Even before my trouble with the law and subsequent incarceration, I've wondered about some people's ability to harness an amazing inner strength to endure rough situations. It seems to exist somewhere in all of us. The ability to find that strength can result in absolutely amazing things. There have been three times in my life where I flirted with tapping into that inner strength.
You wouldn't know it to look at me now but in the early 90's I trained for and ran 4 marathons. For four years in a row I went through a training cycle in which I had to find the place in my mind to acquire and maintain the discipline to do the things necessary to run 26.2 miles. I believe running a marathon is more mental than it is physical. I was able to successfully complete 3 Houston Tenneco Marathons and one Dallas White Rock Marathon. Did that strength come from the same place the strength comes from to maintain a job search, fight an addiction, and generally not give up?
A second time I dug deep was during college. I had one semester to get my GPA up high enough to stay on my degree plan and do my student teaching the following semester. I needed to make four A's and one B on 15 hours to reach the goal. This wasn't going to be easy for someone that was damn glad to get a C in a class! I did it. Was that inner strength the same inner strength we need to successfully reintegrate?
The third time I needed to reach deep inside was was when I entered TDCJ., the years I spent there, and when I left TDCJ and faced the realities of post incarceration life. I look back at it all and I have no idea where the strength came from.
My guest this week, Dr. Christopher Friesen, is an expert in helping elite athletes achieve their optimum and I put this question to him: Where inside of us does this pool of strength reside and how we can access it? It seems to me the ability to do this just may define the success of our reintegration. Dr. Friesen also works with sex offenders in a prison setting and has a good grip on what we deal with as offenders, no matter what our case was about. Dr. Friesen also talks about his soon to be published book, Achieve: Find Out Who You Are, What You Really Want, and How To Make It Happen.
