Reunion Online

As we and our community mobilizes with the renewed commitment to change these statistics—and create a world free of this violence—I wanted to share with you some of the exciting, hopeful, important work that’s happening at Joyful Heart this month.

With your support, we will evaluate and document our retreat model and create a replication plan for agencies in Los Angeles and beyond to bring holistic healing programs to survivors and those who care for them.

In listening to an individual’s story, your response can have an enormous impact on that person’s healing journey.

Joyful Heart’s Heal the Healers program was a wake up call for me.

We are filled with joy and gratitude as we celebrate our journey—the signposts we have heeded, the milestones we have reached and the goals we’ve realized in our work to end this violence.

It is with a full and grateful heart that I pause—mid-way through our tenth anniversary year and at the beginning of our new fiscal year—to reflect on the special blessings of the past twelve months.

As 2013 comes to a close, we are so grateful for all that we have accomplished because of your generosity. And as we look to the new year, we know that we can only make the most of these moments with your support. Thank you for being a part of our joyful community.

How can any of us ever forget the images of trauma and pain that the media carried to us from Newtown, Connecticut last holiday season? We coped and mourned, wondered how a person survives this type of loss. We struggled to understand. We held our children ever-closer. For some, we felt a mix of gratitude to be safely with our families and stinging guilt that we were okay when others were is such deep, abiding pain.

Joyful Heart’s Heal the Healers program was a wake up call for me. The program offered education about vicarious trauma and self-care practices, but most importantly, Heal the Healers gave me the space to realize that our minds and bodies can only take so much. The wake up call has lasted.