This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Terry Liggins is the founder and chief executive officer at the Hurdle Life Coach Foundation.
Today, we speak with him about feeling grateful for and celebrating all things — even if they feel little.
Plus, we talk about creating micro-communities of support within a macro-community that seeks to exclude.
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The following transcript was auto-generated.
Lori Walsh:
Terry Liggins is founder and chief executive officer at the Hurdle Life Coach Foundation, and he is back in the studio. We're going to continue our conversation about how supporting people dealing with trauma is so important to his work and to our lives.
We're going to talk also about how to support people exiting the criminal justice system, especially people who have been incarcerated.
Terry, welcome back.
Terry Liggins:
I'm so thrilled to be back.
Lori Walsh:
I was talking to someone just yesterday about what it means to be institutionalized. And I remember the actor — it's before your time — Charles S. Dutton, who was a formerly incarcerated and a very famous actor on Broadway and on television, talking about how when he was in prison, he was already planning to be out of prison by trying not to incorporate certain behaviors that he didn't want to take to the outside.
And I think that was one of the earliest times that I really thought about recidivism in that way, and that has been on my heart this week.
So I'm hoping we can talk a little bit about that with you, but I also want to know what's been on your heart this week.
Terry Liggins:
Yeah. Well, I tell you, I practice gratitude and to stay in my gratitude I just believe and have come to find that gratitude has a way of turning what we have into enough. And a lot of us struggle with seeing so far down the road and the things that we don't possess yet that we start to really feel that I'm not enough. And sometimes we'll get reflective and we'll be thinking about the things that we could have done differently and then now we're living in a regret or a shame.
But gratitude keeps you right here, right now and it turns what you have into enough. And so despite where I've been or where I'm going, Lori, I'm right here. I'm right now. I'm grateful to be here.
Lori Walsh:
Good place to be.
Terry Liggins:
Gratitude is in my heart.
Lori Walsh:
You said I am enough, not just I have enough, but I am enough. So part of this is, I mean, we could spend an hour talking about materialism and consumer culture and what we consider enough in goods and services, but also I'm very intrigued. I am enough. That's about self-worth. I am enough even if you're having a really bad day, even if you have things that you really wish you could take back in your life.
Terry Liggins:
Yep, I'm enough.
Lori Walsh:
I'm enough.
Terry Liggins:
Yep. And the success is in the trying. Progress is the aim. Getting a little bit better each day, and you are succeeding when you are trying. It's not necessarily a metric of how much you grow or how much you accomplish, it's that you're making an honest effort. And so here we are, all of us, woke up getting after it, trying our best, giving our best.
You are enough. I am enough. I am trying. Success is in that.
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. We talked with our teachers earlier this week about gradeless classrooms, not necessarily that there is no evaluation or no standard or no feedback. That's a misnomer. But that we're spending a lot less time on giving ourselves a mark that compares us to other people or compares us to how we were in May vs. how we are today and celebrating the learning. That can be hard because as adults, we've been taught that growing up.
Terry Liggins:
Oh yeah. Well, I saw something recently that said a lot of adulting is unlearning the things that we were taught from people that were still trying to figure it out themselves. And so the grace to give onto the people who shaped you or the environments that shaped you and to realize that you got what you got, not based on a choice of your own, your family environment, your community environment, your neighborhoods, your schools, but as an adult you mature and you get the choice to evaluate, assess and unlearn some of the things that maybe weren't not necessarily a best practice, but just wasn't a healthy perspective or a healthy frame. And you're right, it's so woven in thick to douse things.
We tell our kids a lot of times, "Don't do this and don't do that." I saw a video this morning and a mother was kind of admonishing their child for drawing on the wall in crayon. We all seen that as parents, our children mark up the wall, but do we see that as an expression of creativity and excitement? And are we really cultivating them as people who are expressing themselves or we don't do that? And you kind of admonish. And so we are trained to kind of do certain things, but we can choose later in life to assess that, rework that, unlearn some of the things that not necessarily building us up to feel like we're enough and have kind of worked to make us feel like we are not enough.
Lori Walsh:
Our mistakes now can be so amplified because of social media. If you do something, I mean, it's hard to get people to forget that you've done something that maybe you regret. It's easier to find out everybody's complete life story. But also, I've always said the things that maybe my generation got away with when we were kids, when my daughter was in high school, it's like, "Oh, you can't do that." I mean, you just cannot do that anymore.
That has turned into not that we were out creating great crimes, some of the low-key things that you used to say, that's just kids being kids, are no longer. The consequences are high.
So let's talk a little bit about dealing with consequences and living them out and trying to figure out how you can be grateful for where you're at even though you're recovering from something really, really hard.
Terry Liggins:
Yeah. Well, consequences are a good thing. Accountability is a good thing. When I do my work helping adults that are coming out of jail or prison, one of the first things I work with them on is accepting responsibility for the choice that they made and that the consequence of prison and jail. If we're going to blame or fault we're going to look at our own selves and our choice that we made that caused that thing to happen. And when you can step into a place of accountability and acceptance with your consequence vs. the blame, the shame or the regret of it. You can't undo what you've already done. Now your task is to be in the reverberation of the consequence, and accepting it, accepting the consequence.
And it doesn't mean that other dynamics and variables couldn't have been different or other people or systems don't have room for improvement because the biggest space in the room is the room for improvement, yes, but there's also this room for improvement within myself to just be accountable and accept the consequence. And so once you first get there to accepting the consequence, you can move away from the bitter and blame. And now when there's no bitter and blame there, now we can really start to have a conversation about what are our next steps. What goals are we going to set now? Now that I'm not bitter, I'm not blaming, I've forgiven myself and others, now we move forward into setting goals in a positive and progressive way.
Lori Walsh:
How hard is that for people to accept? Because sometimes by accepting the accountability or the consequence you're also admitting your own vulnerability. And you're admitting your own humanity. It can be a lot easier to blame.
Terry Liggins:
What I find that's helpful is when you're working with someone who's been there too. If the person who's encouraging you to hold themselves accountable and accept consequences is a person who's like, "I've been there and the same thing happened to me and when I arrived to the place of liberation from bitterness and from blame, I've been able to now do this." And so now what they have is hope. They have real hope. Hope helps people to believe and to do things that are otherwise difficult or seemingly impossible. Inspiration is a tool.
We inspire by being transparent and honest with ourselves, thereby giving us the ability to be honest with others. And so it is difficult. It is difficult to put most of the blame or all of the aim on me, but it's also the wisest thing you can do because you're the greatest influencer on the trajectory of your life more so than a system or your family or your friends. Me, myself, I am the greatest influence on my life and so you are the greatest influence on your life. So when you put the accountability on you, then you're thereby now working with the greatest influence in your life. And so now it's a wise action too, to do that.
Lori Walsh:
How do we get to the point where we start trusting ourselves again? Because if you did make a choice—
Terry Liggins:
That's a great question.
Lori Walsh:
How do we get to the point where we start trusting our own choices again?
Terry Liggins:
That's so good. I can see why you have this job you got.
That is a journey. Trust is a journey. I mean, you think about how difficult it is to regain trust from other people that you lost, let alone what it is to trust myself again. And so I guess the short is that that takes time. It takes making a good decision and reaping the fruit of that good decision, making a good decision, again, reaping the fruit of that decision and doing that in a repetitive process. I think for me as a coach and as a mentor, it's really helping people to have a patience with the process.
That this change in the person's behavior, in their lifestyle, in their conduct, it's not an overnight change. It's a marathon and not a sprint. And so we're looking to really sign up for an 18- to 36-month experience with adults that were attempting to rehabilitate or rehab those who have been institutionalized. I mean, you talked about that at the top of our conversation and the impact of the rhythm and regimen of an institution that makes you stand and be counted as a number that puts you in a line for food and you don't get a choice on that food, that food's already prepared.
All these different things that the institution coordinates, and now when you're released and choice comes running, waving back in and you get to choose things, but you haven't been choosing things for a very long time. It takes time to rehabilitate someone who's been in an institution for five years, seven years or even longer or even one year. And so really having the patience with that process, but also really helping people to make good decisions. Experience the benefits of a good decision and do that on repeat and so that confidence can grow back into themselves on their ability to make good choices.
Lori Walsh:
And that means you have to pause to reflect on the benefits of the good decision.
Terry Liggins:
Celebrate them.
Lori Walsh:
Celebrate them.
Terry Liggins:
Yeah, celebrate the little things. Yeah.
Lori Walsh:
And sometimes I think it's hard to even acknowledge the benefit because like you said, it's a journey. You may make some really good choices and it might be slow coming, but those good choices do in fact build on each other
Terry Liggins:
And celebrate them. Cheer people on for being on time, for work, cheer people on for each and another day of sobriety or abstinence away from their drug of choice, cheer people on for showing up in places where they didn't show up before. And so really celebration is a really big component, a key to helping to build confidence as well.
Lori Walsh:
How do communities help do that when some communities can default to suspicion, doubt, judgment, othering?
Terry Liggins:
I think the key is to create micro-communities within the macro-community. So there's always going to be this bigger or broader or other perspective that's there, but where is the micro community where the stigma is challenged or gone where you're not seen as just a felon, but you're seen as a credible messenger, where you're not just seen as an addict, but you're seen as an advocate? Finding these environments and creating environments where people can get a new identity, a refreshed identity in the one that the society wants to place upon you for their own reasons and their own gains.
Because society in some ways benefits from keeping people over there and keeping people out of things, but we also benefit when we include. And part of my work as an advocate is helping our stakeholders, our traditional stakeholders, our greater community, see the value in turning an addict into an advocate or a formerly incarcerated person into a credible messenger and mentor.
The message is there, Lori. Mentorship matters. Well, who better to provide mentorship to formerly incarcerated people than a formerly incarcerated person who is now succeeding in doing well?
Lori Walsh:
Yeah. You're not a felon. You're a credible messenger. I love that transition because it baked into it is the desire for credibility which goes back to how do I see myself? I see myself as someone whose credibility matters and I think everybody can relate to that.
Terry Liggins:
Correct.
Lori Walsh:
That's what the Hurdle Life Coach organization is up to right now. So people who are just tuning in for the first time and now love what you had to say they're going to look you up, what are some of the things you're working on right now?
Terry Liggins:
Well, check us out for sure at hurdlelifecoachfoundation.com. We just graduated our second youth program so we're back into the relationship building, fundraising, having conversations with donors and corporate sponsors so that we can build up that operational capacity again. We're just a startup nonprofit. We don't have funding that extends us out through years. We're kind of doing this thing on a quarter by quarter basis. So really we're looking for more corporate sponsors, individual donors, grant opportunities. That would be the way that you can help us now because when we get those dollars we'll be able to continue to do the mentorship and coaching for the youth and adults that we attract at Hurdle Life Coach Foundation.
Lori Walsh:
Terry Liggins, it's so nice to see you again for this little happy hour. We sat down this happy hour with Terry Liggins.
Terry Liggins:
Thanks for having me.
Lori Walsh:
We'll see you next time. Thanks.
