HOW PRISON TAUGHT ME WHAT KIND OF SEEDS TO PLANT IN MY GARDEN OF INTENTIONS.
When you pray for rain you have to prepare to deal with the mud that comes along with it, and when you are sowing seeds you better pay attention to what you are planting. It’s important to look at the big picture and contemplate the effects of everything you do and say.· Coming to prison and living like a sardine stacked on top of everyone else, I have learned to live intentionally. My actions and words are about more than just me. Prison has been my training ground for a better life upon my release. As I plant my seeds every day, I pay attention to my world and my future that I am creating. We all have the power to create a beautiful future and we can have the power to stay on a positive trajectory.
Whether you know it or not, you are planting seeds everywhere you go. The way you move, the conversations you have with others, how you treat them, and how you respond, are seeds. Like any seed you plant, it does not sprout and fully grow overnight, it takes some time to become something. You do some good things and plant beautiful seeds, but anything negative becomes a weed. Just like in a garden, the weeds will choke out the good plants if you do not weed them out. They don’t go away on their own. You have to be intentional and remove the negativity. I have found that you must live intentionally and always be aware of the big picture and what kind of crop you are planting. Here is my story and things I use to keep myself in line.
Unless you are serving a life sentence, prison is like a small scale of your life. I know for most of my life I did not stop to consider the long-term effects of my behavior. I did not give a second thought to blowing up on someone because I would just walk away and never look back, and I did not care if I ever saw that person again. Here, you do not have that option. You must learn to make things work and make things right, and you must see these people every single day. The people you hurt are right there before your eyes and there is no looking away. Thus, you better stick with sowing positive seeds if you want to live in a peaceful environment. As annoying as this can be, it’s great practice for life in the real world. I feel like if you can condition yourself to living intentionally and sowing positive seeds, you will have a much better chance at success in the real world.
Upon someone’s release, is the true test of what kind of seeds they sowed while incarcerated. Watching people leave has always been extremely interesting because I see it as like a pre funeral that the person gets to watch. You see what kind of energy and life you truly created and are leaving behind. There are some people that did not interact with anyone and had hardly any time here that you just do not notice their absence. Their name is called over the speaker to leave and I find myself wondering who that was. Then you have the people that have sowed positive seeds that will be missed tremendously and then there are the ones that sowed negative seeds that cannot leave fast enough.
First, let us talk about the positive. I have been blessed to meet some of the most amazing ladies here in prison. The ones that make a distinct impression are the ones that took this opportunity to get right and have thrived during their sentence, as well as helped countless other inmates on their journey with their positivity and hope. These ladies are the ones I have cried tears of joy for upon their departure. While I am so happy for them getting to go home to their families, selfishly, I know how much I will miss them. I have met some people here that will remain lifelong friends that sowed positive seeds and were a good influence on those that surrounded them.
One of my friends originally had an unjust life sentence that was reduced after she saved an officer’s life. She spent years as an inmate helping at a medical facility and gained tons of knowledge to help inmates along her journey. She held the hands of sick inmates while they passed and prayed with them as they went home to God.
If your back went out, she would stretch you out and make you right again. I remember one lady coming back from the hospital with an ostomy bag and no one had instructed her on how to care for it or what to do to change it. It was awful and it was cruel, but she was blessed because my friend knew exactly what to do. My friend took over and took care of this lady that had been through so much and thank God for her because no one on the medical staff was willing to give this lady the time of day. My friend had all the right words of comfort and all the knowledge she needed to help this lady get through this traumatic experience. I remember listening around the corner with tears in my eyes while my friend comforted this gal while teaching her what she needed to know to live with this bag attached to her body. I will never forget how it made me feel, and it was not even my problem. My friend was like the first responder at this camp and rushed to help anyone in need of medical care. I feel so blessed to have spent my first years with her here.
There were many evenings I spent writing at a table next to her while she crotched the most amazing things for her loved ones at home. She would stop what she was doing and tap me on the shoulder and point to the window at sunset and say, “look what my daddy made.” She had so much faith in God and she shared it with everyone she met. Even after her life sentence was reduced, she still had such a long sentence to face, but she never gave up and she never stopped smiling and making other people smile. She never stopped caring.
Over the years there were possibilities of her leaving and getting some relief. When those possibilities didn’t work out she never gave up and would just keep looking forward with a smile on her face. So many other people would have grown bitter and given up, but not her. One day she was telling me she was going to give me some of her things because she was going to be leaving soon. I agreed and I found myself in awe of her faith. A few weeks later I came home from work and everyone told me she got an immediate release and was leaving that very day. I ran to hug her and cried. I really could not imagine this place without her, but I know she had a family that could not wait for her to get home. Watching her prepare to leave was the most memorable of anyone I have seen leave. People came from all over to hug her goodbye. It was clear the lives that she had touched at just this one facility, not to mention all the lives from the 21 years she spent as an inmate helping others and sowing beautiful seeds. She will be someone that I hope will always remain in my life. I know there is not a sunset that goes by that I do not think about her and marvel at what our daddy made.
There are many others that have melted my heart and showed me what sisterhood truly means. The ones I admire are the ones that sow beautiful seeds of respect, love, and joy, no matter where they are or what is going on. These ladies embrace their failures, accept complete responsibility, and really work to make themselves better. They do not see prison as a stone they stumble over, but rather a stepping stone on their journey where they learn their lesson and move on. When you sow beautiful, positive seeds then you create a beautiful, positive world. Truly learning that concept has changed my life.
Then you have the polar opposite, the negative person. They spend their days in a constant pout. Nothing is ever good enough or quite right for them. They think everyone else is dumb and they do not have a single nice thing to say about anything or anyone. These are the people walking around sowing negative seeds. Every conversation you have with them leaves you exhausted and emotionally drained and they do not even intend for things to be this way. They have been taken over by the negative seeds they have sown for so long that they are engulfed in weeds so bad they cannot even see light anymore. Their energy created the dark cloud that looms over them and follows them wherever they go as they stumble along tripping over the thick weeds that sprouted from their negativity. This is the type of person I try to resist making eye contact with. I even find myself pretending to be blind to avoid a conversation. “No, I did not see you waving wildly at me…”
I know this person well. At one time in my life, before prison, I was this person. I sowed so many ugly negative seeds that when I was federally indicted, people lined up to tell on me. Many of these people didn’t even know me, they just did not like me. They could not wait to help put the nails in my coffin. In my brain, I thought I had helped people and was nice. I am not sure what world I was living in to think that. When I was indicted, I was let out on pretrial and had a lot of opportunity to view my discovery. As I read statement after statement in the volumes of reports my heart broke a little more with each one. There were a lot of awful things said about me, but the kind of person these people painted shocked me, I might as well have been a demon.
In the years leading up to my indictment I had grown so hateful and full of vengeance. I was not happy until anyone that had gotten a good taste of my forked tongue and my wrath. I said some crazy things to people to make my point and my message was clearly conveyed. With intentions like that, you are planting some bad seeds full of negativity and you will be bursting with thick weeds until you decide to change. I had produced a bountiful crop of haters, and I completely deserved it. I had no one to blame but myself. By the time it occurred to me what kind of crops I was yielding, it was too late. Something huge had to happen to extract me from the weed infestation mess I made.
You see I was not thinking of the future or considering any consequences. My biggest offense to people were my words and I had thought that words were just words. What I have come to know is most people truly do not think about their words in the big picture. Words can cut clear to the bone and can never be taken back.
I will never forget the mess I made, and I work hard to focus on planting seeds that will bring me positivity, peace and hope. Now I am not afraid to ask the question: what do you see when you look at me? I do have some strict guidelines to follow for myself and who I surround myself with.
1. TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WANT TO BE TREATED AND IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, DON’T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL
That old saying you learned in kindergarten holds true all through life and in prison as well. When you speak of hate and negativity that is what you plant. It is not just words floating out in the atmosphere. Its words that affect your mind and the minds of others and the more negativity projected into the atmosphere, the more negative energy is produced in your environment.
When you speak words full of positivity and hope and stay out of the gossip you are planting seeds that will yield peace and joy and will make your world, no matter how tiny, much easier to live in.
Sowing seeds of respect no matter what is something I strive for. It is hard and I fail frequently. I apologize when I fail and keep working at it.
I surround myself with people that bring me peace. I also surround myself with honest people that will not hesitate to pull me to the side and put me in check, and these days, I appreciate that.
2. ALWAYS BE POLITE
Being in prison I learned that I like being polite. It is fun to watch grumpy people cheer up when you walk down their hall welcoming them to their hallway, giving random people compliments and saying please and thank you. Basic manners seem to be contagious. I watch people fight to hold the door for one another. Let me be honest, some days I just do not feel like holding the door. Now I find myself feeling guilty if I do not hold it for someone 30 foot away. I apparently have been trained.
I have a friend that I tease and call Miss Congeniality. She is always running around smiling and asking everyone how their day is. Then she actually pauses and waits for a response, like she sincerely cares. Show off. As I watch this annoying habit of hers, I see people transform, soften, and smile. She sows those seeds everywhere she goes and spreads them. Happy, cheerful, caring, polite people are the kind of people I want to surround myself with.
3. HOW SOMEONE RESPONDS TO THEIR BLESSINGS AND/OR THE BLESSINGS OF OTHERS.
The most profound and telling attribute I have noticed is watching how people respond to others’ good fortune. The year of 2020 and Covid 19 brought about a lot of confusion and chaos, but to some inmates, it was their golden ticket out of here. People that had years left on their sentences were abruptly let out due to the coronavirus. They were the lucky ones that met the narrow criteria to release some of the prison population, and it was awesome. I will admit all the chaos was extremely stressful for those of us that remained, but some people revealed their true colors. They treated the ticket winners horribly and could not be more hateful.
Some of the ladies accepted their golden tickets very graciously. They were careful not to rub it in and found other things to talk about, while others got carried away and made everyone crazy carrying on nonstop.
Oh, but the seeds of jealousy were sowed all over this place for months, and it was hard to deal with. What it should have been was a beacon of hope for the rest of us that change is on the way and unfortunately that sentiment was not shared among everyone.
4. DO YOU “HAVE TO” DO SOMETHING OR DO “YOU GET TO” DO IT?
When you “have to” do something it seems to come with a grunt. I hear so many people doing things that they should feel blessed to do. For instance, it drives me crazy to hear people say they must have a video visit. They should feel blessed to have loved ones to see, technology to make it happen, and the ability to see.
How people view their day to day activities and duties is a good way to see if they play the victim card or if they claim ownership of themselves and their life.
In conclusion, so many things boil down to controlling your thoughts and how you choose to speak. Your tongue is the captain of your ship and the words you choose creates your voyage. At the end of the day, how you say things is the biggest seed distributor that you control. Staying positive and surrounding yourself with good people will make all the difference in the world. If you find yourself among negativity, you will struggle to be positive and sow good seeds. Prison has made me hyper aware of myself as well as the people around me. I feel blessed when I live intentionally, and my world is a better place when the right seeds are sowed.
