When you lost everything and you have to rebuild . How do you do it?

So I found myself in the Allegheny County Jail looking around and saying to myself how did this become my life?

I didn't want my life to be the nightmare it was becoming. So I had to take a step-back and say what can I do to change? I sought help. I joined a program called the Hope Foundation.

I started working on myself. I realized I needed to change my way of thinking.

In the class Confronting Stinking thinking I learned so much.

I learned about thinking patterns and how to change your mental mind map.

I couldn't do it alone. For the first time in my life I asked for a Mentor I was assigned to Marcella Holmes she came and met with me . It helped me realize people care about me.

But what helped me most was my Therapist with Maya she meets with me every single week. We are working on helping me to let go of the trauma of my childhood. She has worked with me on Coping Skills and has taught me that I am worthy of a second chance.

As of June 21st yesterday I completed my orientation at the Community Kitchen for Culinary School !

I will start class August 4th .

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Every hero has a past.

When we think of formerly incarcerated people, we often focus on their previous actions rather than their humanity. The term "criminal," which tends to be hurled at these people as an insult, brings to mind images of terrifying wrongdoers unworthy of respect or compassion.

But, with about 2.3 million people incarcerated, the United States has the world's largest prison population. And despite the fact that African-Americans and Hispanics make up only one quarter of the general U.S. population, combined they comprise 58% of the prison population, according to the NAACP. Given this enormous number of imprisoned individuals — and, in turn, the enormous number of now-free individuals with past convictions — the effects of these stereotypes of criminality are as far-reaching as they are close-minded.

But what if we thought of these people not as pariahs, but as full human beings with the capacity to use their experiences to change the world?

https://mic.com/articles/114276/11-formerly-incarcerated-people-who-are-now-changing-the-world#.GiFI5soeJ