white collar
Guest Blog: My First Week at a Women's Federal Prison
Barbara (Basia) Skudrzyk reported to the Satellite Camp at Greenville Federal Correctional Institution on June 3, 2019 to serve a thirty-three month sentence. She has been a member of our White Collar Support Group for about nine months, and will be writing letters regularly for publication on prisonist.org.
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for staying in touch and being a tremendous guide during this life-altering experience. It’s day nine here at Greenville, and I would not be as strong and prepared if it weren’t for our team who have gone through the system or just started the process.
Having a space that is safe and not being judged is essential to accept what is part of this “captive” experience. I’m sure each Camp/FCI has its own culture and set of rules, but I believe there is one underlying current that can help anyone to get through this journey. This IS a journey, and NOT a destination. Through Progressive Prison Ministries we create an environment, a trust walk, that gives you the integral skillsets to manage a system that doesn’t have readily identifiable rules and guidelines.. In order to get through this journey you have to MOVE and think FORWARD.
My best advice in these nine days is to develop a schedule that develops you into who you want to be. In my case, I am awaiting orientation which will be in 3 – 4 weeks. Programming is very limited so the best you can do is request to be wait-listed on whatever you can join. I wake up at 5:30 am, eat breakfast at 6 am, walk the track for 3 miles and then read until lunch. After lunch I go to the education center and volunteer. Yesterday I was able to help a young woman write her first resume. She’s scheduled to leave in two weeks. It was a great exercise and confidence booster knowing she now has some preparation as she has to get a job within fourteen days of leaving.
I’ve sat in on the PAWS program to learn more about the process and some of the GED classes. If there’s an opportunity to volunteer while you’re waiting to be considered for a job – do it! Stay active. While sitting writing this letter in the library I observed a woman crocheting. She’s been in the system 8.5 years. I asked if she would be interested in teaching me how to crochet, so now I have another project to fill up my time.
As we’ve all been advised, lay low, be humble and do not gossip. There’s plenty of opportunity to engage, but don’t do it! If you open up your mouth like I’ve seen many women do, it’s equivalent to throwing food in a koi pond – the fish are on top of one another waiting for the bait. Don’t be the bait!
There’s a PA system with announcements on the hour. I’m trying to decipher what it all means. Depending on where you are and who the announcer is, you can get a lot of “WHA WHA WHA WHA WHA!”
Some advice that I would share with someone preparing is continue to keep an open mind, don’t pass judgment – when you’re frustrated run or walk it out. Don’t vent to anyone, just write it all out or lean on your group. Navigating a system of unknowns only gives you strength and resilience for the next day. Don’t fight the system and be okay with hearing “I don’t know” from many people around you.
Make sure you have your contact list of friends and family. You can have up to 100 contacts – 30 of these you can only email. Make sure you mail a contact list to yourself the day before you report, with full addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
Stay positive and take this time to read what you never had time to read. I’ve read 3 books in one week! You have a $90 budget for commissary, so plan the night before on your essential needs. You can plan on two different outcomes depending which route you take: Route 1: you can put on the pounds by purchasing extra snacks and sweets, or Route 2: focus on essentials only and budget your money on communication and development. Develop a plan to workout and lose those pounds that have developed through all the years.
Just as in any environment, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Don’t try to be a super hero or someone who thinks they can change the system. This doesn’t mean giving up. Create a culture within yourself to make yourself stronger, wiser and practical.
“Walk cheerfully and with a sincere and open heart as you can, and when you cannot always maintain this holy joy, at least do not lose heart or your trust in God” – Padre Pio
Love & Blessings,
Basia (or “Webster,” my new camp nickname!)
Guest Blog: My First Week at a Women’s Federal Prison
Barbara (Basia) Skudrzyk reported to the Satellite Camp at Greenville Federal Correctional Institution on June 3, 2019 to serve a thirty-three month sentence. She has been a member of our White Collar Support Group for about nine months, and will be writing letters regularly for publication on prisonist.org.
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for staying in touch and being a tremendous guide during this life-altering experience. It’s day nine here at Greenville, and I would not be as strong and prepared if it weren’t for our team who have gone through the system or just started the process.
Having a space that is safe and not being judged is essential to accept what is part of this “captive” experience. I’m sure each Camp/FCI has its own culture and set of rules, but I believe there is one underlying current that can help anyone to get through this journey. This IS a journey, and NOT a destination. Through Progressive Prison Ministries we create an environment, a trust walk, that gives you the integral skillsets to manage a system that doesn’t have readily identifiable rules and guidelines.. In order to get through this journey you have to MOVE and think FORWARD.
My best advice in these nine days is to develop a schedule that develops you into who you want to be. In my case, I am awaiting orientation which will be in 3 – 4 weeks. Programming is very limited so the best you can do is request to be wait-listed on whatever you can join. I wake up at 5:30 am, eat breakfast at 6 am, walk the track for 3 miles and then read until lunch. After lunch I go to the education center and volunteer. Yesterday I was able to help a young woman write her first resume. She’s scheduled to leave in two weeks. It was a great exercise and confidence booster knowing she now has some preparation as she has to get a job within fourteen days of leaving.
I’ve sat in on the PAWS program to learn more about the process and some of the GED classes. If there’s an opportunity to volunteer while you’re waiting to be considered for a job – do it! Stay active. While sitting writing this letter in the library I observed a woman crocheting. She’s been in the system 8.5 years. I asked if she would be interested in teaching me how to crochet, so now I have another project to fill up my time.
As we’ve all been advised, lay low, be humble and do not gossip. There’s plenty of opportunity to engage, but don’t do it! If you open up your mouth like I’ve seen many women do, it’s equivalent to throwing food in a koi pond – the fish are on top of one another waiting for the bait. Don’t be the bait!
There’s a PA system with announcements on the hour. I’m trying to decipher what it all means. Depending on where you are and who the announcer is, you can get a lot of “WHA WHA WHA WHA WHA!”
Some advice that I would share with someone preparing is continue to keep an open mind, don’t pass judgment – when you’re frustrated run or walk it out. Don’t vent to anyone, just write it all out or lean on your group. Navigating a system of unknowns only gives you strength and resilience for the next day. Don’t fight the system and be okay with hearing “I don’t know” from many people around you.
Make sure you have your contact list of friends and family. You can have up to 100 contacts – 30 of these you can only email. Make sure you mail a contact list to yourself the day before you report, with full addresses, phone numbers and email addresses.
Stay positive and take this time to read what you never had time to read. I’ve read 3 books in one week! You have a $90 budget for commissary, so plan the night before on your essential needs. You can plan on two different outcomes depending which route you take: Route 1: you can put on the pounds by purchasing extra snacks and sweets, or Route 2: focus on essentials only and budget your money on communication and development. Develop a plan to workout and lose those pounds that have developed through all the years.
Just as in any environment, culture eats strategy for breakfast. Don’t try to be a super hero or someone who thinks they can change the system. This doesn’t mean giving up. Create a culture within yourself to make yourself stronger, wiser and practical.
“Walk cheerfully and with a sincere and open heart as you can, and when you cannot always maintain this holy joy, at least do not lose heart or your trust in God” – Padre Pio
Love & Blessings,
Basia (or “Webster,” my new camp nickname!)
Podcast: Jeff on Seeing Beneath the Surface with Toni Quest and Peter Elvidge, Ep. 60
Jeff talks criminal justice reform, white collar ministry, overcoming opioid addiction and devotion to service with Toni Quest and Peter Elvidge on the Seeing Beneath the Surface Podcast, Episode 60.
Listen on YouTube:
Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/seeing-beneath-the-surface/id1274257837
Listen on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/1489726131120734/posts/2344533745639964?sfns=mo
Dear Jeff: The Email That Left Me Speechless
I received this email from a new member of our Confidential Online White Collar Support Group from Ohio. I was so moved that I had to share it with you. This is exactly why I became a minister to those with white collar and other nonviolent criminal justice issues. Please feel free to email your thoughts and comments to me at jgrant@prisonist.org. – Blessings, Jeff
____________________
I heard Jeff Grant on the Rich Roll podcast about a month ago and knew I had to contact him, if nothing else, just to thank him for opening up and helping me realize that there are many others going through difficult situations…many, much worse than mine.
I emailed Jeff a day or two after the podcast thanking him, and he responded immediately to let me know I could contact him at any time to discuss my situation. That was an invitation I couldn’t pass up. A day or two later I sent him a long email telling him what i had done, the guilt and shame I felt (on the podcast, Jeff clarifies the difference between guilt and shame, something I hadn’t contemplated before), that I was beating myself up daily for the mistakes I had made.
Once again, Jeff responded immediately with five points: 1. He thanked me for trusting him, 2. He told me he did a lot of the same stuff, 3. He told me there is always a way through, 4. He asked me to join his Monday night support group, telling me it’s the isolation that destroys us, and lastly, 5. he asked me how old my kids were. I immediately felt hope, and took him up on his offer to join the support group.
Approximately 13 years ago I signed someone else’s name to several loan documents as a co-signor, someone very close to me. I knew it was wrong. At the time, I thought I was just signing their name, not wanting to think it was as a co-signor…at least that’s the lie I was telling myself. I have not missed a payment since signing the docs, but that doesn’t take away from my transgression.
That was 13 years ago, and not one day has gone by where I haven’t thought about what I did, asking myself how I could have done that. On top of these loans, I piled up more and more debt, to the point of being overwhelmed, I couldn’t see a way out. I was waking up at 1, 2 or 3 times every night, and my mind would immediately go to what I had done. I kept wondering how I could have done this, that I needed to call the lenders and confess what I had done, that I could go to jail, or I could be homeless, what would I do with my belongings, how do I tell my kids and family, what would I do with my cat, and the list goes on. I was literally beating myself up to the point of living with anxiety and being depressed, seeing no way out. I would spend days at work with my head in my hands, looking at co-workers, and telling myself that they would never do something as foolish as what I did…my mind was my prison.
The situation kept getting worse as I made some money in an investment and reinvested it in another company, that has since tanked. I have no idea how it will turn out, but once again, I wondered how I could have been so foolish. I now owed the IRS money, and I have to set up a payment plan with them, just one more entity that I owe money to.
Jeff’s email helped me almost immediately, telling me that he did some of the same things I did, there is always a way through, and it’s the isolation that destroys us…those words helped me more than he knows. I still had to dial into that first support group, which was for me a huge step, one I tried to avoid, but knew it was a critical step to help me get through this, and realize that I’m not alone. I kept seeing Jeff’s words: it’s the isolation that destroys us…he was spot on. I’ve sat through three meetings to date and they’ve helped me immensely. Everyone on the call is so supportive. Everyone is at a different timeline in their journey. Some have gone to prison and are now out doing great things. Some are in the early stages of their journey, scared and wondering what the road ahead holds for them. Some talk about how they will be heading to prison shortly, and speak to their fears of the unknown.
For these people, and really for all of us, Jeff and those who have spent time in prison, are a great source of encouragement and support. I now realize I’m not alone. I realize we all make mistakes, but we’re still good people, and good things can come from our mistakes. Several in the group speak to the fact that their time in jail has actually given them more focus, and given them direction with life post-incarceration. They all want to serve and help others in some capacity. I realize, like Jeff said, there is always a way through.
Jeff called me the day after my first support group meeting and helped talk me through my situation. He made me realize I have a “business issue”, and gave me guidance on how to handle it. He laid out a course of action and suggested I seek counsel from an attorney in my area, which I did immediately (I had been avoiding this for several years). I’ve followed his similar advice and I know I’m going to be okay.
It looks like I will avoid jail time, and I now have a plan on how to “get through” this…as Jeff has pointed out, there is always a way. That being said, the little devil on my shoulder, at times, still want’s to hold me hostage to what I did, so the support group is critical to my healing process.
I’ve attended three meetings, and they’ve become a regular part of my Monday evenings. One last thing that has helped me immensely is saying the Serenity Prayer daily, I cannot change what I did, and I’m much better off accepting my mistakes than beating myself up over them. I cannot change what I did.
Thank you Jeff and the Progressive Prison Ministries Team, your support is critical to my healing process.
A Parable: The Shack, The Key and The Match, by Jeff Grant
Completely unsure how he got there, a man finds himself locked in small shack, on a sandy beach next to the ocean. The shack is very small, and somehow it is also air tight. No air can get in and he starts to panic that he will soon run out of air. There is door in the front of the shack and another at the back.
He runs to try the front door, but it is locked. No matter how hard he shakes the handle or kicks the door, there is no way to get out there. Then he runs to try the back door, but it also is locked solid. He tries to control his breathing, slow it down to save his air, but it is no use – his fear is rising.
Just then he sees a small table in the corner with two objects. A key. And a match.
Relieved, with the key in hand, he rushes again to unlock the front door and escape to the outside, filled with cool air. He tries, but the key does not fit into the the front door lock. It must be for the back. Feeling now a little uneasy, almost weary, he runs to the back door with the key. But the key will not unlock that door either. How could he not have the right key to save him? Who put him in this strange place and left him the wrong key?
The man is left with just a single match as his tool to escape his horrible situation. The air is running out and he feels it getting harder to breathe. He knows that his time is short. He will die if stays in this house any longer. Just before all the air is used up, he wildly strikes the match and uses it to set the house on fire.
The flames grow up the walls and to the ceiling. They encircle him as he cowers in a corner. The house is burning around him, it is getting hot, and the flames are too fierce to jump through. Soon the roof will collapse on top of him. At the very last second, he stands up and with all his might crashes through the burning flames, jumps out of the house and onto the beach just as the roof collapses down in a fiery crash.
Rolling on the sandy beach, he is burned, charred and nearly dead. But he survived. He makes his way to the water and collapses into the cool and comforting blue ocean. Sitting in the water, he starts to understand that although he did not possess the right key to elegantly walk out either of the doors, he had somehow been given a way to escape – even if he had to burn down the whole shack in order to survive.
After a short while he understood that the next choice is his. Will he spend the rest of his life resenting that he had not been given the right key to escape his shack without being burned, or resent all the all other people in the world that had been given the right key to escape their shacks? Or will he heal and recover, in gratitude for the second scarred and broken life he had been given?
Click here to read an excerpt from Jeff’s book, “Down & Out in Greenwich CT: An Insider’s View of Opioid Addiction, Prison and the Road Back to the Boardroom.”
Radio/Podcast: Jeff on Defy & Hustle with Noreen Ehrlich, WGCH 1490 am Greenwich, June 19, 2019
From Defy & Hustle: OPIOID ADDICTION, FRAUD, PRISON & now MINISTRY
Radio/Podcast: Hear the transformational story of Reverend Jeff Grant on Defy & Hustle Radio with Noreen Ehrlich and Kelly Trepanier on WGCH.com or WGCH 1490AM Greenwich in which we discussed ethics, white collar crime, money, morality and learn how Progressive Prison Ministries helps individuals, families and organizations start their lives over after white collar and nonviolent incarceration issues.
He’s been through the darkness and now he helps others regain health and love.
YOU MUST HEAR HIS STORY!
Listen on Defy & Hustle’s website:
Get help: prisonist.org
Guest Blog: Back to the Future: How Prison Taught Me to Relearn my Relationship with Time, by Mark Olmsted
In 1981, the AIDS epidemic began, and I was living in ground zero, New York City. I had come out at a very young and precocious 16, and had enjoyed an extremely hedonistic life when I went to college at NYU – lots of drinking and sleeping around, all while still managing to do well in film school. At 21, the future was extremely bright for me until the first articles appeared about this strange syndrome afflicting gay men and killing us with startling and horrible swiftness. Within a year or so the death toll was already 10,000, and it wouldn’t really let up for 15 years, when the miracle drug cocktails finally came on the scene.
I didn’t take the test until 1988, but I knew I’d been positive for years already – the math wasn’t hard to do, given my promiscuity. Somehow I was spared the death of someone close until 1991, but that was the worst of them all. My brother, (who was also gay) died in February of that year. Then came one friend after another, every few months or so, for the next 5 years. Each year the certainty increased that this was going be my last year as well. As a defense mechanism, I consciously tried to reduce the space in my mind devoted to anticipating and planning for the future, except to occasionally imagine all the things I might avoid by dying early.
And then I discovered crystal meth.
I’m not really sure why straight men do this drug, but gay men overwhelmingly use it to supercharge their libido and have a lot of sex partners. Every time I got high I had no problem forgetting about the future I wouldn’t have – I couldn’t really think about anything except hunting for sex online and capturing prey for the night. Fear of illness or death? Meth obliterated that too. Eventually, of course, the honeymoon of the drug being fun ended, as it does for almost all addicts. The priority became always having it, which I solved by always having it – the same reason almost everyone finds themselves dealing. It’s the only way to never crash.
When I landed in prison as a consequence, I had nine months for it to sink in that I had to re-imagine my life with the distinct possibility that I would live into my 50s and 60s and beyond. The weird thing was that although very few of the guys I met in prison had lived with a terminal diagnosis, most came from such tough backgrounds that they’d almost universally assumed they’d die young as well. And they’d lost as many friends as I had – just for different reasons. The result was basically the same. They were also hobbled by this self-taught disability of not thinking too far ahead, though few had realized unlearning it would be essential to building a life on the outside that was not based on short-fixes and fast cash.
As luck would have it, in my former life I’d been a writer, and the cold shock of prison sobriety was exactly what allowed me to string coherent paragraphs together again. By writing about everything going on around me as it happened, I learned to live in the moment again – which was entirely different from what I’d been doing for so many years, which is live for the moment. Being present to my experience in one of the places no one wants to be present at all didn’t close off the future, it let it back in . It turns out there’s a lot of magic to just paying attention – particularly as those around you tend to appreciate it when they are its beneficiaries.
Listening more and talking less. Acknowledging the emotions of others instead of competing with them. Making observations about things going on around you that are interesting or beautiful or funny. This system is not always easy, but it is simple.
When my sister started posting my letters on a blog, I told my bunkie, and before you knew it, practically the whole wing asked if they could be in it. They didn’t all quite understand what a blog was, but the possibility of the names or stories being on the internet made them feel important. (After that, I never had a bit of grief from anyone at Chino. No one wanted to screw up the chance of even a minute in the sun.)
I can’t say that restoring a sane relationship with temporality hasn’t been a challenge. But being aware that the distortion was there in the first place was an important breakthrough.
By consciously choosing to do things that keep me out of my head and in the here and now, I manage to realign my mind all over again. For me, creative expression is essential to this. Sometimes I write, sometimes I do collage, sometimes I go on a photo safari. I’ve even been known to just grab a hefty trash bag and go outside and pick up litter. Making my streets pristine is a marvelous way to clean up the neighborhood between my ears, it turns out.
There are no creations more beautiful than the relationships you nurture with family, and friends, spouses and children. Choosing to be fully present with everyone you care about is probably the best way of all to retrain your brain to anticipate a future in which love is not just a hope, but an expectation.
Mark Olmsted was incarcerated in California in 2004. Since then he has published a memoir about his time inside, Ink from the Pen (on Amazon), and written multiple screenplays–while subtitling films for a living. Recently he was the subject of a long piece on his crazy history on GQ.com, entitled, “The Curious Cons of the Man Who Wouldn’t Die.”
New Haven Independent: A Second Chance In Washington State
By Markeshia Ricks, Reprinted from New Haven Independent, May 31, 2019
Tarra Simmons thought she was going to escape the fate of the family she was born into — a family where everyone had been incarcerated and everyone suffered from a substance abuse disorder.
And for a while she did.
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“I thought I was doing pretty well,” said Simmons, who is the executive director of Civil Survival, an advocacy organization for the formerly incarcerated. “I thought I had escaped the cards dealt to me, but I never dealt with the childhood trauma.”
Though she gave birth to her first child at 15, she managed to finish four years of high school in a single year, graduating at 16. She would be the first to graduate from high school and college and eventually became a registered nurse.
But after a series of abusive relationships, she fell into substance abuse. She eventually landed in prison at age 33 for multiple felonies where she served two years.
It was in prison that she met a group of law students who piqued her interest in becoming a lawyer.
On a recent episode of WNHH’s “Criminal Justice Insider,” Simmons shared the story of how she went on to graduate from the law school and eventually had to take her fight to be allowed to practice the law all the way to the Washington State Supreme Court.
“I think I had always kind of been called to fight for justice,” she said.
Prior to prison, Simmons said, she didn’t know any lawyers beyond the ones she came into contact with through the public defense system. That meeting with the law students was the first time she had the opportunity to ask about the legal profession and how she might become part of it.
After she served her time, she enrolled at the University of Seattle Law School where she graduated magna cum laude.
But when she wanted to sit for the bar exam last year the Washington State Bar Association decided to deny her application.
Though she managed to keep up her RN license, submitted to over a hundred random drug tests to prove her sobriety, graduated with honors, and was appointed to two boards by the governor, the state’s bar said she did not have the character necessary to practice law.
The Washington State Supreme Court saw things differently and reversed the Washington State Bar Association’s decision.
“Criminal Justice Insider” is sponsored by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
Previous articles based on the program:
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- •
- From Community Health Patient To CEO
- The Problem With Punishment
- Rowland: Criminal Justice Reform “Sands Have Shifted”
- Ex-Inmate Seeks To Raise The Bar
- New Corrections Chief Vows Prison Reform
- 1,000 Books Laid Path For Reentry
- 16 Years For A Crime He Didn’t Commit
- Insider Trader Cases Sexier To Prosecute
- Next Goal: Ban The Box For Housing, Too
- Criminal Justice Crusader Reflects On Mass Incarceration, #MeToo
- Society Needs A “Second Chance,” Too
- Imagining A Less Incarcerated World
- Criminal Justice Reformer Refuses To Give Up
- Criminal Record Controversy Propels Legislative Candidate
- ‘If’ Injects Humanity Into Incarceration
- Carbone Fans The Youth Justice Flame
- Forman: We’re Expelling Our Own, Too
- Lawlor Sees Progress On Reform
- From Mortgage Fraud To Criminal Justice Reform
- Teen Encounter With Cops Spurred Reform Advocate
- From Second Chance To No Chance Connecticut?
- Project Longevity Coordinator Works Off A Debt
- Ex-CEO Serves Justice Reform “Life Sentence”
- Ganim Describes Path Back From Prison
- Transition Time For Teens In Trouble
- Parole Holds A Key To Reentry Puzzle
- Organizer Takes “Sawdust-On-Floor” Tack
- Female Ex-Offenders Band Together
- German-Inspired Reform Calms Prison
- Son’s Arrest Helped Shape Porter’s Politics
Jeff Grant on The Same 24 Hours Podcast with Meredith Atwood: Prison, Addiction & A Purpose Beyond Ourselves
From Host Meredith Atwood:
Episode 112 of the Same 24 Hours Podcast is with the Rev. Jeff Grant (@revjeffgrant), a successful attorney who “lost it all” and gained a true calling and purpose. ⠀⠀
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From addiction to prison to ministry, Jeff has a fascinating story – and I enjoyed my chat with him so much!⠀⠀
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He, and his wife and partner-in-ministry Lynn Springer, co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the first ministry in the United States created to provide confidential support and pastoral care to individuals, families and organizations with white-collar and other nonviolent incarceration issues.⠀⠀
Listen on YouTube:
You can also listen in your browser at www.Same24HoursPodcast.com, or in your favorite podcast app (iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, Spotify) by searching “The Same 24 Hours”⠀
Purchase Meredith Atwood’s new book, The Year of No Nonsense, here.
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About The Year of No Nonsense: ⠀Exhausted and overworked lawyer, triathlete, wife, and mom Meredith Atwood decided one morning that she’d had it. She didn’t take her kids to school. She didn’t go to work. She didn’t go to the gym. When she pulled herself out of bed hours later than she should have, she found a note from her husband next to two empty bottles of wine and a stack of unpaid bills: You need to get your sh*t together.
And that’s what Meredith began to do, starting with identifying the nonsense in her life that was holding her back: saying “yes” too much, keeping frenemies around, and more. In The Year of No Nonsense, Atwood shares what she learned, tackling struggles with work, family, and body image, and also willpower and time management. Ultimately, she’s the tough-as-nails coach /slash/ best friend who shares a practical plan for identifying and getting rid of your own nonsense in order to move forward and live an authentic, healthy life. From recognizing lies you believe about yourself and your abilities, to making a “nonsense” list and developing a “no nonsense blueprint,” this book walks you through reclaiming yourself with grit and determination, step by step.
With targeted, practical chapters to help you stop feeling stuck and get on with your life, The Year of No Nonsense is equal parts girlfriend and been-there-done-that. The best part? Like any friend, she helps you get to the other side. ⠀