Goodfellas (Understanding Conflict)

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Last week I had my first session of the PT at the prison. I was told upon arrival that I should just introduce the class for our session - rather than beginning session one, which I was prepared to do. As I was explaining the twelve steps/sessions about fifteen minutes in, I began describing a bit on forgiveness/reconciliation as a foundation, only to have these twenty dudes take it and run with it. I had forgotten that this exact same thing happened, the very first time I introduced PT at RH over three years ago. Prisoners and ex-offenders have plenty to say when the concept/practice of forgiveness is introduced. I love it. I learn so much from their process and experience.

I knew it would be unwise to cut the conversation off (even though we were basically working through session eleven before we had even introduced session one!), so I spontaneously threw on a film clip from the Interrupters (Lil' Mikey at the barbershop) pertaining to the confrontational nature of forgiveness - which lead to an extraordinary discussion. They basically taught the class from there - I just tried to facilitate and elaborate. Exactly what I like to have happen. Inside-out!

One interesting dynamic during the discussion was how the black dudes responded to the film clip as a whole, as a group with support and promotion - and the white dudes all responded as individuals with various skeptical perspectives - making statements like, "That would never happen where I'm from" or "he only did it for the cameras" and other non-imaginative statements. As disappointing as that was to hear, they were each challenged to answer for their cynicism - offered opposing views and perspectives - working through various levels of process. Very appropriate and necessary - really excellent overall.

After finishing up, I left feeling a sense of gratitude - but not necessarily a "high" - more just a sense of "this is normal".

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Yesterday, I showed up to only about half of the dudes from last week. I knew we would lose a few - which was helpful in order to create a deeper sense of intimacy, support, and care for those who really wanted to continue the discussion. The session began somewhat dry - some of them seemed tired (or actually sleeping) - as we had quite a bit of material to work through regarding "understanding conflict".

One of the dudes straight up called me out, basically like "Who are you?" and "Why do you care?". After a long rabbit trail description of my history, he said, "Ah - so you like Gandhi, huh?". :) I just laughed, assuring everyone that I was not Gandhi - but that Gandhi and MLK were very foundational in this process known as Peacemaking.

As we got deeper into the material - we paused to view a ten minute clip from "Rocky" to illustrate some points. They engaged well from there - and one dude (upon our discussion of the difference between "process" and "content" in conflict) actually shared a recent experience of his in the prison which was a perfect illustration of not just resolving conflict, but transforming it into genuine relational connection with a person of authority. It was brilliant - because it confirmed him and his experience - and totally illustrated a real life/real time "how-to" demonstration from "one of their own" inside the prison. Bottom-up. I am not the teacher.

Another dude, like twenty minutes after we had stopped discussing Rocky, returned to the scene with Paulie (I loved the fact that he had been inwardly processing it despite the fact that we had moved on) - engaging with it on a deeper level - demonstrating the necessity for empathy (which is an actual session down the line). From there we were able to see that Paulie was grieving and ultimately afraid of being alone (because even though he introduced Rocky and Adrian, he now grew jealous because she was becoming independent and seeing herself as worth something more than Paulie's sister/maid). Sounds obvious, but it's hard to see it through the drunkenness, violence, co-dependency, and shame. -all superbly brought to light by an inmate - who also was the first to bring up the idea of "inner conflict" - which transpired in another inmate relating to MJ's "Man in the Mirror" - which I loved. All good.

We ended with some poetry from Tupac Shakur and some chatter about self-expression. Looking forward to next week.

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