Rebuilding After Hurt: Healthy living through adversity pt 5

What if we measured justice by how well it heals? We sit down with Juan to unpack a rare, unfiltered look at growth behind the wall—how being seen and heard can jumpstart dignity, how trauma-informed practices rewire the brain, and why labels fail to capture a living, changing human. Juan describes the painful split between the authentic self and the survival self, the years spent pushing down feelings to fit expectations, and the moment a safe room—and a simple handshake—made humanity feel possible again.

We trace the arc from retribution to restoration. Restorative justice brings survivors and offenders into a structured space where stories meet accountability. Survivors learn how disconnection breeds harm; offenders face the impact they caused and trace their own unhealed wounds. With insights from Compassion Prison Project and Empathy in Action, we talk amygdala and prefrontal cortex, toxic stress and ACEs, and why punishment often shuts down the very learning change requires. Juan offers a powerful reframe: if you hurt many, help many. That is accountability in motion.

This conversation is stacked with practical takeaways: how to create safety so vulnerability can bloom, why group attention heals shame, and how community becomes a repair shop for accumulated “car crashes” of childhood trauma. Juan refuses to let prison be a warehouse; he’s turned it into a university, teaching cohorts in English and Spanish and modeling daily service. The heartbeat here is simple and bracing: your past does not define you; your repairs do. If you’ve been waiting for a sign to start rebuilding, this is it.

If this resonated, share it with someone who needs hope, subscribe for the next chapter in our Healthy Living Through Adversity series, and leave a review with one repair you’ll start today. Your story might be the spark that helps someone else begin theirs.

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SPEAKER_03 0:13

Well, hello and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a very special guest. We're gonna be continuing our uh series that we're calling Healthy Living Through Adversity. And we have Juan with us. Juan, welcome to the show. Welcome back. Well, thank you, Joe. Thank you for having me back. Well, I think this uh this is starting to be uh successful. It took a minute before people realized it was going on, but um it seems like uh it's starting to catch on.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Yeah, and and you know, I would like to just say, man, thank you for all your listeners who wanted listening to your podcast and all those who commented. Um, I mean that those comments were very special to me, and I thank you for sharing those with me. But um just letting um all those who commented know that you did share those comments with me. Donna, uh Scott, Benton, Miriam, uh Kylash, and Melanie. So just thank all of them for their comments. And um in my view, uh, you know, it it allowed me to feel like I was being seen and heard, you know, and then that's especially important when you're thinking about like rehabilitation and and connection as we talked about before, or helping people reconnect back to themselves. So it was just letting someone know, like, I see you, I hear you, you know, and that's that's what that those comments did for me. So uh me and Addy, we were like on cloud nine, you know, just like wow, you know, everything that we're doing is it's panoff. People see, you know, that uh this is very important work, you know, and and it's gonna heal generations, you know.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

So Well, you know, um one of one and then it's one of the people that that you were referring to um was just on um Scott was just on the call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded. As a guest, and he's a psychologist, and you were talking about the importance of being seen and heard, and that was one of the salient points that he made about you know his practice. He'd been practicing uh for 30 years, and he actually spent over 20 years of it working with um in the corrections uh world through the one of the jail systems up in Illinois. So he was very aware of the importance of, as you were just saying, um, being able to be to feel like you've been heard and seen.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Yeah, I mean, you know, that to me, that's what I felt. Um, you know, they did something very important, like mentioned me by name, and and that that recognizes my humanity, you know, and as we had talked to, you know, the previous episodes, you know, um recognizing someone's humanity is is is so crucial, you know, to relating to um change just as a whole, you know. So um yeah, and that that helped me to connect back to my own. I mean, I'm so grateful just to have this opportunity. And again, I want to thank you, you know, for giving me this opportunity because it's a it's a humbling and healing place for me. You know, um it's given me an opportunity to be uh to give back and share all the stuff that I've learned. Um and hopefully, you know, plant some seeds and and and listeners and maybe they can learn something about themselves and maybe it'll give them some information to go and share with others. So it really is. It's it's an awesome uh opportunity. So I thank you for that.

Being Seen And Heard Matters

SPEAKER_03 4:00

You're very welcome. And I I'd like to share one little point that he had made. Um he has a uh a counseling service called the Mosaic Um Institute or something like that. But mosaic is the it's the key word. And what he said was we're a we're like a mosaic. We're we're made up of all of the choices we've made through our lives. And we find that people that are incarcerated, and I found myself incarcerated at one point um more than once, and and it it was as a result of a single choice. But that choice does not define us. That choice is a part of who we are. And I think it's important to realize that sometimes we make choices that affect us dramatically, and other times we make choices that we barely notice. But every one of those choices put together um are who we are today. I think that was just a very important point to to consider.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Yeah, I mean, you know, you you you know, we have this, you know, this bad kind of like thing in society where, you know, we classify people through like the worst things they've ever done, right? And so um there it's like a labeling, you know, we have this we have this bad habit of labeling people as if people are so simple that you can just label them right um according to what something they've they've done, you know. And we're we're we're more sophisticated than that. You know. Um we are like, you know, as we'll we've I don't know if we've spoken previously before, but yeah, w you know, these behaviors are like pathways. These are things that we learned growing up. These choices were like products of you know, if you're you know, just for the sake of an analogy, you know, if you grew up out in the in a jungle somewhere, you actually have someone who grew up in s civilized society. You know, and so i it's a little bit it's a little difficult to say, you know, you take someone from a civilized society and you try to judge someone who grew up in a jungle.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

You know, there's there's a different, you know, set of rules and so um you know, so to me, um, the unique thing about our brains that we know now, you know, is they change. You know, the decisions that I made yesterday does not have to be the same decisions that I made today or tomorrow. You know, I can learn new information, I can rewire my brain, you know, and so that should be the the how you come to identify someone. It's not about the decisions they made. It's about the um what do you call it? The um the work that they're putting in today to make better decisions tomorrow. You know, that that's that's my view. It's like are you putting you know, like are you putting in the work to you know, you can't be responsible for not having a certain amount of information. So if I come out of a certain background, I can't necessarily be responsible for not learning something as a child, but I can be responsible today if I choose not to learn today.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Exactly. No, it's spot on. We're we're dynamic creatures and and every minute of every day we're changing, and we're never the same as we were yesterday or an hour ago. And and so yeah, absolutely. If we decide to stay stuck in a in a rut and make the same decisions over and over again, well then that starts to define us. But at any given moment, we could decide we want to be reborn, we want to, we want a new chance, we wanna we want to start over. We we have that gift uh that we were given by our creator just for being human. And it's it's pretty amazing. Yeah.

We Are A Mosaic Of Choices

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yeah, and you're bringing up a good point because it's something that I you know I came I confronted years ago with um, you know, we're we're so locked into these limited uh understandings of who we are. You know, it's like I think I'm this and that's it, and as if I don't grow no more. And so it's like, okay, I'm stuck. Here this is this is Juan. You know, Juan likes this food, he likes this color, he likes this, and that's all I come to know about myself. But in in actuality, I have myself in this very small box, right? You know, and I could I can always like new foods. I can always have new limitations, I can always have new experiences and you know, there's but the question is how do I relate to myself? And I think that's one of the things that is missing in our society is I mean, you know, where do you go to learn how to find your authentic self? And that's kind of like what we're gonna be talking about today too. But you know, like how many people actually really know who they are, you know, uh where do you learn that? Where do you go to find out like hmm, what what makes me me? You know, like people spend a lifetime trying to answer that question. Right, exactly. And you could spend a lifetime not even knowing like this is not even the real you.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Wait, you know, and and that's the that's the fascinating part of like doing this work is really getting back to unpacking, you know, all that trauma and then getting back to your authentic self, who you really are.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah. So um, right before we get into a summary, if you don't mind, I would like to invite um your listeners and um any professionals. Um National Crime Victims Week is coming up April 2020 through the 24th. Um, and that's where we hold things in the institution where we honor survivors of crime um by hearing their stories and um and healing their path, their their their journey to healing. And also, you know, people who have like myself are offenders of crime, you know, we learn about the impact of crime and that that creates uh empathy. So uh if possible, you know, if any of your listeners are interested um during that week, we would like to for them to, you know, share and um yeah, any of their comments or feedback or brainstorm with us on some of their ideas of what we can do between April 20th to 24th to help people who have been either victims of crime or who have committed crimes to um help me, you know, learn some um healing ways to if you've been impacted by crime, how to move forward, or if you are an offender or someone like that, tools that they can use as well to uh foster empathy.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Absolutely. And and if anybody that that is falls on either side of that equation um is interested in coming on as a guest, please reach out. Um I'm I'm easy to find uh through the show notes or or how however you find me, um I love to hear your story.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

Yeah, it's so important. Um just one one way that looks in the institution. I mean, you'll be so surprised. It's a restorative justice. So we have a criminal justice system, right? And that's what most people are familiar with is criminal justice. But there's actually another law, it's called restorative justice. So in in in criminal justice, the state makes itself the victim. Okay, and all too often the needs of the victim is in ignored, right? Um, because the the crime is now against the state. Um and also the needs of the offender is ignored, it's just about punishment. But in restorative justice or transformative justice, um the dialogue is between the offender and the survivor of of the offense. And what that means is the survivor of the offense, part of the healing process is learning how someone can come to a place where they can harm someone else. What what were some of the factors in their life that got them to this point where they could hurt someone? And as we mentioned before, understanding that disconnect and how um when someone disconnected from themselves, they no longer was a part of you saw their humanity and could not recognize the humanity in other people. So that that's one part is um you know, the the survivors understanding that component of crime.

Change, Neuroplasticity, And Identity

SPEAKER_06 12:36

And the other part is the offenders not only listen This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Not only offenders listening to uh survivors who have been impacted by crime and the long term impact that that had on their life, but also the offender examining how did they get themselves in a place where they could commit crimes, right, and hurt people. And so that's what restorative justice is about. And so what during the National Crime Victims Rights Week, these two come together, survivors and offenders, and this is the type of dialogue that it that takes place during that time.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Absolutely, and you know, in going through I spent a lot of time um, you know, with a human rights uh organization. I've sat in a lot of courtrooms, and usually the only time that there's a connection between the the person who committed the crime and the person who had it committed too is uh really at right before that sentencing, um they have what they call a victim's impact statement where often they'll they'll have the family come and and and talk about that. But the point of that is to try to get a to be more harsh, you know, and to impact the judge. And that's it. Uh oftentimes the the person who is convicted never really gets a chance to interact with the the recipient or their family. And when it does, it's it's powerful. I've heard many, many stories of people that um uh uh have reconciled from you know terrible, terrible crimes and and found forgiveness on both sides and the growth that can occur in a in a situation like that is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Yeah, correct. I mean it it's it's not and and you know, one point too is also the people who are committing these crimes are also victims of crimes themselves.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

And that's part of the Yeah, that's part of understanding that process.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Yeah, there's absolutely no no question. I don't think there's very many cases where somebody who commits um a violent act, especially but but any kind of a you know serious crime wasn't the victim of something serious themselves.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Definitely. We lost them out of here.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

All right, I don't know. Yeah, it it's this is a uh an incredible conversation. And we're just about to get into the the topic you know that we're getting ready to discuss, but just going through some of these things, I think people just don't get it. They if if they haven't had a situation where they've been involved with somebody who is in that institution or you know um has committed an act that got them in contact. People got put into a box. Oh, okay, good, good, good. Well, we're just kind of just touching on on the impact of what we've been talking about. This is really important things because like you were saying, people get put in a box. Most people, especially people who have never lived or known somebody who has gone through um the justice system, they just automatically assume, oh, this is how it is. And somebody who does a thing is a certain kind of person. And we're we're really opening up some uh elements of humanity that I think is necessary for people to understand. I'm hoping that, you know, really we're gonna open a lot of eyes with this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah. I mean, uh most simply put, you know, um I mean, I'm just gonna say it quite frank, is you know, you can't treat someone like an animal and expect them to be human, right? Um so if you want if you want to um have people behave like they are uh productive members of society, then relate to them like they're you know, you talk to them the way you talk to them in the way that you expect them to behave, um, or treat them uh the way you expect them to behave. And so this oh this brings a good point. So speaking from experience, you know, when you're going through um, you know, just growing up as you know, you experience different levels of violence or victimization, you know, you absorb I I let me say that, I absorb that energy, you know, and and that's what that's that learned behavior where the victim becomes a victimizer. You know, this energy was absorbed, and so that's the energy that I put out. But a fascinating thing, I learned that from um Dr. Richard Swartz, who has a uh um no bad parts, but what I learned is I said, Well, if I can absorb the energy of my abuser, then I can also absorb the energy of my healers. Absolutely. You know, and that's that's why it's so important for these conversations. I may not have known what humanity felt like, I may not know of what love felt like, but when someone comes along and they love me and they treat me like I'm human, then I'm able to absorb that energy and I can now give away what I am getting. But I couldn't give away what I didn't have before. Exactly.

Authentic Self Versus Survival Self

SPEAKER_03 18:34

You know, no, that's that's that's that's well put. I I think that you know uh us uh reaching into these institutions and and acknowledging some of the um restorative programs and and working on building restorative programs, I think is important. Like you said, it gives the people something to feed from. It it gives the people that are participating um a way to grow and and become those things that they're learning.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Yeah. And and by the way, I mean let me go ahead and give a shout out to some of these restorative justice programs, especially the ones that play the most significant role in my development. Um, you had a uh a professor on your show, um Megan McDrew. She um she comes in um every week, you know, with the Empathy and Action uh program. And part of her program is she brings college students in from society. And you know, the beautiful thing about her program, you know, it would look like like I when I went in there, you know, um you had all these college students and they're and they're they're they come in and the first thing they do is they shake your hand. Right. Now, from someone out there in society, you wouldn't know the importance of that, but for me who've been in here, who've had no human humans over here, the guards don't touch you, right, unless they're putting cuffs on you. Right? So they don't touch you or they're patting you down in some negative way. So you're talking about people who've been incarcerated for twenty-something years who've never had any human contact.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

You know, and so aside from a pat down or you're getting cuffed up or something like that. So when she brought her program in here, you know, and and I and I shook someone's hand, it was believe it or not, it was so awkward. You know, it was so awkward for me at first. Right? And it's like I almost forgot what it felt like to be human until that moment. It wasn't comfortable. You know? And so now, you know, I've been through her program a couple different times. Now it's it's it's it's more comfortable. It's comfortable. I look forward to shaking people's hands. But that human-to-human contact is so important. And so she's a um yeah, she's a strong advocate of ours. She yeah, me if if all any of your listeners can look her up, Megan McDrew, Empathy in Action. Um, she has a transformative justice center here in uh Monterey. Um so Yeah, I'm hoping to get her back to this advantage. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:15

This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Next time I see her, I'll definitely let her know that you know I give her a shout out on your show and see if she can uh she'll uh visit you again. And also another person is Fritzie, another person is Fritzi Horseman with the Compassion Prison Project. Okay. And so Fritzie, she's she's responsible for all the knowledge that I know when it comes to neuroscience and you know, by how trauma affects your biology and things like that. So she has a course called Trauma Talks. And I'm the chairman of that group here in the in the prison. And so uh that's a lot of this information. This is kind of what we go over week after week in the groups as we uh we run about a hundred per participants a cohort. So that's a lot. Uh we have fifty. Yeah, we have fi have fifty in our Thursday group. in our Sunday group. We have um 50 on our Thursday night and we have an English and Spanish. It's 25 apiece on our Thursday night. Wow. So we're we're in here. Yeah, we're in here getting busy. I love it. I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

So um if you would like I give a quick summary of where we left off last time.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Yeah please Okay.

National Crime Victims Rights Week Invitation

SPEAKER_02 22:37

So uh we start off with like ask the need for asking for help. Uh we talked about how trauma creates a disconnect within the person's body, mind, thoughts, emotions, and other people um the importance of reconnecting to yourself. And how like especially with myself like prior to feeling safe in my own body now I never felt like there was a safe place for me because of all the trauma and things that I've been through and that was my worldview. We talked about um the brainstem, the amygdala and prefrontal cortex and toxic stress, ACIS and the worldview and how that shapes your worldview of like I don't matter, no one cares about me I can't do anything I'm alone and the world is a dangerous place. No one will take care of my needs and there's nothing in me worth knowing. And that was the the the the uh you know for me I was so I don't know I was I kind of my eyes got a little worried a little watery when I thought about this last one there is nothing in me worth knowing and the reason why that was a little impactful for me is because I remember being in that place and I just sympathize with anybody in that place if anybody is feeling like um there's nothing in them worth knowing like let me be the first to tell you you're wrong. You're very special you matter you're very important and there's a bunch of wonderful people out there who care about you. So uh I I just come to see this about myself now. So uh and the last thing was the four S's of secure attachment.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Absolutely we covered a lot of ground and um and then subsequently we subsequently we we had uh three different interviews and um that was also powerful and so we're what what's our next step here?

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Yeah so I I would like to look at the like um you know being alone with your hurt and what that means is like you know what so now that all this trauma has happened right um as children one of the so again again I'm looking from a group setting what happens inside of group. So in group I learned that when I started to experience all this trauma and things like that um I was put in a position where I aband I abandoned my authentic self. Right? And in abandoning my authentic self this fractured self came forward right this fake version of me. And what this fake version of me was is the the person I thought I had to be in order to survive whatever I had to survive. And in that process, you know, there came this pushing down of my emotions and becoming what others wanted me to be. So you know the pushing down of your emotions looks like you know men can't cry or men don't cry. You know, I'm not supposed to feel I'm supposed to be tough. You know, um and whatever and that's the that's when I'm abandoning my authentic self. Is when I'm thinking like I'm not supposed to be scared. I'm not supposed to have fear I'm not supposed to show emotions. I'm not supposed to show weakness or vulnerability you know um that's a denying of my the the very thing that makes me human. You know? And so that's when that fake self comes forward. And in that place that's where that depression set in the anxiety, the confusion, the numbness, the lack of emotional intelligence, the inability to describe how I how I felt and to me like that's that's a great like little focal point for right now is because I sympathize you know we're we live in a society where we're always choosing someone else's expectations or we're trying to live up to someone else's expectations at the expense of our own.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

Right.

Restorative Justice Explained

SPEAKER_02 27:41

You know and or we're we're so afraid of just saying like how we really feel or where we're where we're at. We're always trying to for the sake of being a attached to someone or connected to someone we value their belief system over our own you know I think that's prevalent. I think a lot of people live in that world right yeah you know and we don't even question it, right? Because we've been like for me I you know this became second nature right you you deny yourself for so long it's like so who I became was a person who all often took on other people's beliefs and abandoned my own. So I had to wait until someone else told me what was okay and what wasn't okay or what was acceptable what wasn't acceptable or how I should feel about that or how I shouldn't feel and it's like I had no concept like or no of myself like where am I at in all of this process. And and that's another thing that I learned like you know when I and and then that whole victimization process you know I lost my voice to speak up for myself you know and I went into this you know like as Dr. Schwartz said this exile state you know and I and I wouldn't I wouldn't advocate for myself. I was you know it's like I was always this kid who was afraid to speak up for himself. And it was just easier just to go along with what somebody else said just to fit in you know and part of the and that's why it's so important in the group dynamic, you know, when when people are speaking we give them like me speaking right now, it's so important for your listeners is give me their undivided attention because why?

SPEAKER_06 29:31

Because this could be the first time I'm actually speaking up you know I'm this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

And I'm learning to uh not suppress and not to push down but to be vulnerable and put myself out there and say hey this is me this is my story and how that information is received you know depending on where I'm at cause me to go back into shutdown mode or it it can encourage me like all the listeners that gave me their feedback say oh man I want to go back and do that and this is cleansing. You know and then also it can encourage other people who are listening I remember you know hearing someone on the prison yard he was talking about some of the victimization that he went through and this was when I was in a place where I wasn't talking about my stuff and I was too embarrassed to talk about my stuff. But I remember hearing him talk about his stuff and he was he was sexually molested and it made me uncomfortable to hear that but also I also admired him too because you had 60 seconds remaining I remember thinking like man I I wish I had that much courage to say and speak my truth like that happened to me too. But I was in that place you know like I'm not gonna ever tell nobody.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

We'll go another segment I think we're I think we'll go one more segment I think that um because we're we're down to the last of this call but we'll we'll do another segment on this on this one we'll go a little long because we're just getting into some real real good information here. Okay the time goes by real quick a lot a lot of valuable information great stories insight I love love listening to him it's so hard as soon as you just start getting into it all of a sudden it's like oh there goes your six seconds left so normally we've just got two segments and and but this this one here I think we're just starting to get into the the real meat of the conversation so I I definitely want to go one more round with this one. Yeah definitely I'm gonna get here yeah absolutely we'll jump right on in the It's incredible to to listen to the humanity of somebody who's been 20 years on the inside and still working through it and doing better than plenty of us on the outside.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

All right you're on you're back in let's keep going here this is awesome yeah so I was talking about how you know hearing someone else's story although I was not in a place where I would want to talk I wanted to talk about and I wasn't at this time I wasn't gonna share anything about what happened to me but it still planted a seed in me to say you know what I could really respect the fact that he had courage enough to admit that and and even silently within myself I was telling myself and encouraging myself like one day I want to do that. I want to do that. But I knew I wasn't in the place then and and the me the reason why I'm saying that is because this is why these conversations are so important and especially for people who have already reached out and started talking about some of the stuff that they've been through but how important it is for you know the listener because there might be someone that was in that same place where I was at was like wow you know this this this man just admitted to something that I'm not ready to admit to yet you know and hopefully this uh give them a little bit of courage like it gave me to say you know what one day I will share my story and what I've been through and I don't have to carry this I'm not alone I'm not by myself and there's a community of people out there that I can turn to for support and I can start and they can start their healing journey.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

That's where the healing really starts is when you know you've got a safe enough place where you can start to be vulnerable again yes and and what you said right there is key right a safe place where you can be vulnerable.

Absorbing Harm Or Healing

SPEAKER_02 34:16

And and and so how can we have this safe place when people are feared that they're going to be judged or people are going to judge them by their behavior and then put these labels on them and all these different things that doesn't create a safe place.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

No exactly it it and you end up putting up walls and and defenses to protect yourself and then you don't have any way to heal at that point because you're busy you're busy with your guard up Right and you and so therefore you can't be authentic.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Right you can't you can't there's no authenticity there. You know a person can't find there's there's more of that pushing down there's more of that shame there's no confronting I stepped out uh I'm getting ready to go to work right now so might be a little loud but there's that uh there's there's no there's no authenticity there you know there's no healing and there's no growth and secrecy and so that's why we want to accept people we want to give people a safe place where they can come and share some of the worst things they've done things that happened to them so they can begin their path to healing because there is no path to healing aside from that.

SPEAKER_03 35:43

Right it's true it's true and you know all the way from you know I I was raised Catholic and and confession was always a big part of you know the the doctrine and and there's something something really healing about going in and and confessing what you did wrong you know and acknowledging it owning it right and being in a place where you felt was safe enough to to do that and and making some an act of contrition to say you know I I I recognize what I did I'm gonna I'm gonna work on it.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

I'm gonna do something to try to make it right yeah and you know that's the so you know as I sit in these groups I hear men who like myself see you know they're they're you know because when you're on these when you go through this victimization you're like on autopilot right so it's like you're you're there you're it's like you're you're watching someone else drive almost right and you're doing all these things but you're like on autopilot and then when you come in here you like wake up and you you realize like wow what did I do? And so some of these men you hear all the regrets you hear all of like you know and they're just as confused as how they could do this as anyone right and so they don't even know without the right resources and that's why like I said I give so much credit to the Compassion Prison Project because their curriculum actually lays out how you got to this point, you know, but prior to this, you know, people were just clueless as to like how did I end up doing something like this, you know? And so there now here comes this here comes this shame, you know, and they'll compound that shame with people who are judging them for what they've done. And so now it's like okay is the goal that we want to shame someone or is the goal that we don't we want productive people in society. Like we have to align our goals like what what is the goal right? And so it's it's and and I get the honor of hearing these men's story and I remember sharing um my perspective so there's a Bible verse that says um to whom much is given much is required. To whom much more is given much more is required. So what I end up doing was I end up kind of like reworking that in my own way and to help people who feel so burdened with how many people they hurt. And what I said is to who has hurt many people you have to help a lot of people and to those who've hurt a lot more those who've hurt a lot more people well you gotta help a lot more people. I like that so it's like yeah yeah you know it's just like you have to like like what are you gonna do about this right because they're useless if they're just gonna sit there with the woe is me I feel ashamed and that's useless.

Restorative Programs Shout Outs

SPEAKER_03 38:50

You can't do anything with that but if you can say you know what yeah I hurt a lot of people and therefore I'm responsible for being a part of a lot of people's healing it's totally I'm responsible I'm obligated yeah to help a lot of people now you know it's it that's that's powerful because you know when people think about punishment as somehow solving something the only thing punishment can do is make you aware call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded that you need to do something to make it right. You know it's it's not it it in and of itself it doesn't do anything other than you know keep somebody away from the rest of society but if it uh unlocks that door instead of like what you just came up with and and and realized that okay I I recognize what I did. I recognize how I've impacted people and now I got to work on what am I going to do about it. And I think that's that's really where things start getting real what am I doing about it right now.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

Yeah yeah I mean and when you think about punishment what that does is you know the the unfortunate part is and you know we talked about the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex right but when you think about punishment you know we have to look at it from the stress response perspective and all it's gonna do is it cause me to it triggers me and it'll trigger my you know me to my amygdala to shut down my prefrontal cortex I go in survival mode. I'm not learning anything in that place of punishment. Right? I'm not learning anything you know so punishment is not yeah that's not the correct way you know to you know if if the goal is to like well you want someone to learn their lesson that ultimately the purpose of the the system is to say hey it's not okay to hurt someone right right that's the ultimate goal I mean if we was to if we were to like summarize the purpose of the the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation if we were to to summarize their what their outline and their goal should be it would be to help people understand that it's not okay to hurt someone.

SPEAKER_04 41:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

That's that's in essence the that should be a mission statement right it's not okay to hurt someone. It's not okay so you don't do it right of it though is you know putting the action into it.

Recap Of Trauma And Attachment

SPEAKER_02 41:29

You know if you spend your time working on helping somebody else you your brain doesn't even go into a place where you might think to hurt somebody right yes I mean and that's the ultimate goal you know where we're and that's what we're teaching in the group you know but unfortunately and I mean I'm sad to be the one to have to admit this but you know when you hurt it's it hurt people hurt people and when you are not when you're not in a place where like you experience hurt and then you you know you get you know these healthy tools like how to you know practical tools on how to process that hurt but without that intervention the hurt turns into wanting to hurt. You know? And so so many of so many of us in the group we we fell into that trap of not having a healthy way to process the worst stuff that ever happened to us. And which is you know and when you're victimized at two, three, four, five, six, seven years old I mean you know the that young brain is not equipped with practical tools. You know what I mean when you really think about it. So it shouldn't be so strange it shouldn't be so strange for people in society to understand like, you know, a person did not have practical tools to help them process the worst things that happen to them and therefore they have these unhealthy ways of expressing um that hurt agreed I I think that but go ahead oh go ahead I don't okay so that's what we're learning now right in our group. So now we're learning how to go back and process that hurt. That's the whole goal of the group is to go back now we didn't get a chance Dan and so you know in Fritzi Horsman's curriculum you know it says you're not responsible uh for the trauma that you experienced growing up you're not responsible for that but you are responsible for healing it and that's very important and that should be the focal point right the focal point should be yes we are responsible for healing that trauma I think that's important in indeed I mean you know we oftentimes we take a victim mentality and you know it's both call and our telephone number will be monitored and recorded. All these things are you know I'm stuck I I I can't do this I'm I'm you know look what happened to me whatever it is but like you said regardless of what happened to you you didn't cause it to happen to you but in the end you're the only one who can heal it you it's your job to heal it now yeah and you know I I guess we can g you know here's one of my things I want to leave your audience with so here's my analogy of like how we experience trauma so you know imagine if you're you're driving right you have this car and you get into this car accident right and imagine you don't go to the repair shop where you keep you like you know I'm gonna drive this car again and you drive again you get into another accident and then you get into another accident and then you as you just keep going along you get into all of these accidents And there's never a repair process. Well the condition of that car you know it's it's not gonna be in in an optimum condition. But that's how we are, you know, when we're right. Trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma, right? With no repair in between. Like I don't know if I share, but my ACE score is is nine. So that's nine car accidents I had. You know, when you think about I have nine car accidents that I had with no repair in between. And this is all at a very crucial age. Right. And then that's not even to say that there's things that I experienced that are not even written in the ACE survey.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

You know? So but there is the whole point was there was no repair process. But now, given this opportunity and with the right curriculum, now I'm able to go back and I can begin my repair process. And that's and that's the end, that's the whole moral of the story. That's the whole purpose of incarceration or what the purpose should be in the mission statement.

SPEAKER_05 46:18

Is you have 60 seconds remaining.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

We have now we have that opportunity to to to do the repairs that we should have been doing a long time ago.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

And and the truth is you can rebuild a car from you know what they call a basket case. It can just be a bunch of beat up parts and you can still put it together and and refurbish it, restore it, and and and get it working again.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Yeah. Yeah. And then maybe that should be the takeaway from this whole segment is like, you know, for everyone who's listening, is how how are you going to rebuild your life?

SPEAKER_03 46:55

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

You know, what are you gonna do to uh rebuild your life and to to start the repairs that you need to restart, to start, you know, uh your journey of repair today. So that's that's my takeaway. That's my closing.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

That's beautiful. I I I really think that um you know, that exemplifies what what we all should be working on, and and especially maybe those of us that are not currently incarcerated, but um it's important to to have empathy for those that are going through um a situation like you are, and and realize that um, you know, especially what I'm hearing is you're not only helping and healing yourself, but you're helping others to do the same.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yes, he definitely is. I think that's his like life goal.

Abandoning Self And Pushing Down Emotions

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yeah, I I I love this. I love this uh what we're doing here. Um I feel like it it we're building um a concept out and we're identifying a number of of issues and problems and and ways that people can um you know find answers and and find healing. And that's really what it's all about. You know, this this is um the way that you get to healthy living is is by healing yourself. Hey, it's back for the final thought here. We were we were just uh yes, sir. We we were just going through kind of what you were saying, and and I I I think it's powerful that that we're being given um an outline and and and uh a direction that we can recognize all these things that you know you found the hard way, you know. Uh like you said, going through uh this whole ACE score and and and you know, having, like you said, nine incidents or accidents or situations that that you know you're literally rebuilding your your spirit, your body, your your heart, your mind. Um it's all kind of getting put back together now. And and what you found is something that I found a long time ago is that when you help somebody else, you know, when you when you go through a thing, whatever it is, um, you know, in my case it's cancer um and and many other things and and the things that you've gone through, you now have a tool to help somebody else who's been through that as well. Because there's something about empathy that that's more powerful than sympathy. And when you can say, listen, I know what you're gone through. I've been there, I know it. I I I am who you are. Um that person is likely to go, oh okay, you you you hear me, you understand me. Maybe I should listen to you. And you know, you you're given now a tool um that can be powerful. And and I like, you know, right now I have people reaching out to me almost every day wanting to learn, you know, about how I, you know, healed my cancer. And they find inspiration in in my journey, um, you know, and and and you know, they call me as being a warrior and being strong and all that, and I'm like, shit, I just wanted to live. You know, I I don't I don't think I was humbled by the whole experience, but truly I just wanted to be alive, you know, and I was willing to do what it took. And I learned some things that were well, you're going to the same thing. You're learning the tools that it took to uh recognize and and you know identify. And uh now you're you're owning your healing. And I think that um, you know, the tool of helping other people to heal comes back to you many times and uh is gonna only expedite your healing.

SPEAKER_06 51:13

Yeah, I mean, you know, and it puts me back into that very important, like this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

SPEAKER_02 51:23

So it puts me back into that community, you know, of healthy people. And yeah, for me, um, I'm so grateful for my journey. I know some people like, you know, and here, you know, you look at prison as a bad thing, you know, but for me, I've always, you know, it's about your perspective of things. And I remember, you know, young Juan when I came in, I say young Juan, I was 25 years old when I came in. I'm I'm 46 now. But um, you know, young Juan was refused to look at prison as prison, as a place of torment and punishment. And I realized, like, I could turn this place and I determined, like, this is gonna be my university. It's not gonna be my prison. It's gonna be my university. And, you know, coming up with a single mother who was, you know, had 11 children. I'm the second youngest, so I was all the way at the bottom. You know, she worked two hours, two eight-hour jobs to provide for us, and you know, so I've rarely seen anything of her. Um, you know, it was about survival. And so what I'm grateful for now is like as I especially learning about attachment theory, the type of, you know, uh relationship you have with your caregiver, form the relationship that you would have with other people. And you would understand how mind-blowing that would be for me, seeing like, hey, well, I I pretty much was raised by children, you know. Um, you know, because my mom had to go out and she had to go work. So I'm like, I didn't necessarily have a caregiver, you know. Um, and so that's that's my heart goes out to, you know, um people like myself who who came up in some of the most extreme circumstances and um, you know, single parent homes, you know, didn't have the caregivers there or you know, and I and I understand the depression, the anxiety. And even if someone didn't come up in a single parent home, that doesn't mean the the neglect wasn't even it wasn't as severe. Like that could even be uh we see it every day, you know, people who are seemingly wealthy, oh they had everything, right? We say, Oh, they had everything, why would they do this? Well, they didn't have that love from their caregivers, that connection.

SPEAKER_04 53:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

You know. And so my heart just goes out to them because I remember what it's like being in that place of just being lost and confused as to who I am, depressed, you know, not knowing what direction I'm going in, or um just that loneliness, like nobody out there understands me. You know, like nobody understands me and and I know I know that place and I and like you said, I have that empathy to like, you know, now I'm like I have to help people like me, you know, find their way and let 'em know, like, you know, like no, there's you're not alone. You know, you're not by yourself, and you do matter. And you're matter just because you're a human being. That's it. You that's your birthright. You know, you don't have to do anything. You matter just because you are part of this human race. You know, and that's enough in and of itself.

SPEAKER_03 54:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:29

That's powerful. So yeah, and I and like and and this that's a powerful thing that you're giving us in this session. Like you're giving us that space to create what we in we do in group. We get to create that here.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

Yes. Absolutely. That's the point of it all. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, uh I'm really pleased. I I I love the way this conversation is going, and um, I feel like people are gonna be able to to take away a lot of healing from this episode. Um, this is really uh a lot going on and and reinforcing going back to what we've covered before. So, you know, if you're listening for the first time, um this is the fifth part of this series, and uh we've we've we've covered a lot of ground, so I encourage you to go back and and start from the beginning of this series and and get into all the all the pieces we've been doing.

SPEAKER_02 55:31

Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, I just thank you so much, Joe, for everything that you're doing to make this happen. And um, man, this is this is really awesome.

SPEAKER_03 55:43

I love it. Well, we're just getting started, Juan, and we got a lot, a lot to come. So um we're gonna we're gonna cap this episode here and um and and get ready for the next one. So this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast, and this is the Healthy Living through adversity series. And uh, you know, we're just so grateful for all the listeners to make this show possible, and we will see you next time.