12/3/24
Introduction
I first met Noel about fifteen years ago, when I was teaching psychology classes as part of the University Beyond Bars program at Monroe Reformatory Unit–a high security prison about thirty miles from Seattle. Noel was one of my students. Although I haven’t taught University Beyond Bars classes since Kelsey died, Noel reached out to me (through his mom) a few months ago: “I connected so deeply with your message,” he wrote . “I have also found a spiritual path through the adversity in front of me. I’ve been in prison now going on 18 years. It is only within the last year, however that I have found a spiritual awakening.” This guest post, written by Noel, is an expression of spiritual awakening in the midst of grief. Please be aware that the post contains graphic details about solitary confinement.
Inner Peace in the Hole
Two cops flanked me as we walked down an institutional corridor toward my cellblock and new living environment. I was being escorted from a holding cell to my new segregation cell after being transferred to a new facility to start my program—a long-term stay in solitary. I was handcuffed and attached to a leash one of the guards was holding. We entered the unit, walked up a staircase, made a few steps down the tier, and stopped outside a metal door posted with my name. I was in the hole and would be for a long time.
The whirring metal door clanged shut behind me, followed by another bang as the cuff port was opened. I pushed my handcuffed hands through the small opening to have them released by the cops. The trap door slammed shut violently. I took in my stark surroundings: a thin window high up, metal toilet-sink combo, industrial-strength desk bolted to the wall with no stool, a concrete platform where a foam pad no thicker than my pinky lay with some meager linens, and a small cardboard box. Inside the box, I found my only consumable items: a one-inch toothbrush, nameless toothpaste, skin-chapping bar soap, a small rubber cup, some papers, and three tiny books, all yellowed and heavily tattered. All were dime Westerns written back when books cost a buck and killing Indians was cool. I made my dog bed and opened one of the books, hoping to distract my mind from the hell I had just entered.
When you are stuck in the hole, there are few things you can do to survive the endless cycle of time. In many ways, time becomes your biggest obstacle, a potential enemy capable of subjecting you to more harm. At times, it feels as if its minutes morph into elongated monsters that only wane when they are forgotten. So, when I am in the hole, I do things to occupy my mind and burn as much time as possible. For me, reading is one of those activities.
It only took me about a page to realize this book wasn’t going to work. Not only was the jingoism and romanticized Western mythology beyond reproach, but the writing was also so awful I couldn’t stay focused. It was so bad I couldn’t even take it on as an exercise in literary analysis. It was shocking that writing of this caliber could have ever been published. I tried the other two books and had the same reaction. In fact, I was so negatively affected by these books that recalling them today is mildly triggering. I find myself back in that space. With the books off the table as options, I legitimately had nothing to do inside a 13 x 9 ft box.
It was in this space, locked away from everything that mattered to me, that I developed a belief that has become formative in my life: happiness comes from inside. Great peace can be felt and held when we realize that external factors disturb our emotions, but our emotions are controllable. We can’t always control our outer world, but we can control our inner.
I was essentially forced into having this realization. Either I would find peace in this space, or I would be destroyed by it. That may seem an extreme dichotomy, but that reality was a fact for me. I knew it was what I needed in that moment. I had seen the devastation segregation had wrought on others, and I wouldn’t allow myself to become its next victim. Without anything external, I had to turn within. I remembered something my aunt taught me decades ago when I entered prison: the power of my breath.
I had lost control over my external world; the only thing I had power over was my mind and my body. So, I sat cross-legged, closed my eyes, and focused on my breath. I used my breath to distract me from the crushing power time has in that place—an oppressive feeling that every second comes crushing inward from each corner. Focusing on each breath allowed me to resist that crushing force with an equally, if not more, powerful force pushing outward. I toyed with this new feeling, using my breath to push past time. When I turned inward, I found a power I never knew I had. I found stillness, and in that stillness, strength that led to happiness. It’s not like I was living in a ball of joy all of a sudden. I mean, let’s be real, I was still sitting in the hole and had already been there for about six months. Life was still a legitimate everyday struggle to maintain sanity. But in that space, in that moment, I was able to touch upon a powerful realization. I held the power. And with that power, I would determine how external factors impacted me.
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