Even as the prison gates have opened, we’ve continued our Covid-forced correspondence program between the Donovan residents and outside volunteers.  It serves the folks inside, particularly those for whom writing is easier than speaking.  It serves the volunteers responding to these letters who, for many, cannot come inside Donovan.

The other day, we received a resident’s letter.  In the bottom right corner of the large manilla enveloped were written three simple words: “Handle with care”.

Many packages carry these three words, written to ensure the contents aren’t torn, crumpled, bent or broken in any way.

I felt these three words went deeper than simply caring for the pieces of paper in the envelope.  The pages of this letter were covered with words, which communicated this person’s experiences, perceptions, interpretations, emotions, thoughts, ideas, insights and beliefs.  Can we “handle with care” these? 

It's deeper still.  These thoughts, perceptions and beliefs reveal this writer’s identity, his values, his spirit, the essence of his being – yes, his courageous journey into his brilliance.  Can we “handle with care” this depth?

Unfortunately, in their childhood and prison environments, these are most often not “handled with care.”  Their persons are dehumanized; their belongings are trampled on and broken; their emotions are shamed; their thoughts and ideas are condemned and demeaned.

(And look where that led them…)

In our exchanges with the Donovan folks, we do our best to “handle with care” each person, each moment, each interaction, each expression, each emotion…

• We hold the letters’ pages like a delicate flower blooming.

• We read its content with openness and nonjudgment.

• We hold what the words contain with reverence and respect.

• We receive the insights with celebration.

• We acknowledge that any anger or resentment is actually past hurt being retriggered.

• We remain curious and open to ideas with which we don’t agree.

• We feel the power of this person’s realness and authenticity as he reveals his innermost thoughts and perceptions.

• We reply with sacredness for the whole of their being: the light and the dark, the growth and the stagnation, the awareness and the blindness...

Like every month, I invite you to explore for yourself:

• What do you “handle with care”?

• Where can you invite yourself into deeper care of your own inner realities and person? Of others’ inner realities and persons?

It’s challenging enough to hold our kids’ and loved ones’ words with openness and nonjudgment, to honor the sacredness of their spirit.  Now, how about doing it for your colleagues?  Holding their ideas and suggestions with the same sacredness, as these are the external expressions of their brilliance and essence. And now, how about for the person who wronged you?

Oh, the journey of growth available to each of us… “Handle with care” all of yourself as you move through this journey. 

Last Tuesday, as one resident left our group early to head to his college statistics class:

The resident: “Drive safely.”

Me: “Thanks.  You walk safely.”

Another resident: “Yeah, because it’s full of criminals out there.”

 Hahaha!  What a reminder.  These prison residents indeed live surrounded by criminals.

This reality can be easy to forget when we have the conversations and explorations like the ones that fill our circles.

For example, earlier, a resident explained that, to remain safe as a young boy, he lived by the belief that “The more people like me, the less they’ll hurt me.”

Among other questions, we asked:  Which “me”? Who’s the “me” that people are to like?

We often use “me” thinking we know exactly whom we’re speaking about.  But do we really?

So, we explored who “me” is and found:

• The various “me”’s as perceived by others – Others see us with certain characteristics, influenced not just by what we project but also by their own filters

• The various “me”’s that we project – So many of us showcase a different persona in a management presentation, with our kids, at the local bar, at a networking event…

• The various “me”’s we hold as our identity – We may see ourselves as a gentle mother, a badass boss, a decent surfer, and also a sexual abuse survivor

In addition to moving instantaneously between “me”’s, most of us are not even aware of the “me” we are being at any given time. Plus, all these “me”’s shift and change with time, experiences, wounds and growth. 

So … who’s “me”?

There is one “me” that’s the “me” of all “me”’s.  And that’s our brilliance, the complete, whole, immutable “me” that is our essence, our spirit, our higher self, our light, who God perfectly made us to be, whom we were always meant to be.

While the other “me”’s are dependent on our circumstances and react to our environment, our brilliance never is and never does.  We shine our brilliance when we allow the other “me”’s to take a backseat to our brilliance’s inspiration and direction.  In this brilliance, we are authenticity, clarity, peace, joy, love and power.

And from here, you – as always – have a choice: (1) to allow the various “me”’s to rule your thoughts, words and actions or (2) to thank these various “me”’s for their service and place them under the leadership and guidance of your brilliance.

Last Tuesday at Donovan, sitting in one of our circles, I notice Richard having disconnected from the conversation and staring to a spot behind me.  His presence comes back into the circle and then, soon, he’s staring again, until he interrupts the circle conversation to ask, “What do you see in that painting?”  And that’s when I notice a Jackson Pollock-like splatter painting hanging behind me.

The rest of us look at it blankly.  To break the long silence, Richard says “I see a playground overgrown with weeds.”  Even as he shares this, the painting remains a bunch of splatters to the rest of us, despite a concerted effort to see in these splatters what Richard was seeing.  After some laughs about the painting, Richard and the rest of us, we go back to our previous conversation.

While he clearly wishes to remain present to the conversation, Richard cannot disconnect from the painting.  Ten minutes after the first interruption, Richard interrupts again to say, “Are you sure you guys do not see a playground overrun by weeds?  That’s all I can see.”

Isn’t that exactly how perception works?

To Richard, the painting was clearly a playground overrun with weeds.  No questions asked.  And it seemed insane to him that the rest of us simply couldn’t see it.  How often do we hold our perceptions as hard truths expecting that everyone see like us?

When Richard shared his perception, the rest of us paused our conversation, looked in the direction he was looking and did our best to see what he was seeing.  How often do we create the open and curious space to whole-heartedly receive the thoughts, perceptions, ideas, values and beliefs of another, especially when we simply cannot see what they’re seeing?

Once Richard had spotted his playground overrun with weeds, he cannot shake it.  And, once shown the contours of his playground, I start to see it too.  I now could see (1) the splatter I first saw, (2) the intricate highway interchange I somewhat saw when probed and (3) Richard’s playground.  How often are we able to see that one idea can be different things for different people and to hold as valid ideas which seem opposite or contradictory?

This is an inconsequential moment around a splatter painting on the wall of our meeting room. And yet, when it comes to more consequential things – like the hot-button topics of the moment: politics, abortion, mass shootings, etc. – are you able to create and hold an open and curious space for seemingly contradictory ideas and see the beliefs of another just as valid as your own?

(Painting is Jackson Pollock's Convergence, 1952)

“We don't rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.” Archilochus

(and apparently “famously said” by Bruce Lee at some point)

A volunteer wrote this quote to “Ricardo” in response to a story he had shared with us that beautifully illustrated this point.  All of us want to be brilliant, whole, loving and powerful.  And… we don’t know what we’re truly made of until we face a testing challenge.

In a recent packet, Ricardo spoke of his move to a new yard where he was confronted with a prison population with which he had not been in contact for well over a decade.  Ricardo is known by most – if not all – who know him as being gentle, wise and with very high integrity.   Many people across the Donovan yards credit him for saving their lives and being the example they can always look towards for inspiration.

Shortly after his move, members of this prison population tested and threatened Ricardo “to the point of reviving my old self…with only seconds to prove or show what I’m made of.  A part of my old self quickly wanted to rise up, but the Spirit of God was louder and at that moment gave me the words to speak. … They threatened to keep an eye on me (praise God ;-) ) and told me to watch myself.  The beauty about their threat is that it was an opportunity to preach the Gospel without words.”

Ricardo continues, “I remember that such an encounter in the past would have caused me to be quick to defend myself ‘at all costs’ and defend my ‘jail-house’ honor so no one else would dare challenge me afterwards.  However, I knew the old me was long gone and buried when I didn’t feel the need to defend myself, nor did it matter what they thought of me for turning down their challenge.  That’s how God shows me I’m not the old [Ricardo].”

What is your level of expectation?  What is your level of training?  Every time we become slower to anger and more trusting of our brilliance, we’re in training.  The training can be arduous.  And yet, we reap the rewards when the element of surprise tests us and we realize we’ve just been less reactive, less conflictual, more attentive, more in our brilliance!  The ensuing peace and joy are simply priceless.

Enjoy your own daily training.  Allow Ricardo’s journey from gangbanger to gentle wisdom be the inspiration that this transformation is possible for each and every single one of us.

"A bend in the road is not the end of the road, unless you fail to make the turn." – Helen Keller

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them." – Henry Matisse

This month, Patrick takes to the stage!  He is one of the 13 volunteers who have been corresponding with the Donovan residents monthly since covid shut us out of the prison walls.  In addition to writing to the residents, this month, he also takes a moment to share the experience with you!  Onto Patrick!

I LOVE telling people – friends, family and strangers alike – about my experience inside a maximum-security prison with its residents.  When I share the beauty of the residents, their crazy inner strength, their artistic talent, their creative energy, their deep intelligence, with the passion of deep truth, I watch in real-time as stereotypes are confronted and cracked. I am consistently inspired by these men, their talent and their spirit.  With the onset of the pandemic, I deeply missed my visits to Donovan and the injection of positive energy I get with each visit.

I was excited at the opportunity to continue a relationship with the residents through a monthly writing program.  In the absence of the ability to go inside, this seemed like a great way to provide and receive at least some level of that positive energy the Brilliance Inside programs provide to participants.  To treat the end of the road as a turn, as Helen Keller famously said.

And what an awesome, fulfilling experience the writing program has been!  The brilliance of the residents shines just as brightly in writing as it does in person.  There is an intimacy to writing that enables a vulnerability and depth of conversation that are challenging in a group setting.  They write clever autobiographical stories, witty poems, vulnerable personal truths, self-aware reflections – the personal strength and creativity jump off the page.

The bravery of the residents inspires me to share with a vulnerability and truth that is rare in my every-day life, and this has had a profound impact on my mental health during Covid.  In the early months of Covid, I found myself in a haze of mild depression as, like many, I felt isolated and overwhelmed by negative news.  Sharing my challenges with the residents, while also actively listening to their challenges, bravery and creativity, filled me with a deep sense of gratitude that helped lift my spirit and fight the depressive episode.

As the world reopens, I am excited to go back inside, to share and listen with the residents in the way only face-to-face communication enables.  And I also am deeply grateful for this flower we found during the pandemic, as a way to nourish both the residents and ourselves.

Hoping these words share a little of the brilliance we receive and give each month through the packets we send in and out.

Celebration indeed!!!  Things are starting to move on the inside!  With our drop in tiers and the vaccination of every prison resident desiring it, the Donovan gates are starting to creak open.  Visitors - meaning people with personal relationships with the residents - were allowed to visit one weekend.  The volunteer clearance process has started for the hundreds of volunteers; wow, we're glad we're not the ones handling those logistics.  And they continue to discuss how to reopen programming in the safest and most efficient manner.

Our team is stoked at the prospect of being back inside within a couple of months or so.  It may still be a rollercoaster as the system learns and adapts to the optimal processes as well as the prison shuts down if and when any person associated with the prison comes down with covid.  When there are 4000ish men inside, 1800ish staff and 100's of visitors and volunteers, it's a lot of people to monitor and keep safe.

But "soon," we'll be inside with our teams!

Are you interested in joining our team inside Donovan as this world opens back up?  If so, simply reach us to us on the Contact page so that we can discuss your availability and interest.  We'd LOVE to have you join!

In the hopes that your worlds are also feeling more open and more free while staying safe and whole, we hope you're also excited at the prospect we're soon inside.

One year ago tomorrow, California prisons shut down and, almost overnight, we radically shifted our support to the residents of our prison system (as well as radically shifted our lives…).

Like I suspect has happened to many of you, the past year has put a stress test on what we stand for and believe.  I cannot stand for brilliance and the authentic, continuous exploration and expression of brilliance without ensuring that Brilliance Inside stays aligned with its own brilliance, even as the whole world shifts around us.

Since our brilliance is not what we do but who we are, these “stress tests” invite us to better identify and articulate who we are so that our brilliance can show up in any circumstance life presents.  As we explored more deeply what makes Brilliance Inside Brilliance Inside, one mind-shifting key surfaced:  instead of problem-fixing, we future-form.

Most of us believe that creating change consists of identifying problems and fixing them.  While this problem-fixing approach has its relevance, it also has significant limitations: (1) limiting the space of transformation to our current construct and (2) creating a ceiling for transformation.

Instead of seeing the problems to fix, instead of fighting against a system that’s broken, my intent is an immersive co-creative approach in which all of us come together across all parties, even – and actually especially – across those we consider “toxic” or “enemies.”  It’s because of our differences that we create a powerful transformation, and not despite them.  Long-lasting productive solutions come by bringing together what we have separated.  They serve ALL and therefore are designed (or “future-formed”) with everyone at the table.

By creating space for and honoring every person’s, entity’s and institution’s beliefs, values, needs and desires, we find common ground.  This is where the true answers lie. Instead of looking for what cannot work, we look for what does.  All is possible when we allow ourselves to open up to what is possible.

So, we don’t fix a system by pointing fingers to everything that’s wrong with it.  This transformation happens by pointing to what’s right with it.

Invitation:  Look for what’s right in you, your families, your organizations and ultimately our systems, structures and world?  How does this change your perspective and your actions?