Overcoming Addiction: Ginny Burton's Journey of Redemption

How do you rebuild a life shattered by addiction, incarceration, and years of trauma? In this gripping episode of That’s Delivered, we sit down with Ginny Burton, whose life is a testament to radical transformation. Once a 95-pound heroin addict trapped in cycles of crime and prison, Ginny is now a Truman Scholar, published author, and founder of OUT (Overhaul Unrelentingly Transfiguration). She shares the mindset shift that changed everything—rejecting victimhood and embracing accountability—and how she turned personal pain into powerful purpose. From building a curriculum now used in Washington state prisons to launching her educational journey in her 40s, Ginny’s story is a masterclass in resilience, healing, and hope. Whether you're seeking a reset or just need proof that change is possible, this episode delivers.

Key Takeaways:

✅ Radical Shift in Mindset: Ginny stopped identifying as a victim and started taking ownership of her healing.

✅ From Addiction to Advocacy: Once in and out of prison, Ginny now runs a justice reform nonprofit helping others do the same.

✅ Education at Any Age: She began her college journey in her mid-40s and became a prestigious Truman Scholar.

✅ Prison Curriculum Builder: Her recovery curriculum is taught weekly in Washington prisons, tackling root causes of recidivism.

✅ Facing Fear Head-On: Ginny believes “everything we want is on the other side of fear”—and lives it, from mountain climbs to mending broken relationships.

✅ Turning Grief Into Purpose: Despite losing her son to suicide, Ginny continues teaching and mentoring incarcerated individuals every week.

✅ A Life Rewritten: Ginny proves that no matter how far you've fallen, you can rise higher than ever before.

Interested in being a guest on the podcast? Click here to join the conversation!

🔗https://www.treeringdigital.com/delivered

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome back to that's Delivered.
I'm your host, truckin' Ray,and today's guest.
His story is going to stay withyou long after this episode
ends.
Her name is Janie Burt.
She's a mom, a scholar, anauthor and a fierce advocate for
criminal justice reform.
But years ago she was 95 poundsaddicted to heroin, crack and
in and out of prison, stuck in acycle that she thought she

(00:31):
never would escape.
Today she's the founder of OUTOverhaul, Unrelentingly
Transfiguration, helping otherjustice-involved individuals
rewrite their story.
This episode is for anyonewho's ever felt stuck, for
anyone who's tried to change butgot knocked down, for anyone
who needs to hear.
It's not too late, jenny.

(00:53):
Welcome to the show.
Jenny, thank you so much fortaking the time to be on the
show.
I'm so excited to tell yourstory and let everyone know how
are you doing today.
I'm good.
I'm good.
How are you?
You so much for taking the timeto be on the show.
I'm so excited to tell yourstory and let everyone know how
are you doing today.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I'm good.
I'm good, how are you?
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
I'm doing well, staying busy, as always, like
you yourself.
You know that one is achallenge.
Yeah, just so people know whoyou are, just kind of start from
the beginning from prison topurpose the beginning.
You know, beginning, uh, fromprison to purpose the beginning.
You know, um, it didn't alwaysstart like that.
I'm sure there was a storyyou'd like to share.
Uh, deep within the human, uh,you know, the body, there's many

(01:31):
things that can come from, fromchallenges, from struggles, and
we've all hit rock bottom.
But what do we do?
Uh, what's next?
You know, you know, I justwanted to see how do we uh pick
ourselves up to where you are,like you're saying you're a
Truman Scholar.
There's many things that happen.
Want to tell us about it.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sure, yeah, I mean, that's a lot of stuff.
In the beginning, I was bornand raised into an addict.
Family Didn't realize it,despite my intentions to do
something very different.
I was academically excelling ata very young age, but my
environment overrode all of thethings that I expected that I
was going to do in my life andit led me to a life I really

(02:15):
never imagined I wouldparticipate in, which I became
the best at what I could do inthat life and it awarded me a
significant felony history andmultiple times in prison.
So I failed myself and all ofmy dreams.
However, I would argue that noneof it was really a failure.

(02:38):
It equipped me to do somereally intentional work in the
world that we're in today and,as anybody knows, our entire
country is immersed in addictionand destruction and social
services and homelessness andinsanity and my life experience
really equipped me to address alot of those problems from a

(03:00):
lived experience perspective.
And part of the thing with theeducation is I knew that I was
really interested in doing morethan just working on the firing
lines with individuals.
I believe that solutions whichwere not taking place and still
really aren't taking placeneeded to be enacted on a policy

(03:20):
level from a person with livedexperience, and so that's really
the journey that I embarked on,and so, as a woman in my
mid-40s, I made the decision togo to school.
I graduated with my bachelor'sdegree as a Martin Honors
Scholar and a Truman Scholar atthe University of Washington
back in 2021.

(03:42):
I was slated to go to thefourth top to number four in the
country policy school, whichwas the Evans School for Public
Policy and Governance, but Ideferred my master's degree
because I was recruited by acompany down in San Diego, where

(04:02):
I gained a little moreinformation, and then I realized
that I didn't want to work foranybody else.
I didn't want to push anybodyelse's agenda, because every
time I functioned under somebodyelse's agenda, I felt like I
was killing my people.
So here we are today, a wholelot of years later, and um, and
I'm doing some reallyintentional stuff, but none of
it's been without challenge, butmy life prepared me for that.

(04:24):
Nice.
In a nutshell, that's theelevator pitch.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Yeah, that's quite accomplishments that you had and
, like you say, academically,many people don't know the
pressures of that If you'reexcelling at something and you
don't know how your bodyresponds to that until you're in
those situations.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
True, true, true.
Well, and you know the thing isis, um, so over the course of
my life I've experienced allkinds of stuff.
You know if you could imaginesort of the life of a major
addict, and you've seen my sideby sides, and so you know, and I
say it costs a lot of money tolook the way that I did in that
red jumpsuit, and there's awhole lot of stuff that's
involved with getting to a placewhere you know you go from
looking like a normal humanbeing to looking like a

(05:11):
90-year-old Auschwitz victim,and you know there's a lifestyle
that's involved with all ofthat, and a lot of it requires
victimizing other people.
It requires abandoning thepeople that care about you most,
other people.
It requires abandoning thepeople that care about you most,
and it requires you knowalternative sort of methods to
get the money that's necessaryto maintain that high, because
once you're in a relationship,an intimate relationship with

(05:34):
drugs, it's almost impossible towalk away from that sometimes.
And so, um, you know my life, um, I people would consider it
traumatic.
I don't like the word trauma.
I think it's highly overused,like I don't like the word
healing.
I think that's highly overusedas well.
I think a lot of people fallinto the sort of sticky, gooey,

(05:57):
comfortable place of those wordsand I don't have a lot of time
for it.
Long time and I don't have alot of time for it.
But um, I, I really believethat the insanity and the
violence that occurred in mylife over a long period of time
prepared me to do really hardthings, and so my life is not
easy today.
It is not easy, it's awonderful life and but it

(06:17):
requires really really hard workevery single day and and I
believe that I've been trainingto continue to do that work the
past 52 years- yeah, speaking ofhard work, I'm just kind of
zero in on some of the pastexperiences.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
you know weighing 95 pounds and you're looking at the
side-by-side picture.
That does bring a lot ofthoughts to me.
What goes through your mind?
What keeps you going, beingstuck in a cycle where you want
to get out of it?
Um, what kept you going inthose moments instead of just
giving up?

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, well, it's interesting.
Um, I wanted to give up a lotof times.
Um, I have had been shot, I'vebeen stabbed, uh, I've attempted
suicide multiple times and myhigher power did not see fit to
let me go because I was tired ofthe hard.
So I got to a place where Irealized that I wasn't going to

(07:16):
make it out easy, like I reallyconsidered other people dead
when they got the opportunity topass, and so I had to figure
out how to get busy living.
But in the times where Icouldn't pull myself out of it,
a lot of the times, I'll behonest with you, and I think
sometimes drugs actually savedmy life.
I've been pondering that quite abit lately, because the drive
to maintain the drug inducedrelationship kept me going.

(07:42):
Um, when I was coming down andI wanted to die, the idea of
potentially being able to parentmy kids kept me going.
Um, but there were also timeswhere, um, I felt like such a
failure to my children that Ifelt like the world and my

(08:03):
children would be better offwithout me.
However, like I said, I was notsuccessful, and obviously
because here I am sitting today.
But today I recognize all of itas benefit because I really
learned a lot of things abouthumanity, about service, about
intention, about hard work,about what we're capable of as a

(08:25):
species, about how ourmessaging has an impact on what
we think our capabilities areand how much effort we put in to
manifest the life that we want.
So, yeah, and I teach peopleabout that today, so inside of
prisons, which is one of myfavorite environments to be in.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Really.
Tell us about that.
I mean, you know prison life,you said, saved your life, I
think in one of your interviewsand so many of whom face their
own struggles somehow can takerock bottom as a indication that
you know you can rebuild.
I mean, that's what foundationsare.
I mean they're the strongestpart of the building.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
And we can have our foundation can be as deep or as
shallow as we choose, right, andthen.
So I like the question.
It's really great, it's very um, there's a lot of depth to that
question and so, and it can goin so many ways, right, but rock
bottom can stop when we'reready to quit digging, so, so I
think that's one of the keythings, and sometimes that feels

(09:25):
impossible, right, to be ableto even consider creating a
foundation.
But our foundation actuallydoes exactly what you're talking
about it.
It starts where our rock bottomstops, and, um, and when we
take a look at, um, the thingsthat we did and this is some of

(09:47):
what I teach inside the prisonstoday when we take a look at the
things that we did to navigateour life, to meet our needs
because that's all we're reallydoing as a species, regardless
of what kind of choices we'remaking we're meeting a need that
we've decided or that webelieve that we have, and we
have learned a set of skillsthat help us to navigate that

(10:08):
until they don't serve usanymore, and that's when the
shift sort of starts to takeplace, right, when the pain to
remain becomes greater than thepain to change, movement starts
to happen and so and sometimeswe will revert back to patterns,
right Familiarity as opposed tocomfort zones, and because I
believe that things rot incomfort zones after a while we

(10:29):
can lay around.
It's kind of like, I think, ofan avocado If I leave an avocado
on my shelf, if it's super hardwhen I buy it, if I leave it on
the shelf for seven days, it'sgoing to start wilting and
rotting and molding and it'sgoing to be pretty gross and
that's kind of what happens.
And it's going to be prettygross.
And that's kind of what happenswhen we want to wallow around
in comfort zones, right.
So what incarceration did for me?
In 2012, I was arrested for thelast time and that's what I was

(10:53):
talking about with, like youknow, not really knowing how to
stop myself.
There was always thisunderlying message internally,
especially when the drugs woreoff, that I wanted something
different, but that pull wouldbe so intense, right?

(11:13):
So when I was arrested the lasttime on December 5th of 2012, I
knew that that was myopportunity.
I knew that that is where Icould stop digging.
I needed a little bit of helppersonally to remove myself from
the destructive path.
I was unable to do it on my own.
I didn't come from family wherepeople I had, a portion of the
family that was flourishing,where I had supports, and so

(11:37):
which is I am not a victim.
I'm just saying like thatresource wasn't available to me,
and so a resource had to beavailable in order for me to
remove myself, and that's whatincarceration did.
Now, incarceration didn't havea multitude of intentional tools
associated with it, but it didhave the tool of a timeout, and

(11:57):
at the time I was arrested, ourjail systems didn't have drugs
like methadone and suboxone,which was a huge benefit,
because I needed clarity, right,and so I'm a believer.
I haven't always been abeliever.
I became a believer because Ican't not deny God's presence in
my life, and so it was duringthat time that the drugs were

(12:18):
removed and I became clearenough to hear the message that
was necessary for me to maintainthat action, and so I was
incarcerated long enough.
I was looking at a fourthsentence, and that's when I
started to develop this process.
I started to take a look at mythinking, I started to take a
look at the things that weremanifesting in my life, and I

(12:40):
started to take a look at what Iwanted my life to look like,
and I knew that I needed todismantle the messaging, and so
I had to figure out where thatcame from.
Was it coming from me?
When did I decide to say thesethings to myself?
Can I not turn my messagingaround in the exact same way
that it got to where it's atright, by telling myself things

(13:00):
that I didn't necessarilybelieve that were true?
And that's really what I did.
I started making lists and Istarted telling myself, looking
in the mirror, telling myselfwho I was, and though I felt
like a liar for a long time,after a period of time I started
to believe that I was a worthyhuman being and I started to you
know, read and absorb all ofthe things that I could that

(13:22):
were going to help me to sort ofpiece together a process that
was going to be beneficial forme, and it so happened that I
ended up not having to go toprison for the fourth time.
There was a program that was thefounder was connected with me
and he helped me with the legaldefense, and I got a drug court
process, which enabled me tohave a one-dimensional focus on

(13:43):
one of my largest problems,which was my relationship with
drugs, what you know.
And so what I wanted really wasto be able to navigate life
with guardrails on outside.
That's there's that added levelof accountability, right.
And so I remained in jail formore than six months and then I
was released into the communitywith that one dimension and I

(14:04):
was able to be housed.
So there was a second dimensionThen.
Then I started to try toconnect with processes to help
me navigate the emotional andthe life baggage that I had
developed over time, you know.
And then I went to work insocial services I went to work
on re and then I went to work insocial services and, as I was

(14:25):
repairing some of the damage andbuilding the foundation and
learning that I am not defectiveand understanding that the
things that had happened in mylife were necessary and that the
skills that I built wereorganic and I wasn't a bad

(14:45):
person, but I learned somethings that weren't serving me I
started to continue to developthat process, right.
So, yeah, I mean, that's whatincarceration did for me.
Incarceration gave me that spaceto really assess, dissect,
dismantle and begin to rebuildwho I am, and do it based on who

(15:11):
I wanted to become and how Ifigured that out, because a lot
of my role models in my lifewhich doesn't make them bad or
good, it just means that theywere building their plane, as
they flew it with whateverinformation they had.
It just means that they didn'tnecessarily possess all the
qualities that I wanted topossess for myself.
And so I started to sort ofponder the people in my life who

(15:33):
possess qualities that Iadmired, and why, and I started
to stop focusing on what Iwasn't getting from people and I
think that we all do this.
Right.
It's like I want this from thisperson and they're not giving
it to me and my life is overbecause of it.
Right, like I didn't get thelove I wanted from my mom.

(15:55):
Well, my mom wasn't capable ofgiving me the things that I
perceived, usually because I sawit on a television show or
something.
My mom was my mom, and thequicker that I was able to
identify where I actually gotthat from and how to put myself
in a place where I wassurrounding myself with people

(16:16):
that were providing the kind ofemotional support or physical
support or educational supportthat I was seeking, then it
enabled me to put myself inplaces where I was learning to
level up Because as I put myselfaround these people that had
these characteristics andqualities, I didn't have to
judge the people that didn'thave them anymore.

(16:37):
It gave me the opportunity togo and be mentored, whether it
was an intentional mentorship orwhether it was sort of an
environmental mentorship, rightwhen I'm just learning to show
up in the way that the peoplethat I really admired and that's
really what incarceration andseparation and my beginning

(16:58):
process did for me.
Sorry, I can be a little wordy,but the way you asked the
question made me really thinkabout it a little more
dynamically than normal.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Nice.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I mean the real rebuildingprocess is huge.
Yeah, I mean I just wanted toget your viewpoint on one thing.
You know a lot of people thatdeal with struggles.
They avoid the mindset of beinga victim.
Why do you think that's soimportant?

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Avoiding the mindset of being a victim.
Well, I think it.
I think it validates our egowhen we have folks that say, oh
you poor thing.
And then it kind of solidifiesthat part of us that wants to be
inactive, right, the part of usthat wants our mommy and just

(17:45):
wants to be on the couch, andthe part of us that wants our
mommy and just wants to be onthe couch and be taken care of,
um, cause, I don't know aboutyou, but I still one things are
rough.
I, emotionally, I still want mymom and, though my mom never
really did a great job as beingthat nurturing mom, um, that's
the first place my brain goes,and I'm 52 years old.
So you know, I think that, um,that it's a danger zone to seek

(18:07):
validation with victimization,because it puts us in a place
where we're holding somebodyelse responsible and not looking
at ourselves and how we canmove up and out of it.
Right, I teach inside ofprisons, by the way.
Look, I'm going to show you theback of my shirt really quick.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
I don't know, yeah wow there's no victims, uh, so
um I didn't even know you worethat shirt yeah, so this is
overhauled through unrelentingtransfiguration.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
It's the out program and it's based on and I wasn't
where, I didn't even think aboutit until you asked me the
question but, um, when I presentas a victim, when everything is
everybody else's fault and Idon't accept responsibility for
my part in my life and thatdoesn't mean that there weren't
contributing factors that I hadno control over However, the

(19:01):
things that I choose to do as aresult of my emotional state, or
the messaging that I'm sayingto myself, because our emotions
are directly connected to ourthought processes, to our
messages, and so if I'mconfirming that life is bad and
that I should destroy myself,because that's ultimately what
we're doing when we're usingdrugs, right, or I'm going to
destroy myself over this youjust watch right and like who's

(19:28):
benefiting from that?
I'm harming everybody else inthe process that loves and cares
about me.
I'm harming people in thecommunity, um, and I'm
perpetuating more problems.
I'm piling more problems ontothe very thing that I'm trying
to escape, and then it stillbecomes everybody else's problem
.
But everybody else is livingwell, I'm not.
So when I'm standing in avictim state, I'm not

(19:51):
progressing, I'm not movingtoward my goal.
I'm probably losing sight of mygoal.
I'm like a leaf that's fallenfrom a tree and I moved to
wherever the wind takes me.
And so, you know, there is nomanifesting, there is no um
ownership, there is no authority, there's no agency in my own

(20:12):
life.
And so, um, you know, and that'sthe beauty that I have in my
life today is I'm not a victim,and a lot of things have
happened to me.
I promise you I could, I andthat's one of the reasons I
continue to sort of go back to,and my mom was, and they're
building the plane while theyfly it, because I think most

(20:34):
people have good intentions,even those who are perpetuating
poor intentions because of thethings that they learned Right,
and.
And then we have this thingthat we do too.
We victimize ourselves and wevictimize others when, when we

(20:54):
decide that we're a bad personbecause of the things that we've
done well, we've done themright, and then we try to hide
from them and it's like you knowwhat We've done them.
When I own them out loud A howfree do you want to be?
It helps the dark to be removed.
It helps me to stop beingafraid of things that have
already happened and that havepassed and I stopped placing

(21:15):
myself like in this sort of pitwhere I say that I can't get out
because shame on me.
Well, it's not shame on me.
I've done terrible things.
Terrible things have happenedto me and today I choose to live
in the light.
Today I choose to betransparent, I choose to be
honest and I choose to use allof those things to help other
people access that same amountof freedom.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
That's beautifully said.
I love your shirt.
What do you think about anxietyPeople getting in?
You know that kind of argumentwith yourself you got to push
yourself or you actually you'reafraid of something that's
coming from within.
What's your take on anxietywhen you educate people, when it
comes to redemption and thingslike that, because that's not

(21:56):
going to go away.
In this day in life that welive in, there's a lot of
anxiety and people are like howdo you escape or how do you deal
with that.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, so I have a formula for anxiety.
I have two children whostruggle with anxiety.
I am not a supporter ofmedication.
There's no science behindmedication.
Uh, I think that everything wewant is right on the other side
of fear and anxiety.
Um, I am the kind of person thataddresses fear head on.

(22:27):
Um, and you know, I'll tell you, life has a lot of fearful
things.
I'm terrified of heights.
I climb mountains, you want toknow why?
Because I'm terrified ofheights and I started doing it
in my mid forties.
So, uh, I missed some summits.
Because I'm terrified of rockclimbing, so I had somebody
teach me how to rock climb, andso still terrified of it.
But I'll get up there and dowhat I got to do.

(22:48):
So, and, and in time we buildmuscle memory, in time we build
a process to where we don't haveto be anxious about those
things anymore.
We learn how to breathe, welearn how.
The most important thing isunderstanding what's going on
here, understanding what am Isaying to myself.
We typically perpetuate ouranxiety.

(23:11):
So what am I saying to myself?
How can I change my messaging?
How can I address the things?
How can I get up and do thatvery thing that I'm afraid of,
because the more I do it, themore the physiological reactions
subside, and this is what I cantell you.

(23:31):
So I have three children.
One of them passed away lastJuly my son.
He took his life and he wasexperiencing a significant
amount of anxiety.
He was experiencing delusionalthinking.
He was experiencing stuff thathe had never experienced in his

(23:53):
entire life, and part of it, Itruly believe, was because of
the medication the psychiatricsystem gave to him, and I think
it changed his brain chemistrywhen he came home.
He came home and lived with mefor two weeks prior to taking
his life.
He had had multiple suicideattempts the year before.
That I was not aware of untillater, and my son was wicked

(24:16):
smart, so when he communicatedto you about his challenges, he
was also solving a lot of hisown problems at the same time.
So it's really hard tounderstand the level of need
that he had without himcommunicating that, and so, um,
I was working really hard on hismessaging with him, and so it's

(24:40):
almost like this is theinteresting thing, because I've
done a lot of work in my ownlife around this stuff, and he
was struggling with things thatI had only ever experienced when

(25:01):
I was on drugs, and so, afterhe passed away, I, you know,
questioned myself for a periodof time.
You know, is this all justsuperficial?
Am I sharing things that areinaccurate, you know?
Am I, you know, leading peopleastray?
And you know, the answer is no.
Like my son had his own demons,and I truly believe that the
things that he struggled withwere his.

(25:23):
His choice to take his life was, um, his last autonomous
decision to have control overthings being super hard.
It also made me feel like hemust've been ready to do
something really special that hewas under attack internally so
much.
And I really think that about alot of people, that folks that
end up, you know, ending theirlife or that die young, uh, they

(25:46):
were probably destined to dosomething phenomenal and they
were under attack internally bysomething that we can't see.
But I truly believe in thisprocess of messaging and I
believe in it a hundred percentaround anxiety, and I've watched
this process have an impact,especially in my youngest
daughter's life, who's about tobe 19.

(26:08):
She struggled with anxiety, shestruggled with her messaging,
and over the last few years, Ipromise you too, man, god's got
jokes putting a 15 year old anda menopausal woman together at
the same time, like hormones,are crazy.
Okay, I just want to say thatshe has given me all of the gray
hair that's strewn throughoutmy hair, but this is what I can

(26:29):
tell you.
We went from 15 and crazy toalmost 19 and responsible and
together and changed hermessaging and isn't struggling
with anxiety, and you know it'shappened over time, because I
don't know about you if you haveany kids, but I'll tell you
teenagers don't want to listento their parents because we
don't know much of anythingafter about 15.

(26:50):
But you know.
So I really believe in thisprocess of messaging and, sorry,
I can talk a lot sometimes, butyou're asking some good
questions that I'm not alwaysasked when I do interviews.
So thanks.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
No, I really admire you.
I didn't know that there's somuch depth to your story and
yeah, I mean by myselfpersonally.
I have a 18 year old daughter.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
Okay, so you understand.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
Depression, anxiety, a lot of things that you
mentioned I've I've had to dealwith, but there was no, nothing
successful.
But I can only imagine the painthat you feel, and to be able
to talk about it repeatedly,over and over to help people, um
, I, I can't imagine.
So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I applaudyou, um, you're, you're moved up

(27:45):
to books for me and you, Ireally admire your story and, um
, so, yeah, so how old was he?
He was 32.
32.
So how old was he?

Speaker 2 (27:53):
He was 32.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
32.
His name was.
You got to learn to manage it.
Some people say, well, whenyou're young, you don't know.
But some people continue withthis for years and you read
about a story and say whathappened?
What happened?

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
It was a long struggle.
It didn't happen overnight.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, that was the case for my son.
Yeah, that was the case for myson.

(28:33):
Charismatic, brilliant,charming, always upbeat, best
attitude ever, self-taught,everything, genius, handsome,
funny.
And something shifted and hewas.
When he came home, he hadstopped talking to me for a
little over a year and ithappens sometimes with kids and
parents and when he had comehome last year he had been I
didn't understand the depth ofthe struggle that he had been
going through until he was withus, you know, and I just really
count it as a blessing that hecame home, because I feel like

(28:56):
God brought him home.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, absolutely, and you're going to help so many
people.
I know truck drivers are outthere.
They're dealing with things.
You got to get back in thetruck and you still got those
problems with you.
You got to put those aside andfocus on driving and not harming
anyone else on the road.
There's a lot of accidents thathappen and we can't really tell
what happened because of thecatastrophe from it.

(29:20):
But if you were to saysomething to someone that's
listening right now that's in adark place, what would you tell
them?

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, well, especially if it's truckers that
are out there.
I mean, if you're in a darkplace and truckers are by
themselves a a lot of the timesdriving.
I have a friend and usually Ido a lot of driving across the
country, and him and I have beenfriends since the nineties and
he is a truck driver.
He's a long distance truckdriver and, um, and his son

(29:47):
actually passed away and youknow, and that's one of the ways
that people deal with it.
I know because I go outbackpacking in mountains by
myself, and so you know there'ssometimes beauty in isolation.
But if you're in a dark place,um, especially if you're
somebody that tends to be byyourself, reach out, use your
support system.
We're so much stronger as asocial group, um, you know, even

(30:14):
if it's just one or two people,but I, but I also want to say,
if you have a family memberthat's struggling with addiction
, there there is possibility.
And sometimes, if we haven'thad that experience ourself, it
feels like it's pointless, itfeels like sometimes they're at
a point of no return.
But I can promise you, if youlook at my side by sides, I was

(30:34):
in the bottom of the pit and Icame out of it and my life is
good today and you know, and ifyou're over a certain age I mean
I'm 52 and I'm building my ownbusinesses right now and I'm
definitely not wealthy but I'lltell you with consistency and
showing up like you just buildit.
You know what you got to do andwe can't there are no mental

(30:57):
health days with life Like we'vegot to just keep showing up and
sometimes we don't even knowwhat we're capable of.
But this is what I can tell you.
On a mountain, we had a guy thatmy very first climb and I'm
again Fred Heights.
Okay, they got me to the top ofthis mountain, my very first
climb, and I was petrified.
One of our guys broke his tibiaon the way down and we were on

(31:22):
that on our feet for 24 hourswith one headlamp, amongst five
people.
I was four guys that I didn'tknow, didn't know if they would
help save my life if somethinghappened, but we made it off the
mountain and there were thingsthat I did that I certainly
never thought I was capable of,and that's when my excuses were
gone.
And I'm going to tell you I havenot been equipped with

(31:42):
superpowers that other peopledon't have.
I've made it to everyachievement in my life, one step
at a time, one step at a time,and I've been having to make
adjustments in so many areas ofmy life along the way.
You cannot imagine that 40years of insanity do not come
with a Penske truck full ofbaggage right, and that baggage

(32:05):
has had to be dealt with andworked at one thing at a time.
Whatever, the most blaringproblem is that's the one that
gets addressed Whether it'ssmoking cigarettes, eating sugar
, cussing out my husband being apsychotic mom, trying to deal
with my hormones, like in thebehavioral step close to the
family, those are the hardestthings.

(32:26):
So I know this is a really longmessage for people but, like I
just want people to understandthat there are a variation of
things that can occur in ourlife and we get through them the
same way we got through thelast hard thing.
We might have to morph some ofour decisions a little bit, but
you can do anything if youchoose it.

(32:46):
You just have to tell yourselfthat you can.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
That's perfect, and learning is something that
anyone at any age can do.
We don't want to limitourselves just because I'm a
trucker, or I work in thisdead-end job, or I'm a late
bloomer or I'm a parent, singlemom, single dad.
I'm bogged down with all this.
We can still keep learning.
I think you've done that rightFrom prison into college.

(33:14):
Did I get that right?
Yes, take that leap.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, well, um, so this is the thing I got out of
incarceration and I startedworking in social services and,
and I really realized that theproblems with our system, um, I
realized that it was people thatweren't like me that were
making decisions for people likeme, and I felt like I was
killing my friends.
I was, I felt like I wascontributing to the destructive

(33:38):
cycles of their life and thatthey were coming to me as a
service provider for help and Iwas limited to the kind of help
I was able to give, based onfunders and uh contracts and
things like that.
And, um, I knew that I neededto do something on a much larger
scale, but I also knew thatsomebody with 17 felony

(34:00):
convictions probably wasn't justgoing to hop onto a policy
stage and be able to, you know,start telling people what needed
to change.
And, uh, and I excelled.
I, you know, I sort of revertedback to that education loving
kid that I was when I was youngand I started winning um

(34:22):
competitions, like scholarshipcompetitions.
I started excelling in myclasses and uh, and I started.
Then I applied to, I was beingrecruited by schools like Yale,
columbia, cornell, um, loyola abunch of really, I guess,
impressive schools, but I choseto stay in Washington State and

(34:44):
go to the University ofWashington and that's when I
applied for the Martin HonorsScholarship, which I got.
And then I applied for theTruman Scholarship.
And for anybody that doesn'tknow, I didn't know either what
that meant I just they said, oh,$30,000 for grad school.
I was like, oh yeah, maybe I'lltry for that.

(35:04):
So it was like a seven weekprocess, I think, applying for
that scholarship, and I had todo it with an advisor.
I did all the work, but shewould tell me where things
needed to be edited or changed.
And lo and behold, I won and Iwas quite surprised.
There were 600 and somethingapplicants for that scholarship

(35:28):
in 2020, which is the year thatI won and when I realized what
it was, it was the mostprestigious public service
scholarship in the country andthere is a very small network I
believe it's a little over 3,000Truman Scholars.
A lot of them are all in publicservice.

(35:48):
They're all in levels ofgovernment and other sort of
public service spaces.
There are a lot of folks thatare in politics that are Truman
Scholars and I became part ofthat family.
Mind you, I haven't used myTruman Scholarship money yet
because I backed out of themaster's degree program, but it

(36:10):
will be available to me untilthey stop deferring it if I
choose to go back to school.
So, yeah, it was kind of cool.
I thought it was a little bitinteresting.
I went and I interviewed, uh,with a panel in person.
Um, it was funny because I wasthe oldest person there and I
was 48 at the time.
And um, I remember telling themyou know, I think you guys have

(36:33):
the wrong person, like theseyoung people could do so much
more in their lifetime than Iever will.
And they said to me we, we knowwho exactly.
You're not the wrong person, weknow exactly who you are.
But it was really funny becausethe panel of people that were
interviewing us that the firstguy opened it up with a question
about a journalist.
And I actually have aconnection with a journalist

(36:54):
because I've done some differentshows with them, and so they
were trying to throw me off.
And that's what they want tosee how you're going to respond
to something that you maybedon't know the answer to which I
my ego isn't attached to any ofthose things, and so it was
just kind of perfect because Ihave a lot of experience dealing
with panel stuff, but it wasfun.
Education was fun, it wasexciting, I was able to network,

(37:16):
but I ended up on the frontpage of a lot of stuff.
Sorry, I see I go into theselong tangents on stories, but I
ended up on the front page ofthe political science department
and the front page of UW and onthe front page of one of the
magazines and um, and that'sjust kind of where it blew up.
And then I was doing some otherstuff and uh, and yeah, I, you

(37:39):
know, and then I entered intothis complete other space.
Interesting thing about it,though, is this is when I was
incarcerated in prison in 2009,there was a man he brought a
church service in and he prayedover me and prophesied, and he
said you're going to makeprisons a better place to live
and you're going to do it fromthe outside.
Now I use drugs.
After that happened, I got out.

(38:00):
Things didn't go, you know,however, but as I realized that
I was on that path and that itwasn't my path, but it was the
path that I was supposed to beon, and I started to
intentionally pray for things Ifthis is where you want me, you
better make a way.
Things started happening.
It was kind of wild.

(38:21):
So, and just a littledisclaimer and today I'm inside
of prisons teaching a process,the very process that I talked
about through my incarceration.
I turned that into a curriculumand now, now I have a very full
scale program that's inside ofone of the institutions here in
Washington State.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Awesome, that's a Monday.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, on Mondays, yep All day Monday.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Walk us through that.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, so so you know I pushed.
I'm a pusher, I don't alwaystake no for an answer if I feel
like I'm supposed to besomewhere.
So I ended up pitching to theDepartment of Corrections and
you know, through a process Iended up in a prison called OCC,
which is Olympic CorrectionCenter.
It's in Forks, washington.
It's a very remote institution.

(39:09):
They do DNR, department ofNatural Resources, so they're
firefighters, they're treeplanters, they do chainsaw work
all through the prisons and Icurrently have a student base of
about 37 or 38, I think I'vebeen teaching.
My process it's called the OUTProgram.

(39:29):
That's a 10-month oldcurriculum is on assessing
deficit, dissecting, dismantlingand rebuilding, developing the
life that we dreamt of or thatwe are, you know, trying to
manifest.
Taking a look at the things inour life, our qualities, our

(39:52):
behaviors, how we ended upparticipating with those
behavior patterns, qualities,our behaviors, how we ended up
participating with thosebehavior patterns.
That those behavior patternsdon't make us bad, they just are
the things that we learned thataren't serving us in the way
that we want to be served.
That we are 100% the author ofour story.
That if, in fact, we want adifferent ending, we have to do
different things.

(40:13):
If you want something different, you got to do something
different that the people thatcontributed to the circumstances
of our lives if they knewbetter, they do better right,
they were building their planeas they fly it.
So we're going to go ahead andrelinquish them from
responsibility of our choices,because that's one of the things
that we do as people, and Iwork with men, and I like
working with men, because menare often, you know, addressed

(40:36):
with superficial or externalcomponents job, training and
things like that.
We don't look at them as humans, we don't recognize that
they've been harmed and hurt,that they've harmed and hurt
themselves, that they don't feelgood about the way they've
shown up as partners, as sons,as brothers, as uncles and as
dads.
And so we really work on whatdoes that look like?

(40:57):
What does respect look like?
Not the respect that weexperience on our prison yard,
but the respect that we give andget from our grandmother, that
kind of respect.
And how do we show up andmanifest these things?
And we work really hard to dothat.
And then, in the process of,while they're rebuilding their
internals, while we're tearingapart, we're overhauling our

(41:18):
engine.
That's what we're doing.
We're overhauling itunrelentingly, we're doing it
without ceasing.
We're doing it and I tell you,one of the things with men is
they don't want to look atthemselves, and that's okay.
And you know, when I do littlethings where it's just like, is
it easier to punch somebody inthe face or is it easier to say
I'm afraid?
Because, you know, I lived likea man for a long time and it

(41:41):
was a lot easier for me to punchsomebody in the face than it
was for me to look within.
And everything that we'reafraid of, that we try to go
around or we try to go over,those are the things that we
have to go through and then theybecome a non-stimulus in our
lives.
Right, the things that we'reafraid of and the hard things.
Those are the things that whenwe learn how to face that, when

(42:03):
we learn how to climb thoserocks, when we learn how to
become one and hug the earth andunderstand that they only have
the power that we give them,then we can utilize that power
to serve other people and thenwe really find the true
authenticity of ourselves.
And so inside the prison, we gothrough this process.
We're doing this stuff everyweek.

(42:24):
I pinpoint stuff, I pull stuffout.
They.
Let me scold them like I'mtheir mom.
We do service projects together.
We um the out program inparticular.
Our guys come back as alumni.
They stay inside when they getout.
We help them transition torelationships with employment,
with housing, with all of thethings.
But we don't give things out.

(42:46):
We're not a handout program.
We're a handout program.
People ask me what are you goingto do for me?
I'm not going to do anythingfor you.
What are you going to work for?
And that's what we do.
And when they want me to carrythem around my backpack, I say,
hey, check it out.
I said I put my own husband inprison.
Okay, I am not carrying you inmy backpack, you're going to
figure it out and I'm going toshow you how I did it.

(43:07):
And that's what we do.
So we have lived experience.
We don't have college educatedAin't never been there, Folks
coming in and teaching none ofthis stuff.
If you ain't been there, if youhaven't been to hell, you don't
know how to navigate your wayout of it.
So I bring them back in andthat's what we do.
Uh, and and, like I said, Ihave relationships with service

(43:30):
providers such as not socialservice providers, but employers
, union halls, educators,housing, transitional housing
programs, attorneys, all kindsof different things, anything
that you need to make sure thatyou're going to hit the ground
running only, though, afteryou've done the work in your own
life.
Then that's, and that's what wedo.

(43:51):
So we become the village.
We maintain contact.
When they get out, we havecommunity alumni meetings.
They come back and they, theymake sure that they're of
service in a lot of ways, and alot of my guys that are getting
out they're thriving, they'rethriving, and so that's kind of
what I'm doing in there.
Uh, it's kind of a beautifulthing.
So if you ever come toWashington, you let me know and

(44:13):
I'll drag you into prison on aMonday.
I think you'd love it toWashington.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
You let me know and I'll drag you into prison on a
Monday.
I think you'd love it.
Wow, yeah, I would.
I would love that.
What part of Washington, whatcity.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
I'm in Olympia currently.
I'm from Tacoma, I lived inSeattle for 21 years and I had
to get the heck out of Seattleand so now I have a place.
My husband and all our kidshave a place in rural lacey, so
not quite in the city but closeenough that we can drive to it
really fast yeah, I've been totacoma um, okay, that's where
I'm from, more than right tosalem.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
I got a good friend out there too okay yeah, my
wife's been out there, beautifulcountry in salem oregon, and
yeah, how far away is that from?

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Tacoma Salem.
It's probably, I don't know,three hours or something, maybe
two and a half three hours,about three hours, all right.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Well, we'll see what we can do to make it work, man
that sounds exciting.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Yeah, you let me know ahead of time.
I would love to make it happen.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
That'd be amazing.
And the things that you'redoing and you're not afraid of
doing, I mean that's that speaksvolumes.
What would you say toindividuals that probably want
to go back to school, changetheir life?
Maybe they're truck driving andthey say, man, this is not what
I wanted to do, but this iswhat I'm, this is what I'm doing
right now.
What would you say if theymaybe a little hesitant?

Speaker 2 (45:32):
You're never too old.
You know, I met an 86 year oldwoman I think she was 86 that
was finishing her PhD.
So, uh, you know, education isfantastic, um, for anybody that
wants to, you know, go back tocollege now.
I've just want to encourage youto critically think.
Um, there's a lot ofinformation out there these days

(45:53):
that's being taught.
I we have to be able to useinformation in a way to
critically think, right, not tobe indoctrinated with opinions,
and that's happening more andmore on our college campuses.
However, I do want to say thateducation was a fantastic
opportunity for me to learn howother people think, to become a
better writer, to network witheducators who do have the

(46:15):
ability to academically narrateour society.
I want people to understand,more than anything, though, the
value of your real lifeexperience, because it took me a
long time to understand thatvalue, because, because people
had a different vocabulary thanme, because they didn't come
from the ghetto, because I'mfrom the hilltop and the east

(46:37):
side in Tacoma I don't know ifyou know anything about that,
but it's the projects andeverybody's on welfare so
everybody in certain settingsfor a long time helped me to
create narratives that caused meto be insecure.
Your life experience has somuch value and there's nobody

(46:59):
that can tell you more aboutyour life experience than you
can.
And when you look at the world,whether you want to go back to
school or not, recognize whereyou come from, what that's like,
and always be honest withyourself, no matter what it is
that you choose to do.
If you want to become anentrepreneur and you're
terrified, just do it.

(47:19):
Find time, make it happen.
If you want to go to school,just do it.
Sign up, take one class, juststart right, like that's.
All you have to do is start.
And for me, I had talked to aperson who encouraged me.
I got on, I looked at financialaid, I looked at the stuff and
then, within a couple of weeks,I was signed up to start school

(47:40):
because I had immobility issues.
I was single, parenting.
Husband was locked up, my sonwas locked up.
My oldest daughter was doingher thing.
Me and my youngest daughterwere living in Seattle and we
were not thriving financiallyand I was afraid to move because

(48:01):
I was making just enough to payour bills.
She was being bullied on campus.
I was trying to not have her umstart fighting.
So my kid, my youngest kid ismixed, she's black and white and
she was going to aninternational school and she
wasn't quite dark enough and shewas probably too light and so
she didn't.
I don't know if anybody's beento schools where there's a
massive mixed race.
I went to schools like that andI'll tell you, a lot of my

(48:23):
light skinned friends got heat.
She was getting heat and she'salso real sassy, so I didn't
want her to fight, so I was onthe school campus.
I'm trying to do social servicesas an employee, as employment,
so I was afraid to move.
I challenged myself.
I didn't think I had enoughvalue to apply for other kind of
jobs, but I also didn't want toend up in a dead-end job

(48:44):
because I was in my mid-40s andI made the decision to go to
school.
I just did it and I continuedto work at the same time.
I just took a couple of classes.
You can do it.
If I can do it and graduate at48 and maybe going to go back
for my master's degree somedayand I'm 52, you can do it.
You can do it and if we use itthe right way, because I was

(49:05):
being indoctrinated for a periodof time, I was buying into the
hype, even though the hypedidn't align with where I come
from and I come frompredominantly black and Asian
neighborhoods and so I was like,oh, this isn't lining up.
And that's when I started toreally understand the value of
my own lived experience and thatmy voice really had power when
it comes to advocating for thebetterment of people and not the

(49:30):
separation and lack of unity.
So that's why I say allow yourlived experience to guide you
and recognize the fortitude andstrength that it took for you to
get to where you're at today,because it did.
We all have to put forth effortand energy to get where we're
at, and that's the same effortand energy that you're going to

(49:51):
use to succeed, because nobodythe comfort zone.
We're rotting comfort zones andthey're usually never
comfortable.
They're just familiarity zones.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Right, hiding from the fear.
You don't want to beuncomfortable, and then that
leads to the anxiety man.
You know that.
Yeah, that's a huge thing.
If you're a human, you're goingto be attacked for trying to
enjoy life 100%, especially withour current day and age on
social media.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Oh my gosh, everybody has an opinion about what you
should be doing.
Yeah, they're busy sitting ontheir couch behind their
keyboard, so just throwing thatout there.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
Yeah, girls, take a huge, you know, for social media
.
I'm going to be this way,thinking they got to be that way
or they got to look this way.
Yeah, my daughter's mixed andso, yeah, I understand the
struggle.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
You know the struggle .

Speaker 1 (50:43):
Yeah, I was like I said what?
But then I realized, yeah, Idon't know nothing.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
I thought I knew something.
It's a different day and time.
Well, you know, that's theinteresting thing about that we
actually do know some stuff.
And if we took out some ofthese devices, my daughter yeah,
she's just coming out of all ofthe insanity and I'll tell you
I'm like whew, that was a closecall and maybe we're not out of
the water yet, but I'll tell you, life is definitely good, yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
Man, wow, that's huge Bringing people together.
I think it's going to bemonumental Making that out.
You know, out from all thesethings, I mean being in and
going in on Mondays, right,Going into the prison, and
there's.
You said no cell phones, right,you can't use the technology.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Well, and if you have AT&T, which I do, there's no
service out there anyway.
So yeah, you can't bring yourcell phone in the prison.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
So does that make things better?

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Oh yeah, 100%.
Well, for me, when I'm inside,my focus is just the guys.
So I drive two and a half hoursto get out there.
So I commit an entire day.
So I usually get out there nolater than 10.
And then, well it depends,sometimes I'll get out there
around noon.
My first class starts at 1.30most days, but I do alumni
support and sometimes I come inand do one-on-one.

(52:02):
So yesterday I got to the prisonat about 8.25, 8.20, 8.25, and
I didn't leave.
So I was there a full, entire12 hours, and then we have
another five hours of driving ontop of that.
So my days are committed tothese guys and you know I get
the opportunity to show them.
So I was at the prison withintwo weeks after my son passed.

(52:25):
I recently lost my contractEverybody lost their contract
with the reentry department ofthe Department of Corrections
and so, which means asignificant amount of my
paycheck has now been cut andI'm my own boss, so I don't get
to complain, or you know, I meanI could, I suppose, complain,

(52:45):
but you just got to pivot andmove, you got to stick and move,
right.
So it's like, okay, well,where's that money going to come
from?
Cause I'm now responsible topay other people's paycheck, so,
um.
So the guys are aware that Ihave all these things and so I
run a couple of businesses it'snot just one, um, but out is,
you know, it's by far one of themost impactful businesses I've

(53:08):
run.
I mean, I have a host ofdocu-series as well, but which
is important work.
But this is different becauseI'm committing to lives, week
after week, to help them walkthrough and telling them that it
is possible, right.
So now I have a responsibilitythan when I feel like my life is
hard.
I got to keep showing up, causeif I want them to show up, I've

(53:29):
got to show up.
So the guys, you know, theother day they're like, oh, we
didn't think you'd come.
I'm like, well, you're trippingand I'm like I'm coming.
So you know, and so I get toshow them, and that eliminates
their excuses, because we haveno victims here.
We have no victims becauselife's gonna keep on happening.
You know, if we're climbingmountains together and somebody

(53:50):
dies on our trip and our car is55 miles away, well what?
We're all just going to stopand freeze in the snow.
You got to keep moving.
You got to keep moving.
We'll figure something out.
We'll bring the person thatpassed.
You know we're going to dragthem, we're going to rope them
up and we're going to bring themwith us.
But we got to keep moving,otherwise we're all going to end
up like that, and that is life.
That is life.

(54:12):
We can't take a mental healthday just because things are hard
.
I mean you can, but what areyou going to get?
You know your 40 hours a weekand your paycheck and your
little, you know, pension orwhatever it's like.
If you want more, if that'swhat's good enough for you, then
that's fine.
But if there are things thatyou want, you got no choice but

(54:32):
to get up and get them.
And if you lose that job,that's got the pension
associated with.
Well, what are you going to do?
Lay down and take a mentalhealth day?
Well, no, you got to stick andmove.
You got to stick and move.
You got a family.
You got bills.
You got stuff.
Well, they're not going to paythemselves.
You, we can wallow around invictimhood and talk about how
it's everybody else's fault, orwe can get up and we can handle

(54:52):
it what's that?

Speaker 1 (54:53):
what's the stick and move?
Is that for hiking, like yourstick that you walk with, or
well, that's what the guy saidyesterday.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
I just say pivot.
I just gotta pick it pivot.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
You know you gotta pick that up, stick and move
stick and move.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
You know what I mean.
It's like oh, here we go, okay,I way.
Oh, what's over here?
Who do I get to meet over here?
And I'll tell you cause I'mgoing to and this is where that
I look at all of it Cause if Iran out of dope, I promise you I
wasn't going to lay down andcry about it.
I was going to get up, I wasgoing to find some hustle, I was
going to go out and talk to myfolks.

(55:25):
If John up the street doesn'thave dope, then I'm going to go
to Raul down the other way.
You know what I'm saying.
I'm in it, look, and if I don'tgot a car, I'm probably going
to hitchhike.
I might steal a car, take thebus, get a cab.
So you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (55:42):
That's awesome.
I get what you're saying.
Take that same mentality andthe good you can do with it.
Yeah, it's real hustlers outthere.
They don't know how much, howmuch of a hustlers they are when
they were looking for that dope.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
I mean, and that's just the bottom line, that's how
I look at everything.
So you know, and it's funny too, like if I'm having
conversation with judges or incertain environments, and I will
use dope house analogy all day.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
So, and I will use dope house analogy all day, so
anyway, they know a hundredpercent.
We watch it every day, likewhen we're driving, if I'm
driving late at night and I'mlike that's the same guy, yeah,
it's pouring down Right, yeah.
Yeah, I'm complaining, I got myraincoat on and everything
Right.
Also, you've consulted withdepartments across different

(56:31):
states, what's something thatmost people don't understand
about incarceration and reentry.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Talking to those departments, oh yeah, well, I
think what we have right now iswe sort of have a shift with
institutions that have deemedtheir own institutions as bad.
You know there are a lot of thegoing narratives I talk about
the academic narratives, theindoctrination, and you know we
have academic narratives beingpushed that you know
incarceration is bad.
Now I want to say thatincarceration is not equal

(57:04):
across all states.
In the South, we still have alot of problematic stuff that
you know occurs within theprison systems there, and we've
got violence in certain prisonsystems.
But this is what I can tell youis that prison has to be more
intentional.
And even in some of thoseprison systems, though, you will
have people and that's who wedon't listen to.

(57:25):
We don't listen to the peoplewho say it saved my life, cause
I can tell you right now if Iwouldn't have been incarcerated
and that's what's happening sortof across the nation right now
it's like, oh, we need toincarcerate less.
It's like, no, we need toincarcerate with intention.
We have a one dimensional toolthat is used in effectively and

(57:45):
we're not bringing livedexperience into the space.
Right, and so and that's reallya lot of my consulting stuff is
always about lived experiencehow to bring lived experience
into the realm of poverty, howto bring lived experience into
the realm of incarceration, howto bring lived experience into
the realm of social services.
Are we serving people withintention?

(58:08):
Are we focused on humanflourishing?
Are we looking at deficit areasand actually quantifying
outcomes that are directlyconnected to the deficit areas?
Because if you come in and youhave five deficit areas that are
major contributing factors torepeated engagement with

(58:30):
whatever institution or system,whether it's the welfare system,
whether it's, you know,homeless industrial complex,
whether it's a prison system,and none of those things are
looked at and none of thosethings are addressed.
And often they're definitelydocumented in some circumstances
, but there's no intentionaladdressing of those things and I
and I try to give the systemgrace by saying, um, if you knew

(58:56):
better, you'd do better.
If you haven't been to hell,you don't know how to navigate
your way out of it.
So that's where the livedexperience piece is so necessary
, because it's like, okay, wecome in and we address those
things in said way.
That way, these resources orsupports that are on the back
end are actually sustainable,right, and that's what the model
of the OUT program is.

(59:17):
It's like when we go in and wesort of readdress this God hole
here in the middle and we teachan individual how to serve
themselves effectively, how totrust themselves, how to respect
themselves, how to embodyintegrity, how to, you know, not
have to be held accountable byothers, because you learn how to
do it yourself, because youunderstand your deficits and

(59:39):
your blind spots, that thoseother pieces the education, the
employment, the housing, theservices, those things are
sustainable and that you'regoing to have an individual that
actually values those thingsand uses.
And that you're going to havean individual that actually
values those things and usesthem in the method in which they
should be used, which istemporarily until they get their
own right, where we're helpingpeople move from down here to up

(01:00:02):
here in independence, and thencoming back and reaching in as a
service structure and saying,hey, and I'm going to help.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Wow, I get it.
I see the big picture of whatit should be, but even if it's
not, we should strive to make itthat and that time out that you
can get because life is movingtoo fast and you weren't able to
manage it yourself.
Now you can take that time inthose spaces to have
conversations that you weren'table to get or that you didn't
think were important enough togive enough time to really

(01:00:35):
meditate on and make it a partof your life.
So, when you mentioned theindoctrination that some people
speak about or that you'rereferring to, going to college,
what take would you say forindividuals that may get caught
up in the hype or the sexy partof college?
What would you say to thosepeople?

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
I would say that, well, first of all, one of the
things that we see with thatindoctrination there are a lot
of labels that have been placedon things, inmate being one
BIPOC being I don't know about.
Did anybody ask you if youwanted to be considered
something called BIPOC?
I'm just curious as a Black man.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
No One more time.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
BIPOC have you heard that?

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
It's Black, indigenous, something, something
, something.
So that is over here on theWest Coast and you're Eastern
right, no you're Central.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Okay, I'm in Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Okay.
So West, on the West coast thatis a new term that there was
developed during the GeorgeFloyd era, when I was in a
university of Washington, thatall people of color are now
considered BIPOC, and I actuallyhave been kind of waiting to
talk to, uh, you know, and I'vegot tons of black friends.
I mean, I've got a black kidbut and I just don't know why I

(01:01:49):
haven't asked.
But I think it's because youasked about the indoctrination.
So there are labels that areplaced on us people, people,
okay, because that's what we are, we're people.
There are labels that areplaced on us that nobody ever
asked us if it was appropriate.
So like, for example, there arepapers after papers after

(01:02:15):
mandatory readings in collegethat refer to people in prison
as inmates or offenders.
I, I don't align with thoselabels, right, and?
And so there are othernarratives that go along with
that that academics have madethe decision to, you know, sort
of place on as a societalnarrative, you know, and BIPOC
is another one, you know, andbipoc is another one.
It's honestly, it's one of themost annoying.
I'm like I really don't knowany of my friends that yeah, uh,

(01:02:38):
yeah, b-i-o-b-i-p-o-c, soanyways, yeah, no, yeah.
So, uh, you're looking it up,anyways, when those kinds of

(01:02:59):
things happen and you're likewhat the heck?
That doesn't mean that it's thegoing narrative, right?
So I want people to questioneverything, question everything.
Don't think that people inthese siloed, sterile
environments have all theanswers.
What they do have is, if youtake a 30,000 step foot back, is
they have a construct forcritical thinking, even if they
don't realize that that's whatthey're teaching.

(01:03:21):
And so that's really how I wantpeople to challenge that.
Like, if you're going into this, especially young people, talk
to the elders in your community.
Talk to the elders that areconnected with your parents.
Um, don't just trust youreducators, okay, because they're
in it.

(01:03:41):
I mean, they're functioningwithin echo chambers, and what
that means is that, um, it's achamber of people that all think
the same, that are consistentlycyclically regurgitating
information that they all agreewith because they heard it in
the last five classes, theyheard it in the last chambers
meeting, and these environmentsare then transitioned into our

(01:04:03):
political structures, into ourleadership structures in our
communities.
So it's a common narrativethat's taking place over and
over again amongst people thatconsider themselves elite and
educated, as though they knowmore about our lives than we do,
and that's what I think peopleneed to understand and that's
why I needed to be inside of apolicy space, which I currently

(01:04:24):
have no desire to be as anelected official absolutely none
because there's more autonomyfor me to create change with
what I'm doing than there is ina political position.
But you know, theseenvironments are often very
removed from the people thatthey're intended to serve, and

(01:04:48):
so I just want people when welook at, especially around
homelessness and differentthings like that if they're
telling you that certainmeasures are a benefit to the
homeless, and you walk aroundand you see homelessness
obviously downtown and you seepeople using drugs in your
community question the messaging, use your eyes and your heart

(01:05:11):
and your brain to question whatpeople are telling you and just
understand the constructs withwhich they use, and if you pay
attention to that kind ofmessage, over time you'll start
to see.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
So if you walked into an area and you saw an increase
of homelessness, while you'retrying to go get something to
eat maybe a nice diner and yousee an increase of homelessness
and maybe the community looks alittle more, you know, run down,
like it's not kept up as much,what signals does that tell you

(01:05:44):
right away when you start seeinga community that's going
through that?

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
It tells me that there are policies that are
being played out in thatcommunity that are ineffective
and that there are probablytremendous financial resources
in that area, especially if yousee a large accumulation.
You'll see this in cities likeSeattle and San Francisco that
are very wealthy cities andthey're run down and they're
degradated and they're inundatedwith destruction danger.

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
What would you say about the opiate problem with
fentanyl, things like that?
What's your take on that?
Just curious to you know it'ssomething that we are allowing
to happen 100%, 100%.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
It's feeding into some industries.
It's feeding into someindustries, so it is feeding
into the homeless industrialcomplex and it's feeding into
the pharmaceutical companies.
Pharmaceutical companies whoeverybody villainized for
opiates, now are coming to therescue with replacement drugs
like methadone and suboxone.
So, um, I truly believe thateverything in the country is a

(01:06:53):
business, so it's really notpersonal.
If it makes money, it makessense, and so if we're seeing an
accumulation of these things,we are seeing money accumulation
at its finest.
We're we're looking at realcapital gains.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yeah, because they were saying how the ingredient
or the I guess the mainingredient to make fentanyl is
being pushed in from othercountries.
Um, maybe not that particulardrug, but when it's being played

(01:07:29):
out in your mind that you were,you were probably, um, a
product of that abuse of thecommunity that was available to
you at that time.
You can't really get high onair unless you're I mean, it was
something that was there and itwas available.
People are allowing that tohappen and that's kind of sad to

(01:07:52):
watch.
I hope that brings awareness tothat can help people see that
hey, we got to do somethingabout this.
We can in a small form.
It may not be something that wecan do today, but spreading
that awareness, telling people,hey, it's not just the addict
that's the problem, it'ssomething else.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Yeah, well, it's a lot of things.
When it comes to fentanyl inparticular, I mean, we've had
leadership politicians that havebeen in support of distributing
these drugs, and I mean, withthe methadone and Suboxone, it's
literally the same exact thing.
So there are financialkickbacks for a lot of this kind
of stuff, you know.

(01:08:30):
And then we have a treatmentindustry.
Our entire treatment industrytoday is now medication-assisted
treatment.
So, yeah, it's really sad, andthe interesting thing too is
that we've seen a massivedecrease in incarceration.
When a person's incarcerated andthey don't have access to the
drugs, it gives them the abilityto get clear, you know.

(01:08:53):
And so, instead of usimplementing intentional
services inside of theseenvironments, we're just letting
people kill themselves in thecommunity.
We're decriminalizing the drugs.
We're, you know.
And so, honestly, if thegovernment wasn't complicit in
the problem, I would argue thatthey would still utilize the

(01:09:15):
criminal justice system as atool, and that's what we fail to
realize.
It's nothing more than a tool.
Right that we have control overhow that tool works, we're
literally throwing the baby outwith the bathwater, and what
we're experiencing because of itis exponential death.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
We're focusing more on sending billions of dollars
to other countries while we'rewalking over dead bodies in our
own, as it said.
So as a mom of three, you knowyou got a chance to speak on
that and talk about your family,and how did being a mother feel
you with recovery and purposeand inspire you to do the things
you're at today for maybe a lotof women in trucking as well?

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Yeah Well, I used for about 20 straight years over
the failure of being a parent.
Um, you know, after my kidswere born, I continued to use
and it spiraled because I feltlike a failure and I allowed my
messaging to dominate my lifeand convince me that I couldn't
choose anything other than usingdrugs because I felt so

(01:10:24):
shameful about failing my kids.
So when I finally got clean at40, um, I was determined to do
everything in my power to bestrong and stable.
Um, I knew that there would bea potential that my kids
wouldn't want anything to dowith me.
Uh, my youngest child did come.
I've raised her for the last 10plus years, um, thankfully.

(01:10:47):
So she was my last chance attrying to get that right.
Uh, I thought I'd failed around15, which I talked a little bit
about that but, um, but I didnot.
Seems that she's doing good andwe're good, and she lives with
me now.
So both of my daughters livewith me, both of my living
children live with me.
Um, but you know what I've doneis a first.

(01:11:07):
But you know what I've done isa first.
The thing that is most importantto me on a daily basis is my
recovery, that I get up and I donot put any kind of mood
changing, mind alteringsubstance into my body.
I knew that if I could maintainthat, that everything else
would improve in the process.
Over the last 12 and a halfyears because I have 12 and a
half years clean I've had to dosome counseling, I've had to do

(01:11:31):
some real work on relationshipsand I've done it all because,
even though I wanted to quitbecause I'm going to tell you,
relationship building,strengthening and recovering is
the hardest work I've ever doneI'd rather go climb a rock wall
with no anything on and I'mterrified of heights.
I just want to say that.
Then, to have to work onrelationship stuff, because
that's the hard stuff, that'sthe stuff where I feel like a

(01:11:54):
failure, but I just keep showingup for it and I try to be
accountable and I let my kidshave their space, and sometimes
I don't, sometimes I cuss themout, sometimes I am great,
sometimes I can roll with it, uh, sometimes I'm hormonal, but
you know, I just show up, I showup, uh, and I also have
requirements for how I'm goingto be treated and so, and those

(01:12:19):
are boundaries that I have tomaintain Right.
So, and that's one of the beenone of the best things that I've
tried.
All kinds of things with myparenting.
Parenting out of guilt neverworks, only ever makes the
problem worse, makes the kidwant more and be crappier.
Um, but consequences the wordno.
Following through and beingstern best thing I've ever done

(01:12:41):
with my kids, best thing.
And they show up based on how,how consistent I am.
So the coming out has been hardand it's been beautiful.
It's been beautiful and it'spossible If I could.
I was a piece of crap as aparent.
I abandoned my first two kidsto the state so, and now my

(01:13:04):
relationships are good.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
That took hard work.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Seriously, I'm still working on it every day.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Thank you.
Great example.
It shows that it's possible.
I mean, I think, a lot of thesecommunities that we're able to
be a part of and also help otherpeople to see that they're
there, like faith groups,business support groups or, like
you said, the work you're doing, also without OUT, so I think
that's great.
Um, um, so.

(01:13:33):
So if you could go back andtalk to your younger self, what
was the first thing you wouldsay?
It's one of the questions Ilike to ask people when, when
they get into the truckingindustry or or any any field
that they've gotten into for awhile, and and um, now they look
back and say, hey, you know, ifI could talk to that younger
version of myself.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
What would you say?
I would probably tell myselfthat I'm going to make it, that
it's going to be really, reallyhard.
I don't know if I'd try tochange anything, because I'm
where I'm supposed to be.

(01:14:13):
You know, the self-centeredpart of me says that I would go
and try to help my sondifferently, so that he is still
here today, but I don't know ifmy mission would be where it's
at right now if I hadn'texperienced that.
So I would tell myself that Iwill learn to value all of the

(01:14:34):
hard things that felt unfair,and that all I have to do is
keep on sticking with it, andthen I have everything that it
takes to make it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
I can just imagine those sessions in prison.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
Yeah, they're good.

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
They're good.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
They're good.

Speaker 1 (01:14:53):
Nice.
So yeah, so thank you so muchfor being a part of this journey
.
I want to take you away fromall the many other things that
you got going and I wish you thebest, much success.
Even when things get tight andhard, like I said, financially
things can change in the blinkof an eye.
They will they keep pushingyeah?

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm grateful.

Speaker 1 (01:15:18):
Yeah, and that brought us two together just to
be able to talk.
It's inspiring for me as well,so I can take this back to my
family as well.
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Thank you, and let me know when you want to come to
Washington, because I'll takeyou into that prison, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
I love it.
Hey, that'd be good for a lotof people to see.
You know it's, you know you gotto such as big fear of
something, but yet you can seewhere is there something better
within that system.
You don't have to go to the bad.
I'm sure there's bad there.
You don't have to go to there'sbad everywhere.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
Well, honestly, I don't even know.
I don't like to call thingsgood or bad.
I like to say things just arewhat they are.
There are hard things andcomfortable things everywhere we
go, but it's what we make it.
We choose what things are goingto be like right, and I want to
tell you, in Washington stateprisons they're pretty chill for
the most part, um, but you know, when we utilize that time and

(01:16:17):
this is what I said to myselfthe last time I was locked up if
you play your cards right, thisis the last time you're ever
going to have this kind ofunadulterated time to work on
yourself, and that's what I tryto give to my guys.
Use this time for what it isand let's walk out the man, the
dad, the brother, the husband,the whatever that we intended to

(01:16:41):
be in our home.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Wow, beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
And then too, I think , you, you hold up, you host a
show yourself I do people get ahold of you or listen to any
more of your great stories andexperiences and insights um,
yeah, you can find me on socialmedia, on facebook, instagram,
uh, and linkedin as b, jennyburton, g-i-n-n-y, b-u-r-t-o-n.
And you can find me on YouTube,modern America, with Jenny

(01:17:10):
Burton.
We tell the real life storieson the other side of policy, and
I'm on X, but I don't reallyengage a lot there as Bromley
Mai, so yeah, X is a is a wildplace.
Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
I don't do enough political stuff to qualify for X
have been on a path or up apath, it's not just about that

(01:17:54):
path.
It's about the personalredemption that you can find
within yourself to put thistransforming purpose back to
life.
Transforming whole systems issomething you do very well and
we thank you for making thatcontribution to society and
helping out so many individualsto better themselves and their
families.
So I want to champion you tokeep going Before we go.

(01:18:16):
I want to also what's one finalpiece of advice you want to
leave with our listeners beforetrying to rebuild or reinvent or
save themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
Yeah, you have what it takes.
You do you have what it takes,but it doesn't matter if I tell
you, you have to tell yourself,because everything that we tell
ourself is the truth.
Nice, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
All right.
Well, thanks again, jennyBurton.
We have her here on the showand her honesty and hope for
today.
If this conversation has moved,you share it with someone that
needs it and hope for today.
If this conversation has moved,you share it with someone that
needs it, someone you love andyour family.
Continue to reach out to thoseindividuals that may be out
there in the truck alone.
Give them a helping hand aswell, because you never know
who's listening or on the otherend of the radio or the podcast

(01:19:04):
app, so who might need an edgeto make a good comeback story.
So I'm your host, truckin' Ray,and that's Delivered.