[Evelyn Wallace]

Essay 2: What are my motivations, emotions, and self-awareness?
• What is motivation?
• What are emotions?
• What is self-awareness?
• Why do they matter?
• How do they manifest in my life?

Motivation? A spritzer on the brain that makes all sections more engaged and activated; a sense from within that says “I want to do that!” Or, if the thing you “want” to do is hard, motivation is the force (still from within) that overcomes the difficulty.

Emotions? Gosh. Also internal. Senses that help us know what a thing is and how it fits into our life; ultimately, they’re some combination of pleasant, unpleasant, stimulation or calm. Everything else is a construct. (I heard that on a podcast once with Krista Tippett; her guest was a neuroscientist.)

Self-awareness? That internal ability to not identify with our thoughts and emotions, but to be the witness of those thoughts and emotions. “I feel blue today,” is the feeling. Self awareness is the next voice. “Hmm, okay, feeling blue, got it. Now what do we want to do with that?”

Why do they matter?

Motivation matters because it’s the source of everything we do. At the end of the day, we always do what we want. (Though humans love playing this game of feeling like we are blameless/ helpless. Like “I had to go to work, obviously!” But you didn’t have to. You chose to because earning the money you earn from work gets you what you perceive to be important/ necessary. And that might be the case! You might be compelled to pay rent or mortgage, and the only way to do so is accept this job you don’t love. Okay, fine. Even so, you’re choosing to work at a job you hate because you prefer it to the alternative: homelessness. Or, if you’re independently wealthy and don’t need the paycheck but you still go to work, you definitely wanted to go to work.)

Emotions are important because they’re the root of motivation: x feels pleasant, so I’m motivated to do more x. Y feels unpleasant, so I’m motivated to do less y. Some difficult things are pleasant (e.g. training for a marathon; enforcing a no-individual-screens rule for the weekend with your kids) and some easy things are/ become unpleasant (e.g. eating doughnuts from the store that was going out of business; driving to work).

Self-awareness matters because without it we’d just have a bunch of tantrumming toddlers running the world. (Insert political jokes here.)

How do emotions, motivations and self-awareness manifest in my life? Hold on a sec, lemme write a 300-page book real quick.

TL;DR: since watching my friend Marshall die in 2016, I have been motivated to reduce worldwide unnecessary suffering as much as I am able; I am willing to experience whatever uncomfortable emotions might come from this journey (e.g. perceived incompetence, insecurity, feeling misunderstood, etc.) because I am self-aware enough to recognize that the underlying intention is pure. I know I’m in the “right” place (to get where I want to go) when my underlying emotions confirm it. In my leadership and sustainability work, for example, I feel both driven and at peace. I feel inspired and inspiring. And when I feel dejected (which happens sometimes), I know I am surrounded by authentic community who can catch me as I fall. Which means I never fall too far before I get back up and carry on the path. How’s THAT for motivation?

[Evelyn Wallace]

Essay 1: What is Leadership?
• What is leadership?
• How have my views on leadership changed over the exercises so far?
• What leadership experiences have I had so far?
• Who are my leadership role models?
• What do I consider success or failure in leadership? Good or bad?

At this point in my life, it’s hard not to hear Josh’s words come into my head when I’m asked to define leadership: helping people do what they already wanted to do but didn’t know how. This definition is succinct and accurate. And also, as I considered the question “what is leadership?” throughout the week, I found myself wondering: who would I call a leader in my life? Are there different levels of leadership? Am I a leader? Is it helpful to include in definitions of leadership some sense of how the leaders feel and act and how the groups/ people they lead feel and act?

I found myself considering different scales of leadership.

There are leaders of families, where leadership duties include: providing safety for the group/ ensuring the group’s basic human needs are met, providing direction for the group (i.e. what are we doing today?), and providing opportunities for the group members to step into their own independence/ leadership/ best selves. I’m a leader of my children, but it’s not like they can opt out. So it makes it easy to be a dictator.

There are leaders within communities. Some of these leaders are voted into public office, and some simply solve problems that they noticed nobody else was solving. Usually, nobody asked them to solve the problems –i.e. there wasn’t some authority delegating the task. I found myself thinking of my local social work mentor, Lisa Ladendorff, who founded Northeast Oregon Network (NEON), a nonprofit working toward improving the overall health and wellbeing of our community. She made something out of nothing and is a wiz at getting grants and growing staff. Furthermore, she accepts formal and informal mentorship roles, and is more than happy to share what she knows; she is not territorial about her expertise and stepped down as ED from NEON “as soon as I could,” she explains. (She’s still on staff as the training director and acts in a consulting capacity to the current ED.) Her colleagues tend to feel capable and appreciated under her leadership; we also tend to feel safe getting vulnerable. When working with her, I feel inspired to lean into my own “growth edge” (a phrase she taught me) and acknowledge those places traditionally known as weaknesses.

There are leaders of states and nations, though I have to admit that as I reflected on folks at this level, I could only think of people in public office. Through my work with our local emergency shelter (Right Track Resource Center), I find myself working with a consultant who knows a lot of big names in local, state, and federal government, as well as major players in the business and philanthropic worlds. He plays a role in effecting major change in the world and he built his own career and consulting firm out effecting such change. He does what he says he’s going to do and he helps all kinds of noble organizations do their work more effectively. I consider him a role model… but is he a leader? Or is just doing his job (and doing it well) distinguishable from leading? I haven’t quite figured this out yet, though I acknowledge there’s probably not one “right” answer.

Sometimes I think leaders are easiest to identify postmortem. That is to say, their impact is measurable by how many people show up to the funeral. In a documentary about The Notorious B.I.G., I remember seeing footage of jam-packed streets and balconies throughout Brooklyn of people mourning the loss. Was Biggie a leader? He was certainly something. He certainly touched lots of people he’d never actually met in profound an intimate ways. (If that sounds like I’m alluding to sexual assault, please get your mind out ‘tha gutter.) Is the Notorious B.I.G. a leadership role model to me? Perhaps. I would certainly consider it a life well-lived if thousands of people could say that I helped them get through tough times. And yet, ideally, I want even more than that. I want to give people the skills and connections to alleviate their tough times, not just get through them.

I also find myself thinking about effective leaders who caused tremendous harm in the world. Hitler could have spent his whole life ranting in beerhalls to small, disengaged audiences; the reason we know his name is because thousands of people eventually followed him. Which brings me to another element of my definition of leadership: someone who others want to follow. Lots of people wanted to follow Hitler at first; eventually (as happens with violent leadership), many eventually followed out of fear that not-following would lead to physical harm. So, there’s another element of “good” leadership: someone who others want to follow, absent of any threat of physical harm otherwise.

My own leadership experiences have been practiced—at least by my thinking—on a relatively small scale. I led the RTRC consultant through a round of the Spodek Method as part of our conversation about why I felt uncomfortable supporting his monthly flights across the state. I introduced a conversation that he would not have introduced; I solicited action that would not have otherwise been enacted. (For the record, though, this was action that I did not invent. It was action born of the consultant’s own experiences and emotions.) It’s not like I “got” him to do something he didn’t want to do, but I did make something out of nothing in a way that was a net positive for me, for him, and for the environment. Is that leadership? Seems so.

Previously, I would have named my role as the board chair at RTRC as leadership experience, and maybe it is? But that role feels like something that was already defined. So maybe leadership means creating something new?

The assignment as I understood it was to consider leadership models, so all week I developed the following analogy:

Leadership is like being the captain of a ship. Good captains (leaders) attract a crew who have the freedom to do other things but who choose to be there. Managerial captains (leaders) can only keep crew aboard if the crew has no other option or if there’s some threat to personal well-being if they leave. Good captains are willing to navigate uncharted waters; managerial captains only go where their patron tells them to go. Good captains incorporate their crew into key decision-making, and their crew feels ownership and buy-in to the whole mission; managerial captains like to feel separate and higher up than their crew and make decisions without their input.

My views on leadership are changing even as I write this essay, so I look forward to hearing everyone else’s ideas soon. As it is, I’ll stop here.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Feed-forward by Evelyn Wallace

I wanted to step up my professional emailing game. I liked having a reason to contact people and I think they felt honored/ important to be asked (even those who said they were by no means experts themselves). I feel like getting all this advice has made me a better emailer already, even with limited opportunity to practice yet.

From Abel:
• Be specific about what I’m actually asking for
• Keep different/ separate email inboxes (by project/ personal)
• Don’t be afraid to unsubscribe from newsletters you don’t read
• Don’t linger on emails that don’t matter (mark as read or delete right away)
• Don’t be a perfectionist: the more emails you write, the easier it gets (i.e. quantity is the route to quality)
• Make checking emails an integral part of my work day so they don’t pile up
• Find work-life harmony; you don’t have to put up severe barriers like “I don’t check email on weekends.” Maybe check for a few minutes on Saturday afternoon, then it’s less daunting on Monday. (Secondarily: don’t be afraid to take Monday morning off for personal issues if that’s what feels harmonious)
• Scroll through inboxes (even sent) every so often when you have a few extra minutes to check for anything that maybe fell through the cracks

From Hayden:
• Get emails started well in advance, even if you don’t send it; draft it when you have the thought
o Add “send email on Sunday morning” (or whatever) to your to-do list, even if you start drafting it on Thursday morning
• Draft as a word document or in or directly in email platform, depending on needs/ structure/ intensity/ importance of email
• Prepare for people to “glaze over” you emails; don’t use more words than you really have to
• Review blog post “one-minute emails”
• Use flagging/ starring system to make sure you remember to respond to things (not let things fall through the cracks)

From Haylee:
• Use labels to stay organized
• If you open it and it requires a response and you don’t have time to respond, star it or mark it as unread (or indicate in some way that works for you that it’s an action item)
• Don’t be afraid to delete old/ unused things: “the cloud” takes actual energy

From Eugene:
• Find tools that work in sync (something like Superhuman? It costs money but does a lot of the heavy lifting for you)
o Such tools have functions built-in
• Schedule an email to send in the AM if you don’t want it to arrive in the middle of the night
• Keep it simple
o Use “unread” button if you know you need to get back to it
• Consider multiple email addresses; one for personal, one for professional, one for a specific project, etc.
• Integrate email action items into systems I already use (e.g. calendar)

From Mary:
• Be conscientious of who’s receiving and what’s being communicated (is this personal? Professional? Etc)
• Communicate with folks via their preferred mode of communication. Some people won’t respond to an email for months but will send a text back in 30 seconds.
• Figure out “read” receipt, so I know they opened it; only request such receipts for important (to THEM) communication. So they can’t say “I never got that!”
• If I need to send a follow-up email, PUT THAT ON MY CALENDAR
• Use subject line that is clear, concise; a summary
o Subject line should be interesting and informative
• If something is super important, ATTACH IT (as attachment) for recipients to download/ save in their own desktop folders. Then they don’t have to scan a million emails to find that important info in the body of the email.
• Put most important info of email in the first few sentences/ at the top
• Create folders in email platform for each group I communicate with; make sub-folders
• Respond ASAP to ALL emails, even if only to say “got it! More later, so standby”; acknowledge receipt as soon as possible
• Use hyperlinks
• Do NOT “reply all” if you only need to reply
• BCC yourself for big group emails; or send it to yourself and BCC everyone else (to protect email privacy and also to make sure it’s actually being received/ not getting sent to spam)

From Glenda:
• If sending email after 5 or on weekends, don’t expect an answer until the next business day
• Or add an addendum to signature like “I work outside standard business hours; please respond at your convenience during the hours you work”
• If I do need a response by a certain time, be clear about that; or use alternate modes of communication if it’s urgent (e.g. text)

From Olivia:
• Use email as a means of summary, not means of escalation or problem-identification
o Don’t use email to “balloon up” a problem; talk to people in person then use email to summarize
o Suggest people take convo offline if I notice they are “ballooning up” a problem
• If I draft an email in the middle of the night, schedule them to be sent first thing in the morning
• Use short subject lines
• Add a TL;DR in first line of email; keep pleasantries short and sweet, then get to the point

From Jim:
• Put thought into crafting the subject line: that’s the biggest determinant of someone reading or not
o Be aware that people don’t read things that don’t look important
o Use phrases like “FYI” in subject line for emails that are interesting but not urgent
• Identify what I need from reader within first sentence
• Keep emails short; be prepared for people to tune out
• Think of emails like a resume: a way to get my foot in the door, not to lay out the whole story. Don’t give readers a meal, give them a bite.
• Lower down, include lengthier copy; add heading like “for those of you who want more info…”
• Keep paragraphs SHORT and add spaces between paragraphs

From Sherri:
• Don’t put things off! If you can respond, respond.
• If using outlook express, use flag button
• Create additional folders for people/ projects

From Beth:
• Get a second set of eyes to review important emails before sending
• Use professional language, not too familiar (for professional emails)
• Tailor language to reader:
o Talk like I’m talking to a drunk person
o Be concise and precise

[Evelyn Wallace]

Exercise 9: Adopting a new challenging belief, by Evelyn Wallace

It turns out last week’s exercise actually qualifies as a challenging belief, so this week I tried to adopt a new less challenging belief. I’m going to go off script here because I have some things to say:

First, as I shared in my last reflection, I’ve had some profound experiences with behaviors-as-identity long before I enrolled in this class. I shared the example of simply deciding back in 2017 that I wasn’t a person who ate sugar in excess anymore, even if I had behaved in that way often throughout my life up until that point. Once I decided inside my own head that that wasn’t who I wanted to be, all I had to do was allow my behaviors to match. I just needed to give it time to enact the new belief. Josh said that he sees this as will-power, or simply believing the opposite of the old belief; I experienced it differently, but I also began to understand after last week’s session that this exercise is coming at beliefs in a different way. As soon as I recognized that these exercises are more about a transformation of an old belief (as opposed to the deeper dive of identity/ behavior), it was easier for me to see it through. I still maintain that I did the assignment correctly last week, even if I didn’t provide the clarity Josh was looking for in his 4-part question (old emotion/ old belief; new emotion/ new belief). Also! I updated my belief from last week about my ex. My new belief is that he is on his own journey doing the best he can, which makes me feel patient and compassionate.

This all got me thinking that I still have some work to do in recognizing my own “smaller” beliefs. For example, I sent a semi tongue-in-cheek email to Josh and Hayden about the community platform research we were each tasked with having completed by a certain date. I said something to the effect of “I’ll be as prepared as I can be, but you two have already done a lot more research than I have. Just do me the favor of offering a decent severance package when the time comes.” Hayden called me out (supportively!) right away. He encouraged me to use the following belief for the week’s assignment: “I believe that Josh and Hayden know more than I do about community platforms and therefore I’m going to get fired.” Something clicked when he said that. Oh! Maybe beliefs ARE everywhere. And maybe they can be contradictory and even temporary. I’m starting to get it, I think?

I’m not going to share the belief that I chose to address this week because it’s personal and embarrassing. Instead, I’ll share the process/ evolution with blanks. “I believe that competent adults don’t [do this thing,] but I [do this thing] so I am not a competent adult.” That starting point felt too challenging. Like, do I change my mind about what competent adults do/ don’t do? Do I change my mind about what I do/ don’t do? Isn’t that just doing the thing Josh told us not to do by negating/ “oppositing” the old belief?

So then I recognized the behavior pattern of when I [do this thing]. It tends to be at the same time of day/ under the same conditions. And because I don’t want to get in trouble for not answering the question, here is the 4-part belief/ emotion transformation.

• Old belief: I [do this thing] under [x conditions]
• Old emotions: this makes me feel like an incompetent and immature adult
• New belief: I can [do other things/ replacement behavior] under [x conditions]
• New emotions: this makes me feel like a more competent and mature adult

I got to practice nearly every day and it got easier. I also didn’t succeed every day. I did [the thing] once or twice. But I stopped myself sooner and practiced the replacement behavior. It feels like I’m on the right trajectory.

I would also like to share that there is a pinnacle challenging belief that I thought I was going to use for this “challenging belief” exercise, back before I knew that the belief about my ex qualified as challenging. The pinnacle challenging belief (and the associated behavior) have transformed organically in the last few weeks; it seems like just shining a light on the fact that I harbored conflicting beliefs which led me to behaviors I had conflicting opinions about, just that alone was enough to shift the belief and the behavior.

Okay I’m ending there. Josh: go easy on me if you believe I didn’t do any of this assignment properly, okay?

[Evelyn Wallace]

Exercise 10: No, But However, by Evelyn Wallace

• What fraction of your no, but, and however responses do you think you caught?

Probably less than half. I spent most of the week at home with my not-quite-sick child (but sick enough to be required to stay home from day care) which means that my audience/ opportunities were limited and I was in a headspace of backpedaling, rescheduling, and working harder than usual to choose gratitude. If I entered other interactions (at the doctor’s office, for example) with consciousness about this exercise, it was easier to catch myself than if I entered interactions with the exercise far from my mind. When the nurse asked if my son was allergic to any medications. “Not that I know of,” I managed to say, wondering if “not” was part of the “no” category? Other times, a whole meeting would go by and at the end of it I found myself thinking “oh, shoot, did I start any sentences with ‘no’ in that hour?”

I also heard other people starting with “no” more often. There was an alumni hour last week where one member wanted to clarify what they heard when another person had spoken, and the first person said “no, no, no, I know you didn’t mean that!” So even though this question doesn’t ask this specifically, I was more aware overall of responses beginning with no, but, or however.

Sometimes when my son asked if he could, say, play with certain kitchen utensils as part of his pretend play, I caught myself saying “no, but you can use the tongs? Does that work?” So I would amend it: “Let me say that better. What if you used the tongs instead?” Other times my son didn’t do the favor of asking, he would just throw something heavy across the room and I found myself saying “NO!” I’m not sure if that qualifies as a “response” or not, but I did recognize my usage of the word in hindsight and challenged myself to find different ways to communicate that his behavior was dangerous or unacceptable.

I also found that in transactional interactions (like when the waiter asked if I wanted another spicy mango margarita), the habit of answering a yes-or-no question with “no” came out of my mouth quickly. Again, as soon as I realized I had said it, I considered what I might say instead. “Not quite yet,” or maybe “thanks for asking! I don’t think I’m ready for another.”

• Did you notice changes in others’ reactions?

Because the person I practiced most with was my four-year-old, I really don’t think he noticed. I’m going to do this exercise again this week; like most habits, the more we practice them, the less energy we need to put into simply remembering to do them. I’m excited to see what unfolds after this “warm up” week.

• How did you imagine the different responses feel?

At the subconscious level, I think even people like servers and restaurants might feel more dignified/ seen if they are being spoken to with more thoughtful verbiage, even if the ultimate answer is the same (i.e. don’t bring me another drink, please!).

• How else could you begin responses?

I answered some of this above, but it depends on the context. If I really am answering a yes or no question, there’s less wiggle room. But if I’m in a board meeting and people are asking if we all feel good about funding our consultant’s monthly airline ticket for him to have a conversation with us that could have just as easily been had over Zoom, I might start more with “I feel…” or “the way I see it…” types of responses.

• Do you think others noticed a difference?
Not this week. Maybe next week, as I put in more reps?

• Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
In <The Magic of Facilitation: 11 Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know about Facilitating>, one of the eleven items they lay out is using “and” instead of “but.” They encourage us to acknowledge that many (even conflicting) viewpoints can exist simultaneously and building upon each other instead of tearing one down is best practice for providing a space where group members feel safe opening up. I’ve also heard “but” called “the great eraser.” So I imagine that this exercise will not only help me be more careful with my own build-up language (as opposed to tear-down language), but it will also help me become a better facilitator. Maybe even a better mom?

[Evelyn Wallace]

Exercise 8, by Evelyn Wallace

1. I believe my ex is incapable or unwilling to self-reflect, and that he projects this unwillingness and inability on me. This makes me feel attacked, trapped, and defensive.
2. I’d prefer to feel empowered and collaborative. What would my social worker mentor say? She’d say that all complaints are requests in disguise.
3. New belief: my ex is one of my greatest teachers, and I don’t have to agree to him to hear him out. This makes me feel open, grateful, and safe.

Do I think I can really believe this? Absolutely. Why not?

 Did you initial candidate belief feel fake?

I toyed around with a few beliefs. It was challenging for me to find one that wasn’t high-voltage, so I just jumped in. I’ve done a lot of spiritual work around how the outside world affects my inside world (and even recognizing that the boundary between outside and inside is more imagined than we are traditionally taught), so I didn’t feel like it was necessary to practice the “it’s raining, that sucks” type of beliefs. I just don’t have those anymore; or, if I do, they dissipate quickly under the rays of gratitude for all the threads in life’s tapestry. So I ended up choosing between two somewhat challenging beliefs, one more so than the other. Which means I already have next week’s belief-change challenge on deck!

But the short answer is no, the initial candidate belief did not feel fake. It felt like a different mechanism by which to reframe reality. And reframing reality is something I’ve been practicing since 2016. I wrote about one of those experiences in my “book”/ audiobook podcast <Lifegasm: Marshall’s Promise> when I talked about deciding that eating sugar in excess was something I had done often throughout my life. Every time, eating sugar in excess made me feel sick and disappointed in myself. After Marshall’s death, I recognized that layers of identity are mostly imagined and that behavioral patterns (even patterns set every day for our entire lives) aren’t who we really are. I simply decided that I didn’t want to be a person who ate sugar in excess anymore, and as soon as I decided it, it was true. My mind had changed, all that needed to happen was to “prove” it with my actions. And I did! I didn’t lie to myself. I just changed my mind about who I was and who I wanted to be.

 Did that feeling change?

When I shifted into seeing my ex as one of my greatest teachers, it lifted a lot of the anxiety around what hurtful thing he might say next. Over the week, he was acting his best, so I didn’t get a lot of opportunity to practice. (Maybe this means I did the assignment wrong and I should have chosen something else?) But I did get to practice in any past-tense replaying of high-voltage conversations I’ve had with him. I didn’t get as worked up in my present-tense recall of past-tense hurts. And I found myself experiencing an absence of dread for the moment when he will (almost inevitably) slip into the high-voltage frame of mind that I previously found hurtful and demeaning.

 Did you feel like you could change not just a belief but beliefs in general?

Yes. Though I have to say this is something I’ve had some practice with already.

 Did you sense how your mind adopts beliefs and changes them?

Not really. I didn’t really focus on the pattern of belief-making and belief-changing. But I do think that with time, it will be easier to recognize unwanted emotions as (often but not always) connected to a belief and it will be easier to target that specific belief. Step by step, the way Josh loves to do!

Where and how might you apply your experience to the rest of your life?

The next time my ex comes to a conversation in a stormy state of mind, I will be able to apply the belief that he is a teacher and I will be able to hear him in a new way. I suspect I will also find teachers/ teachings in other challenging people. At least it’s pretty to think so!

[Evelyn Wallace]

Hi mom,
I had the same thought about the standing with your knees locked story LOL. Let’s ask Josh about it in class. -SEW

[Evelyn Wallace]

Evelyn’s Beliefs that Led to Undesirable Emotions

-How did this exercise compare with writing your beliefs?
This one took me longer to get at any meaningful answers. Also, this one tended to reveal beliefs that revolved around the same topic whereas my answers for the first exercise were more diverse. Finally, the beliefs I worked through in this exercise tended to start with beliefs about myself, whereas beliefs about myself were infrequently identified in the first exercise.

-Were you able to separate your beliefs from the emotions they provoked?
Yes. No problem. I’ll note, though, that I rarely identified a name for the undesirable emotion; there was a neuroceptive sense of “yuck,” and that’s what I went with.

-Were you able to separate your beliefs from your identity?
Yes. I know who I am/ who I really am. I know how to recognize the beliefs that align with this truth and those that don’t. However, the belief cluster that I found most dense was definitely tied in with my ego’s most pressing insecurities.

-How did you feel while thinking about the beliefs and emotions?
I felt: resistance, resignation, self-criticism, self-forgiveness, clarity, and empowerment.

-How did that feeling change over the course of the exercise, if it did?
See: sequence of emotions listed above.

-Did awareness of the belief make the emotions stronger? Weaker? Different?
Awareness of the cluster of ‘apex’ beliefs (for the sake of this exercise) made their power over my life weaker. Bring a thing into the light from the shadows and it’s much easier to recognize its true shape; once you recognize its true shape, you usually see that it’s much smaller and more feeble than it was when it was hiding in obscurity, which in turn makes it less powerful. I’ve been through this process before, but never by this route. It was neat-o.

-Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
I’m already changing the behaviors that revolve around the cluster beliefs I spent most time reflecting on this week. In other words, I can use this experience for self-improvement. I can also use the framework to help bring shadowy beliefs into the light: next time I’m feeling an unwanted emotion, one question I can ask myself is “what is the belief that led me here?”

[Evelyn Wallace]

Evelyn Wallace: The Beliefs of Others

-Did you notice any trends?
I noticed that I have rather different views on most things than mainstream society. I noticed confirmation on my underlying theory on humanity: everyone thinks they’re the good guy. I also noticed that I was more likely to notice the beliefs behind someone’s “irrational” (to me, pre-reflection) behavior than their “rational” behavior. This exercise was usually immediately preceded by some reflexive thought like “that’s silly” or “why would anyone ever…?”

-How did identifying beliefs feel?
It made me feel a sense of compassion. I even practiced this exercise while watching (well-constructed) fictional narratives: what did that character believe such that they acted in that particular way? For what it’s worth, I also practiced with non-fictional historic narratives, and it helped me articulate what I’ve been trying to articulate for a while. Many Germans post WWI believed they had been unfairly punished by the rest of Europe and they believed Hitler offered a pathway back toward national pride and a sense of belonging. It felt humanizing to be able identify: yes, I can understand how people in those circumstances believe those things (and then why they behaved accordingly).

-Did you feel like you developed a skill?
Yes. I feel like I can now put myself in someone’s place, to the extent that I am able. This exercise helped me notice all human behavior—even/ especially the stuff I used to find legitimately puzzling— and get to a point where I can see (to quote Ringo on David Letterman answering a question about why Michael Jackson might have held a baby over a balcony) how “it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.”

-How accurate do you think you were?
Of course I think I was pretty accurate. Maybe we all think that about our own performance?

-Did you feel differently about people when you thought about their beliefs?
Yes. As mentioned earlier, I felt more compassion toward folks once I paired their behavior with the likely belief.

-Does reading people’s beliefs make you think differently about leadership?
I’m not sure yet.

-Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
Practicing the skill of assessing the beliefs of others has already helped me be less emotionally activated by the seemingly irrational, detrimental, harmful, and even genocidal behavior of my fellow human. In other words, I can apply this in moments of frustration or outrage to bring myself some peace of mind. I imagine this will apply to how I lead people, as well, I’m just not at the state to be able to articulate that yet.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Hi Hayden – first of all, I can’t wait to hear how your conference went! Leading Spodek Method workshop, eh? So exciting! Tell us everything!

Also, I just want to encourage you to go easy on yourself: you made a good-faith effort at completing this assignment, and yes, you will probably develop a more thorough awareness of your own belief systems as you get more practice… But as it stands (and I know I’m not the teacher here), I hope that you’ve evolved out of the “I think I did it wrong” state of mind. I think you did it right, and I think when you read this entry next year, being one year farther down the road in your journey, you’ll be grateful to have a record of where you started.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Beliefs Exercise: by Evelyn Wallace

Did you notice any trends or patterns?

A little over eight years ago, I experienced a before-and-after pivotal life moment: witnessing the death of a friend. At that point, and in the months that followed, I recognized that most of my beliefs about the world were fluff and had been taught to me indirectly by a world that didn’t recognize it was propped up on fluff. I rebuilt my worldview from the ground up at that point: do we really need money? If so, why? What is life all about, anyway? What are these rules for and who made them up? Who do I want to be in this world? That’s all to say: the trend of examining my beliefs is an arc that spreads over eight years.

The trends and patterns I noticed in this exercise was that most of the rebuilding I did in that initial awakening era still hold. There was a frequent undertone of gratitude acceptance, and spirituality. Other beliefs felt more temporary (“I believe the kids are hungry”) and negotiable (i.e. they wouldn’t be hungry soon).

Did you notice unexpected beliefs?

This might be the part of the exercise that I improve upon with time. It might be that I unwittingly suppressed beliefs that I found distasteful, or it might be that I’ve come far enough on the spiritual path that I can have a thought (“this grad school group project is pointless”), decide whether that’s who I really want to be (“this group is not satisfying in the way other groups are satisfying, but that’s okay, and I’m grateful for what it is and not upset about what it isn’t”), then uncover the underlying belief (“life provides what we need when we need it, even if it doesn’t look how we wanted it to”).

Did you notice the difference between beliefs and strategies?

Yes! I definitely had to rework my language around how I was identifying beliefs. There was a lot of judgment at first about what other people could and should do. At first, I would think of my belief as something like, “La Grande is 4-miles wide and most of us should be able to bike everywhere.” But when I was led to identifying the underlying belief, I recognized that I believe that human life does not necessitate toxic pollution.

How do beliefs work?

Great question… for a doctoral thesis! Beliefs are the framework that our lives fit within. How about a bite-sized, tangential story:

At one point this week, I was texting with a very good friend whose Christian identity is his primary identity. When he wrote something somewhat flirty, I recommended he find himself a good Christian woman who could make him spaghetti; then I told him I knew of places where such women gather weekly. He wrote back “the devil herself is telling me to go to church!” I asked if he really thought that, and he didn’t deny it. Later in the day, he sent me something biblical about Satan wanting to destroy things. My question is: why would he ever want to hang out with me? I believe that he’s got me all wrong, but that’s his right.

Maybe the short answer to the actual question is: beliefs inform our thinking, and our thinking informs our behaviors. Sometimes in seemingly irrational ways. Maybe my friend believes that hanging out with the devil is more fun than hanging out with good Christan girls?

How do beliefs affect your life?

That depends on whose beliefs the question refers to.

If the question refers to my beliefs, then my beliefs affect my life by essentially framing what kind of life I lead. I believe every day on earth is a gift, and some of those days, the rain comes down. I do not spend breath complaining about rain—or any weather pattern. Sometimes, when I have to put on all the extra layers to stay dry on my bike, I have a moment of inner-grumble laziness; but that is inevitably followed by the well-earned satisfaction of feeling the rain on my person, moving through space through nature, powered by my own strength and by the ingenious employment of that strength through a manmade machine (i.e. my bike). Plenty of other people believe that rain—or any other weather pattern—is a pain; I know this because I hear them complain about it. In this way, their beliefs about the rain are very much different from my beliefs (as evidenced by their complaints about it versus my biking through it), and my beliefs affect my experience while their beliefs affect their experience.

If the question refers to the beliefs of others, let’s pick up on the last example. Do their beliefs about the rain also affect my experience? I suppose the answer is yes. People driving by, wafting poison into the air I am directly breathing does, in fact, affect me. Sometimes they drive too fast or too close and splash large buckets of water out of puddles and onto me. Inversely, my beliefs (as manifested in my actions) affect them in that they have to slow down and/ or give me space to pass.

Another example:

There was recently a presidential election. My belief that external circumstances need not affect (in any long-term way) my inner state paired with my belief that humans tend to behave in predictable patterns across time and cultures allowed me to experience November 6th with the same grateful state of mind as I had experienced November 5th. Knowing that many did not feel such equanimity leads me to suspect that we are working with different belief systems, and it makes me curious to examine what those belief systems might be.

Where and how might you apply this exercise in the rest of your life?

I am eager to examine the behavior of others through this beliefs-model. I predict it will help me connect at an even deeper level to our shared common interests and will help broaden my compassion for those whose worldviews have seemed incomprehensible to me in the past.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Evelyn Wallace’s Inner Monologue Exercise

This exercise comes at a time when I’ve reconnected with my spiritual values—Michael Singer’s work was the nudge I needed—which means I’ve been putting conscious effort on noticing my own thoughts quite a bit lately. Being asked to transcribe them was a whole new thing, and it helped me go deeper into my own self-awareness. Alas! Before I get swept into a river of narrative, I’ll answer the specific questions:

• I did notice trends in my inner monologue, and how! The first trend was that (some) thoughts tend to be location-specific, or triggered specifically by my outer environment. Another trend was that as soon as I began identifying the thought I was about to transcribe (before I’d even picked up my pen), the direction of thought changed. That is to say: bearing witness to the thought made the thought a new thing, usually something quieter. If the first thought was something “hot,” I often responded to it with a second thought that was more reflective. The second thought often smoothed the edges of the first, reconsidered, and put some distance between self and first thought (and self and second thought, even). I also noticed trends in the thoughts I had but never wrote down. Who am I really hiding from?
• Common thoughts, by category but in no particular order: thoughts about a recent ex, thoughts about gratitude, thoughts about whether my behaviors were in alignment with my values, thoughts about the day-to-day operations of life, thoughts about that one nonprofit that’s almost certainly operating fraudulently, thoughts about my SIDCHAs, thoughts about parenting.
• I suspect some of my thoughts were par for the course as compared with the thoughts of others (housekeeping items, for example, or thoughts about intimate partnerships, whatever stage of the relationship you’re in). From experience, I suspect that some of my other thoughts (usually the ones I didn’t transcribe for this exercise) are less common among the rest of humanity, but maybe this exercise is here to help me see: I’m not that special.
• How might I apply this? Easy! Every time I am asked to bring my awareness to my thoughts (especially by writing them down), I am compelled to remember that I am the bigger entity, the one behind the thoughts. And that’s a good state of being to be operating from, in general. For reference, it’s not about having the thought or not having the thought, it’s about how quickly I can recognize what the thought is and what to do with it. If it’s administrative, it definitely goes in my in-tray. If it’s about an ex, it definitely goes in the let-it-be-heard-then-dismiss-it tray. I anticipate this thought-watcher exercise will help me to process my own emotions (and thoughts) from a more regulated place, which will allow me to connect with others from a more regulated place, which will allow me to do the work I need to do on earth as effectively as possible. And also, as an added bonus, it looks like it might apply to being more administratively organized!

[Evelyn Wallace]

3 Raisins by Evelyn Wallace

• The value of seeing a loved one’s expressions? Is it to identify how they might be feeling? By expression do you mean facial expression? Or do you mean sensing how they feel, by any means, whether it be by their facial or verbal expressions?
• Who notices if I miss what? Seeing their expression? They do, I suppose. I have to say, though, as someone whose expressions are often misinterpreted by the outside world, I am more apt to notice if someone guesses my thoughts, emotions, or intentions based on my nonverbal communications, especially if they’ve guessed wrong.
• What about the nuances of my boss’s communications? Is the question who notices if I miss the nuances of my boss’s communications? So that would be my boss. My boss would notice if I miss nuances of their communications.
• What can I do if I sense the nuances of my boss’s communications? Or if I do sense the feelings/ expressions of others?
• What did I observe about my senses and attention: that there’s a mighty deep well oh human experience in here. I had never dived into the specific 3-raisins pool specifically, but I have done similar experiments of living entirely in the present through all the senses. (In one particular era of my “experimentation” it wasn’t uncommon for people to ask me if I was on drugs.)
• On my ability to focus: this was a bit like a four dimensional meditation, moving through spacetime (though aren’t we always?). I don’t recall my mind jumping around much at all because it was so engaged by the activity of it all.
• How might I apply this to the rest of my life? Slow down. Notice stuff. Remember the infinity contained in every moment, within and without.

NARRATIVE OF THE EXPERIENCE:

It was getting late and I was supposed to have done this exercise already. I drew a bath, put three dried cherries in a small porcelain dish, put my devices in do-not-disturb mode and initiated what I thought was going to be a pleasant ritual. What happened was: after I’d eaten one, I realized that I was so over-full from the cake I’d made with my son earlier, it would have made me sick to eat even one more bite. I felt a bit like Mr. Creosote, a character from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, who has eaten so much that he literally explodes at the next bite. The hot bath made it worse. It was grotesque, actually. I was not proud of myself.

However, in the experience of eating that one cherry, here’s what happened: I pushed at it between my finger and thumb and let it squish around. I rolled it. The inside part of the cherry got squishier and softer, which made the brain rolls of the outside become less rolly. I held the thing close to my ear and learned what sound a dried cherry makes when its being rolled between one’s pincer and thumb. I gave it a sniff, but didn’t notice much odor, other than the steam from my bath. If you are feeling disgust at the prospect of eating in the bathtub, put it aside for a moment and remember this isn’t exactly eating.

By the time I put cherry number one into my mouth, I had already gotten to know the little fella much better that I ever had before. I rolled it between my tongue and the roof of my mouth the way I’d done with my fingers. I kept at it, avoiding my teeth because wouldn’t that be fun? The squishy insides eventually gooped out in what felt like a burst of flavor. Maybe that’s what every candy ever produced in the history of candy is trying to replicate–and failing. The cherry-flavored cherry swept through my mouth. Could all this flavor fit in one little thing? I knew it was possible—I’d had mountain strawberries before, after all—but I suppose I’d never given myself the opportunity to get to know a humble raisin (or raisin substitute) to such a degree.

Eventually, the skin of the cherry became a whole new recognizable element of the fruit. I gnawed at it with my tongue then finally swallowed. I had been digesting for the last 2 hours and had a bike ride home in the interim, but I could feel every particle of that bite add to the unnecessarily large pile of food I’d already put down my gullet. I would finish the task, but not right now.

**

Though there was a gap of many hours, the second cherry was the next thing I consumed. I returned to the ritual.

For this cherry, I decided to play with touch. Holding it with my right hand, I rolled it across my left palm, then around the perimeter of my fingers. It was sensual, to say the least: especially if we define sensual as “being of the senses.” Honestly, though, I was glad I was alone in a room. It felt like foreplay. I realized that touching the cherry could be with any part of my body and that if I utilized it as a tool for body work, this could go on all day. I brought it back to my face, rubbed the cherry around my lips a few times, then popped it in.

This time, I wanted to do something less refined than before. I bit in hard, almost aggressively. Take that, I thought. The flavor burst was still there but the skin was all torn up this time: there was going to be more cleanup, for sure. I chewed slower than usual, but using my teeth in a way I hadn’t with the first one. I opened my mouth and heard the sounds of my own mastication. I closed my mouth and understood why it was better manners that way.

After I’d mined every bit of cherry particle from every recess of my mouth, I met cherry number three. I looked it up and down. It was a little brain, a little planet with geography and topography. What a perfect little particle of nature, this guy! I didn’t want to eat him all at once so I gently put his head in my mouth and bit that off. I ate the last cherry in the smallest slices my teeth could cut and I used my tongue to mush it around.

My takeaway from the Three Raisin Exercise? How many ways there are to play in this life! How many universes of possibility are tucked into every possibility! Also: I could probably stand to slow down while eating in general. Or in general.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Evelyn’s SIDCHA

The direction of my SIDCHA is mindfulness: I will take 10 slow, meditative, present breaths a day in locations that might include but will often not include a traditional sit-down meditation setting. A living meditation, I suppose, is the intention of these daily ten breaths, and I feel 99.9% confident I can, in fact, accomplish this every day. Even the hard ones.

In my mind, these commitments are expiring at the end of these 20 weeks, though, full disclosure.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Evelyn Wallace: It’s Go Time

If you’ve ever read Michael Singer’s <The Surrender Experiment>, you might recall that the end of his early-days, isolationist, anti-corporal meditation practice was marked by a dream about walking into a cave and not being able to breathe. He understood the message: this ain’t the way. In mid 2021, I got a similar memo from life. I’d staged a nonviolent protest, was arrested, was released, was interviewed for a front page story in the local paper, and still felt as lonely and helpless as before. I didn’t feel as if I’d mis-stepped, but I did feel like I’d walked into my own cave as far as I could only to find I couldn’t breathe in there.

Since 2016, when the death of a friend woke me right up, my aim in life was to live in truth as best I could with every breath I was blessed to have left. I stayed connected to that mission for the first few years nand I experienced some profound shifts and lessons as I went. (I wrote a book about that era and in an effort to make it as accessible as possible I recorded the audio and released it as a podcast. I only just found out I should attach an ISBN to the project to make it official, an action item I’ve already put in my in-tray.)

Still, by the late Covid years, I felt like I’d strayed from my purpose. I knew I wasn’t reaching my own potential. I felt like an electrical wire with no proper outlet, which felt like such a silly problem to have, because who wouldn’t want a ready supply of free power?

Perhaps this is in defensiveness, but I feel compelled to add that it’s not that I didn’t know things back then. I knew lots of things.

I knew the nature of the universe and infinity (as shown to me through my dying friend)… but I didn’t know how to be the kind of teammate people wanted on their teams. I knew how to break out of cultural norms and ignore a deafening chorus of consensus-thinking worriers… but I didn’t know how to get people to take my calls. I knew how to stage a nonviolent revolution… but I didn’t know how to invite others to join. If I’m being fully honest, there was a pattern in my life of storming out of groups, with some variation of this thought: if only those guys could see what amazing ideas I’m bringing to the table! But they can’t, so their loss. Bye, forever! (And then later: Boo hoo, what’s wrong with me, why can’t I just make people love me?)

Enter: graduate school and specifically, social work. As soon as I found out social work as a professional sector employed the term “social justice” in their mission, that was enough of a green light for me. If there’s any place that can’t kick me out, I thought, it’s a classroom of a school that said yes. I didn’t expect social work to teach me all the content I wanted to know (I did, after all, have some memory of the foolishness of academia, even in the two decades that had passed since earning my bachelor’s), but at least school would put me in rooms with other people. On a spiritual level, I had tapped back into my faith that every place we are is the right place at the right time. My studies would connect me with the people I needed to be connected to, I was sure of it. Plus, I wasn’t averse to having some letters after my name.

It turns out that graduate school did connect me to the people I needed to be connected to, and especially (but not exclusively) Josh Spodek. When Josh and sustainability crashed into my life, I recognized the Sustainability Simplified approach to be the mechanism I had been looking for all along: the proper outlet for my amperage. It was go time.

So, I went! I went with it and I let life lead. Now I’m here, eeking out the final weeks of my final term in graduate school, feeling such an impending sense of relief to be free of this elaborate academic charade so I can give myself fully to the real work: stewardship leadership. Steadership! (Not that I’m rushing things. This is the last moment I’ll have this moment and I relish it. I relish it.) For context, this week marks the penultimate session of the first Sustainability Simplified (SUSI) 101 Workshop I led without Mr. Spodek himself in the room. I had another Joshua on hand, though, and I got better as a leader because of him. I feel like this work—my true calling—is showing me how big I really am and how big I can be, all of which squares with my deathbed experience of infinity. It feels like the sky’s the limit, and even then… why stop?

And now, as of this very moment, I am right back at the door where I first came knocking when I reached out to Josh in the first place: straight leadership. This is what I’m talking about when I talk about divine timing.

What do I want from this experience? Pre-Marshall’s death, I would have wanted everyone to think I was the cleverest person in the room. But now I want people to leave interactions with me feeling like they are the cleverest. I want to connect to universal places of shared humanity in every person I interact with, enabling me to work with people who appear to believe in things I vehemently disagree with, and I want for these people to feel heard, seen, acknowledged, respected. I want to bring people together from (essentially) warring factions in mutual recognition of unifying commonalities. I want to be invited into rooms with heads of state, captains of industry, and culture makers and I want to help them see the very optimistic and very possible future where they rise to their own potential and lead the way in the next phase of human evolution. I want to do what I was born to do and I want this class to teach me how. Is that too much to ask?

Like I said, it’s go time.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Second Personal Essay (The Second Draft)

Author’s note on the first draft of the second personal essay: I was having a real existential moment of truth when I wrote my last personal essay. I was concerned that maybe I was making the same mistake I had made in my first round of Method Initiative, where I was sure I knew the problem, market feedback be dang’d! Was I doing that patronizing thing where I was coming into a group of people whose problem I was sure I knew with a solution I was sure would work? If not, would I have to start over at the beginning again?
So that was my headspace when I wrote the essay and when I met my Method Initiative colleagues for the following meeting. I can’t remember if it was Josh or Olivia who asked something of me specifically, but I begrudgingly came off mute. And when I started talking, both Josh and Olivia assured me in their own ways that this was a space where I could bring all my week’s experiences with, not just the cupcake and rainbow experiences. Josh encouraged me to just trust the next step, and to take the next step with the awareness that it would provide whatever learning experience was there to be had. With a renewed sense of validity, I got back to work.

***

I wouldn’t be surprised if my massage therapist suspects that I’m manic. We had a session a few days ago and when he asked me how I was doing, I said:

“I’m great! The sky’s the limit, Ben! Things are happening! I just got off the phone with Powder River Correctional Facility, and…”

“Wait, who did you just get off the phone with?”

“Yeah, it’s the prison I’ve been wanting to work with. And guess what?! Okay I’ll tell you! They are super into this program idea! I mean, the lady was pretty straightforward about all the folks who would have to approve it, but just as far as energy goes, she was clearly very much into it and has offered to help advocate for it.”

What I didn’t tell Ben—because it was time to get on the massage table for cryin’ out loud—was that directly prior to my call with PRCF, I’d spoken with the executive director of Human Kindness Foundation, who called me (in what felt like) out of nowhere with an introduction that included “I got a message that Mickey Singer had sent you, and of course I’m going to call anyone who Mickey sends back.” Please note, I had reached out to Michael Singer because I’d just finished reading The Surrender Experiment and knew that Mr. Singer had done some work in prisons a few years back. When I contacted him, his team got back to me to say that Michael had reviewed my message and—while it had been too long since he himself had done that kind of work to be able to give any meaningful feedaback—his team did suggest I reach out to a few folks doing the work more currently, including the Human Kindness Foundation.

And when the Executive Director called me (“out of nowhere” but definitely not out of nowhere) and gave me boatloads of actionable advice, her response to my request for more contacts was curt and offered with love: “I’m not connecting you with anyone, Evelyn, until you pick up that phone and call the facility! I guess we know now why I called you today!” She made me promise to text her when I’d done it. Things were happening!

That’s to say nothing of the call I received in the rosy early-morning hours a few Saturdays ago, when Shaka Senghor was the voice on the other line! If you don’t know about his advocacy work or his own story, look him up. I had to work hard on that call not to be star-struck, but I knew I wasn’t coming from zero. This wasn’t my first rodeo.

Yesterday I finished the first draft of the project summary that I sent off to my new contact at PRCF, and here is how it opens // and closes:

Survival Skool
Cook, share, eat, repeat

A program prototype by S. Evelyn Wallace, MSW
Presented to Powder River Correctional Facility
//
Thank you for your consideration
Please contact Evelyn Wallace at poetryishome@gmail.com with questions

So I’m going to close this personal essay with: look what I can do! Look at what we all can do, if we’re only willing to be vulnerable enough to learn how. Thanks to the whole cohort, and to all the folks who took my calls, and to Josh for showing us the way. The sky’s the limit!

[Evelyn Wallace]

More contact suggestions:
–Tim Bryant, One-Love Meditation Project, Inc
–Human Kindness Foundation

[Evelyn Wallace]

Exercise 10: People of High Value

At first, I had an existential meltdown about my whole project, my whole idea, and even the problem I was trying to solve. (See: previous entry.) Then, after the supportive feedback from this Initiative group, I put on my big girl pants and got to work. And then immediately understood why Josh encouraged us to not think about these extra weeks that we have as “extra” at all. Because once I got to work, I learned a few things:
• It’s true, not everyone you reach out to is going to give you the time of day. That’s just going to happen and that’s just part of it. Does it feel fabulous to be told you’re not important enough to respond to? No it does not. Does that matter much? Also no.
• It’s also true that some people who you never thought would answer your call… answer your call
• “People of high value” seemed to me very limiting at first, but expands with just a little effort. If I was implementing a program at Powder River Correctional Facility, isn’t there only one valuable person: the person who has the power to say yeah or nay to the project? But what about other prison reform/ prisoner support advocates? What about people who have also run support groups? What about people who run any kind of group “on the inside”? What about the people who run sustainability leadership workshops? Aren’t these people valuable, too?
• The day Josh and I see eye to eye on “doing the reps,” the heavens will part and the angels will sing. I didn’t get to 10 people but I worked really hard, okay???

Here’s the collective advice I gathered:
• Start with the chaplain of the prison (they are usually in charge of programming)
• Keep curriculum accessible to newcomers, but add enough novelty that it’s not boring for folks who do come every week
• Incorporate leadership skills; in AA, folks come, learn, give back. Embed leadership into the programming.
• Be open to learning from them. The chefs in the kitchens are the inmates, and often take those roles very seriously.
• Consider getting new recruits for the program from prison orientation sessions (new members of the incarcerated community); at intake they often have “programs available” list, so try to get on that list (otherwise how will people know about you?)
• Prepare materials: blurb about myself, why I’m qualified to lead this program
• Connect with folks who have been released and find out post-release barriers: how long did it take them to get food stamps? Would they have an electrical outlet for a pressure cooker? Consider a pressure-cooker drive for recently released folks.
• Be aware that I’m going into a place that already has a culture, a system. Draw a connection between communal group living ON A BUDGET, which they are good at. There’s a million things you can make from the 16 items from commissary.
• Make sure to get buy-in from participants: ask them a lot of questions and continually improve program. (Then can use “this curriculum was designed in part by prisoners” forever)
• Ensure that this is interesting to them; let them say it in their own words. DON’T just come in with “I know something YOU want”
• Enter with HUMANITY and sense of curiosity; remember humanity of officers, too!
• Don’t come in thinking I have all the answers; this is a learning journey and we are all on it
• Do as much reading and research as possible on facility
• Develop curriculum/ use as much material from system-impacted people because it resonates better

Suggested connections:
• Jes Wise (Oxford House)
• “Esther” from Initiative
• Robert Fullilove: “Prison and Parole: when the solution is part of the problem”

[Evelyn Wallace]

I can confirm Olivia’s sleep schedule. She packs it IN, day to day, friends! Also glad to see how the project born of this round of Initiative for you, Olivia, has, by the end, shown itself to fall somewhere that’s not the most important thing in your world. Good (for you!) to know!

[Evelyn Wallace]

Exercise 10: Ten People of High Value

I considered this week who the 10 people in the field were, but all I could come up with is the one person at Powder River Correctional Facility who has the authority to say yes or no to my proposal. Even so, I didn’t make the call, because I wasn’t sure if I should hit them up right out of the gate and I remember Josh saying we sort of had 3 weeks to do this assignment but not really. My question is: do I need to find another 9 people to call first, even if they feel forced/ less directly involved than the one person I know I need to call? Is the answer right in front of me if I just crack open my Initiative book?

For what it’s worth, here’s my first draft at the script I’ll likely use to pitch the project to the VIPs:

Survival School is a new kind of support group that provides mentorship, life skills training, and alternative pathways forward for the incarcerated population. Survival School incorporates principles of triple bottom line sustainability and uses the Spodek Method—-an exciting new methodology with a proven track record-—as fundamental to the curriculum. Meetings ideally occur weekly but the frequency can easily be adjusted. Structurally, Survival School works on a rolling entry system, where participants can drop in and drop out as they see fit and as is allowed by the facility. Survival School:
• Helps the Department of Corrections fulfill its promise of rehabilitation
•. Helps correctional facilities maintain order by keeping the incarcerated engaged
• Helps outside communities by maximizing the potential successful reentry potential of returning citizens and minimizing criminality
• Helps the incarcerated population feel ready for life on the outside and connected to resources beyond the carceral system
• Helps the environment by utilizing intrinsic motivation

A pilot program is currently being designed for Powder River Correctional Facility. Before I ask for actionable advice, do you have any clarifying questions so far?

[Author]

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