Feb 13 / KARINA ANDERSEN

I DIDN'T COME THIS FAR TO COME THIS FAR

Last week I watched Joey Evans tell his story at a Suits & Sneakers event. From Para to Dakar.

A man who broke his back, was paralysed from the chest down, and was told this is how it's going to be for the rest of your life.

Ten years later he crossed the finish line of the Dakar Rally. The toughest off-road race in the world.
I sat there and I thought about my brothers in change.

The SmilingOne Change Experience inside maximum security prisons is one of the toughest journeys a man can undertake. It asks you to face yourself. Your patterns, your pain, the parts of you that have been buried for years. Some men drop out, give up. The pull of the old life is strong. 

This week, a couple of men had dropped out. We spoke as a group about what it means to stay the course. What it means to show up when everything inside you says don't.

That's when I told them about Joey ...

Here's a man who had this major accident. A major disruption in his life. How easy it is to give up. But then he gets a tiny tingling of hope. He can feel one toe. Just one toe. But it's a mountain to climb to will himself back towards his dream. To show up every day, even when it looks like it's not going to happen.

I looked at the men in that room and I said, coming to prison can be exactly like that. All the odds are against me. I can do nothing. I'm giving up and that becomes part of my life. Just drifting. Not fully taking charge.

But Joey decided. He chose to dream again.

And that's my invitation to you.

Coming to session is that little light where you could start changing your life. But you've got to will yourself towards it. You've got to want this really badly. It's hard work. You're not going to get there by winging it. If you don't take a stand, you won't make it. And you have to make this choice over and over and over again.

It took Joey two and a half years to get back on a motorcycle. Ten years to reach the Dakar. More setbacks, more reasons to stop. But he carried this line with him: "You didn't come this far to come this far!"

I looked at the men and I asked, what are we going to do to show up? Am I going to give in? Go to defeat mode? Do what I always do? Or am I going to use this opportunity for the next part of my journey?

Are you going to finish this race? You're not competing against everybody else in this room. You're competing against your old behaviours. All the parts of you that say you can't.

And every man in that room shouted YES.

That's what this work is. Every Tuesday I sit with men who are running their own race. Against their past. Against their patterns. Against everything inside that says "You can't change!" And every Tuesday they choose to show up. That is their Dakar.

"I did not get this far to get this far."

Neither did these men.

Thank you Joey for the fire you carry. And thank you Mark Sham for building spaces where stories like these find the hearts that need them.

Love Karina 💥 
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