A SENSE OF PURPOSE
Today, while sorting through the files of my life- seeking out, gathering, just the right information- building the foundation for our PEER SUCCESS TRAINING EVENT- I noticed something. Stumbled upon it really, after asking out loud, ” what do I need to give these folks to help them to be the most effective mentors in this moment, in this space.” The book really has little to do, or so it would seem, with mentoring in prison. A place void of psychedelics, yet the book I found is HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND, by Michael Pollan.
Everyone needs something different in the efforts of bringing wellness and wholeness to themselves. There are things that we all have in common. One of my favorite conversations is the POWER OF 24; approaching each new day with the understanding of a simple truth; EVERYONE ON THIS EARTH, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, NO MATTER YOUR ORIGIN, YOUR EDUCATION, YOUR SHADE OF SKIN, YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE- what we all have in common is the SAME THING that sets us apart, WE ALL HAVE 24 HOURS EACH DAY what defines us is WHAT WE CHOSE TO DO WITH THAT DAY.
I believe in community and women’s empowerment here. I believe broken and discarded individuals have worth.
I believe there is hope and I also know that knowledge is truly powerful. And I don’t believe in simple co-incidence.
So, when I was drawn to the book HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND, I knew there was a message there for the mentors.
Here is what I discovered:
In a previous post I mentioned that the Author, Michael Pollan, was directed to the work of Victor Frankl by the NYU professor, to better understand the question of meaning. Here is what he wrote :
” The whole question of meaning is central to the approach of the NYU therapists, and is perhaps especially helpful in understanding the experience of the cancer patients on psilocybin. For many of these patients, a diagnosis of terminal cancer constitutes, among other things, a crises of meaning. Why me? Why have I been singled out for this fate? Is there any sense to life and the universe? Under the weight of this existential crisis, one’s horizon shrinks, one’s emotional repertoire contracts and one’s focus narrows as the mind turns in on it’s self, shutting out the world. Loops of rumination and worry come to occupy more of one’s mental time an space, reinforcing habits of thought it becomes ever more difficult to escape. “
And while many free folks may find it difficult to draw a comparison between a cancer patient and a prisoner, let me assure you, behind these walls the question of, ” why me” is often a resounding one. Imagine, if you will, a person growing up with a crowd of people, all doing the same things, same parties, same drugs, some get caught up and some don’t. There is room here for that question. The ” crises of meaning ” is prevalent here.
If we can believe this, then we can recognize the power of introducing a healthy, balanced life to the participants of the PEER SUCCESS TEAM ( our Aliceville FCI mentorship program ). By stimulating their minds, helping them to find mastery in their physical self, showing them how to reconnect to family/ parent from prison, helping them to find the space to seek truth in their sprit, mostly introducing- by example- the importance and the benefits of community service; little by little they will become empowered and find their own sense of purpose.
The example is stellar. Our PEER SUCCESS LEADERSHIP TEAM ( what we call our think tank ) is not made of of perfect individuals, we are AIC’s who have done some time, done some work on ourselves, we aren’t trouble makers- and we have so much to give as we sit together and find creative solutions on how to direct a team of mentors in our home units.
In another excerpt:
“Mendel Kealen, a Dutch postdoc in the Imperial Lab, proposes a more extended snow metaphor: ” Think of the brain as a hill covered in snow, and thoughts glide as sleds gliding down that hill. As one sled after another goes down the hill, a small number of main trails will appear in the snow. And every time a new sled goes down, it will be drawn into the preexisting trails, almost like a magnet.” Those main trials represent the most well-traveled neural connections in your brain, many of them passing through the default mode network. ” in time, it becomes more difficult to glide down t he hill on any path or in a different direction. “
There are things we can do to soften and flatten the snow. Studies show that this is one of the benefits of psychedelics which are often used to treat addiction by flattening the snow- and although that is not available here- there are other methods. Creativity, music, writing, dance, meditation, the list goes on. The reboot can occur from when we make a conscious effort change our unhealthy habits- translate them into a life geared towards overall wellness. It’s when we begin to set our intentions and put our feet in line with the daily goals, discover the POWER OF OUR OWN 24, that new fresh snow can appear. For it is when we discover our true selves and seek our higher power or our higher selves that we begin to reboot our neuropathways. WE BECOME TRULY HAPPY, we become, “right sized in the universe”.
Many people don’t realize that tryptamine is an organic molecule common in nature. LSD, psilocybin, and DMT are tryptamines. The neurotransmitter serotonin is also a tryptamine. Suffice to say, if there are people using these molecules to treat addiction, PTSD and other behavioral disorders, then our best idea in healing this prison community is to stimulate serotonin through creativity and exercise and spread love.
Serotonin activates brain receptors like a key in a lock. It is my personal belief that using dummy drugs- the ones that flooded the streets of America in the War on Drugs- in the pursuit of happiness, strips the lock. It feels increasingly harder to find joy.
Time heals and so for me, I found that the more I stuck to the plan, exercise, yoga, meditation, community service, journaling, work, REST, REPEAT…well, I began to know a sort of joy and happiness that brings me peace and freedom from addiction and old addictive, unhealthy behaviors. The more I followed this path, the more the keys began to turn.
Freud backs me up, he believed, according to the book, ” the loss of self, and the sense of oneness, characteristic of the mystical experience- whether occasioned by chemistry or religion”, possess the power to modify the behaviors.
After thinking about the message I discovered, after sorting it out, I believe the value is simply that we have to respect that every person we are mentoring here are coming from a differnt path in the snow. Our duty is to expose them to as much beauty, art, intellect, and whatever love we can that will soften the snow of their neuropathways to help them to sort it out on their own.
I know we can help then to see the possiblities are limitless when we begin to spend our 24 hours a day in ways that are in line with our goals for tomorrow.
