Restorative and Transformative Justice

by Drew Underwood, M.Ed.

“How do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?” - bell hooks

This question that the late, great bell hooks poses is one that I have found myself asking in various ways over the last five years. When we encounter clients that have harmed others, or we ourselves find that we’ve harmed folks in our lives, feelings of embarrassment, shame, guilt, and sometimes even penance can be the result. These responses are common responses, but they seldom result in healing our relationships or whatever is left broken in us.

I committed myself personally and professionally to the human potential for radical growth and transformation. This philosophy provided a framework that empowered me to do the necessary work of unlearning punitive responses to harm, but more importantly, it gave me hope that my efforts were indeed worth it. When we experience harm, we may feel like those responsible need to be punished, but I challenge you to think deeper about what caused them to commit the harm in the first place.  What might their actions reveal about what needs to be healed within them? Restorative and Transformative Justice offers an alternative that aims to heal rather than punish.

Restorative and Transformative Justice

Restorative Justice and Transformative Justice are terms often used interchangeably, but this isn't accurate. Yes, they both provide alternatives to punitive responses to harm, but there are some important factors that distinguish them. Transformative Justice is defined as an extralegal process engaging the harm doer, the person harmed, a facilitator, and their communities in shifting communal components to address current harms and prevent future harms from occurring on a systemic level. Transformative justice exists completely outside of systems so lawyers, judges, or even therapists won't be involved. This gives communities the autonomy to facilitate their own healing! Restorative justice is an approach to harm at an individual-level, rather than a systemic level. It is a dialogue between the harm-doer, the person or party harmed, a facilitator, and their communities (such as schools), at times resulting from proceedings in the criminal legal system. Restorative justice efforts are community-led that can include the legal system but don’t necessarily have to.  They work to restore the person harmed to their previously harmed state.

Drew Underwood, M.Ed., is a Master’s level therapist who provides trauma and grief counseling and support to those experiencing anxiety, depression, and other difficulties navigating school and career challenges. He believes in the potential for radical growth and incorporates mindfulness-based approaches to provide culturally sensitive care that centers clients’ diverse experiences. He works under the supervision of Licensed Professional Counselor Jen Perry. To learn more about his work, contact him at 267-499-3970 or dunderwoodcounseling@gmail.com.

Regret, Self-Blame, and Learning to Give Yourself Grace

by Therese Daniels 

The month of December tends to be a time where we look back over the past year. Many of us expected a lot more out of 2021. I can clearly remember so many people proclaiming strong goodbyes to 2020 with a swift strong kick saying, “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” All with hopes of a much brighter year to come, one filled with family, friends, travel, and simple reconnection. Well, I am not sure about everyone else, but I get the sense that 2021 did not quite deliver. Things have certainly improved since this time last year, especially in recent weeks; however much of 2021 was darkened by COVID, natural disasters, and much more. COVID variants and spikes caused cancelled events, travel, and social gatherings. Natural disasters displaced people from their homes. Increased anger and violence cost people their lives and loved ones…I could go on.

Within the stress and storm of these ongoing events, I have noticed a concerning mindset and repetitive theme in the ways people talk about life lately. It is a pattern of guilt, shame, regret, and self-doubt. I have heard countless statements that begin with phrases such as, “I should have done___”  or “I should not have done ____”  or “I can’t believe I didn’t ___” or “I wish I would have ___”. I have heard even stronger self-condemnation in the face of hardship, shared as strongly as “I hate myself for ___”. Hearing this, I am struck by sadness and even fear. If we cannot be kind to ourselves as individuals, then how can we genuinely show kindness to others or even hope others will extend kindness to us?

The unfortunate truth is that we really have no control over the external events that happen all around us. So much that happens is outside our control. It makes sense that we wish we had more control than we really do and even that there is a problem-solving part of us that looks at past events with an eye on preventing painful events from recurring. But this isn’t always possible. We can’t stop a tornado. We can’t go back to 2019 and prevent the pandemic. And while we can do our best to prevent our three year old or elderly parents from contracting COVID, we cannot guarantee it. 

Something we can have control over, however, is how we treat and talk to ourselves. Especially in the face of pain and hardship. Rather than berating ourselves (and others) for what we could have, should have done differently, we can pause. We can allow ourselves to acknowledge the pain. We can invite in kindness, acceptance, and grace towards ourselves. In doing this, we can interrupt the pattern of negativity and regret. While fueled by a desire for control, the blame game (ourselves and others) simply adds to the pain. When we pause and welcome self-compassion, we may start a domino effect of compassion that extends beyond ourselves. Offering ourselves kindness and acceptance, we become more able to offer kindness and acceptance to others. Starting with ourselves and then extending kindness to our loved ones, neighbors, and even strangers in our community, we are empowered to spread positivity where before negativity and fear lived.

The Pay It Forward Foundation was started in 2000 and is described as acts of kindness, generating a ripple effect from one person to the next, one community to the next. There are countless stories of people buying coffee for each other, paying tolls for the car behind them, spreading joy through quiet, unbidden acts of kindness. People experience such joy from doing and seeing things like this for others, yet sometimes have a very hard time applying this concept to themselves. What might it look like to “pay it forward” in your own life? To give yourself the gift of kindness – and then build upon that to be increasingly, consistently kind towards YOU?

A Fire In The Head

 by Dean Solon

words are empty.

we infuse them with grace

and with grit.

they have no home

but what we give them.

i consider this,

i contemplate this.

what arises 

is grace,

an experience of who i was

before i was born

into this strange and awkward world.

when i was born,

i came into a light that welcomed me

as another stranger 

in a strange land.

my eyes opened to a terrain

brand new

and oddly familiar,

a land that breathed life

into my recently formed lungs.

i was born to be here,

blown by the winds of seeming chance

that have transfigured as i have grown older

to be something else:

an essence,

a vitality of living matter

infused with purpose and passion

to be an originality of form

and to be a singularity of spirit,

one soul among billions

teeming, streaming

on the planet.

i remember no other home 

but this one we call earth.

yet here I am

wondering out loud:

what brought me to this galaxy,

what took hold of me

to bring me here

and make these footprints 

in these sands of time and place