The Surprising Ways Being a Counselor in a Women's Prison Prepared Me for Copywriting
Wait… what?
My first counseling job right out of the gate was at a women’s prison.
In Pierre, South Dakota, the blink-and-miss-it capital city.
(the locals pronounce it “peer”, just to be contrary, probably)
My first couple days were just me trying not to get caught gawking and staring, inconspicuously deep breathing, and attempting not to look naive or gullible. I’m sure no one could spot that I’d had only 11 months of education in my addiction studies program and was fully out of my element.
I was still a full-time college student.
I applied at the prison because one of my professors told me to… and I got the job.
Then… drumroll please… 15 days into the job I found out I’d be in charge of my own group starting on Monday, meeting for over 32 hours per week in a small, airless conference room. I’d be in charge of 9 convicted felons- all diagnosed with methamphetamine dependence- in addition to lots of other charges and behavioral health challenges.
The Questions of Internal Panic started slapping me right in the face:
How can anyone believe that I’m qualified for this?
Seriously?
Why would these inmates even listen to me? I’m a damned freshman in college at age 38 and they’re hardened criminals who are bored and angry, probably.
Is this even safe?
What am I thinking?
I cannot possibly do this. I’m in so far over my head.
This is waaaaaaay too much work… and for a pitiful $16/hour?
I need to rethink my entire existence.
Plot Twist: It gets worse.
Counselors were not allowed tasers or pepper spray… nothing for self-defense.
Only wall cameras to record the inevitable carnage… to view it after the tragedy unfolds.
“Well, we see what happened and how that poor new counselor was stabbed with a sharpened toilet brush for playing When Doves Cry on her iPod one too many times. That’s a shame.”
Maybe I’d get lucky and they’d play Prince at my going away party, from my hospital bed.
These ladies would give you the once-over and decide immediately what you were about… and wow, were they good at knowing pretty quickly if you were real or fake.
And you’d better be real, or you would get zero respect or true engagement from them. You also had better be okay with displaying daily who you really were and what you stood for. You needed to be confident in who you were at your core and not be afraid to share it. Be fast on your feet. They could smell lack of confidence a mile away. Also indifference.
Helping prison inmates and helping copywriting clients have some commonalities… and the first one is COLLABORATION.
These women taught me *everything* I always needed to know but didn’t know I didn’t know. Every day was a discovery call, a chance to see if you were a good fit, a chance to see if they would allow you to help them improve.
Collaboration is listening, contributing, and learning. And wow did I learn a lot.
I learned that the majority of prison inmates are just like everyone else if it hadn’t been for one unlucky choice or two. And that growing up surrounded by abuse and dysfunction can lead you to the kind of choices that end you up in prison.
I learned that there are two types of counselors:
the ones who know that they’d be in the same orange jumpsuit if they’d been born into different circumstances and made a couple of different choices
the ones who believe they’d *never* sink so low and that they have superior morals
(I’m in the former category, in case you were wondering. There are too many variables in this world for me to think differently and I personally don’t believe in lying to myself.)
It turns out that when you're authentic and curious, people communicate more openly with you. If you ask open-ended questions with the intent to listen and learn, even closed-off people will eventually open up.
Who knew?
If you ask questions with the intention of educating yourself and not to exploit your subject, they’ll feel a whole lot more comfortable with you. If you’re genuine and nonjudgmental, untrusting people will start to trust you.
I took another deep breath, relaxed into it… and flourished.
Stepping outside of one’s comfort zone can be more rewarding than imagined. Seeing so many things from a completely different perspective and embracing and integrating them for the betterment of all is a pretty great definition of collaboration.
OK, this is when you ask me “Are you seriously comparing your copywriting clients to inmates… in prison rehab?”
Yes, absolutely, I am.
Another area where copy clients and prison inmates intersect is in NEEDING HELP.
Many of the women I had the privilege of working with were the strongest ones walking the planet, and we should all be so lucky to learn from them. They wanted to learn and to grow, to leave better than they were when they arrived. To not forever be labeled an “inmate”.
They wanted to have a voice, to be seen and be heard.
They wanted the things we all want:
less stress in their lives, and more joy
more positivity, and more peace
the personal freedom to spend their time as they wished
to learn how to support themselves and their families by doing something they believed in and enjoyed, not something they were forced to do out of necessity
to figure out what their dreams are and to go after them
Sound familiar?
They needed an advocate, a mediator… someone on their team to speak for them and to teach them how to speak for themselves. Someone to filter out the unnecessary noise so the important stuff could be seen, heard, and understood.
That was me. I held up a mirror when I felt they were headed in the wrong direction. I reported mistreatment by staff when I saw it. I threw the box of citizen-donated books authored by Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly into the dumpster (ssh, don't tell on me).
And sometimes I even cried with them.
See the similarities?
I offered them the same value and guidance I offer my copy clients. Well, except for maybe the crying part, which is *not* included in any of my bundle packages. Well, not yet anyway. I guess there are a lot of variables in play here too, so, I suppose I won’t rule it out.
We all want the same basic things out of life. Some of us just have further to go in order to attain them because our starting lines weren’t equally placed.
Whether you’re a therapist, an energy healer, a life coach, a wellness retreat facilitator, or an inmate on parole starting over again… we all want to have our voices be heard and understood, and to do the best we can with the life we’re given. To grab all the do-overs that come our way.
We all want success and fulfillment.
We all need help, and we all need to feel zero shame in the asking.
Come along with me, and #embracethemaybe.
