Doing The Thing for women in prison
Hello! September 3rd, 2010
An amazing opportunity has come my way to visit with the women of the Tukwila Correctional Facility, and talk about
Doing The Thing.
With this opportunity comes some mixed feelings:
* I am excited to share my vision of strength and hope with those who need it most.
* I am apprehensive as anyone might be when they are doing something they've never done before. It will be my first time behind
bars ( if you don't count the time I called my mom from jail ).
* When I think about prison, it has a feeling to me similar to the topic of Cancer. They both have a serious heavyness with the potential for miraculous life changing results.
* It makes me pause and think...whether we're on "the inside" or out, we are all prisoners to some degree of our own armor and limitations.
Sometimes through crisis we are forced to find our biggest rewards.
Do The Thing with love,
Dana
An amazing opportunity has come my way to visit with the women of the Tukwila Correctional Facility, and talk about
Doing The Thing.
With this opportunity comes some mixed feelings:
* I am excited to share my vision of strength and hope with those who need it most.
* I am apprehensive as anyone might be when they are doing something they've never done before. It will be my first time behind
bars ( if you don't count the time I called my mom from jail ).
* When I think about prison, it has a feeling to me similar to the topic of Cancer. They both have a serious heavyness with the potential for miraculous life changing results.
* It makes me pause and think...whether we're on "the inside" or out, we are all prisoners to some degree of our own armor and limitations.
Sometimes through crisis we are forced to find our biggest rewards.
Do The Thing with love,
Dana
Posted by Dana Quade at 9/3/2010 9:07 AM 
Categories: Author Dana Quade will visit with women of the Tukwila Correctional Facility
Tags: empowerment solutions crisis prison freedom self-esteem self-help armor
Categories: Author Dana Quade will visit with women of the Tukwila Correctional Facility
Tags: empowerment solutions crisis prison freedom self-esteem self-help armor
Dana:
You going to the prison to share "Doing the Thing" is warming to my heart. My father went to prison for child molestation when I was 7. Prison was a scary looking and feeling place. It was cold, with no windows and hope was completely absent. I was behind a glass window about 6 inches thick and allowed a phone to hear my fathers voice. I remember feeling all the "bad things" that the people in there had done and how heavy the inmates hearts were. I could not touch him or feel his fuzzy face. I knew even at 7 years old that withholding more love and compassion from him would not help me or him. I knew that I could not change his situation, but I could still love him inspite of what others said about him or expected me to do under these circumstances. His actions did deeply affect me and my family so I decided that I would "do the thing" for myself. I would heal myself. How? I looked at my anger, the anger that was my internal prison. A prison what kept me from loving any man with my whole heart, to pick men that treated me badly and all the emotions that kept me from being who I really was. How did I transform? I wrote in a journal with out holding back my emotions, I punched pillows and cried. That helped me transform from anger to disappointment, then saddness, then acceptance, then neutrality, then to love, yes unconditional love. And in the process this act of healing myself started to heal him and my family in the ways they could accept. It took many years. But today I can truly say I am free. And I love my father more than I ever thought possible. I have learn so much about myself through this process that I cant imagine how I would have learned to "love unconditionally" without it and for that I am a better person. Doing the thing could be scary or uncomfortable at times, but well worth the internal freedom that I live each day. I highly recommed "doing the thing".
Love, Rachel
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Rachel,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this topic.
I am sure you're not alone in the thoughts and feelings associated with a loved one.
The example you set for Doing The Thing is one that I hope will catch on. It serves everyone.
Love,
Dana
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