Questions for a current inmate: What is “Self-Help” and “Liberty” to you?

Thoughts written by Blackbird (Current Inmate & Founder)

Self-help is a term I never really thought much about before I came to jail. It was a phrase for people wanting to change but I felt it was for people who didn't have the answers like I believed I did. Looking back I see how arrogant and prideful my views towards self-help were in the past. Being in jail I have learned what self-help means to me and what it can mean towards the people in my life I love.

My definition of self-help is the ability to believe that improvent and growth is possible and within your own control. Self-help is the pursuit of upwards growth your own in life. When I see it that way I ask, "who wouldn't want to build a life towards self-help?" The greatest thing I have realized along the way of working to explore self-help is that a key part of this goal is to impart what I have learned back to the world around me. With all the knowledge I gain through the work of others it is my now responsibility to pass it forward adding any new insights I have developed. I think this is for all of us. To believe you can help pull yourself up no matter what because the tools are within you is a strength that self-help opens doors to.

I have had this a mission for me as I have built this site towards helping proved a sense of liberty. Being incarcerated it is easy to feel you have lost liberty and freedom. I know that I felt that way for a long time as I sat here in jail. Liberty was a word that I felt left me and I was hurt just thinking of it. But know I see I never understood what liberty meant. In the past it was an excuse to be selfish. To have the freedom to do what I want and be left alone. Now, I realize the level of responsibility that is required with liberty. To have true liberty and freedom even if just in your mind the need for a loving healthy foundation to the world must be set. Liberty is a freedom the lives within me but it can only exist when I live at peace with my world around me.

As people read through this site my hope and goal is that they don't shy away from the work of self-help towards finding liberty. I hope they see that to get the freedom and peace it will be when they learn to love the needs of the community around them.