Meditation: Creating positive changes in the lives of inmates at the Pine Ridge jail

PINE RIDGE – In November of 2022 an audience of 99 healers, educators and leaders gathered in Rapid City, South Dakota to hear an introduction to the benefits of the NCS Program. Taught by Faith Holmes, the scientific basis for how to break negative thoughts and actions in order to create a more positive life and gain control over oneself was shared for the first time to members of the Lakota community.  If we focus on what is wrong with our lives we will not have the energy to create something substantial. Meditation is a major piece of the NCS course which teaches using the process of meditating to access the creative power inherent within each and every one of us.

As a follower of the Baha’i Faith, Holmes recognized that creating something new involves acting as if it has already been accomplished. The principles of the NCS program served to validate existing spiritual beliefs.

The beginnings of this program began in late 2019 Cindy Catches of Oceti Wakan and two of her Baha’i colleagues began to go into the Oglala Sioux Tribe Department Corrections on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to teach a course on life skills based on the curriculum of the Oceti Wakan curriculum created for the children. They took the 8th great workbook and wrote a version for inmates using knowledge that came out of the curriculum.  “A Guide to Transformation Using Lakota Values” was introduced to the class.

Faith Holmes said that going into the jail on that first day was both beautiful and sad. Faith had visited prisons previously including Riker’s Island in New York City, and was committed to being of service in seemingly hopeless situations. After the very first class, Faith noticed that class attendees were sitting a little taller and smiling more frequently. There was excitement about learning and controlling bad behavior around alcohol and drugs. Many members of the workshop were in jail for drinking on the reservation.

To quote a man who went through the training at the prison in Pine Ridge, “I came here broken. Broken hearted. I was skeptical of this class but I put my heart and my mind into what was being taught. Thank you. You’ve opened my mind. You’ve opened my heart to a new way of thinking, to a new way of being.”

There are a number of veterans that have gone through the workshop. They know each other’s names and care for each other deeply. One veteran, named Albert said, “I am a veteran and I hate myself.” He understood that the workshop employs cognitive behavioral therapy to develop new patterns of thinking which provide the needed faith and hope to cut off invasive negative thoughts and put tools into practice that will make a difference in their lives.

Jail inmates are generally incarcerated for short terms stays, six months or less and sometimes even for several days. The high end of a period of incarceration would be two years. Approximately 170 people have been through the class since November of 2022 when the NCS workshops in jail began. Three hundred Lakota people in total have taken the class. People from the jail have shared with Holmes that the workshop has changed their lives. One Lakota man is clean and sober and working at Pine Ridge Oil in town. A young woman who completed the program is substance free and newly pregnant. She and her spouse are both clean and have developed a support system to help them in stabilizing their lives. 

Another attendee states, “This program came along and helped me to learn how to meditate, take a step back from reality and look at it in a different way, from a different perspective and overcome my thoughts and help me through the day.”

The goal of the workshop is to train people how to do this type of networking while providing job training and other learning skills in order to build a different kind of life for themselves.

Neuroscience and the discovery of neuroplasticity (the brains’ ability to change) has opened the ‘science door to the masses’ as we are now able to study how the brain works and how we can be the drivers of our own success.

Faith Holmes runs a weekly Monday night Zoom NCS meeting with people who have been through the program. It is a wonderful way for people to maintain their connection to people who have had similar life experiences and faced difficult life challenges. As Faith shares with all attendees, she has lived through her own difficult and dark experiences and come out the other side. The message is that they are not alone.

The Give to Give not-for-profit underwrites this work which consists of a five module class and 15 hours of workshops.  Www.givetogivefoundation.org. 

Dr. Joe Dispensa asks people, “What is the worst thing that ever happened in your life?” Answering that question for an incarcerated individual would most probably be, “Being in prison.” Finding the positive in the worst experience of your life would lead you to understand that if you were not in jail, you would not have received this training and the tools you need to turn your life around. Perhaps there is a statement that can be made at the same time which is to acknowledge that the worst that you have done is probably not so bad after all.

Faith Holmes organizes her workshops through Oceti Wakan and NeuroChangeSolutions. She is either training teachers in the local school system on the curriculum of Oceti Wakan founded by her parents Cindy and Peter Catches and Pete Catches, Peter’s father, or giving workshops to incarcerated individuals on how to change their thinking and behavior.

The sister organization of Give to Give is Tribe to Tribe which sponsors tribal NCS work throughout the world. Tribe to Tribe gives step by step tools on how to be a creator in your life. These programs have the possibility to turn things around on the Pine Ridge Reservation as information is shared as part of a building up not a top down process. Tribe to Tribe is at its beginning stages and is meant to provide long term support to individuals who are in the process of constructing positive lives for themselves, their families and their communities.

Every person in the workshop so far has said that jobs are the number one issue they need help with. When people’s economic needs are met, addressing their other issues becomes much easier, resulting in an improved quality of life. Offering job training for roles that address community needs not only benefits individuals but also fosters positive outcomes for a larger number of people, creating a ripple effect of good throughout the community.

Given the severe housing shortage on the reservation, providing construction training to individuals while repairing existing homes and building new ones addresses multiple challenges at once.

As Faith Holmes says, “We are at a great time in history to know that we can create the future for ourselves and future generations. She goes on to say that “Spirit has orchestrated everything as we are in the time of the 7th generation.”

The Lakota already possess this knowledge and the science of thought and behavior confirms what they have always known. They can now access that knowledge while teaching the masses self-empowerment.

To learn more about NeuroChangeSolutions, please Contact Faith Holmes at faithholmes@gmail.com

 

(Contact Mia Feroleto at mia.feroleto@gmail.com)

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