September 11, 2016

Within a few days of the attacks of 9/11, my warrior spirit kicked in. I was not going to let Ted and all the other beautiful souls die in vain. I vowed deep in my heart to make something good come from this nightmare.

In those early days, weeks and months that followed, I was overwhelmed by what I was experiencing in the wake of Ted’s death. My children and I received unprecedented and unexpected beauty, love, support and generosity from friends and neighbors; people I knew and people I didn’t know from here and around the world. Through our collective pain, I saw the incredible resilience of the human spirit as we bonded together in this common crisis with courage, patriotism, unity and graceful consideration of each other. Social walls came down and kindness prevailed. It was palpable in the air and pervasive around the country. I call this the ‘Godness’ of 9/11.

9/11 blew me out of the preverbal ‘box’ to a place where I’d always belonged. Out of the box I trusted myself to follow my gut instinct (intuition) and do what I ‘knew’ was right. I could clearly see all bets were off; all the rules were broken and no one knew what to do. So I set out to understand ‘why’ of everything. I was not looking to blame or be vindictive but to find the root causes of the issues and experiences I found myself immersed in.

This began my journey of the past 15 years where I have studied every situation, event, and relationship along my path from local to global, macro to micro, personal to cultural. Doing this put my children’s and my lives on a new and positive trajectory. As a result, I was able to break the chains of generational family dysfunction, to learn where healthy boundaries should be set and to tactically understand, in depth, what it means to live in balance, peace, and harmony.

I share this with you today because in remembrance on this 15th anniversary of 9/11, I would like to suggest something new. Let’s make love and kindness the focus and look at the positive in things we have in this life. Let’s keep in mind that that Teddy and all these beautiful souls have been walking beside us these past 15 years and will continue to do so as we move forward toward what I believe is a bright and brilliant future. We have everything we need right inside us; we just need to learn to trust and listen to it. When you move from your head to your heart, you’ll find the focus is on love, kindness and thoughtful consideration of others, because when you behave well, you feel well.

So this year, let’s put a new twist on 9/11. The 9/11 Kindness Challenge. Let’s take some control back and stop watching and listening to the crazy out there (the media). Let us be the change today (Ghandi) and make this year’s commemoration of this world-changing day one of love, joy, beauty and the celebration of each other and all that we have!” Because … “although we have lost so much, we still have so much left!”

Wishing you peace, love and gratitude today and everyday.  Godspeed to all.

Xo 🙂

Lisa

P.S. If you have a Pocket Heart keep it close by to remind you to pay it forward with a random act of kindness today (and every day).