I recently had the joy of reconnecting with friend and colleague Stephanie Burns. She and I first connected about four years ago when I attended her Surviving and Thriving event that created a space for survivors to share their stories and art.
These days, Stephanie has launched a new project, Healing Courage. As a part of this project, she is hosting Consentric Circles (a play on the word consent and concentric) to bring people together in conversation because she, just as I do, believes that healing and social change occurs via powerful, heartfelt, authentic conversations.
I recently attended one of her circles, and as I stood with other women and explored topics such as what impact the trauma had on us heart, body and mind, what responses we got (or didn't get) from our family and community, and what experiences we had navigating the "justice" system, I was most impacted by this final topic.
Justice.
I reflected on my own experience navigating this desire for something like justice. My grandfather was never taken to court. It wasn't even explored as an option, and he died about a year after the abuse ended.
Because of this, the "traditional" method of obtaining justice through a court trial and some sort of punishment wasn't an option.
Because of this, my personal definition has evolved over time as I've wrestled with this and is the following:
"Justice is to live my life to the fullest, to reclaim all that I am that he tried to steal away, and to embrace each new opportunity to be the woman I am meant to be.
Justice is every client who reclaims his/her life too."
For me, the most important word there is "reclaim".
Ultimately, I believe justice is about a journey of reclamation, and there are many roads that can lead to this. I was particularly excited to learn more about transformative justice (you can read more about this in the link below!).
Now, as it happened, a few days later, while watching season 7, episode 4 of Orange Is the New Black, the main theme was crime and justice!
I was profoundly moved by the closing monologue,
"Often we don't have the capacity to deal with the chaos of life. Often there is no way to prepare for its shocks and blows. But if we are perpetually turning away from the things that are too hard to face, we are defining ourselves by what we are seeking to avoid. No one escapes this life without experiencing pain or injustice. And some people are dealt far more hardship than others. If you feel like there's no way out, if you feel hopeless, like no one cares, how do we restore justice in a world that is profoundly unfair? What do we do when we reach the place when we don't know what to do? There's no easy answer. Punishment is not the answer. Giving up is not the answer. We have to find our own answers and that can feel like its beyond our strength. But all we have to do first is try."
To trying,
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