Men's Action Network

01/22/2025

The December issue of Fargo INC had a familiar face in a wonderful article about Beyond the Barriers!

What started out as volunteering each week at the jail for the last two years has now turned into a non-profit with a mission to break the cycle of trauma, addiction, and incarceration.

I'm looking forward to this journey and cannot do it without your support.

👉 Donate now: https://square.link/u/aYadjZcw
👉 Learn more: https://beyondthebarriers.com
👉 Watch the video interviews:
beyondthebarriers.com/testimonials

https://issuu.com/fmspotlight/docs/fi_dec24_1/80

Good marketing can make the difference between standing out and being ignored.

01/21/2025

Two years ago, I stepped into the Cass County Jail to teach a program called Beyond the Barriers.

My hope was that the high-impact approach to emotional intelligence and cognitive behavioral training I developed and used with private clients and other programs would be just as impactful for the men in jail.

Full transparency… I was terrified.

Standing in front of a room of 50 men in orange jumpsuits and talking about thoughts and emotions didn’t seem like it would go well.

I paced the classroom taking deep breaths, trying to find the courage to press the button and have them send the men in, when I heard a voice over the intercom ask, “Are you ok?”

I forgot there were cameras in the classroom.

“Yeah, send them in.”

This mission was more important than my fears. I knew how it felt to believe you didn’t matter, to feel you are less than, and filled with hopelessness and anxiety. These men needed to know they could overcome the greatest barrier in their lives, themselves. Most importantly, they had to believe they were worth changing.

Over 1,500 men have participated in the program since that night. I’ve consistently watched men who had been through every treatment imaginable and given up on themselves, find success. In an effort to understand how and why this program was so impactful, I began to collect data and conduct interviews with them.

Here’s what I learned:
* 76% experienced significant childhood trauma.
* 94% had been jailed more than once (an average of 18 times.)
* 90% have tried other treatment programs in the past.
* 92% found this program more effective or much more effective than any treatment they'd tried.
* 100% reported changing their behavior for better outcomes.

The stories of transformation inspired me to expand this last November where I began working with incarcerated women in addition to the men and make the program available outside the jail for those who were formerly incarcerated and in recovery.

This journey has been life-changing and powerful, but no longer sustainable as a volunteer. It became clear I had to make Beyond the Barriers a non-profit organization.

My mission is to empower incarcerated individuals with emotional intelligence and cognitive behavior skills so they can break the cycles of trauma, addiction, and incarceration.

I need your support and help – I want to invite you on this journey with me.

I’ve partnered with Deep Roots Recovery to be our fiscal sponsor until we are officially a 501(c)3 organization, which means your donation will be tax deductible.

This journey can’t continue without your support. Together, we CAN break the cycles of trauma, addiction, and incarceration.
👉 Donate now: https://square.link/u/aYadjZcw�
👉 Learn more: https://beyondthebarriers.com
👉 Watch the video interviews: beyondthebarriers.com/testimonials

10/30/2024

I was walking the inmates through the Cognitive Transformation Model™ during the “Beyond the Barriers” class last Wednesday and one of the new inmates raised his hand and asked me if it was possible to gain control of that first impulse where you react without thinking.

“My entire life, from my father to life in gangs, I was wired to react without hesitation. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I hurt people I care about, but I don’t know how to stop it. How do you rewire years of thinking like this?”

I used the model to show him why he reacted the way he did and how he can change it. As I continued on with the class I could see from the look on his face that it “clicked” and he was seeing his entire life through a different lens. It’s a look that I see with each of my clients and several times a week in the BTB class.

Afterwards, he approached me and said, “this makes so much sense.”

He began to share things he experienced that most people could never comprehend, not as an excuse for his behavior, but that he now understood as to why he felt and behaved the way he did.

As a child, he endured incredible torture and abuse, actually scoring a 10 out of 10 on the A.C.E. assessment. As a child, a form of reward was his dad allowing him to smoke crack with him. This guy has been to some of the toughest prisons in the country.

“Can you help me with this?” he asked.

“Absolutely, just put in a request and I’ll come see you.”

As I was packing up I saw a “Beyond the Barriers” program sheet on one of the tables. I picked it up and saw his name on it along with a note he had written: Best class I’ve been to in years. Got me thinking about some real stuff.

On Friday, armed only with my laminated copy of the Cognitive Transformation Model™, I went to the jail to see him.

He greeted me with a big smile, and we sat across from one another, separated by a thick sheet of glass. The first thing he told me was how he prevented a fight between two other inmates the day before. During the altercation, one of the guys got aggressive with him but he managed to calm him down and the two inmates were able to resolve the issue.

“I’ve never done anything like that before. It felt pretty good.”

I said, “Good for you man. What prompted you to get involved?

“This class,” he said. “And before, if that guy would have done what he did to me when I was trying to break things up, I would have taken care of him myself.”

“Wow!” I said. “Could you actually see the model in how and why they were reacting?”

“YES! It was crazy!”

We talked in-depth and I walked him through an exercise that not only tells him he has worth, but shows it to him and shows him how it feels to have it.

As he described a fond memory he recalled, he stopped mid-sentence and put his head down.

“You okay man?” I asked.

He said nothing and silently stared down at the stainless-steel counter on the other side of the glass. It must have been 30 seconds before he finally raised his hands up to his eyes and pressed on them.

“Hey, it’s ok man. Look at me,” I said.

He looked up at me, his eyes were red and filled with tears.

“It’s ok to cry man. It takes courage to cry in front of another man.”

I told him how I once cried in front of 400 people while telling my story and I was incredibly embarrassed. But afterward, so many people came up to me and said, “I could never do what you just did. That takes a lot of courage.”

“I haven’t cried in 10 years man,” he said.

I said, “Thank you for trusting me with that. I’m honored.”

We often live in a dichotomy between belief in our ability to change but the bad behaviors of others are just who they are as a person. We believe we control our emotions and actions but say, “you made me feel______.” We can justify our actions in defending ourselves but attribute poor behaviors of others to just being evil.

The truth is, everyone is capable in changing but most of us don’t know how or why we revert back to old behaviors over time. This leads to us to subconsciously think we are a barrier preventing us from reaching our goals.

You are not a barrier. You are an obstacle, and an obstacle can be overcome with greater effort or a change in strategy. If you put more effort into an ineffective strategy, you just reach frustration faster.

Learn a new strategy.