9-11-16. This day, 15 years ago set us on a very difficult and painful path which continues, even after all this time. That morning, I was in a meeting with my boss's boss, Roger Staubach when the news broke. We all rushed into the main conference room, with the large projection screen TV, to see the horrors of that morning unfold. We stood together, silent. Roger sent us home to be with our families. The drive home was silent. I held my family tight and went out on the back patio to sit, in silence. It was then I was struck with the incredible silence all around me. No traffic on the roads, in the skies and even the neighborhood dogs seemed to know we all needed quiet to wrap our minds around the magnitude of what we had just witnessed, as a nation. In the days, weeks, months and years to follow, we would move through the many stages of grief and begin wars in far away places with a certainty that left us all, uncertain. I personally was laid off, and spent the next few years in contract jobs for a small movement education company, FEMA the FBI and others just trying to keep my family living above the poverty line.
In October of 2009, I began working with Active Duty Military in a regional behavioral treatment center designed to help them find their way past their particular traumas. I experience the painful reality of the struggles they came home to, through 5 years of weekly groups and thousands of painful stories. In October of 2012, we began working with Veterans, in weekly educational groups, through the VA Health Care System, and began to realize just how long these painful realities would stay with our men and women military members and their families, after their returns home. It became painfully clear to us that if we do not address these issues early with consistency, patience and love they would never fully go away, leading to a lifetime of struggles and personal suffering for our Veterans and their loved ones.
On Friday, 9-9-2016, we started a new chapter in the evolution of SimplyAware; The Medical Qigong Therapy Center. While the clinic is open to all who wish to work beyond the symptoms of their particular issues and identify the roots so they may fully heal, are welcome; we plan to specialize in trauma. The kind of trauma that hit us on 9-11-2001. The kinds of trauma that our military men and women come home with and struggle to talk about or come to terms with. The kind of traumas that stay with you and beg for your attention, day and night, until you finally listen. We are here and we will listen with you and provide tools and perspectives which will help you find your way through the traumas. While our clinic is a huge milestone for us. it is but another step on a lifelong commitment I personally have to helping those who have sacrificed so much to afford us the freedoms we often take for granted. These are my brothers and sisters in arms and I will never fail them. While the VA has seen fit to cut funding to our very successful programs, SimplyAware is working with our Veteran program graduates and community leaders to create a foundation which will continue this important work far into the future.
On 9-11-2001 we were silent, trying to understand the magnitude of what had happened. Today we continue to struggle with the aftermath of that day physically, mentally and emotionally as a nation but our silence has turned to action.
I pray for the families who suffered such tremendous loss on that September morning, and that the lessons we have learned from this painful experience make us better, as a people, for each other.
