This is THE PRISONCARE PODCAST! I’m Sabrina Justison, your host, the founder and Executive Director of PrisonCare, Inc. where we are committed to equipping compassionate people to support positive prison culture from the outside, because everyone on the inside matters!
(theme music intro, “The Fool,” by incarcerated artist J. Bloom © 2022, used with permission)
“I want to be as relevant to you as you are to me…
…am I the fool who’s dreaming? I’ll wait.”
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Time Markers:
1:28 A Quick Framework for How to Recover from Disaster
5:00 I Kinda Wanna Throw Up
7:25 What Do You Look Like These Days?
9:55 But What Happens When WE See It?
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Intro/Outro MUSIC CREDIT:
The Fool, original recording music and lyrics by J. Bloom © 2022.
For the full song, visit the PrisonCare, Inc. YouTube Channel:
https://youtu.be/cG8zHpQZDug
(theme music outro, “The Fool,” by incarcerated artist J. Bloom © 2022, used with permission)
“I’ll wait. I'll wait until you stay.
I'll wait. I'll wait until I break.”
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Hello, friends. Thanks for being here. Let’s get real and healthy for a second as we start this second season of The PrisonCare Podcast.
You are going to screw up. When you do, when you really make some poor choices and end up creating a mess, hurting people you love, whatever it looks like…when you royal screw up, there’s a basic framework for recovery.
If you don’t believe me, just check out the thousands of self-help books and websites and articles out there. Each has a slightly different take on the question of “How do you recover from disaster??” but the framework they work from is all the same.
1:28
Here’s a quick list of steps to take, drawn from countless resources and from my own lived experience. When you realize you have majorly screwed up:
Face disaster realistically. Don’t compare it to other people’s lives; just face it square on, without making excuses and without catastrophizing. Get real.
Correctly assign responsibility. You are probably to blame. There are also probably other people who bear some responsibility. Each of you is 100% responsible for your own involvement in this disaster.
Choose to forgive each person for their part in it. That includes forgiving yourself.
Accept the broader context that the world is a broken place, where broken people sometimes do awful things. This is a part of facing reality.
Identify all the feelings you have about where you find yourself in the wake of disaster. Feelings are not right or wrong, they simply are. But you can’t think clearly until you have a good idea of what you’re feeling, and how those feelings are likely influencing you.
Choose to recover from this. Choose life.
Look for good right where you are. You will find it, even if you are currently in a hole 100 feet deep that you dug for yourself.
Put good things into words. Put your choice for life into words. Then choose someone to share these words with. Communicate.
Get professional help if you can.
Accept times of being alone. Accept times of social engagement. Both are necessary, whether you feel like it or not.
Choose to do kind things, and choose not to tell people about your acts of kindness.
Practice gratitude.
Make tiny, positive course corrections. Commit to growth. Form new habits. Be patient with the process.
Refuse to be a stereotype. Refuse to stereotype others. Live in the tension between what is good and what is rotten in all of us.
Practice creativity.
Share your journey in an effort to help others who may struggle similarly.
This is a synthesis of a widely-agreed-upon framework for what to do after you have royally screwed up. You have probably read similar advice many places. Instagram is full of these little bits of wisdom, displayed on pretty backgrounds. You have probably lived out much of this wisdom and seen it prove to be true in your own life. You have undoubtedly watched movies, read books, and listened to podcasts where people share their stories of redemption after disaster, and those people invariably reference this same trove of wisdom.
5:00
Imagine, if you will, working diligently through years of life shaped by this framework. And imagine how it feels when you run into someone who knew you at the height of your rottenness, but who hasn’t been in your life during the years of rebuilding.
Does your stomach knot up?
That friend you betrayed years ago.
That spouse you cheated on.
The business partner you ripped off.
That intimate partner you hit when you were drinking.
That child you disowned, who then wanted nothing to do with reconciling, once you had come to your senses.
Your stomach dreads the thought of running into that person because they KNOW YOUR WORST MOMENT. They know it really, really well. And that’s the last impression they have of you. They haven’t seen you in the last several years, when you faced the reality, took responsibility, committed to growth, got help, made changes, and chose life for yourself and for anyone you could help around you. All they know is your worst moment.
Your worst moment.
Being known by your worst moment.
Being DEFINED by your worst moment.
It’s a nightmare, isn’t it?
If I asked you right now to close your eyes (well, not if you’re driving) and think about a moment in your life of which you are deeply ashamed, would you do it? I’ll give you a second…got it? Great! Now, please drop a comment in PrisonCare’s Instagram and tell us what you did.
(pause)
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Being defined by your worst moment is the daily reality for people who are incarcerated.
If people don’t know the details of your conviction, they at least know that you are now living inside a prison and identified by a Dept. of Corrections number attached to your last name.
If you just got sentenced a month ago, and you’ve just gotten off the bus at intake, maybe that’s a necessary evil for a time.
(7:25)
But once you’ve served 5 years, 5 years during which you have been diligently working through all of the wise framework we agreed upon, 5 years during which people around you (other inmates, prison staff, your family or friends on the outside who have chosen to stay in contact with you) have seen consistent, authentic evidence of change, do we still need to think FIRST of your worst moment when we see you?
How about 10 years? How about 20?
How about 20 years, and now you’ve been released from prison, and you have been consistently living a life that builds up others, that builds you up, that makes the world a better place, and every time you apply for a job, you have to check a box on the application that says you have committed a felony.
What’s the statute of limitations on being a former felon? An ex-offender? For how many years should you be defined by your worst moment?
What are the marks, the signs that rehabilitation has been achieved? What does “rehabilitation” actually mean in the life of a person who has been sentenced to prison?
I don’t know for sure what we do with all of this, but I know we need to think about it.
I had never thought about it during the first 50 years of my life. And once I did think about it, I couldn’t “unthink it.” I hope that will be true for you, too. I hope you will be unable to unthink it.
I don’t know what all the answers are to rehabilitation in the life of a person who has committed a crime…who has been violent…who has taken a life…who has refused help again and again and cut off everyone who loves them and justified atrocious acts.
(9:55)
I don’t know what it takes to find redemption in a story like that, but I know that if it happens, we begin to see it. And WHEN WE CAN SEE IT IS HAPPENING…WHEN WE CAN SEE THAT IT *HAS* HAPPENED…it’s not okay for us to continue to define that person by their worst moment. That can’t possibly be the way to encourage that person toward committed growth. That can’t possibly make the world a better place.
So here, at the start of our second season of The PrisonCare Podcast, I’m going to challenge you to think about that question:
What if you were defined by your worst moment?
***We’re going to be exploring some practical ideas for supporting the mental wellness of correctional officers and incarcerated people in the coming weeks here on the podcast, but we’re starting with this global question, because it opens up conversation that will help us begin to think outside the box we have created that we call the U.S. prison system for the last 100+ years.
What if you were defined by your worst moment?
I’m going to ask you to ask your partner that question. Ask your co-worker. Ask your friend. Stir the conversation.
We need to seriously consider the implications of a system in which no convicted felon can EVER move beyond that label, no matter how many years of consistent evidence we all can see of their daily commitment to a life of responsibility. And maybe if we all think about it, we can put our heads together and come up with a new way forward when it comes to caring for people who are incarcerated.