At Flawless, our mission is to see the perfection in every child – actually it’s to see the perfection in every human being – and to practice and teach compassion. This always starts with a look inward, at ourselves. Where do we see the perfection in people? Where do we need to open our eyes and expand our hearts?
About a month ago, I had a realization thanks to my experience at the One Mind for Research conference in Boston, where we had the opportunity to see a preview for an extraordinary documentary about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in returning war veterans. I am always in the process of expanding my awareness and compassion and realized that my connection to our country’s veterans wasn’t that strong and this was a definite blind spot for me.
This film, Halfway Home, is moving and profound in its portrayal of the lives of incredible heroes, and of the struggles facing them once they return home. I found the film and the conference life-changing, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, with Memorial Day just a few days after the event.
For me, Memorial Day always meant the launch of summer in NY: heading to the beach and parade memories from my days as a baton-twirling little girl, marching in local small town parades in a costume covered with sequence and topped with a tiara. Because of how moved I was by Halfway Home, this year I decided to take my son and his friend to a celebratory parade in Portland, where we were spontaneously invited to walk with a group behind a sign reading “Patriotic Citizens.” When we got home my son said to me, “Mommy, we have to call Grandpa and thank him for his services in the Navy.”
Halfway Home helped me to soften a place where my heart was not as expansive and from that place my eyes were open to others who might be disenfranchised. Along with my son’s increased awareness, Tara Dixon, one of our board members, beautifully demonstrated her new perspective. She was so inspired that she wrote a blog about the film and conference, and has decided to launch a project to write thank you letters to veterans using her beautiful Gratitude Designs thank you cards. Lori Sutherland, another Flawless board member who joined us in Boston, wrote on facebook for Memorial Day that she was “moved to say a special prayer for the brave men and women who often come home to a long road of recovery for the ways that their service for our country has affected their minds, bodies and souls.”
It was with this refreshed perspective and appreciation that I chose to attend an event in NY a few weeks later: a celebration of Operation Warrior Wellness at Urban Zen with The David Lynch Foundation, Donna Karan and Russell Simmons. Operation Warrior Wellness uses Transcendental Meditation (“TM”) to heal returning soldiers living with PTSD. There wasnt a dry eye in the audience as we heard the dramatic stories from the veterans about how TM cured them of their harrowing symptoms of PTSD. It was particularly exciting to hear Dr. Norman Rosenthal of the NIMH talk about all of the research and neuroscience supporting the therapeutic effects of meditation.
The next day, still feeling the expansion in my heart to people who might be marginalized, I passed a man sleeping in the street, obviously cold in the rain, and I was overcome with sadness and the urge to give him my coat. Opening our hearts and minds, and feeling actively connected to others is a choice – and looking inward to find compassion is not always easy or comfortable, but really…is there any other option?
