Celebrating 4000 hours and counting

These newsletters usually contain monthly celebrations and insights about the folks inside Donovan (and clients outside).  This month, with Thanksgiving exactly one week shy of my 9-year anniversary of my first time inside Donovan, I share some of my own reflections and celebrations.

Nine years.  It’s starting to add up.  I’ve spent over 4000 hours inside those walls.  Enough to experience quite a bit of dynamics, culture, life experiences, etc. inside while still having an external perspective and the privilege to sleeping in my own bed at night (though for years the folks have joked that I must have a bunk there).

I’m neither an insider nor an outsider.  And at the same time, I’m both. This in-between place is my favorite place to be: capturing an intimate understanding that comes from being deeply invested, while keeping an emotional distance and relative impartiality.

While I’ve learned innumerable lessons on this 9-year journey, each feeling more precious than the next, I highlight three.

First, follow the nudges.  These nudges are your brilliance calling you into alignment with whom you were always meant to be.  For those of you who remember, this journey started for me because, during the summer of 2015, I heard the words “go to prison.”  Prison was not on my strategic plan; prison was not on my bucket list; heck, prison wasn’t even on my radar.  Yet, the nudge was there, gentle and persistent.  I chose to release all my rational stops, follow it and it opened up a new and amazing life; it’s even at Donovan that I met fellow volunteer Pete who became my husband six years later.

Second, I believe that every one of us – at our deepest core – craves to be and express our brilliance, meaning our essence, our highest self, whom we were always meant to be.  We won’t all use those words but, if we dig underneath the motivations that drive us at our core, it’s a desire for significance, for impact, to align with our deepest, most profound heart’s desires.  One of my greatest privileges is to create spaces – now both inside and outside – in which we uncover and cultivate this unique brilliance in each of us.

Third, the only divisions that exist are the ones we’ve created.  Fundamentally, nothing separates me from the Donovan folks - or any other human being, for this matter.  Though you could find a ton of ways that we’re different (me growing up between multiple countries and them in places like south central LA, or me graduating from some top schools and them often not graduating high school, to name a couple obvious ones), dig more deeply underneath the different circumstances and you’ll find the same craving, same emotional woundings and same fundamental motivations.

Our spaces – both inside Donovan and out – are where we reunite what’s been separated by creating bridges between these created divisions and disconnected worlds.  We reweave together the pieces that have been disconnected, hurt, wounded and cut off so we can find our desired wholeness again. First, within ourselves, then within our community, then across groups.

Learning these insights and applying them to my life has opened me up to greater harmony, peace, love, wellbeing, wholeness, connection, community and, like I said, a life I would have never imagined possible just a few years ago. I'm deeply grateful for these gifts and look forward to the continued growth.

You have a choice: This season invites us into gratitude. What gifts have you received in the past year? What wells up your heart in gratitude? Go dig deeper than the "obvious" such as family, vacations, new jobs or opportunities, etc. I'd love to hear them. Please do feel free to reply with your own list of yumminess and learnings.