Is There Life After Therapy?

I recently heard an interview on NPR with the film director and documentarian Werner Herzog whose newest film “Into the Abyss” focuses on the ripple effects of criminal acts on both the perpetrators and victims of murder.

In the interview, Herzog says that when you ask inmates who have been sentenced to life or who are on death row about their life’s regrets and their conclusions as to - “how should we conduct our lives? How should we raise our children?” the remarkably similar thread you hear from them is how important small family values are, how much family matters. They talk about how important it is that we listen to our children, attend to them and be present for them and that this is what matters in the end. Many of them have learned from what they didn't have in their own upbringings or from the poor choices they've made as parents.

The convicted are teaching us that beyond all the isolation one must feel in jail, it is also a place that provides a great deal of distance from one’s life-  from which observation, reflection and pausing can take place. Inmates have an imposed pause. We don’t. So it takes some intention, discipline  and motivation to create this space for ourselves in our own lives.