Escaping the Prison of the Mind

Escaping the Prison of the Mind

The film above, with Earl Simms, walks us through a process of exploring how many of us become imprisoned by our own thinking, and the ways that we relate to ourselves, and our own experience. Violence Prevention expert Earl Simms served 22 years of a life sentence. About five years before his eventual release he discovered meditation, and began digging inside himself to figure out what had happened to him as a child that led him down a road to violence. As he began to understand and dismantle the rage, grief, and helplessness that had led him to seek affirmation through violence, first on the football field, and later through involvement with gangs, his heart began to heal, and he began to recover more and more of his humanity. While the prison Earl was in is more obvious than the prison many of us find ourselves in, his story is universal. As he notes in the film, he was in a prison inside himself long before he found himself locked up.