Photo by Hanan Hashi on Unsplash

Yesterday, I and a few other prison residents got to hold space for a 60-year-old man who has leukemia as he shared his pain and anger at how his life turned out. He expressed deep regret at the choices he made in his youth and a longing to continue to provide for his family even though he hasn't been able to even meet his grandchildren. To be able to hold space for a dying man who says he has no one else with whom to share his feelings is sacred. As he expressed embarrassment at his tears, another man told him that his tears are necessary and welcome while another told him he understands his pain because he has been there, too. It was a touching circle of support and kindness. 

There is something about witnessing this rawness and connection that makes me think, "THIS is real life," which I don't always feel outside of prison where our interactions can be more formal and careful. My time "inside," sharing the principles of Nonviolent Communication, helps me deepen my understanding of what it means to be human. I carry this wisdom with me every day. I am so grateful to be able to do this work and I thank all the forces that led me to this place. 

Sunaina, the honor is all ours. You are a precious treasure and light to us and to the residents who are blessed to participate in your Nonviolent Communication program. Thank you for your generosity and care.

Above shared by Sunaina Marquez, facilitator extraordinaire of Brilliance Inside’s Nonviolent Communication program

Thanks Picsea on Unsplash

Imagine reading a bedtime story to a bunch of convicted tough guys. At the end of our session this past Tuesday, we snuggled up - everyone on their hard, plastic chair - for a “bedtime” story as I read Kathryn Otoshi’s Zero.  Zero is empty, worthless and tries to stretch, pull and flatten to become one, eight or nine.  Suddenly, she realizes that she does have value because of her hole in the middle and, with her, all the other numbers are worth so much more.

The residents in our circle then reflected:

• Holding back tears, one shared that the last time he had been read to by a woman was at five years old… one of his happy childhood memories

• Another shared a memory about his illiterate father: as the father paid for a pizza delivery by check, he asked his young son how to spell “pizza”

• Several – dare I say, most – stated they had NEVER been read to!!

They saw the powerful insight that they are just like Zero finding their value in themselves. They also saw our Circle – which they noticed is its own zero – as the place that they can be like the story’s Seven, who edifies and empowers Zero to see the brilliance in herself.

This past Tuesday made it into my Top Five most precious moments experienced inside the Donovan walls.  To hear the residents’ tenderness and vulnerability…to feel them reconnect with the little boys they once were…for them to feel the void that had been created at that time…to provide a space in which they get to feel held and hugged by our words and our presence…for them to fill the childhood void with an adult experience of love. 

We so often tout the tangible resilience-building skills, as well as the marketable and leadership tools, gathered in organizing the TEDx event.  Those are critical to a balanced individual and collective future, and we bring a weekly truckload of these lessons.  And… I’ll tell you, the participants’ metamorphosis to greater humanity, love and connection takes place most immediately in these moments of tender care and attention.  In a few minutes of tender bedtime story reading, we released more pain, abandonment and neglect than some of these residents may have ever released.

Thank you.  For you make possible these deeply humanizing, healing, loving and transformative moments, such as being read a “bedtime” story.

Wow, 2019 has been a learning year!  We have had a lot of sticks in our spokes over the past year and we’ve been dynamic and agile to overcome them.  One prison administrator said “When the TEDx event was canceled, I thought you were going to leave Donovan. The fact that you’re still here says a lot.”  We’re still there because we’re committed to this journey of healing for the long haul!

Through the challenges and even thanks to them, we have beautiful successes to share. This year, we put into practice what I preach to the residents all the time:  There’s a gift in every challenge...if we’re willing to unwrap it.  In addition to the countless human transformations, a few of the programming successes are

• Last April’s TEDx event - While the event was put on hiatus for reasons beyond our control, the Core Team did every bit of work required to ideate, organize and plan the event; this deserves to be celebrated!

• Storytelling Intensive - While on event hiatus, we crafted a powerful Storytelling Intensive with guest volunteer experts in expressive arts, creative writing and improv. Stories here and here

• Nonviolent Communication - Newly launched this past February, NVC is currently in its 3rd 12-week offering. We hear the prison residents use the NVC tools of “needs” and “strategies” on the yard!

• Conflict Resolution - The residents received three 17-week iterations of Conflict Resolution this year with the same success as the first

• Groups of community members experiencing prison - Multiple groups of 20 people experienced a very unique, personalized conversation between disconnected worlds while coming into prison for an afternoon

Thanks to you, so much has been accomplished!

In 2020, we’ll move forward together to create a broader vision of empowering more than 500 prison residents at Donovan who need:

• A safe space in which they uncover and ignite their unique brilliance

• To ripple out this brilliance as they become unstoppable agents of positive change to their kids, families, officers, at-risk youth and the greater community

• To create events that engage across disconnected worlds so everyone can shift their relationships at home, at work and in society

Plus, what if 2020 was the year we expand our wildly successful model to the homeless population?  We’re having these conversations.  The intent: empower this community, creating a platform to co-create viable solutions to San Diego’s homeless challenges.

As you reflect on the impact you want to make with your year-end giving, please remember that the Donovan prison residents and our community need you!

When turned upside down by a recent life-changing event, Leslie Willis found comfort in the unknown through lessons she learned in prison. Here’s her story:

It was 11am on Monday morning as I walked into my boss’ office for our meeting to discuss bringing on another part-time program manager. You can thus imagine my surprise when she instead told me that, due to our financial situation, we’d actually be cutting back. “Thursday is your last day,” she said.

It felt like my world was being upended. I had finally found a long-sought-after job in my field that I was passionate about, and I was getting laid off. I thought this was where I was supposed to be; now, I wasn’t so sure of anything.

Two days passed, and my processing of the news continued. Would I really not be returning to the office after tomorrow? The thoughts of “why me?” and “why now?” passed through my mind. I decided to go for a walk. I needed to get outside, to clear my mind. Turning east down a different path, a block away, I stood in front of a wall mural. It read: “You are exactly where you need to be.”

I am exactly where I need to be. Even if I don’t know exactly where that is right now.

The thought was frightening. Looking up into the sky, I took a deep breath as a single tear trickled down my cheek, and acknowledged my emotions. “I see you there, I hear your concerns, I know you’re real, and that’s okay.” I’m okay. All of this will be okay. It may be scary, but what do I do when life hits me with a ton of bricks? I start paving a new path.

Suddenly, I felt an unexpected calmness pass through me. This will be okay. I will be okay. I believed it, but why this sudden feeling of comfort? I asked myself when, and where, I learned to have such compassion for myself and my situations. When did I become capable of such deep levels of introspection? Then it dawned on me. Prison.

It was in the moments of deep listening to individuals, many faced with life behind bars, sharing stories of hope, of redemption, of discovering self-worth and a sense of purpose. It was in the moments of seeing grown men of different races offer words of encouragement, comforting embraces, and honest friendship to each other in a place where prison politics forbid such relationships. It was in the moments of shared reflection on the impact that our time together has on each individual’s mentality and belief in oneself and what is possible.

Over the past year and a half of entering RJ Donovan Correctional Facility with Brilliance Inside, I’ve come to realize that despite their situation, being deemed society’s unwanted and being called monsters, these individuals are free. The amount of inner work they’ve had to do as part of their transformation is astounding, well beyond the average person I’ve encountered outside those prison walls. Subconsciously, I realized that I also desired this depth of internal peace of mind despite my external situations. I had been told that there are things outside of our control that we can’t do anything about, but we can control how we respond to them. It was in prison that I began to fully understand the power and truth behind this message.

Just as the prison residents are responding to their situation with self-compassion, hope for a better future, and a renewed commitment to their own self-growth, so am I approaching this new chapter of my life with an open mind and heart. In this moment, I give thanks and gratitude for my ability to hold myself in a space of compassion and understanding, to allow myself to feel human and acknowledge the whirlwind of emotions that come with my humanity, and especially for the individuals who unknowingly guided me on this path to heightened introspection. While I may not know what the future holds, I am now comfortable with not knowing and will embrace my journey of self-discovery.

I stand for healing our society’s cycle of violence.  I stand for treating everyone with dignity, respect, honor and love.  In our programs, we create safe spaces in which we recognize the pain in ourselves and others, to then heal these hurts so brilliance can ignite in and around us, which in turn creates a community of healing, connection and peace.

Thanks ZeeNBee on Pixabay!

Last week, I fell short of my wishes for the world and for myself.  In a conversation, I got triggered and spoke to a person with dishonor and without dignity.  My words came out in anger and attack.  I was not loving.

I’ve spent the past week reconciling this within myself and with the other person.

It hurt me deeply to recognize the hurt I created because I see first-hand the destruction caused by dehumanization, and the cycle it perpetuates.  And, while most days my actions heal this cycle, last week, my action perpetuated it.

I took a hard, long look in the mirror and spent some time with the part of me that had been triggered to the point of lashing out to another.  It was not pretty.  And it’s hard to look at the darkness and ugliness in ourselves. 

And yet, I did it because I’ve learned that the fastest end to the cycle of violence is to heal the hurt that underlies the violence.  Dishonoring someone is violence.  Therefore, I was going to identify the underlying hurt, “neutralize” it by healing it so that it cannot hurt myself or another again.

And yes, I also reached out to the other person apologetically, in reconciliation and healing, as this person deserves to heal the hurt I created.

My greatest wish for all of us is that, when we hurt or are hurt, we take an authentic look at this hurt.  As long as we do the hard and vulnerable work of self-reflection and healing, each of us remains on this roller-coaster journey of growth and daily progress.  And this, in addition to the healing hurt, is cause for celebration.

Finally, this also triggered shame.  Here I am teaching this stuff and, last week, I blew it big time.  It’s a reminder that each of us, no matter who we are, are on this journey of healing.  Each of us have moments in which we’re living in our brilliance and moments in which our hurt is expressed.  There is tremendous power in together holding a safe space to see each other’s vulnerabilities and continue to grow.  Despite the hurt, I’m grateful this past week offered this gift.

I’ve often wondered what makes it so hard for many families to find closure after a tragedy when there is no body.  Now, to be clear, I’m not questioning the trauma of losing a family member to 9/11 or to a kidnapping or to genocide.  I’ve wished to better understand what makes a mother exclaim “just find me a bone so that we can provide him a proper burial” during South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (in Desmond Tutu’s No Future without Forgiveness), for example.

Thanks Ma Fab on Unsplash

And then this happened…

A little while back, I received a celebratory mylar balloon.  After a week, the deflated balloon found its way to the floor and, curious to see if it would come a little off the floor again, I cut off its string and weight.  And the phone rang.  I turned around to answer it and forgot about the balloon.  A few hours later, I went looking for the balloon.

I looked around the living room; no balloon.  The kitchen; no balloon.  The bedroom; no balloon.  Hum…. My front and back doors were open, so I laughed at the idea that the balloon had gone for a stroll outside.  I went looking out the back; no balloon.  And out the front in our closed courtyard; still no balloon.  Where had it gone?  It could not have flown away as even without the string it was barely hovering off the ground.

So, I took another investigative tour of my place and the yards.  And when I did not find anything, I wrote off the balloon.

But, no.  My mind kept coming back to it, asking “where did the balloon go?” “What happened to the balloon?”  “How could it have disappeared?”  “Maybe it’s still out there somewhere and I missed it.”

And this is when it hit me.  I’m struggling to let go the unknown whereabouts of a silly mylar balloon.  No wonder some families can hold on so tightly to the idea that their loved one may still be “out there, somewhere.”  No wonder it’s difficult to create closure without the confirmation of a body.  If my mind can create so many stories about a mylar balloon, I cannot imagine what these families must go through.

Yes, it's a mylar balloon that helped me empathize with the plea I hope to never experience of making peace with a family member's disappearance.  What are you learning this month?  What can you understand thanks to something as insignificant as a mylar balloon?

We’ve been hemorrhaging Core Team members!  First, the institution switched 60% of the residents between two yards (which, for security purposes, are completely independent).  Second, of the remaining Core Team members, THREE were transferred to lower-security prison (woohoo!!  Big celebration for their achievements!).  So, we’re left with one Core Team member.

To recruit and select new members, last week, we read 60 applications from prison residents looking to join the Core Team that organizes the TEDx event.  Application review is always a quiet process, with everyone reading and evaluating separately.

When we finished, Connor looked up and beamed “I am so happy to have read all these applications!  I learned so much!!!”  When asked to clarify, “I never realized how much more impact a story creates over listing attributes and qualities.  I see now that the stories said so much more in less words.”

In a number of applications, we read that the residents would bring to our program “positivity, tolerance, patience, organization, team player, creativity, team leadership, adaptability...”

Another, to express what he expects to learn, said that “As a kid, I once rode Space Mountain with the lights on.  It was fascinating to see the inner mechanics that no one else normally gets to see.”  In these two simple sentences, we learned and deduced that

• He likes to understand how stuff works

• He likes working behind the scenes, making the magic happen

• He’s curious

These are all qualities we appreciate in a Core Team member.  He’s now on the interview list!

Someone else is on the interview list for a very different reason.  In this other application, one sentence caught our hearts:  “I don’t make people feel small.”  While this application did not present accomplishments or attributes, this simple statement showed heart.  And THIS is our top recruiting criteria.

We create a safe space in which people uncover and ignite their brilliance.  This man shows us a glimmer of something on which we wish to provide safety, fuel and space.  This has become a design feature of our team creation.  The leaders we select into our Core Team are not only the “cream of the leadership crop”; they are also residents in whom we see heart and desire to spark betterment in themselves and their world.