Virtues For A Healing Planet

I remember telling my mentor I would like to go see my brother in prison and not react or judge his experience or environment.

It’s been a year and a half since I said that, and my brother gets out in December of 2023.

Last month, I felt ready to begin writing him again. I went some without writing him because the letters were becoming to harmful for me to read. I wish at times I was stronger, or had more of a tolerance, yet I’m grateful for my sensitivity and way of honoring my experience. As I took time away from writing him, my care began to grow, not lessen.

I use to write and read his letters without much effort given, and this began to change after becoming more mindful of the world around me.

As if I was to caught up in the drama of it all, I couldn’t really feel what he was saying or going through, until my window of compassion began to expand.

Our prison system in western culture is one of the harshest reality’s anyone could bear as a form of punishment. I get it, and I use to say as well - do the crime pay the time.

Except, when it happens to someone so close to you…

I watched my brother, myself, and many others  struggle with mental illness almost all my life. To imagine this could have been me, after 1 offense that went to far it blows my mind that someone would be caged up, beaten and raped for the crime committed.

I found myself enraged, even willing to fight the justice system by attending college for social work and working in the prison system myself to make changes to the conditions in these systems.

Then I took a 300 hundred yoga teacher training course, and found a key that held much more impact than working in the actual prison system.

That is human connection.

Empathy, and Compassion are the virtues that change humanity on a mass scale.

Empathy -

Compassion -

Practice empathetical listening with someone you know or love.

Practice compassion in the car on your drive to work, or with a metta meditation