culture, and we expect them in fact, a parent told me over the weekend, this is just while I was traveling and speaking they said sending their child to school was like playing Russian roulette which I thought was so interesting.
Scarlett: They said goodbye to their child, so many parents say this to me, and they hope that they see them when they come home at the end of the day. And I’m laughing only because of the irony. We have so much more power than to think that we’re playing Russian roulette with our children’s lives when we send them to school.
Scarlett: to answer your question, I actually felt compassion for Adam, as well as his mom. First of all, she was a single mom. She was trying to deal with her son’s neurodiversity herself. She was [00:19:00] trying to get help from the school, and she really didn’t. And that’s really tough because I, and a whole bunch of other parents that I know, have been in her shoes and really received so much resistance from the school.
Scarlett: To make me wonder, do we need to reshuffle our priorities? I always assumed that the school’s priority was my child’s safety , health, and wellbeing . But I found out that’s not necessarily the case. Now, I’m not saying anything about the educators or the administrators. I love them. I believe that they are our modern-day superheroes .
Scarlett: My goodness, they show up every day. But I’m saying the whole system is broken in the priorities. I’ve experienced, and then witnessed finances first, and then liability second, and then I’m not [00:20:00] sure on which level our children’s priority is. But I believe that if our children’s priority was children as a priority were first, their safety, health, and wellbeing, we wouldn’t be where we are.
Gissele: Yeah. I agree. It’s funny. I interviewed a mother whose daughter exhibited sociopathic tendencies and actually attempted to murder her sister. And she went in actually asked support of the system, and so many times, and she was told that, informally that they didn’t wanna diagnose her because then it would be a state problem.
Gissele: and then they would have been financially responsible for her. And so I wanted to go back because I think you… Again, you said s- you’re sprouting such gold nuggets here that I don’t want the audience to miss it. The first thing is the fact that we’re all responsible for each other.
Gissele: It’s easier to blame other people because that gives us a sense of that person’s dealt with. We can go back to sleep at night. We can feel safe.” But the truth of the matter is, it’s not until we address our own [00:21:00] fears, until we have the courage to get curious about people, to address our own mental health, to address our own difficult emotions, and then lean into one another and see each other as brothers and sisters, until we’re actually going to change things.
Gissele: And I know from my own personal experience, fear is so difficult to address, especially if you grew up in a very fear-based environment. And every time I made a decision in fear, my world got smaller and smaller. And it was when I started to make decisions from courage that my world got bigger and bigger and bigger.
Scarlett: Can I share something on that?
Gissele: Yes, please do.
Scarlett: Because literally I’m getting goosebumps. When I was sitting on my mom’s couch, she lives across town, right after Jesse’s murder, I had this feeling, even though I was so devastated, I thought I would die just from the pain, not that I wanted to harm myself,
Gissele: Yeah
Scarlett: had this other feeling, and I was trying to figure out what that was, and I [00:22:00] realized for the first time in my life I had no fear.
Scarlett: And then I had this sort of like life review, and I looked back over all of the choices that I’d made. Every relationship, every job I’d ever taken was out of fear. And I promised myself I would not do that anymore, that I would act in courage, as you said. And, I was also realizing, I was, I, we were told within days that my six-year-old son had stood up to the shooter and sacrificed his life to save nine of his classmates.
Scarlett: I, that was my example. I thought, “If my son could do that at six years old, then certainly I can use and dedicate the rest of my life to trying to live my life with that kind of courage to be [00:23:00] part of the solution, to not shy away from it,” as I had for s- for so long, just assuming that other people had children’s best interests.
Scarlett: And I know they try, but I have to say, parents, no one cares about your kids like you do, and a lot of us are parents and we, that is a rally cry for us to get involved ourselves to make sure that our children are safe, that, to make sure that their safety, health, and wellbeing are prioritized.
Scarlett: And I think, I, everybody was telling me, “You’ve been through the worst that a parent could ever experience,” and from talking to other parents since, it is not the worst. But you also can’t compare your grief. But I have tried to live my life with this courage, and actually that is why courage is our first character value in our formula because what I’ve found is that courage is like a muscle.
Scarlett: You can [00:24:00] practice it to strengthen it, and I have to tell you that I… and it’s a lifelong process, by the way. I’m not perfect at it. I’ve been practicing for 13 years. But I am aware, m- much more aware than I was before and I do practice this courage muscle every single day, and it’s so important.
Scarlett: And it opens up, as you said, Gissele, this whole other life that you didn’t even know was possible. It’s pretty amazing
Gissele: Yeah. But it does take courage in the sense that, you have to be willing to face yourself and all of those emotions you haven’t wanted to address. But when you do, and you do that with a lens of compassion, you start to have compassion for other people’s behavior. You start to understand it more.
Gissele: But it’s an interesting journey. I’ve seen it in my own family that when people make decisions out of fear, the world becomes smaller because then each subsequent decision is more and more fearful and more and more small. I wanted to go back to the comment about, the children and your son being a hero, [00:25:00] standing up for his fellow classmates. What else have you learned from children about love and what we could be doing better as adults around how we love each other?
Scarlett: That’s such a great question because I have the honor of being able to go into classrooms. And, it’s so interesting when I work with little kids, they have such wisdom already inherently within them. And I’ll ask them questions like, ” What do you think someone is feeling when they’re mean to you?”
Scarlett: And oh, hands immediately go up. They’re mad.” And I say, “Yes, they’re mad. But why do you think they’re mad ?” And they raise their hand immediately, “Because they’re sad.” And it’s Wow. Wow. They just know this inherently. and I’ve just realized this. I’m still learning and growing myself, but over the last few years, I really [00:26:00] think what happens from when they’re little to when we become older and we progress in age, we also progress in having experiences that are painful.
Scarlett: And I believe that we armor up. And
Gissele: Yeah
Scarlett: I was gonna use my own situation, but it happens to few people. But what happens to everyone is betrayal, pain and hurt feelings. And I think what happens is instead of keeping our hearts open and being vulnerable and getting curious as to why that person is saying and doing what they’re doing, we armor up.
Scarlett: And so we have this, what I’ve heard it called a bodyguard. I call it metaphorical dukes that we use as protection. and blame is part of that. Finger-pointing, fault-finding, victimization. But we know that can turn into helplessness. That can turn into hopelessness.
Scarlett: [00:27:00] Hopelessness is the single most consistent factor in suicide and violence. I think that we need to remember that, and that’s why I developed this formula because that, this formula actually, it’s called locus of control, locus of our personal power. It actually returns our personal power back to us, which these little kids already have, where they understand, oh, if somebody’s saying or doing something mean, it’s coming from a point of pain within them.
Scarlett: Because really we want love. We want connection. In fact, we need it to survive. Being mean is not conducive to connection. it is coming from fear, ultimately. Anger, hatred, resentment, revenge, a mask for fear. And so if we understood this, and this is what we teach, then we would look at these things these trigger points in us completely differently.[00:28:00]
Scarlett: We would say instead of putting our dukes up and reacting in self-defense, and I’m saying maybe physically, but most often emotionally, we would pause, use that choice moment, pause- Take a brave breath. it’s not that it doesn’t incite pain or even fear. It does, and it should. can we get into managing emotions
Gissele: Yes, please.
Scarlett: B- because I think there’s a huge distinction that needs to be made. We don’t wanna manage emotions out of our kids, because emotions are how we navigate our environment, and they’re so beautiful and so important, and they teach us so much every single day about us. They’re so important, and I think we’ve been coming about them differently.
Scarlett: But we can pause, and we can get curious, and we can consider why the other person… Remember that motive thing? Why the other person is saying or doing what they’re doing, and we can thoughtfully respond with [00:29:00] love from our highest and best self. Instead of responding like this, we can respond like this.
Scarlett: so that’s really important. And if I can, just move straight into unpacking
Gissele: Yes,
Scarlett: power of emotions. I started thinking about this too. These are things that keep me up at night. These are the 3:00 AM thoughts that I have, okay? I’m thinking manage emotions. Manage emotions. We think about that, and we’re teaching our kids, manage those emotions.
Scarlett: You have those hard emotions. It’s like red light, green light, right? Those negative emotions are the red light. Stop. Manage them into green. And to a certain extent, yes. However those red light emotions are so valuable. First of all, they can save your life. Second of all, that fear means you care, and
Scarlett: You have to feel that to know, “Whoa, wait a minute. This is a situation that my boundaries are being violated. Somebody’s saying something that’s not true,” we need to have that [00:30:00] alert system is really important. That’s why I think it’s really important that we understand the difference between emotions and feelings
Scarlett: Emotions are these automatic chemical washes that wash over our brain.
Scarlett: They come and they go, and they’re really important. They never last. Even however difficult they may be, we can teach kids, “No, that is difficult. Listen. Get curious, and it will come and go.” Our feelings, now, this is where the cognitive triangle comes in, our thoughts that directly relate to our feelings then become our actions are different than emotions.
Scarlett: So our feelings are what either keep an emotion going or use the information and get rid of the pain. You may have said something to me early on you don’t like the shirt that I picked out for this interview, and I would feel triggered. That trigger is saying, “Whoa, wait a minute. This is a situation.
Scarlett: Is this maybe not a nice person, maybe not somebody that you wanna do a [00:31:00] podcast with, or who is this? What, what is going on?” I pause. I take a brave breath. I get curious as to why you might have said that, and I either say, “Oh, you don’t like this?” “No, I meant it’s a nice shirt.” “Oh, I misunderstood.
Scarlett: It was my perspective that was off.” And then we move on. Or maybe I just say, “Oh, I know Gissele. I looked at what she does. She’s amazing. She’s got incredible messages that she gets out there. No, It’s okay.” Maybe I’ll say something to her afterwards or whatever. My point is, my thoughts that directly relate to my feelings are whether I keep that sense of urgency going, that trigger, that it may become anger or resentment.
Scarlett: That’s all my thoughts and feelings. And so if I can rectify that by saying something to you, takes courage, or maybe just letting it go and doing the mental process myself and releasing it. Maybe she’s having a bad day. Maybe she didn’t have her coffee this morning.
Gissele: What is really important about what you said is [00:32:00] that it’s through our feelings and our thoughts, it’s us that keep those thoughts alive. And what I mean by that is if you and I have conflict over a shirt and, you address it in the moment, either you allow yourself to release it acknowledge the difficult emotions and release it or have the courage to say to me, “Hey, maybe it wasn’t your intention to be hurtful, but this is the impact of what you said around my shirt.”
Gissele: It enables you to move on, but when we don’t do that because we don’t wanna address those difficult feelings, we just keep the thoughts alive. So five years from now you’ll still be thinking about the comment I may have said about your shirt.
Scarlett: Not just keep it alive. This is what happens. So if I don’t have the understanding, I pause in my own mind, have the ability to process that hurt, here’s what can happen If I hold on to that slight It becomes a grievance. Remember the grievance that leads to the attack?
Scarlett: So I might end this… obviously we’re talking about a shirt. [00:33:00] Who knows, how maybe emotionally harmed I am and how far I might take it. I might leave this podcast and I might call a friend and say, “Oh my God, have you heard of this girl Gissele? She does this podcast, and do you know the first thing she did was diss my shirt ?”
Scarlett: And she’s “Oh my God, that’s awful. Have you read her comments And I’m like, “No, I didn’t do that, but I’m going to.” and so a grievance is after the fact, right? We can process things in the moment, but once it reaches a grievance, this is really important, once I have that conversation five minutes later, an hour later, a day later, it lodges in a different place in my brain.
Scarlett: it goes to the pain
Gissele: Yeah.
Scarlett: And so the pain center, and now we’re getting into a little bit of addiction understanding, but when your brain registers pain, it tries to alleviate the pain. Our bodies are beautiful [00:34:00] pharmacies. I don’t think we don’t even know the extent that our bodies can be a pharmacy. So our brain says, “Ah, she’s in pain,” and so it releases dopamine.
Scarlett: But in order to do that it, there is a revenge initiative that happens. So in other words, have an eye for an eye brain. A lot of people don’t understand this. This is new neuroscience. So in other words, I’m talking about you behind my back. This is gossip. Because I know that it would be hurtful to you what I’m saying, and I get pleasure in your pain.
Scarlett: That’s why revenge is actually called the most dangerous addiction, because it’s the one in which we take pleasure in someone else’s pain. So I’m taking a little bit of pleasure, and I am being rewarded with dopamine. That’s, by the way, the same thing we get when we scroll, do drugs and the… here’s the important thing about this: it’s not healing.
Gissele: No
Scarlett: When I’m talking to my friend about you behind your back, it’s not healing, unless my friend [00:35:00] is saying, “Oh, wait a minute. She’s a wonderful person. I’ve just looked her up, and she’s great. I’m sure she didn’t mean it. Why don’t you just let it go and forgive,” right? Most friendships, though, have this sort of concept of this false sense of connection by joining in, right?
Scarlett: Don’t you have the friendships… In fact, that was a conversation that I was having with a dear friend of mine on the way to work on the morning of December 14th. We were talking behind people’s backs, raging really together and one-upping each other on our stories. “Oh, this person is a jerk. Oh, you wanna know jerk?
Scarlett: Let me tell you this.” And it’s one of the reasons why I thought, “Wow I don’t wanna fall into this trap,” because that trap only escalates the pain. It’s called a doom loop, a revenge loop. It only escalates. And then, once I get off the phone, the next time that memory comes up, in order to get [00:36:00] the same amount of relief, I need to up my revenge game.
Scarlett: It’s very important because this is what leads to school shootings. And so we need to have this understanding to be able to stop it. And I’ll tell you what does stop it. I’ll tell you what the solution is, and the only thing that stops the pain center in the brain immediately, in the moment, is forgiveness.
Scarlett: Oh, that opens up a whole other can of worms, doesn’t it? And it’s so interesting because when I started Choose Love, one of the character values in our formula is forgiveness. I have to tell you, I got so much resistance. First of all, I got resistance for the word love in the Choose Love movement, and love in the name of the program going into schools.
Scarlett: Almost everyone was like, ” Ah, love? You’re gonna find resistance. Are you really sure that school’s a place to put that [00:37:00] i- ” The more resistance I got, the more I resisted really too. I thought, “Oh my gosh, we need to have love rolling off our tongues.” No, the want and need for love to love and be loved, that is what caused this.
Scarlett: And so no I wouldn’t compromise on that. Now we have it on the end zone of the Super Bowl, so on the back of the helmets and… No, it’s, now we have, we see it in advertising campaigns, so that door’s been opened, which is great. So then forgiveness. and I wanted that to be one of our main character values in the formula.
Scarlett: Oh my goodness, you can’t teach forgiveness. That’s way too lofty a topic. Kids are not gonna be able to understand forgiveness. And here’s the interesting thing. What I realized was- We as adults don’t understand forgiveness. Kids actually not only can learn it, it becomes the favorite tool that they have.
Scarlett: And why? Because it still surprises me, the power of teaching [00:38:00] forgiveness. Why? Because they say it’s like a superpower. I’m using air quotes for those of you who are just listening. It’s like a superpower, and they say it feels so good to let it go. Forgiveness is a superpower, and it doesn’t mean what people think it means.
Scarlett: It doesn’t mean that you’re condoning. It doesn’t mean that you’re forgetting. It doesn’t mean that you’re saying, “Oh, I was hurt, and it’s okay.” It’s never okay that you’re hurt. It simply means that I’ve processed the pain. I’ve reaped the benefits. I… By that I’ve harvested the gifts. I have learned from it and I’ve let that pain go.
Scarlett: It no longer is lodged in my heart and mind. It no longer limits me. In fact I actually I actually take wisdom from it that I can share with other people to help them in their journeys. That’s what forgiveness means. It is a superpower, super tool. We know so much about what it does with the [00:39:00] brain and our bodies, and there are decades of research behind the benefits of forgiveness, and it just comes out getting stronger and stronger.
Scarlett: And in fact, I will say it’s one of the most important things that I did in my own healing is forgiving Adam. I, and I said that I felt compassion for him, and I really did, and everything that I do every day is as much for, to honor my son’s life as it is for Adam and those kids out there right now that are suffering so much.
Scarlett: Everything that I do is for them
Gissele: So powerful. Oh, yeah, just so powerful. I wanted to make a comment because I’ve had other guests in the past on this podcast, like people that have done what you have done or had the courage to forgive and, have compassion for their perpetrators. And the biggest flak they get is from the people around them, which is so [00:40:00] interesting.
Gissele: The need to punish, you were talking about the need for revenge, the need to hold onto that. it’s so interesting because that may make you doubt if you’re choosing the right thing, right? And especially if the people closest to you… But this is where what you were talking about is so important, where all of us are responsible for one another because hatred doesn’t work. It really doesn’t. Revenge doesn’t work.
Scarlett: Hatred weakens me. I could have gone throughout my life hating and seeking revenge, and nobody would have, probably corrected me. But what does that do to me? And I had a 12-year-old son at the time, Jesse’s older brother, single mom. He’s looking to me to see how to be refined by this tragedy, not defined for the rest of his life.
Scarlett: Do I model that for him? It certainly wasn’t joining an anti-movement, and ah, being angry and resentful, and no, absolutely not victimized. It was through forgiveness. Forgiveness [00:41:00] is the equivalent of personal freedom. Forgiveness allows you to move forward and learn from the event, and then take what you’ve learned to help other people.
Scarlett: That only comes through forgiveness. And you’re right. Oh, my goodness. Yes, the resistance I got. I was not I would say popular person to say that I forgave, and so many people to this day resist. But I talk about it openly and honestly, and I understand that the journey of forgiveness is different for other people.
Scarlett: I’m asked to speak to communities that have been devastated, and that’s the hardest thing that I do. And I remember in the beginning, the first time I was asked, I was thinking, ” Should I bring up forgiveness? They’ve just experienced this terrible thing. Is it too soon?” And I thought, “They’re asking me, and that’s part of my message.”
Scarlett: i’m [00:42:00] seeding this power into children.
Scarlett: So yeah, I think that I will. And I do bring it up, and I say I’m just offering it to you, and you do with it as you will. But please at least look into it and think about it.” Because the person that it benefits is not necessarily the person who did the crime. oftentimes in the case of school shootings, they’re dead. It was premeditated suicide They know that they’re gonna die. They want to die. They just wanna take out as many people as possible. it benefits you. You’re the benefactor, as well as your children and future generations, because we know that trauma passes down through generations.
Scarlett: You benefit, so please become educated on this. You want the best for your children, of course you do, and that includes teaching them about forgiveness
Gissele: Yeah. And what is so fundamental about your work is that nothing is gonna change [00:43:00] until we get curious and, until we truly understand what people that commit the crimes really need. We can arm ourselves all we want, we can do as many drills as we want, but until we actually care about the people who are doing this and understand why they’re doing it and support them and help them, love them, forgive them, and, find out what it is where we are dropping the ball, nothing is gonna change,
Scarlett: Nothing is gonna change.
Gissele: I was talking to someone who actually forgave her perpetrator for a sexual assault, and she was talking about the fact that all of the sexual assault literature is for women. It’s focusing on women. But until we figure out why these people are doing this, like what they need, what th- what they haven’t received, nothing is going to change.
Gissele: And so this is where I think your work is so important and essential. Just a couple more questions ’cause I know you do have to get going. The first one is one of the things I’m really interested in is the process of rehumanization. I believe that we all have the potential to dehumanize and [00:44:00] rehumanize.
Gissele: From all the people that you’ve spoken to, either in your podcast and in your work, is rehumanization possible, and what are the factors that help us reconnect to one another?
Scarlett: That’s beautiful. I actually just gave a talk in Portugal on catalytic philanthropy, and I, part of that talk said that we’re all philanthropists. I think you said we’re caring for one another. But philanthropy, if you break down the root, is really love of humanity,
Scarlett: That includes ourselves. So I think I think, yes, absolutely it’s possible, but it takes awareness and effort on a personal basis to become the best version of yourself, to put what I call your metaphorical dukes down, to start loving yourself.
Scarlett: In fact, I call that the number one most important gift that we learn, not egotistical love, but literally loving and appreciating [00:45:00] yourself so that you can love and appreciate other people. It takes that pause, that sacred pause in what we call the choice moment between what happens and our response.
Scarlett: It takes a little bit more discernment. It takes, and it will take, understanding the contempt that is being seeded amongst us via the news, the polarized news and social media. Once you start realizing the contempt that they’re trying to seed with these algorithms, I say they are trying, that these algorithms are seeding amongst us literally hatred of each
Gissele: Yeah.
Scarlett: I don’t know. I’ve seen comments wishing people dead and their children. Whoa. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Once we understand the power that we have as individuals From our thoughts? That’s when we start to create a new world. [00:46:00] That’s when we start to understand that we have the power to create positive change.
Scarlett: That’s the definition of hope. As a famous anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said, “It takes a small group of people to understand this and then to move forward with it.” And, you’re not a victim of anything. You are incredibly powerful, and I think that people need to understand this and I think they need to start helping their kids understand this as well.
Scarlett: I hope that people walk away from this realizing that they are responsible and can create the world that they want to leave their children. Don’t think, however, that anyone else is going to do it for you. Because if we thought that somebody else was gonna come in and do it, and I mean down to the level of keeping our kids safe, we were wrong.
Scarlett: it has to be us, in a sense. It [00:47:00] makes sense. And once you start realizing this, and once you start doing the work within yourself, it feels so good. And you just naturally want to spread this. It’s so interesting. Even awareness of the Choose Love movement is spread by word of mouth.
Scarlett: That is still the most powerful way to spread a message, is by word of mouth. And I have- I have full confidence that we are going to do this because we’ve forgotten our power, and It’s so tempting to relinquish it to some governmental agency or some leader to say, “Ah, they’ll take care of it.”
Scarlett: But I think now that we’re realizing, oh, wait a minute, they won’t. They haven’t. They can’t. If they could have, they would have. So we’re going to have to reclaim our power and start doing things the right way, which is addressing the root cause. Yes, every institution that’s in place to put out the fires, thank you, [00:48:00] needed.
Scarlett: But we also have to shift our focus to address the root cause so that we can get ahead of the suffering that leads to so much societal despair. It’s a change that we have to make, that we are responsible for, and that is possible. It does take a little more work. And wouldn’t it be great if we could just say more laws would fix everything, and then we would be safe and well?
Scarlett: Wouldn’t that be great? It would be so wonderful, and I think we’ve tried to go that route, and we know that is actually simply not the case. It’s going to take effort on behalf of each one of us. But I can tell you, as a person that has taken that effort, that actually exerts, and exudes that effort every single day, that it only benefits you.
Scarlett: It feels so good to take responsibility for your life and to not be a victim and to not harbor that type of blame and finger-pointing. Ah, it [00:49:00] feels so good. It’s like the best thing that I ever did. I remember saying on that interview, “I take my part of the responsibility.” And of course, talk about pushback.
Scarlett: It’s the only thing that my mom and dad have agreed on in the last 35 years, I think, since their divorce, is that I should never have said that, ’cause it’s not my fault. And I was saying, “I’m not saying it’s my fault. I’m saying it’s my personal responsibility to be part of the solution to fix this.” And we’re all part of the solution.
Scarlett: Everyone on here listening is part of the solution. And I think critical mass is like 3.5% that get this and that can move forward. And so let’s do it together, and let’s create the world that we want to leave our children, that we are proud to leave our children, one that is safe and kind.
Gissele: So powerful and such a great way to really summarize everything. One of the things that I’ve seen in this podcast, I’ve been doing it for five years, is that love does have the power to transform, and it does begin with ourselves. For my own journey, the more I love myself, the more I accept [00:50:00] myself, flaws and all, the less I need other people to be different or to change, the more I can accept them as well.
Gissele: And the… Actually, the more I start to care about other people and see their beauty and
Gissele: understand that we’re all interconnected, we are all brothers and sisters, and we’re all in this circle of anything that I do impacts me, whether it be gossip or whether it be hate or whether it be anything, it always comes back to me.
Gissele: It just does. Last question: Where can people work with you? Where can they find you? What do you wanna share with the audience?
Scarlett: Yes. Thank you so much. So our website is chooselovemovement.org, and our programming is no cost. And we have programming for all ages and stages, mostly school-based, but parents and communities. And it was really important to me that it be no cost because these are the essential building blocks of a strong and resilient human, as well as home and community and world.
Scarlett: I [00:51:00] realized that this would have saved my son. Prisoners, that we have prison programs, tell me that had they learned this in school, they would not have perpetrated their crime. They say they didn’t know they had a choice, and now they do. Let’s get this to the kids before they have to learn it when, I won’t say it’s too late, but after they’ve perpetrated some really very devastating crimes. And so we’re all in this together. I need your help. So please come, see what you can do. We have ambassadors all over the world. They’re not paid positions, but we’re a small but mighty organization, and we are out to change the world, and in fact, we’re doing it now
Gissele: Fantastic.
Gissele: Thank you so much, Scarlett, for sharing your wisdom and your messaging, and for everything you shared with us today. This is a powerful episode, and I’m so glad you were able to join us. And thank you to everyone who joined us for another episode of Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele.
Gissele: Bye-bye.
Scarlett: Bye