Life After Prison: Would I Allow the Story to Shape and Mold Me?

For years, I was a ball of clay.

The pain, shame, and trauma of going to prison, losing everything, and planning how I’d end my life was the sculptor.

The story played on repeat in my mind, pounding me into submission, shaping and molding me to its will.

And I allowed it because I didn’t feel worthy of it being any other way. I did this, and I deserve to be punished.

The trajectory of my life changed when I understood I was choosing to be the ball of clay — and I was worthy of more.

The facts of the story are immutable.

They’re written in the book of time for all eternity: I did make horrific choices, I did go to prison, I did lose everything, and I did plan my suicide.

Accepting extreme responsibility for my actions opened the door to a new world and the opportunity to create a new identity within that world.

I shed the victim’s skin (not easy) and became the sculptor; my journey through those immutable facts became the ball of clay.

It’s incumbent upon me to go behind the story and access the experience of feeling trapped within my emotions and, most importantly, how I walked out of my mental prisons.