Brilliantly Resilient - Episode 146: How to Look Forward and Rebuild Life After Incarceration with Jeffrey Abamowitz

Episode 146: How to Look Forward and Rebuild Life After Incarceration with Jeffrey Abamowitz

01/10/23 • 42 min

I needed to understand why this happened to me and think about what was next. Life is all about what you do on the second climb ~ Jeffrey Abramowitz

Have you ever made a mistake? One that changed your life, and not for the better? We all make mistakes, but usually, we do so without ill intent. Mistakes, by their nature, aren't intentional. We don't mean to screw up.

That's why Jeffrey Abramowitz, this week's guest on the Brilliantly Resilient podcast, makes a distinction. Having spent five years in prison for a financial crime, Jeffrey notes that he made a choice that led to consequences. Consequences that changed his life forever.

Jeffrey learned much while serving his sentence, and it brought him to his true purpose, to advocate for justice and education for those reentering society after incarceration. Jeffrey learned that two things are essential to successfully rebuild a life--responsibility and education. Once Jeffrey accepted his responsibility for his own actions, he dedicated himself to a life helping others, teaching inmates while serving his sentence and advocating for education to prepare inmates to re-enter society and build a life. Jeffrey encourages others to look forward and gives them the skills to do just that.

By acknowledging our responsibility for our choices, we empower ourselves to move forward. Tune in to hear more about Jeffrey's mission and listen for these additional bits of brilliance:

"I don't think any of us should spend time looking in the rear-view mirror. We can learn lessons, but we need to look forward."

"It took me to really lose everything before I learned the lessons I needed to learn. But then I could define what the next chapter of my life could be."

"We have to bring humanity back into our system, but the self-responsibility piece is the first thing you have to accept. I opened a door and I needed to accept everything that happened after that."

"It's simple if you take just one little step. Turn the chair around." (Listen for this super-cool story!)

~ Jeffrey Abramowitz (https://www.jeffrey-abramowitz.com/)

Let's be Brilliantly resilient together!

KS & MFB

I needed to understand why this happened to me and think about what was next. Life is all about what you do on the second climb ~ Jeffrey Abramowitz

By acknowledging our responsibility for our choices, we empower ourselves to move forward. Tune in to hear more about Jeffrey's mission and listen for these additional bits of brilliance:

"I don't think any of us should spend time looking in the rear-view mirror. We can learn lessons, but we need to look forward."

"It took me to really lose everything before I learned the lessons I needed to learn. But then I could define what the next chapter of my life could be."

"It's simple if you take just one little step. Turn the chair around." (Listen for this super-cool story!)

~ Jeffrey Abramowitz (https://www.jeffrey-abramowitz.com/)

Let's be Brilliantly resilient together!

KS & MFB

Previous Episode

Episode 145: How to De-Clutter and Make Space for Happiness, with Tracy McCubbin

Your home is a tool. If your home is cluttered, it’s not working for you. De-cluttering is not about being perfect. It’s about making your house work for you as an asset to make room for happiness.

~ Tracy McCubbin

We’re just a few days into 2023, and if you’re like us here at Brilliantly Resilient, your brain is already racing with goals and to-do’s for the coming year. Like most people, we’re raring to go and looking forward to crushing it in the New Year.

But first, it’s time to put away all of the lovely holiday decor that bejeweled our homes for the last five or six weeks. Funny, though, how those things that sparkled a short while ago now make rooms seem tired, dusty, and cluttered.

Our friend Tracy McCubbin is the perfect person to help us begin 2023 by decluttering our homes and mindsets with some fundamental ideas and actions aimed at making our surroundings work for us, not against us. As Tracy advises, when we think of our homes as a tool meant to help us, it allows us to more clearly see what’s working and what isn’t–and what can be loaded into the donate or discard pile.

So much that we hold on to no longer serves us. When we make room for more in our lives by decluttering, the space becomes mental as well as physical, and change becomes exponential.

Tune into this week’s episode of the Brilliantly Resilient podcast to hear more of Tracy’s wisdom and be sure to check out her new book, Make Space for Happiness: How to Stop Attracting Clutter and Start Magnetizing the Life You Want .

Listen for these additional bits of Brilliance from Tracy in the episode:

I saw the choke-hold that people’s stuff can have on them. Don’t become a museum to the past.

The more clutter you have, the more your cortisol goes up. Clutter is a constant to-do list. And the more decisions your brain makes, the more tired it gets.

If you couple the source of your happiness to your stuff and it goes away, where are you?

Start with your “why.” Why are you decluttering? Keep your why positive. And start with the easy things. Things you can declutter in 5 minutes.

~Tracy McCubbin

Wishing you all good things in 2023. Let's be Brilliantly Resilient together!

Next Episode

Episode 147: How to Support Our Health Care Workers, with State Board of Nursing and PCNP Member Donald Bucher!

There’s a perception about what nurses do and there’s what nurses actually do. Nursing needs to start talking about itself. Every healthcare consumer should understand what nurses do. Visibility is key.

~Donald Bucher

Do you feel safe and respected while doing your job? Most of us would say, “Of course.” While we might not have the perfect working environment, we don’t go to work with the expectation that we might be abused verbally or physically on any given day.

Not so with nurses. One study noted that almost 90% of nurses reported experiencing some type of abuse at work–mostly at the hands of patients or their families.

It was only a few short years ago that we greeted health care workers with applause, celebration and gratitude. Yet, even then, the politicization of Covid left many nurses on the receiving end of anger and frustration, and nurses still bear the brunt of patient dissatisfaction and fear today.

Donald Bucher, a registered Nurse Practitioner and this week’s guest on the Brilliantly Resilient podcast, is an advocate for those in the nursing profession. Upbeat, positive and empathetic, Don still recognizes the need for the public to know just how hard nurses really work, and he wants the nursing community to speak up both to educate others and protect themselves.

Respect for others, as well as ourselves, is at the core of a civilized society. Everyone has the right to expect civility, especially while doing a life-saving job. Here at Brilliantly Resilient, respect is a core principle in how we treat each other, regardless of any differences we may encounter.

Tune in to this week’s episode to hear more from Don and be sure to listen for these additional bits of Brilliance:

The nurses are the ones standing there for 12 hours a day picking up on things with patients that help save your loved one.
It’s a difficult time to be in healthcare. Nurses love what we do, but it’s hard. You’re asked to do much more with less time. It’s hard.
We have to remember that when you’re interacting with a family, they’re having the worst day of their lives. But nurses still need to feel respected and safe.
The voices (of nurses) needed to be louder during Covid. I challenge nurses to join their organizations to make that voice louder.
~ Donald Bucher (https://www.pacnp.org/)

Let’s be Brilliantly Resilient together!

Kristin and Mary Fran