12/8/19
Sometimes healing means being walking wounded.
On December 5th I participated in a workshop put on by DefyWA.org here at TRU. It was a particularly difficult day for me. It was the anniversary of my crime. The personal work I did during the workshop has left me empty, fragile, and emotionally bleeding. However, it was especially valuable for me to open those mental boxes and deal with their contents on that day of all days.
During the workshop we shared the result of a month’s worth of work. We delved into thinking about our past as a story and questioning at what points were our needs met and at what points were they not. We then turned our lens from the past to the future and explored developing life goals and a plan for how to accomplish them. Granted, these are all things I’ve worked on and delved into on many occasions in the past, but this time was a little different for many reasons beyond just the timing. I’ve never explored these things through a corporate self-help framing, and this is the first deep work I’ve done since having my world turned upside down.
I went into Defy with a lot of reservations because of these two things. I don’t like capitalism and I wasn’t all that keen about learning more about entrepreneurship. I mostly signed up for it because I have found that doing time becomes easier when I am surrounded by people who are working on self-improvement, and the easiest way to find them is go to school. So I signed up for the first class I could. I figured I’d do the homework, get a good grade, take what I like from it and scrap the rest. I wasn’t expecting there to be such a focus on personal issues and I certainly wasn’t expecting to participate in a workshop with 50 outside guests who were going through the personal work right along with us.
In the aftermath of the workshop I’m hurting and struggling with my personal demons, but it’s a good hurt. It’s the hurt of a lanced boil which needed to be washed, tended, and bandaged for a time. It’s the hurt of healing.
Defy may not have been the class I wanted. But it is the class which is available and I am having to revise my initial impression of it. Leo has moved mountains to make it a force for good, has put together a wonderful team of people to make it successful and I am looking forward to the next section of the class, even if he introduces each class activity like he’s selling a timeshare.
Amber Fayefox Kim 