Building Your New Life

 https://link.medium.com/4vIrFKyPsbb

Deinstitutionalization? Think Again!

A young, homeless, disabled man is hungry. He goes in to a store and takes a small pack of candy. He is confronted by the store employees. Frightened, he pulls out a weapon he keeps on his person for protection.

Another young, homeless man with a disability is hungry. He goes into a store and helps himself to a snack and a drink. When confronted by the store employee, pulls out a child’s toy weapon and backs out of the store.

I admit that if I were in the place of those store employees I would have been frightened, too.

I suppose I would have called the police. If I were an officer responding in either of these scenarios, I suppose I would have made the arrests.

But at what point during our judicial process do we stop and look at these young men and see them as frightened, confused individuals that have disabilities and need our care and compassion?

Where are these young men now? A place where they have a roof over their heads and three meals a day. They are provided with food, medical care, clothing, water, and some basic necessities such as toothpaste and soap.

I wonder if the judge put them in prison because there is no other facility where their needs could be met.

Do you think mentally ill people should be locked up against their will? No? Then why is there no public outcry when they are locked up in prison?

And what of combat veterans with traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress syndrome? Should they be imprisoned? Many of them are.

And then there are those disgusting drug addicts. It’s their own fault, right? It’s their choice. They deserve to be locked up, right? Except that most of them only do about a year and few of them get any treatment for their addiction. And I have yet to hear a five year old say, “When I grow up, I want to be a drug addict.” There is something else going on here!

The addicts we lock up just go back to the streets in worse shape than when they went into the prison. Now they have lost jobs, homes, and relationships. If they weren’t dangerous before, there’s a good chance they are now. Still addicted, nothing much to lose, and they probably learned a few tricks of the trade from other prisoners during their time inside.

And many of these addicts are also self medicating mental illness and brain injury. We need an alternative to prison for the mentally ill, disabled, and substance addicted individuals where they can learn actual life skills such as emotion regulation, assertiveness, and other alternative behaviors to counter the addictive or impulsive behaviors.

We need rehabilitative treatment for those with true deviant behavior as well. Why should tax payers be saddled with the cost of caring for all these prisoners, most of whom will just be released back into our communities to continue their criminal acts against the very citizens who paid for their Incarceration.

And while we’re on the subject, would you be willing to see your tax dollars pay for community gardens and greenhouses so inmates can grow their own food instead of sitting around doing nothing and having their food shipped in? Besides the fact that much of the food is poor quality, lots of starchy bread and processed meat that contributes to health problems for which we taxpayers also foot the bill.

These are just some of the thoughts that roll around my head and I decided to get them out. The way we do prison is antiquated and ignores all the new research on what facilitates behavior change. We just have an extremely expensive revolving door system. It might be more expensive up front to make the necessary changes, but we would save millions in the long run if we actually rehabilitated prisoners.

Status Quo is a Myth

Status Quo is a myth. No one can coast forever. Yes, everyone needs to coast for a little bit after a period of hard pedaling. But anyone who continues to coast eventually slows down and comes to a stop. Stop equals death. It could be physical death, mental or emotional death, or even financial death.  Water that stops moving becomes stagnant and  eventually everything in it dies. Everyone on this planet needs a goal, a vision, a hope, and a purpose to strive for-something that is currently just out of reach.  We are not being kind when we don’t challenge ourselves and others to come up a little higher. If you support the status quo, you are contributing to death- death of a dream, death of a company or business, death of a church, death of a person or people group. It seems it is part of human nature to resist change and growth and expansion, but it is part of the divine nature to open, expand, create, and grow. Thank God that light and life overpowers darkness and death. I choose life! I wonder who else is willing to choose life, too. Please leave a comment.

Mastering Your Craft

Jon Acuff talked about honing his skill as a speaker by volunteering at a small treatment center for recovering drug addicts. He spoke to 12 people with the same gusto that he would have in a packed out stadium. That is awesome.

I thought about my work with inmates. For a long time I had been wanting to volunteer in a prison,  but time, money, or opportunity never seemed to meet up at the same time so I could do it. But now I am “volunteering” at a prison making a salary and benefits!

I have a “captive audience” to practice on! Thankfully they actually enjoy and appreciate what I teach them. And that builds my confidence. When prisoners thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas with them, they mean it.  And if I can teach them that their thoughts can change their experience no matter the circumstances, there is proof that these concepts are valid.

So look for that opportunity to develop your craft. It might be right under your nose!

Forfeiting Good to Get to Great

I’m still reading through the book Start, by Jon Acuff. He talks about stepping into the observatory to get a look at all your possible futures. We may have many interests, many talents, many dreams and passions. But if we take each one to it’s full conclusion, we may see many possibilities The would be nice, but not necessarily awesome.

I’m great at dreaming of doing things I have no idea how to accomplish.  It’s easy, therefore, to leave those dreams on a very nice shelf, looking as if I will start them one day soon. But those dreams will die with my broken old body because I don’t know where to start. So I need to pick something I can do right now, and start doing it.

My book has been written. Publish it already. Teaching is next.  True,  I want to teach it in the context of a transitional living environment, but for that I don’t have the means. So sit around doing nothing? Or do what I can? This thought process can be painful.

If you’re following along with me, you may be sorting through s pile of dreams, and sorting them into piles of must do, might do, and probably won’t do. Giving up that last pile and possibly the second one, can greatly increase the likelihood the first must do will happen.

This process is what Jon calls editing. The next chapter is Mastering.

What brings you the most joy?

In his book Start, Jon Acuff says that when people do what brings them joy, it makes them more selfless, not selfish.  When trying to narrow down what is most important to us, we have to look at our calendar. What did we spend most of our time doing? We need to be honest and intentional about what we value most.

Nothing gives me joy like seeing people feel and think better because of time spent with me. I showed them how to think and how to live so they can be free. That is what I call awesome. It doesn’t matter if I get rich or famous. It matters that I gave a second chance to someone who may have thought they were on the last leg of their journey and there are as no hope.

What gives you joy?   I challenge you to think about that for the next day or several days.  Peace to you.

What Can I Not Stop Doing?

Jon Acuff uses the plane crash fantasy to get people to figure out what they want most in life.  If that doesn’t work, he asks them to ask another question. 

What can I not stop doing? For me, it’s walking and hiking. Looking for better ways to eat. Looking for ways to explain things so that I and other people can be encouraged and dramatically change our lives. Searching for that one thing that will give me an edge. That one thing that will cut to the heart of any issue and overcome it. I can’t stop looking for the fastest, easiest way to profoundly and permanently change the trajectory of my life and the lives of others.

I know it takes time to heal. (Boy, do I know it!) I know it takes chutzpah to fight through the denial, the excuses, the old mindsets, and all the self sabotaging things we do when we sense a change is necessary in order to move forward in life.  

Notwithstanding, I want to be able to say, do these steps, and you will succeed. 

So I read blogs and articles. Then I subscribe to their newsletters and podcasts and free webinars that turn out not to be free.  Then I get overwhelmed with all the stuff in my inbox and I don’t read any of it. Eventually most of them get unsubscribed after a few months of me breaking my promise to read it later.  

But some things do stick.  A study that showed that a husband and wife whose brains were being monitored by a team of scientists. It showed parts of their brains lighting up when they prayed together. Later, when they were in separate parts of the house, the husband began praying for his wife. The equipment showed that at that exact moment, the same “prayer center” that lit up when they prayed together was lighting up in the wife’s brain when her husband was praying for her.  Powerful! Our thoughts are real things, as Caroline Leaf says. 

So part of my passion must be in learning how and teaching others how to harness the power of our thoughts to change our lives dramatically and irreversibly for the better. 

I know it to be true. I believe it with all my heart. I work on it all the time. The more I learn, the more I know that there is so much more that I don’t know.  So I try to narrow it down. I try to find that narrow lane that I can travel in and learn everything there is to know in that one thing. And when I do, I can change lives.  

Dave Ramsey does one thing. Money. But what happens when people follow his plan? They lose weight. They get healthy. Their relationships are healed and strengthened. Their lives are changed!

I want my message to be that powerful!  Will it ever be? I don’t know. Pray for me!