Whoo hoo! THANK YOU to everyone who has signed this petition! THANK YOU to everyone who has donated funds to keep this petition circulated! This absolutely would not happen without your support! I see you, feel you, and am so very grateful for your support.

There is still much work and circulating that needs to be done, to gather as many signatures NATIONWIDE as we possibly can! Every dollar helps! I know things are tight right now with our economy and inflation, I’m feeling it too. If we all pitched in $5, $10, $20 bucks, that would have a HUGE impact! 

We cannot do this alone, but TOGETHER we can! Please consider pitching in to help spread the word and gain signatures. Doing so already has gained over 800 signatures, and that’s with just a handful of donations! 

My hometown of Bend, OR experienced the terrifying reality of mass shootings. Last month a 20 year old young man walked around a Costco/Safeway parking lot, firing off dozens of rounds of ammunition, to enter the grocery store and murder two innocent men, then shot and killed himself. A nightmare that many witnessed and hopefully are in therapy for the PTSD they all experienced. Precious lives lost, completely unnecessarily. The shooter posted his guns on social media, and even wrote a detailed daily journal of two moths leading up to this planned day and why he’s doing what he was planning. It was heartbreaking and disturbing. Society failed him, he said. I couldn’t agree more. 

There is so much going on here. It’s not about the guns, it’s about PEOPLE. Precious human lives, our souls feeling lost and disconnected, and with billions of people on the planet, we still feel alone and unheard at the end of the day. Please, let’s truly unite, TOGETHER, and be mindful of how we are treating each other. 

The real overall solution is love, compassion and empathy. That is what we need more of. Starting first with extending these things to our own selves, so we are able to show it to others. Our selves, kids, partners, neighbors, community…the answer is LOVE. 

Be mindful of your allostatic load, the cumulative load of all of who you are and what you carry, and do whatever you need to do to lighten your load so it doesn’t make you go insane. Be mindful of your contribution to other People’s allostatic load, and meet others with empathy, not shame. Say yes to what makes you happy and brings you joy, and say no to stuff that does not. Know you are enough, just as you are. Honor how far you’ve come and what all you’ve been through and be gentle on yourself. I truly believe we are all doing our best.

I feel so passionately about all this I’m in the process of writing it all in a book! My memoir called Cake Saved My Life - One Sweet Journey Through Grief, Healing and Sensitivity. It is on my heart to support widows, suicide survivors and The Highly Sensitive People of the world. Go to sonjarice.com if you’d like more info, website will be up in October! 

Thank you for reading this update, and thank you for being here. DEEP BREATH. Together we will get through this thing called life. 

Sincerely and Passionately,

Sonja Rice

P.S. - Been working with several local legislators and hopefully will be implementing a trial run soon!