What motivates people to want to change?

It's a new year and the perfect time to explore this topic.

Today’s newsletter explores the spark that causes people to change. Do you have to hit rock bottom? I also talk about forming a new connection with Sammy, who has been incarcerated at Kern Valley for the last two decades. Sammy’s transformation is exactly what I hope for my brother.

This year will mark the sixth year my brother has been incarcerated. I was so convinced that by year five, he would start to evolve and grow as a person. I thought he would be more motivated to read books, learn about himself through his mistakes, and expand his limited mindset.

I was wrong. 

Well, that’s not completely accurate either. My brother has changed, but I don’t quite understand what’s going on with him.

The strange messages

About two or three months ago, he suddenly started sending me a ton of messages through his tablet. So many messages, that I would have to scroll up at least five times to see where my last message was and where his began. 

Before this sudden onset of bizarre messages, he’d mostly talk about a movie he watched or what the weather was like. I noticed the texts morphed from small talk into something that felt sort of cryptic. Almost like propaganda. 

To me, these texts felt so random, like ChatGPT had gone haywire. He’d write about taxes and then suddenly change the topic to be about chickens and eggs—which came first? Then, something about worms in the grass, a stray dog he regrets not keeping when he was younger, and how he thinks having kids is pointless because the world is going to shit. He said oysters weren’t real—they were man-made. “While we’re at it,” he wrote, “hermit crabs probably aren’t real either.” Huh?

The tone felt conspiratorial. (But I guess that makes sense. I heard it’s pretty common for incarcerated people to believe in conspiracy theories.)

Here are some messages he sent in December. Compared to some of the other texts, these are ones that sort of do make sense, now that I’m reading them again.

At first, I was like WTF. Was this a sign of boredom? He was probably overwhelmed from the nearly 24-hours a day in isolation and feeling terribly lonely.

Maybe he was on drugs. I asked if he was, but he said he wasn’t. I didn’t know what to believe, but based on my last visit to him on Christmas Eve, he seemed sober and lucid. Then, why the weird messages?

What sparks the shift in thinking?

As alarming as these messages were, they indicated he was changing. While it certainly wasn’t the kind of change I was hoping for (i.e., taking classes, programs, reading more books), it left me wondering…

What causes people to shift their ways of thinking in the first place? 

What motivates people to even want to change? 

What creates true and lasting change? 

I know these answers different for everyone, and I don’t pretend to understand what an incarcerated person goes through before they decide to change. As my brother always reminds me, I’ll never know what it feels like to be in prison. 

My only understanding comes from books written by formerly incarcerated people, stories from Prison Journalism Project, and documentaries I’ve watched about life in prison. These things give me hope because I see that it’s possible for a desire for a better life—whether it’s to get healthy, earn a degree, strengthen friendships, or build better relationships with family members.

What do these people have that my brother doesn’t? 

My experience with being sick and tired of myself

There was a time in my life when I felt utterly stuck and trapped by my own dark thoughts. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was depressed.

I didn’t know how to move through these thoughts. Instead, I tried everything to avoid them—going to happy hours, taking trips, partaking in grueling workouts, but no matter where I went or who I was with, those thoughts were always there. 

After many years of not being able to break out of this cycle, I reached a point where I was sick and tired of myself. I realized that by not expanding my mind, I was perpetuating my misery. 

I started reading books and listening to podcasts about mindfulness and self-awareness (I binged the hell out of 10% Happier). I began journaling. I even started meditating and saw a therapist (although I’m still unsure if it helped or not). I began practicing yoga. Over time, my thought patterns changed, and I started to feel better.

I realize my brother doesn’t have the luxury to see a therapist or talk to friends whenever the mood strikes him, but he has a family that loves him dearly. He has 15 curated books (from me and my sister) about formerly incarcerated people and their achievements, how to build self-awareness and learn to change your thoughts, and even fiction thrillers my cousin sent him. He has paper and pencil to write down his thoughts. 

I wonder if my brother also needs to experience being sick of himself. Maybe he needs to reach a point where his daily routine of watching the news, listening to music, and looking for the next movie to watch has become his personal hell.

I want to believe that his strange messages are a sign that he’s somehow hit a wall and that maybe he will want to figure out how to move past that wall. I know he feels lonely, but what else? When I ask him, he always says he’s doing just fine. He’s still very closed off, and that frustrates me.

My new friend, Sammy

My hope in 2024 is for continued change for my bro. I wanted to feel a sense of renewed hope because oftentimes, it felt pointless to wait for my brother to change.

Call it fate, weird timing, or the universe hearing me, this hope entered my life and has a name—Sammy.

Recently, I started messaging with Samuel, the writer behind Prison Chronicles. We also talked on the phone a few times.

Sammy is at Kern Valley and has been incarcerated for 23 years. He’s been helping me better understand what my brother might going through. Sammy can articulate what my brother cannot, like the racial divides at Tehachapi, and the political landscape in prison, and the pressures my brother faces.

Over one of our calls, Sammy said, “Your brother’s barely been inside for five years. Sorry to say this, but he’s not ready to change yet.”

Sammy’s transformation

In one of our conversations, I asked him what motivated him to change. At the time, he had been in solitary confinement for several years (yes, YEARS), and said he was tired of being angry.

During that time, he started exchanging letters with a pen pal. She would later become his good friend and help him create Prison Chronicles.

Sammy said that writing to someone brand new (plus, she was from Canada—a different planet to him!) gave him a fresh perspective on life. Through his new friendship, he began to change his bitterness and heal.

My connection with Sammy gives me hope that people do change. Sammy’s advice and insight have been such a blessing, and I’m so moved and inspired by his story. He’s like a beacon of light in a time when things feel confusing for me and my family.

For now, I have to keep showing up for my brother even when I feel impatient and helpless. I have to remember that change is different for everyone and it’s not fair or realistic to expect him to change because I want him to.