Don’t Throw out the Thoughts and Prayers

—Let them lead you to action.

We’ve all seen the memes following mass shooting tragedies such as Uvalde and Buffalo on social media saying, “Enough with the thoughts and prayers. We need action!” I TOTALLY agree we need MORE than thoughts and prayers to make positive change against gun violence. TOTALLY!! But I wince at the idea of discrediting the “thoughts and prayers” completely.  If we work together, they can become very powerful and lead to positive action.

Science is proving what many people already know. We’re all connected. I could do a deep dive into the quantum physics of that connection but when I do that, people’s eyes glaze over and I often loose them. To be fair, I am not a physicist. I just really enjoy studying the science of intention, coherence, and the collective consciousness of our planet. I created a global program 17 years ago that responds collectively to disasters and emergencies. I’ve seen the power of unified energy.

There are three reasons I want “Thoughts and prayers” to stay as a spoke on the wheel of change of gun violence.

Intention is an energy.
Very simply, as your physicist grandpa might have said, “there’s energy in them there thoughts’n prayers!” And if you ever sat in the pew of a religious organization, you know prayer circles work. Remember the experiments that show if you yell at a plant, it dies and if you talk nicely, it thrives? That’s TRUE. And while we are on the topic, everything is energy. Every thought, every action (Yep, temper tantrum or loving gesture) influences the world’s field of energy. So, what are you putting in the field today?

Think of it like this. When we look in the night sky we can still see the light of a dead star a million light years away. When have a loving thought (or temper tantrum) the energy of that thought doesn’t disappear, just like the light of the dead star.

When we send thoughts and prayers with intention to the families of the victims of Uvalde they feel them. If your intention is to send healing to those families, you will. And you know what is REALLY cool? When we do it together the energy becomes exponentially stronger.

Whatever you send out comes back to you.
Sending healing energy will bring peace, calm and healing energy back to yourself. We all have a field of energy around us called a torus field that looks like a donut. Very simply, the energy we send out circles around back to us. Hence, you reap what you sew, Karma, all those great theories are right. Also, remember it isn’t just the families of the victims that are suffering from these mass shootings. The level of fear, grief, anxiety and anger has risen in the collective. We all need to take gentle care of ourselves and each other.

Let your thoughts and prayers inspire you to ACTION.
Finally, what I really hope will be an outcome of your thoughts and prayers is that you will receive inspiration in your moment of focus and peace about how YOU can help to solve the problem of gun violence in the U.S. It could be as simple as voting, calling your senator, or as grand as running for office, starting an anti-violence nonprofit…who knows! Just listen and trust yourself.

Finally, please don’t forget that the majority of humans on this planet are loving, kind and generous (most of the time?) Let me say that again. The loving humans are the majority!! And, the energy of Love is much stronger than fear, hate and anxiety.

There are a lot of spokes on this wheel of gun violence reform that need to start moving: gun reform, mental health reform, political reform, race reform (add your favorite reform). Let’s power up the “Thoughts and Prayers” spoke in a way that rolls to Peace and inspired ACTION. We can do it.

With loving and healing intentions,

Ellen Bintz Meuch

Founder, Global Healing Response
Impact! podcast co-host
Veriditas Certified Labyrinth Facilitator
The Labyrinth Society, World Labyrinth Day Coordinator
Director, Labyrinth Activism, Legacy Labyrinth Project

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