Most of us who have spent any time within a system that has the goal of reshaping our behavior to align with the rest of society encounter challenges when interacting with the world once we are allowed to reenter. The inital stages of this process can be referred to as institutionalization, but eventually we find there to be a vast difference in the way we think when related to individuals who haven’t experienced incarceration of any kind.
These “triggers” can be seen as our opportunity to expand into mental (beliefs) and emotional freedom from the structures that limited us until this point. If we see ourselves as not fitting into the box of society, we have the ability to embrace a different way of functioning.
Discovering Liberation
Once we're out of the systems that required fight-or-flight, we have the greatest opportunity to see how our physical freedom can grow to include mental and emotional freedom.
Read More
Your Path to Liberation and Self-Sufficiency
At Return Home, we have seen the benefits of working with spirituality in a way that allows for self-reliance and provides a framework to no longer feed the dependence on systems that once restrained us.
Our job is to provide the Spiritual Mental Health Education so all you have to do is put what you learn into practice and see for yourself how your life shifts.
Worked Through & Can Help Others
- Institutionalization – Behaviors and thought processes that benefitted us while in the system, but negatively affect our life now that we’re free.
- Grieving of the past, including:
- Loss of Relationships – People choosing to no longer communicate —partners, friends, family—who were part of our lives before incarceration or institutionalization.
- Shifting Identity – Working with guilt, shame, and the identities associated with labels the court system may place on us. Finding a place of forgiveness for self and others to embody wholeness.
- Career & Stability – Mourning the ease with which we once navigated life, now facing new challenges post-release.
- Loss of Relationships – People choosing to no longer communicate —partners, friends, family—who were part of our lives before incarceration or institutionalization.
- Mental & Emotional Freedom – Finding internal liberation beyond the physical freedom of release from the mental health or criminal justice systems.
- Spiritual Practice – Starting or deepening a personal spiritual connection to experience true freedom, shifting reliance from our logical mind to something greater.
- Understanding Trauma & Oppression – Recognizing how trauma fuels systems of oppression and how these systems shape the reasons we commit crimes in the first place. This understanding makes restorative justice and redemption undeniable.
- Releasing Guilt & Shame – Working through how we are perceived by society, forgiving ourselves and others, and allowing ourselves to live fully.
Current Growth Areas
- Turning My Experience Into a Business – Transforming the energy that was stuck during my time in the system into something that stands on its own and provides a return on investment (time spent in system). I believe those of us with adverse life experiences are here to teach or help others through them.
- Unlearning Traditional Systems – Letting go of what I learned in school (public health degree) to fully trust spirit. Spiritual health is a system just like mental health or the criminal justice system, and I’m exploring how to lean into it for holistic well-being.
- Separating Business & Personal Life – Learning before teaching. Creating space to have a personal experience before it becomes something to share with others.
- Practicing Presence – Noticing the thoughts and emotions that keep me stuck in the past or projecting into the future. With spirit, I am learning to find stillness within the chaos.