BOUNDARIES & LOVED ONES
Basics. Obvious. No romance. At least two years, if there’s something. Too much power differential. Plus, we encourage everyone in reentry to not get into a relationship for many months; its hard enough to work on your own life in this reentry.
LOVED ONES JOINING THE TEAM
Joe Ray’s daughter. Leroy’s wife. Antonio’s wife—then kids. Gabe’s wife. Wally’s brother. Wonderful. Their world becomes more real—someone in your area, able to join you for dinner or a meeting, not just in a distant facility. And it’s immensely encouraging for loved ones, who feel very alone and overwhelmed sometimes having to support or communicate with their loved one in prison. They might be shy at first—Who are these people??—but most every loved one has been deeply relieved to know their incarcerated loved one has a team of kind, non pushy, supportive people. Maybe they’ve never had people in a church not judge them or their incarcerated loved one. Can be really healing.
But keep focus on releasing friend.
Doesn’t get along with ex; but happy to have the team help dad supply a used laptop to their child, without having to deal with him directly.
Or a brother who isn’t in much contact with brother, but has found healing in this group that loves his brother. Sometimes needs to step back if brother is mad at him, other times is available to step in and offer support or contact.
Good to have loved one visit a few meetings, feel supported, know who you are.
Don’t triangulate: don’t go through them for info. You have your own relationship. Be part of a same team.
“Sometimes it’s easier to open up to a stranger than to a relative.”
MANIPULATION
Many men and women in prison have to put a face, use people to get what they want.
That’s part of why we take resources off the table in One Parish One Prisoner—while they are incarcerated. When we’re getting money on our accounts, why would we tell people anything other than what they want to hear?
Rarely can a group be manipulated. You’re part of a team.
Only individuals can get hustled. So stick together.
Don’t let one person have the “inside” track, the “special” relationship, where the rest of the team leans back and hears about all they’re learning together.
Which leads us to the real danger—what opens any of us to being manipulated:
Codependency
I’ll speak from personal experience.
MANIPULATION is partners with codependency. I want you to be lovingly real with the people in your group—who are two or three people who are susceptible to manipulation? How guarded are you among others? The invitation for you, with guard rails, is to assess how to step closer or step backward.
—a personal history.
we are not responsible for their actions, outcome, or consequences. This makes us manipulatable, overfunctioning, and carrying what’s not ours to carry. Our deeper orientation toward what God is doing helps us all let go of our grip on outcomes and others.
Operating as a team is the best check against the most co-dependent of the group getting sucked into a pattern alone. The incarcerated person is less likely to fall into old survival habits when he/she knows there’s a team. The codependent team member won’t feel it’s all up to them. And the team can call this person back into group discernment when it becomes apparent. We need each other.
Adapted from Rich Villodas
Clear expectations. Covenant (for both sides)
Time committments, Money (relationiship over resources)
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a covenant between equals.”
Not the person “serving” and the person being “helped.” Hopefully we’ve moved past those old clothes that don’t fit this relational work. Even if we’re rolling the stones away, we discover the person leaving the tombs is just like us, just like our family, in so many ways.
And so we don’t rescue.
We don’t go to the margins to save people. We go to the margins to savor people.
Notes with Alvin 1.14.21:
Manipulation. Chris tell story / testimony of being manipulated by Neaners and Art