For the last few years I have volunteered for the Lionheart Foundation’s program of healing for prisoners. Ideally this course is offered in a group format but the program is also given to prisoners who are in solitary confinement. This means one-to-one contact with a volunteer via correspondence.
That is the program I participated in.

The inmates are sent the book “Houses of Healing – A Prisoner’s Guide to Inner Power and Freedom.” and, with the help of the text and a series of exercises are then guided through an extensive process of healing. I call this program holistic because the program touches on all aspects of who we are as human beings, the spiritual, emotional, physical as well as the mental aspects.

Right in the beginning of the course a spiritual frame is presented that all people have a core self – a Self with a capital letter S, that is good and wise but because of adverse experiences we tend to loose that connection and form false selves, such as an angry self, fearful self, vindictive self and more. These become dominant and certain habitual patterns are established that we are not aware of which we think help us survive but that often turn out to be very problematic.
By and large prisoners, especially those who wind up in long-term sentences and in solitary confinement, have suffered tremendous abuse in their childhood. Looking into this abuse is very hard.

You may wonder how this kind of awareness practice can work in the harsh and violent prison environment? I have supported several inmates through this process and I have seen tremendous healing and growth in all of them.
All along there are hurdles to overcome.

Quite early in the course daily meditation is introduced. One of the men who I worked with wrote:” You must be kidding, I feel you are softening me for the kill.” Here was a man whose very survival from his youngest age on had meant to physically fight him self out of every controversial situation he encountered. He became a terrific fighter and he used that to correct any injustice he saw happening in his world. Now he was asked to practice sitting still and look inside to identify how he felt in body, emotions and his thinking when he would have an altercation with a guard. I was afraid he would drop out of the course but he persisted till the end.

Much attention is given to anger management. Finding non-reactive ways to deal with conflicts. This also leads to looking at the damage and hurt to others. This can be very challenging at well.
At some point forgiveness is introduced.

The same man who had questioned meditation also struggled with forgiveness. He said he was not ready to forgive his mother for having given him up to foster care at the age of two, from what time he was abused for all years to follow. It was my task to give him encouraging feed-back. I could honor his authenticity and suggest that at some time in the future this might change.

Supporting these inmates as they take on this healing journey has been rewarding. But, frankly, being so closely exposed to the horror of the correctional system at large has been very painful. I As a child in WW II I saw this country as a protector country. Now that I live here and am of this country myself, I no longer can see that.

In the grand scheme of things it may not seem to add up, but I feel good that to the few we can reach it does make a big difference and that gives this work meaning.