Real change comes in a bedtime story
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.