First appreciations after Sunday's TEDx

For 2.5 hours on Tuesday, we had the pleasure and honor of listening to the TEDx Core Team and Speakers team, their wisdom, insights and pure joy created during Sunday’s TEDxDonovanCorrectional. Over the next few days, we’ll release segments of the 13 pages of typed notes that were captured by three volunteers . Here’s the first...

“I’m spiritually full, spiritually high. I don’t know what the [heck] happened to me. I can’t put it into words, but I’m full. I don’t have a burden. [TEDxDonovanCorrectional] took away my burdens. I’m happy. All the new friends I made in [by being part of the Core Team]. How we problem solved together. I take the language we use here - and the tone - and I use it with my family. No blowing up when things don’t go the way I want. I’m just giving them love and respect for humanity. An awakening of humanity towards other people. It’s not about anything you can give, it’s about seeing that humanity. I found soft compassionate parts of myself that were covered up because I wanted to be hard. It’s like you [outside folks] cracked open an egg. And inside, it’s not soft, it’s strong. If we all do this for each other more and more, we will be a better person to everybody around us. When you let your guard down and be the real you, people gravitate to you. I had a woman tell me [on Sunday] that I had a great smile and nice eyes. [The attendees] treated me like I was somebody. There was such kindness. They don’t care what my crime was, they just see me as a human. They wished I wasn’t incarcerated. I can have more of that! After having the courts telling me that I deserve to be locked up -- it means the world to me to hear this. I’ll remember those women 20 years from now. So much kindness. I’m not used to it. Race didn’t matter, my crime didn’t matter. It was just about peace, humility, kindness, compassion.”