What Your Prison (the Result of Lies) Looks Like

When you have been put in chains by a lie, there is a familiar pattern to the prison:

• You can no longer make decisions based on what you want, you are at the whim of those who insist they make them for you.
• You are told what to eat, when, where and how much. Choice is no longer yours.
• Your housing is all paid for, but it is much less then you hoped for when you dreamed of life for your family
• Your fellow prisoners keep telling you that they have this figured out, that there is a way to game this thing for benefit.
• You would go outside your Cell, but the violence and murder in the area is too much.
• You have to be very careful what you say, even what you say in private is monitored.
• You are not allowed to defend yourself at any level. Your warden is assigned to defend you...but he doesn't do a great job of it.
• You are allowed to go out in the yard on occasions where you can bask in the sun and pretend things are OK...but you know in your heart something is wrong.
• You are promised favors because you act a certain way. You are still expecting that favor. It isn't coming, but you keep hoping.
• Everyone around you tells you this is the new normal, this is the way it is, and you can't change it.
• When you talk to others about the situation they blame everyone and everything else. This warden blames the system. It's all someone else.

When you came here the hope was that you would be able to survive in community. Instead the warden has further segregated the cell blocks. You live with folks he determines are like you, others live with folks he determines are like them etc. AND.. he makes sure that the fear and distrust is such that you stay in your cell block.

You find yourself going along to get along. It's not what you wanted. But going against the grain of everyone around you is too painful. A few have, they have been shunned or worse.

There is no escape from inside this prison that you willingly walked into, took the chains and wrapped them around your own legs and locked your cell door. No escape until you make a quality decision to begin to escape. It will mean that nearly everything you thought you knew, everything you thought you believed, everything you were certain of comes into question. This prison is constructed completely by lies and can only be torn down by powerful truth. The truth to tear is down is right before you, the walls built of lies was built one brick at a time and every brick that must come down will hurt, will embarrass, will shame. But it's the only way out of prison.

Or you can choose to stay...who knows the warden just might make you a trustee to help him hold others in prison. That is a choice you must make. It starts by rejecting the lies you have been told and believed all your life.

Choose well.