JUDGED

WEEK 5: ADOPTING A NON-JUDGEMENTAL ATITUDE. Modesto had his head on the table. "What happened?" "They caught me smoking hash in my bed. The guard walked by and smelled it. I'm afraid they're going to send me to the big house." He says, "I was so nervous I couldn't sleep...I was jumping around like a monkey. It was the only thing I had at the time to help me sleep." I know this group isn't about psychology, but the therapist in me couldn't hold back the interpretation: "It looks to me like you like this place too much...it's as if you enjoy being punished." His face softened, as he started talking about being little and being beaten with a broom handle by his mother. With his handicap (his hands are twisted from his cerebral palsy, his spine severely bent, and his legs are bowed)his family had no choice but to throw him out in the animal pen and make him live with the goats, beating him daily to "get the devil off of him." I choked back the sharp rush of emotions, trying to put this in perspective with my world view. Looking around the group of 10 men, there was not a dry eye in the house. I think it was the first time I've been in a group of men who were all crying. Not the sobbing kind of crying, but each one there, present, looking deeply at Modesto, and softly feeling their own sadness and their own losses. We ended the session with a walking meditation, step one, I breathe in, step 2 I accept this moment, step 3, I breathe in, step 4, no judgement.