The Power of Choice: How to Break Free from Shame, Anger, and Grief with Shaka Senghor

In this episode, Shaka Senghor discusses the power of choice; and how to break free from shame, anger, and grief, which can be the hardest prisons to escape. Shaka spent 19 years in prison and seven of those in solitary confinement. But he’ll tell you that he was imprisoned long before handcuffs, and that his freedom came long before his release. His new book, How to Be Free. A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons, is about finding the doors we often don’t notice and walking through them.

Key Takeaways:

• Shaka’s journey of transformation and healing after 19 years in prison.
• The concept of “hidden prisons,” including emotional and psychological struggles like shame, grief, and anger.
• The role of literacy and mentorship in personal growth
• The impact of grief, including the loss of his brother and his son’s health challenges
• The relationship between anger and unresolved emotional pain, and how it can hinder healing.
• The significance of accountability and self-forgiveness in overcoming past mistakes.
• The societal challenges faced by formerly incarcerated individuals and the need for systemic change.
• The complexity of personal agency and responsibility in the context of life choices and circumstances.
• The importance of embracing life’s messiness and the ongoing journey of healing and growth.

Shaka Senghor is an inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, and author of the New York Times bestselling booksWriting My Wrongs and Letters to the Sons of Society. A sought-after resilience expert and recognized “Soul Igniter” in Oprah’s inaugural SuperSoul 100, Senghor has captivated and transformed global audiences with his extraordinary journey from incarceration to influence. Through raw authenticity and profound insight, he doesn’t just share his story—he equips others with the exact resilience practices that fueled his own remarkable transformation, proving that reinvention isn’t just possible—it’s within everyone’s reach.

Connect with Shaka Senghor: Website | Instagram 

If you enjoyed this conversation with Shaka Senghor, check out these other episodes:

Dr. Tererai Trent on Incredible Perseverance

Improvising in Life with Stephen Nachmanovitch

Life Lessons with Dr. Edith Eger

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Episode Transcript:

Shaka Senghor 00:00:00  There is the duality of holding disappointment but also recognizing purpose. And what I always come back to is like whenever there’s adversity, whenever there’s an obstacle, there’s also opportunity.

Chris Forbes 00:00:18  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts. We have quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:03  Sometimes the hardest prisons to escape are the ones that we can’t see. Shame. Grief. Anger. These can keep us more trapped than any cell.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:14  Shaka Senghor knows this firsthand. He spent 19 years in prison and seven of those in solitary confinement. But he’ll tell you that he was imprisoned long before handcuffs, and that his freedom came long before his release. His new book, How to Be Free. A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons, is about finding the doors we often don’t notice and walking through them. Today we talk about that journey. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Shaka. Welcome to the show.

Shaka Senghor 00:01:46  Hey, thanks so much for having me, Eric. I’m super excited to be here and I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:51  We’re going to be discussing your book, which is called How to Be Free A Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden prisons. But before we do that, we’ll start like we always do with the parable. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with a grandchild, and they say, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:19  And the grandchild stops it. Think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.

Shaka Senghor 00:02:29  Absolutely.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:29  So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Shaka Senghor 00:02:35  That’s a great question, and it’s one that I was really excited to answer. I came across this parable maybe 15 to 20 years ago, and it really embodies how I think about life. And I think about my own experience where there was a time that I bought into a narrative that represents that negative Wolf, the narrative that my life can only have certain outcomes. And and I fed that narrative based on the environment I grew up in. And when I shifted the narrative to the more positive outlook on life, my life completely transformed. And so that parable embodies how I show up. And now specifically that I show up as a writer, but also as a dad, a father, a husband.

Shaka Senghor 00:03:16  And I’m always thinking about what narratives am I consistently feeding, and how does that allow me to really show up in life?

Eric Zimmer 00:03:23  So when you heard that parable 15 or 20 years ago, would have been either late in your prison term or after you were out, did you hear it while you were still in prison?

Shaka Senghor 00:03:33  I think I first came across it right as I was getting close to getting out of prison, which was 15 years ago. And, you know, as you know, when you’re an avid reader, you, you, you read so many things and sometimes you lose track of where and when, but it’s become such a prominent part of how I parent, you know, it’s this I’ve changed the wolves to, you know, pit bulls before. I’ve changed it to all type of things. with my son, I remember just a few years ago, he was having a tough time in school, and it was a parable that I pulled out for him. And he always comes back to that, you know, of, like, okay, which wolf am I feeding today? And it’s just such a beautiful, great way to parent and you know, as well as teach.

Shaka Senghor 00:04:16  So it’s been quite a while since I’ve been using it.

Eric Zimmer 00:04:19  Yeah. So let’s start with the backstory. I just alluded to the fact that you were in prison, but give us the sort of story that got you to a place where you could write a book about life’s hidden prisons.

Shaka Senghor 00:04:31  Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, so I grew up in the city of Detroit. Hence my ever present Detroit Tigers had, represents all things Detroit to me beyond just the the team itself. And, you know, I grew up in a tough household, you know, a household of abuse. And I ran away when I was a kid around 13, 14 years old. I got seduced into the crack cocaine Trade, which is rare. When I think of going back to that narrative, I mean that parable we talked about earlier. You know, that was some of the early beginnings of this, of this negative self-talk. my life outcomes could only end in two ways. But I got seduced into that culture.

Shaka Senghor 00:05:07  And the reason I say seduced is because what happens often is when young children run away from home, you know, there’s adults waiting to prey on them and take advantage of them and kind of bring them into an adult world. And that’s what happened to me. I found myself into this culture, and I dealt with all the horrors that came with that culture. You know, I was beaten nearly to death. I was robbed at gunpoint. My childhood friend was murdered. And about three years in, I was shot multiple times standing on the corner of my block. And 14 months later, I got into a conflict at nearly two in the morning over a drug transaction that I refused to make. That argument escalated, and sadly and unfortunately and regrettably, I pulled out a firearm and fired four shots, which with tragic because the man’s death. I was subsequently arrested, charged with open murder and sentenced to 17 and 40 years in prison. And I ended up serving a total of 19 years, with seven of those years being in solitary confinement.

Shaka Senghor 00:06:06  And it was in that environment that I began my journey of healing and transforming my life, but also my journey as a writer.

Eric Zimmer 00:06:13  So I want to explore some of the things that happened in prison. But you mentioned being an avid reader. I’m curious, did you go into prison as an avid reader, or is that something that developed while you were in there?

Shaka Senghor 00:06:26  Yeah, so I was really fortunate. You know, it’s one of the things I always, you know, tell people was this is, you know, sometimes we hear the story of how people are lucky to be born into a certain area code, or they’re lucky to be born into a certain family, a certain amount of wealth. For me, my luck of the lottery was that I was actually illiterate when I went into prison. The average reading grade level in prison is third grade And when I first went in, I wouldn’t consider myself an avid reader. I knew how to read, but I wasn’t really reading anything when I first went in.

Shaka Senghor 00:06:57  But I was fortunate. I met these incredible mentors who saw something redeemable in me. These were men who were serving life sentences. They didn’t have any ROI for me other than being an asset to the community if and when I got out of prison. But they saw something redeemable in me and they guided me to books. And initially it was just fiction. They was giving me, like all of these fiction books that were kind of about the inner city. They was written by authors like Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines and Chester Himes. And once those books ran out, that’s when they started giving me more serious books to read. You know, Malcolm X’s autobiography, which led to me reading a lot of philosophy and studying theology. And I was just became really, really curious about the world. And I would intermingle those those books with, you know, fiction. I’m still a big lover of fiction. So I would, you know, check out two serious books and three. Fiction books. and, you know, books were really my saving grace.

Shaka Senghor 00:07:56  It’s something I’m a big advocate about literacy, especially in prisons and inner city, because I know the power of the written word to transform and change lives. And not only do I live it, but I’ve also been able to contribute to it.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:09  What are some recent fiction books you’ve loved?

Shaka Senghor 00:08:11  So I’m actually reading a book. I don’t have it with me, but it’s, something about by the River, and it’s written by Wally Lamb. So his most recent book. Oh, Holy mackerel.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:23  I just started that book on audible, like, three days ago. Holy mackerel. Is that a hell of a start to a book? I don’t want to give it away, but. Oh, man. Yeah.

Shaka Senghor 00:08:33  Yes, I mean that it’s it’s so fascinating because it’s hard for me to read when I’m writing. So as soon as I got done with my most recent book, I was like, I’m gonna read some fiction. I haven’t read fiction in a while. Yeah. And so I picked Wally Lamb’s book up, and I started reading that.

Shaka Senghor 00:08:49  And so I’m about two thirds of the way through.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:51  Okay. Yeah. I’m still in the very early part where you’re like, yeah. Oh my God.

Shaka Senghor 00:08:57  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:08:57  All right. Interestingly, my story is at 24, I was a homeless heroin addict, and I had I had the potential to go to jail for a while. I had a whole bunch of grand felonies stacked up on me. Now, you talk about the fortune of the zip code you were born into. I was given a diversion program as an option, which I think happens because partially because I was middle class and white. But when I got sober, one of the things that you just mentioned that I realized was like one of my biggest assets that was really fortunate was the same thing that I had been taught to read and I liked to read. And that, I mean, that did so much for, I mean, my whole life, really. It is interesting even in like, really difficult stories you can often find, there’s like there’s something in there that leveraged is a point that can be used for better.

Shaka Senghor 00:09:52  Absolutely. And it’s one of the things I love about fiction. I actually, when I started writing the first books I wrote were fiction books, and it was because I was able to create these characters with these other worlds. And, you know, to really get to the truth faster through fiction, which is so interesting when you think about, you know, when we’re actually telling a real life truth. But part of what I’ve discovered is that, you know, we formulate opinions about other people so fast that oftentimes we don’t get to the truth, whereas with characters we don’t often enter with that same level of judgment. But, you know, I love it. You know, I love the craft of writing. I love storytelling and and what it’s done for my life, you know, to spark my imagination and to think beyond those sales that physically held me in place.

Eric Zimmer 00:10:39  So in prison, you mentioned you spent seven years in solitary confinement, which is usually not awarded to prisoners who are on, you know, living their best life. You would know more about it than me. I’m making an assumption. But, you know, I’m curious. Like, when did things start to shift for you? Yeah, because that’s a hard environment for things to shift in.

Shaka Senghor 00:11:03  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, when I, when I think back to my journey, you know, I always I’m, I’m always I’m super transparent and very honest. You know, I didn’t start my prison sentence off with putting my best foot forward. You know, I was angry, I was bitter, I got into tons of trouble. And in fact, I like, you know, I made a declaration that I was never going to follow the rules. And I really honored that, you know, I got, you know, 36 misconduct probably within my first five years. And so, you know, I was getting in trouble all the time. And what it really was, was that I was hurt. You know, I was sad, I was angry, I was disappointed with my life outcomes.

Shaka Senghor 00:11:39  I didn’t want to be responsible. You know, there was no accountability on my behalf. And so I was just self-destructing. And it was really the written word that helped me start to really work my way to a sense of one, you know, I had to be responsible and accountable for the decisions I made in life, and I had to be honest with myself. And that that was a long, arduous journey. And I know we live in a society where we kind of want things to happen very, very quickly. We want people to have their kind of come to Jesus moment or hit rock bottom. I hit rock bottom a lot, you know, and then I would hit rock bottom and realize that, you know, there’s even something up under that rock, you know, and I would figure out a way to find myself down there. And I was constantly picking myself up, you know, until I got to a place where I was like, I was tired of being tired, you know? And I think that that’s when real transformation takes place is when you get tired of living a very toxic, Unhealthy, you know, really sad existence.

Shaka Senghor 00:12:41  And, you know, despite being in prison, I realized that I had been incarcerated before I ever had handcuffs on me. you know, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, you know, I was already incarcerated, but I got free before I ever left that prison cell. And that’s when I realized that the power of transformation in real freedom is an inside job.

Eric Zimmer 00:13:08  Yeah. As somebody who’s traveled in addiction circles for the better part of my adult life. Right. I’ve heard that again and again. I used to take 12 step meetings into prisons, and you would see people in those meetings who had started to work a program of recovery. And they would say that they would say, I am more free now, right? Because addiction is a is you talk about a prison. It’s a I mean, it’s it’s a we all have prisons. That’s like a, that’s like the solitary kind of right. Like, you know, you’re really locked in when, when you’re in there. And that idea that we imprison ourselves and there’s a line in the AA big book that says, essentially we were looking for freedom from self bondage.

Eric Zimmer 00:13:49  That phrase is resonated with me as much as any over the years, because I’ve realized exactly that the degree that I feel free and that I’m free to consciously choose and make choices, is the degree to which I am free of that burden of myself.

Shaka Senghor 00:14:06  Absolutely. Absolutely. And that’s, you know, that’s really when you think about the subtitle of of How to Be Free as a Proven Guide to Escaping Life’s Hidden Prisons, because what I believe is that everybody has a hidden prison, but every prison has a door. And it’s that insight. Work has been so transformative in my life and the life of those I’ve been fortunate to mentor and coach, and it shows up in all kind of ways. You know, you think about addiction oftentimes that is the symptom. It’s not the cause. You get out to the cause, you know, it’s childhood trauma. It’s a disappointing childhood. It’s physical abuse, sexual abuse, like you name it. And all those things lead us down to that path of self imprisonment.

Shaka Senghor 00:14:50  And you know what? I offer our real tools, much like the big book that gives people agency over their lives and gives them an opportunity to really escape those kind of hidden prisons in their lives.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:04  I love that phrase. Everyone has hidden prisons, but every prison has a door. I mean, that’s just a beautiful statement of both compassion and hope. Rolled into one was eight word phrase or so. It’s really good.

Shaka Senghor 00:15:17  Thank you. Thank you so much.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:19  So your book really takes us on a three part journey. It takes us through the first part, which is sort of identifying and breaking the chains. Yeah. Then we talk about finding strength and then we talk about embracing freedom. So let’s kind of start with the chains and you say their grief, anger and shame and maybe we’ll work our way through them. But I want to talk about grief because the chapter on grief is really powerful. You talk about sort of three big losses in there, right? Your stepbrother, your dog, and then sort of your son’s health.

Eric Zimmer 00:15:52  Can you can you walk us through that time period?

Shaka Senghor 00:15:54  Yeah. In July 1991, my younger brother was murdered. and it was devastating to our family. You know, he was he was doing good. He had started to really turn his life around. He had just got his master’s degree. It was really, you know, sort in our life when he was murdered by a friend of his. And it was devastating. You know, I came home as the, you know, as a good son to help support my, my parents. And it was a moment where I saw my mother crying, and I was stricken by this deep sense of guilt because I knew that I had made somebody else’s family feel like that during my younger years, and so it made it nearly impossible for me to grieve. And then shortly after that, a few months later, our puppy was, was ran over by a car after a trainer left the gate open and didn’t want to accept accountability. And it was devastating to, you know, tell my my son that our puppy had been been killed.

Shaka Senghor 00:16:55  And then literally just just last year, you know, my son was rushed to the hospital to the E.R. and we discovered that he had type one diabetes, which completely changed our lives, changed his life. And, you know, grieving his innocence was one of the things that really, you know, as a dad, one that just made me more empathetic toward people who have children with special needs. And it made me sad. You know, I was so sad to see my son struggle with this new orientation around life and and but what what I’ve arrived at with all three of those things, was the power of gratitude to help you get through grief. And you know, when I think about my brother’s murder, I think about what he meant to me as a brother, more so than how his life ended. What was his life before that, what he meant to our family? the laughs, the jokes, the stories we were able to tell and to experience together. And the same thing with our puppy, Andy.

Shaka Senghor 00:17:55  my brother’s name is Sherrod. Our puppy name was Andy. And, you know, there are stories that my son and I and my wife, we talk about these moments when we had this big, old, beautiful football puppy, and he would get the zoomies and knock things over in the house. And you know, how it would send my son into his own hysterics. And so still, to have those memories, you know, are really powerful. And then when my son, the spirit of gratitude is knowing that we’ve raised him to be resilient and we’ve raised him to be a leader, and he’s taken such great control over his own health From what he eats to how he administers, you know, his insulin. And it is profoundly beautiful to watch this kid who was given something that he didn’t ask for. His body turned on him and for him to rise to the occasion and still show up and compete in sports and show up as a leader in school, help prepare his own meals. Like, I have so much gratitude and so much respect for him, which is just an incredible experience as a parent to have.

Shaka Senghor 00:18:59  And so that’s what I’ve learned. You know, the lessons that I share in this book is that, you know, the way I process the grief of my brother was I wrote a letter to the person who murdered him, and I wrote this letter from a position of really understanding that his life had to be tragic and trauma filled for him to kill someone who he thought of as a friend. And that processing of that horrendous moment allowed me to have gratitude for all of our journeys and experiences.

Eric Zimmer 00:19:50  The next chapter is about anger, and I want to use anger to look back on grief, because I think what I’ve heard you saying is that anger is often a way that we stop grief from occurring.

Shaka Senghor 00:20:05  Yeah. You know, when I, when I was really going through this, this grieving process, it was so many different emotions that I realized sat beneath, what we consider grief. Right? There’s the anger of it all, you know, the injustice. And what was really interesting and powerful in my, in my own experience, is that up until the point where I dealt with these two tragedies back to back, I had avoided anything that would cause me to get angry because I was afraid of my own anger.

Shaka Senghor 00:20:36  Given my my background and my experience of being in a very anger filled environment. And then when I was, you know, hit with this devastating news back to back, I realized that the anger that I had in that moment was attached to this deeper anger that I’ve carried throughout most of my life from things that had transpired and that I had never got resolution to. And it was really one of those moments of epiphany when, you know, I never thought of myself as the angry person. You know, I always thought about myself as someone who stood up when I felt an injustice happened, or someone who would defend myself in the midst of conflict, but not as someone who was really angry. And it was when I began to process it. And, you know, as an adult. Post incarceration, where I realized that I’ve had this deep seated anger that went all the way back to my childhood and that that anger kind of undergirded all the things related with grief. And, you know, when even the structure of the book, you know, I kind of, you know, stair stepped it down from like, grief to anger to shame.

Shaka Senghor 00:21:45  Yeah. Because in order to resolve any of these things and get resolution, you got to get to the root of them.

Eric Zimmer 00:21:51  One of the things that I think is interesting in your book, and that you do a good job of, is holding two truths at one time, and one of them is the absolute importance of facing these emotions, allowing ourselves to feel these emotions, not shoving them down, not avoiding them, not running away, but also not letting them run the show.

Shaka Senghor 00:22:16  Absolutely.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:17  And so how for you? I know this is a broad question, but, you know, like, let’s say we got off this call and you got some piece of news that I don’t know. Your book is gonna sell five copies. That’s it. We know that’s not true, but you feel really extremely disappointed, right? Like, how do you work with yourself when you’re having a strong emotion like that? And yet you also know that the answer is, I’ve got four more interviews I need to go do.

Eric Zimmer 00:22:39  I can’t drag this disappointment with me. How do you how do you work with that inside yourself today?

Shaka Senghor 00:22:44  Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s one that really, you know, is also a contributing factor with the book is that there is the duality of holding disappointment, but also recognizing purpose. And what I always come back to is like whenever there’s adversity, whenever there’s an obstacle, there’s also opportunity. And there’s also like, what if this moment meant to teach me, right? And the reverse of that can be true, right? So say I sell 5 million books this week. you know, there’s an excitement there, but then there’s still a responsibility that I got to do podcasts and interviews and, you know, which can be a hard thing to do when you’ve achieved extreme success in a short amount of time, right? Totally. So there’s always this this moment of this clarifying for me of like, you know, when I’m faced with something that’s really, really tough or really disappointing.

Shaka Senghor 00:23:31  I always start off with being curious about what does this mean to teach me? what am I meant to extract from this moment? I mean, just recently I received some news that was devastating. You know, I put in for a pardon. I’ve been out of prison for 15 years. I’ve accomplished more in 15 years than most people can humanly even think possible. For someone who’s never been to prison, let alone someone who’s actually been in prison. And I put in for a pardon, and I got the news that not only was the pardon denied, but that I have to apply back in two years if I hope to get one. And there was no there wasn’t even no reason that they gave for why I was denied. And so, you know, at that moment, it was it was heartbreaking. It was like, man, this is so disappointing. Like, I’ve worked hard. You know, I’ve done incredible work throughout the world. Global work, policy work, community work, mentorship, you name it, I’ve done it.

Shaka Senghor 00:24:28  And not even with the intention to get the print. I’ve just done it because that’s how I live my life, right? And, you know, to be hit with that news, like right before the book goes public and I gotta come out and I gotta show up and be present. You know, I really sat with it, you know, and I and I accepted that I was angry and I was disappointed. And then I said, okay, well, what is this opportunity meant to teach me? What does it mean to present in my life that allows me to help other people? And so I was like, you know what I want to share with people how devastating this was. And what does it mean for people to get a second chance? And who is deserving of that? Right. So it created an opportunity for me to do more work to really help people who have earned a second chance, and to challenge society on this idea that people should be punished indefinitely and you can’t expect people to achieve contribute.

Shaka Senghor 00:25:24  The access to societies if we’re going to punish them forever. Now. I know that I’m fortunate. I’m lucky I’m a writer. Right. So I’ve been able to create my own opportunities. That’s not most people coming out of prison. No. Right.

Eric Zimmer 00:25:37  No it’s.

Shaka Senghor 00:25:38  Not. I’m saying to people that no matter how much you do in the world, we’re still going to just hold just a little bit of punishment. You know, you may not be in prison. You may not be in a prison cell. But guess what? You can’t use TSA, or you can’t travel to this country, or you can’t get insurance on your home or health insurance, or you can’t take your child to school because you have a felony. So even though you’ve served your time, we’re still going to hold just a little bit of punishment over your head. Yeah. And so if there’s anything to come out of this story, hopefully what comes out of it outside of me being upset about it, is the opportunity for us as a society to decide, hey, do we want people to come back healthy and whole? Or do we not?

Eric Zimmer 00:26:23  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:23  Our policy seems to indicate we don’t. I mean, you know, I mean, right. Like I said, prisons kind of a I didn’t go, but I almost went. And I’ve had a number of friends who’ve done, you know, 20 years that I’ve sort of coached and mentored through their whole time there. And yeah, it’s just a messed up system, you know. Yeah. So you come out and you just don’t have. You just don’t have the same opportunities that normal people have. And I’m not saying you should come out and be like, well, automatically admitted to Harvard. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying though, that we’re setting it up. So it seems to me that people are much more likely to fail.

Shaka Senghor 00:27:00  Absolutely. You know, and that’s that’s the thing. Right. And so I could be angry and I can be trapped in that kind of system and, you know, or I can say to myself, you know what? I’m just going to keep on fighting.

Shaka Senghor 00:27:14  I’m going to keep on pushing forward, and I’m going to do everything I can to lead by example and hopefully change some lives and change some policies in the process. And so, you know, that’s how the hidden prisons show up. One thing I do know is like once you make a declaration of good, you’re going to be confronted with challenges to see how firmly you stand on what you’ve made a declaration to. And so I you know, I accept these things. That’s how I’m able to hold the duality of, you know, success and failure. And and, you know, that’s the tough thing about it all.

Eric Zimmer 00:27:46  Check in for a moment. Is your jaw tight, breath shallow. Are your shoulders creeping up? Those little signals are invitations to slow down and listen. Every Wednesday I send weekly bites of wisdom, a short email that turns the big ideas we explore here in each show things like mental health, anxiety, relationships, purpose into bite size practices you can use the same day it’s free.

Eric Zimmer 00:28:15  It takes about a minute to read and thousands already swear by it. If you’d like extra fuel for the weekend, you also get a weekend podcast playlist. Join us at one youth newsletter. That’s one you feed. And start receiving your next bite of wisdom. All right. Back to the show. Well, thank you for sharing that. I share your disappointment, although I’m not sure on the same level you do. And thank you for giving us a real life example of, you know, working through. Through something with me, I often think, like, I have to start by acknowledging I actually feel something because I can very easily shift into sort of like you said, I can shift into like, well, there’s a lesson in this, or, you know, something good will come out of this, or I can talk myself out of having any emotion if I’m not careful. Right. So I start with like, okay, I actually do feel really angry. I do feel really. Whatever.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:14  Okay. Now what? Right now what? Now what? What do we do with that? We’re going to stick with anger for a second, because near the end of the chapter, you have something I’d like you to expound upon. And you say you often need to ferret out anger from its hiding spots, blind spots and sore spots. Okay, what? What are hiding spots? Blind spots and sore spots?

Shaka Senghor 00:29:35  Yeah. You know, when I think about anger and how it shows up, right? So you’re driving across, you’re driving down the street, someone cuts you off in traffic and you go berserk. Is it really that someone cuts you off in traffic, or is it this deeper thing that you’ve been hiding from, that you’ve been suppressing, and it just creates an opportunity for you to have that outburst? Right. And the blind spots are the things we just don’t see is when your child does something and you go on a tangent or you’re irate and you don’t even see the damage that you’re causing because you’re blinded by, you know, this anger that’s been a part of your life.

Shaka Senghor 00:30:16  The source parts are that one thing that can set you off for some people is traffic, but some people it’s noise. For some people, it’s, you know, someone who is, you know, not great at communication. And what I realized in my life was that there was all these different things, you know, and some of them were attached to shame. You know, what does that thing that as soon as you hear it, you feel it, you know, you feel that thing where you have to talk yourself off the ledge, you know, that’s that hidden piece of anger. and a lot of times we just aren’t aware that that’s really the thing we think is some external factor that’s driving it. But in reality, it’s an internal thing. Right? And I always use the example of, of the road rage or getting cut off in traffic or things are moving too slow because no one is immune to being upset by a poor driver, right? But to go to the extremes of irrational reaction to something that’s just a human error usually speaks to one of those three things.

Shaka Senghor 00:31:21  And sometimes there’s a combination of them. Right? But but most often there’s one of those three things.

Eric Zimmer 00:31:54  I am always fascinated by the road rage phenomenon, and I don’t mean the type where you get out and crack somebodys windshield with a baseball bat. I just mean, how many of us get so bent out of shape, I just I marvel at it and I don’t marvel at it because I don’t do it. I’m just saying, like, I don’t fully understand, like, what is it about that that, like, makes us so, so mad? I’m sure people have studied it. I’m sure there’s probably a good answer that I don’t know, but but I’m always fascinated by it. I also think these hiding spots, blind spots and sore spots are also for me. A good indicator is when the reaction is out of proportion to the thing, right? So like if somebody cuts me off in traffic, I might be mad for a minute and then I’m like, okay, whatever. No big deal, right? Right.

Eric Zimmer 00:32:43  If I’m still mad an hour later.

Speaker 4 00:32:45  Yeah. Or.

Eric Zimmer 00:32:46  You know, there are these things that happen that the response is way out of proportion to what happened. That’s also, for me, always a good sign of like, okay, there’s to use your terms. There’s, there’s a, there’s something hidden here or something that’s particularly sore that I’m not seeing.

Shaka Senghor 00:33:03  Yeah. And it’s the difference between having a bad moment and having a bad day. You know. Yeah. None of us, none of us are immune to somebody endangering our lives. But that’s often that’s a natural reaction, right? It’s not natural to, like, chase that person down and, like, try to run them off the road or even think that that’s, like, the way that you, you know, you handle that. And so I, you know, I always equate those things to like when, when there’s a deeper thing happening in our lives, you know, oftentimes it shows up in ways that it’s clear indicators.

Shaka Senghor 00:33:36  But if you’re not aware that this is a recurring theme, it’s easy to blame those external factors, right? you know, I live in I live in LA, so traffic is always bad. So, you know, if you’re if you’re if you want to be just unaware and move through life that way, it’s the perfect environment to be upset every day. but if you want to get to the truth, you have to realize, like, hey, maybe there’s something deeper here and maybe there’s a sore spot or a blind spot or something hidden, and I ended up discovering it through this, this writing journey. which was really comes up in the chapter on shame that, you know, there were things that was beneath the surface that really was driving a lot of the things that I experienced in my life.

Eric Zimmer 00:34:16  So let’s talk about shame. Shame is something I think a lot of people are much more familiar with than they used to be. Right? Brené Brown has done a lot of work, but it’s just been in the culture.

Eric Zimmer 00:34:27  It’s been talked about. It’s this idea, not that I did something wrong, but there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. I’ve also seen shame to be one of sometimes the hardest things for people to get by or to get over. And I’m curious what what has worked for you?

Shaka Senghor 00:34:47  Yeah, I think journaling probably was the greatest unlock for me when it came to shame. And in the book, you know, and I don’t want to I don’t want to give the whole book away. But I think this is a really important part of me discovering this shame that I was carrying. There was a neighbor who was a trusted friend that my parents trusted with our care, trusted us to be around to hang out with, and he attempted to molest me. And in reaction to him attempting to molest me and me getting out of that situation, and I and I’m so thankful that I had the spiritual wisdom, even as a precocious kid, to know that something wasn’t right. And I was able to to get out of that situation.

Shaka Senghor 00:35:28  I was really angry. I was angry at the sense of betrayal. I was angry that this person who I looked to as a hero, really was a villain. And so in response to that, I burglarized his house and with the attempt to cause him harm. And I was caught. I was arrested, and I was punished by my parents. And my parents were angry and upset and embarrassed. I was embarrassed in front of our neighborhood, our community, you know, people who have trusted me to be the good kid, the honor roll student. You know, they saw me being led out of this man’s house in handcuffs, and that was embarrassing. And so I carried this deep sense of shame about that moment, well into my adulthood. And it was through the process of journaling when I was trying to really uproot this, this sense of like, man, I carry this angry anger. What is it? And I realized that I was really angry at my parents because they had not created space for me to say to them, hey, this man tried to take advantage of me, and this is why I burglarized his house.

Shaka Senghor 00:36:38  this is why I wanted to cause him harm and hurt. And it wasn’t until I was 50 years old I was turning 50, and I was like, you know what? I need to have a conversation with my parents. And, you know, I was so frustrated with, you know, Brené Brown interpretation of shame. And she talked about how you got to tell the story. And I was like, I’m tired of telling these painful stories in my life. But it was exactly what I needed to do. And I was able to talk to my parents. And they were they were present. It was hard, you know, it was really hard for my dad. It was hard for my mother, you know. As a parent, you never want to have that feeling that you’ve entrusted your child into someone’s care that caused them harm. But we were able to sit with it as adults, you know? And so that’s what you know, when you’re talking about getting beneath the anger and you’re talking about grieving things from childhood.

Shaka Senghor 00:37:32  you know, it’s those, those moments like that that creates that hidden prison. because for years I didn’t even make the connection between the anger I carried and the shame that I had for feeling like, man, what was it about me that made this man target me? And what was it about me that made my parents not even be curious enough to know why I did this? I wasn’t I was an honorable student. I was a scholarship student. I was the smart, good kid on the block. You know, I was the kid who cut neighbor’s grass and picked pears from their trees and helped. You know, lady, the older ladies carry their bags to the house, and then, you know, they didn’t think that there was something else there. And that was I was angry. I carried that angry with me for a long time. And that’s what the. That’s what shame does, you know. And the way that it showed up in my work is when I didn’t get a thing right.

Shaka Senghor 00:38:26  and the CEO would come and say, hey, you didn’t execute on that, right? It would bring up those old feelings, you know, and it erased all the wins. All the times I did get it right. It just completely eradicated that. And that’s that hidden prison of shame. That’s what it does. It erases your wins in a way that you’re constantly, you know, trying to navigate life against the tide of your past.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:49  You were in prison for murder, which is something that obviously you’ve had to reckon with?

Speaker 4 00:38:55  Absolutely.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:55  Was that the sort of obvious thing that you needed to reckon with? And so you did earlier and more often than some of these other hidden forms of shame.

Shaka Senghor 00:39:04  I think with being sentenced for murder, there were there are different stages of what? Of how I had to reconcile that. And the first stage was I had to accept responsibility. That I made a horrible decision and that didn’t come easy. You know, you grow up in drug culture. It’s a very violent culture.

Shaka Senghor 00:39:27  there’s constant conflict. There’s constant threats to your life. you know, I had all type of fears and anger attached to when I was shot as a kid. And those things began. Became an excuse for why I made that decision that night. And what I realized is that those things aren’t an excuse. You know, I had to be responsible. I had to be accountable. However, those things did explain how I arrived at that point in my life. And that’s what, you know, took me some years to reconcile. So it was a it was a more drawn out, you know, process, because I wanted to get to the root of, like, why would I make that decision? You know, why would that be the decision? Why didn’t I take the second step after I took the first step to walk away? And it was really unpacking like this deeper stuff and realizing, like, you know, it’s ego, it’s anger, it’s paranoia, it’s PTSD. It’s all these it’s a volatile cocktail.

Shaka Senghor 00:40:29  And yet within that volatile cocktail, the truth is, ultimately, I made the decision and I have to be responsible and I have to be accountable. And that, you know, even though I’ve been given a prison sentence that does not atone me to my community, you know, the real work happened when I got out of prison. You know, I knew getting out of that environment, that the work that I need to do to repair harms in my community could only be done once I was physically free. and so when I got out, I immediately started mentoring other kids because I never, I never want another human being to ever live with this type of, a burden that hangs over your head no matter what. Right. Like I’ve been I’ve been out of prison for 15 years. And I can tell you, in the 15 years since I’ve been out, I have done so many things that have nothing to do with my past. I’ve accomplished and achieved more things than you know I can even write about in one book.

Shaka Senghor 00:41:36  And those things are as much a part of my life as my past is. But people get trapped in my past. You know, they get trapped in a singular moment. Even though there’s been thousands of moments since then that are very compelling. You know, I’m on a Grammy nominated album with Nars. One of the greatest American poets in the world. and he thought enough of my writing of the Craft to ask me to join him on an album. You know, that has nothing to do with the time I served in a cell. Like, my talent is my talent. But, you know, people will always go back to that moment. It doesn’t matter. I can have this conversation in 20 years from now. And people will say in 1991, what happened? and it’s and it’s no fault of theirs. It’s just the facts of like how we think about about life in our culture. And so I would never want a kid to experience that. You know, I would never want another person, another human being in general.

Shaka Senghor 00:42:33  but the reality was, I was I was a kid, I was 19. and so what I, what I did when I got out was like, you know, I’m going to I’m going to work to make sure that I do my part to, to tell the kids how painful it is to live with a regrettable moment over and over and over again. and so, you know, that’s the that’s the tough work, right? That’s the that’s the, you know, and even within this work, I realized, like, I had my own hidden prisons around the work. You know, it’s anger. And I have to talk about your past all the time. It’s it’s sad, you know. and so I had to figure out ways to do it in a way that that honored my humanity while still getting to the truth.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:20  Yeah. I think that is something that many, many people, it’s. It’s a double edged sword doing what you do. And I guess I do to a certain extent, which is examining these old things that happened.

Eric Zimmer 00:43:40  You know, mine is the the homeless heroin addict piece re-examining these things. ideally for, for good, but but some of it is. I’m like, well, I’m the one who keeps stuff, right? I’m the one who keeps dragging this back into, you know, into the light. So I think what we’re sort of talking about here is forgiving yourself. And that is one of in part two of the book, under the finding your strength is forgiveness. And you say something in there that I really like that I think speaks to what you just said. Consider how forgiveness might look in your own journey, not as a single event, but as a series of small choices that gradually lighten your load. What would be your first step? And and I love that idea, because I don’t think that we forgive ourselves or others all at once, generally. Right. Like, my guess is this ground of forgiving yourself for what happened back then. You have been over this ground a lot to get to the degree of freedom that you that you do have around it.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:46  Say more about the process of all of this.

Shaka Senghor 00:44:49  Absolutely. You know, the forgiveness is so powerful in general, right? Like to forgive someone else. To free yourself with a burden from carrying anger, disappointment, sadness, grudges, whatever. Whatever you carry when you refuse to forgive someone. I mean, it’s such a powerful gift to give yourself, to lighten your load and to to let yourself, you know, live your your most free life. It’s it’s even more difficult when it comes to self-forgiveness because we self-flagellation, you know, we we beat up on ourselves over and over and over again and negative self-talk. You know, it’s one of the biggest hidden prisons. You know, you you you’re like, man, I’m not. I’m unworthy. you know, I don’t deserve this. I, you know, I feel bad about myself. I’m not good. You know, it’s all that negative talk that comes with the inability to forgive. And what it looks like over time is that gets lessened.

Shaka Senghor 00:45:45  You know, it’s it’s you know, you started up for me. I started to develop different language for it. You know, the language was that was a singular event at a very particular time in my life. It wasn’t the entirety of who I am. And so over time, it took me finding new language. It took me writing about, you know, the moment it took me being responsible and accountable and saying, hey, you know, I, I made a poor decision. I made a horrible decision, a regrettable decision that can never be unchanged. And I did that as a broken kid. And in that moment, that kid was responsible for that singular act. But it’s not all of who I who I am. And so it was writing it down and being able to own that. There was other parts of me, there’s other ways that I’ve lived my life. There’s other ways that I’ve shown up. It was recognized that I let myself down. You know. And so that that ability to reframe language, not reframe the experience, because the experience is the experience and it’s a real experience that really happened that I’m really responsible for.

Shaka Senghor 00:46:57  But it was reframing the language around the finality of judging this kid for the rest of his life from that one singular act. And that’s the work, right? That’s the where the the mantras come from. That’s where imagining your life without that trauma and then giving yourself that gift, you know, that’s where rewriting the narrative of, of of self, you know, and reimagining what is your life look like when you don’t cause harm and then making a choice to not cause harm? so it’s all those things that really became part of that kind of long, drawn out process. And there was moments where you can get pulled right back into that old feeling. And if you don’t have tools, it’s hard to get out. But fortunately, you know, what the book provides is a toolkit that helps you keep moving forward even when something tries to pull you backwards.

Speaker 4 00:47:51  Yeah.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:52  I think that idea.

Speaker 4 00:47:54  That you.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:55  Keep talking about, which is.

Speaker 4 00:47:56  That.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:57  On one hand you take responsibility and on the other hand you, you recognize like you didn’t enter that moment in a vacuum.

Eric Zimmer 00:48:04  We are always, I think, to, to a certain degree, a some of the causes and conditions in our lives, both good and bad. You know, it’s not that there’s not choice, but it’s not like a completely free choice. As if the way I talk about this sometimes is like the difference of choice I have now about doing drugs or not is radically different. The amount of choice I had at 25 felt incredible. There was some element of it in there. I had to be the one that went into recovery, right? But the choice I had then and the choice I have now are very, very. They feel very different.

Speaker 4 00:48:40  Absolutely.

Eric Zimmer 00:48:41  And so I think that I’ve seen people and at different points in my, my healing journey, get stuck on one side of that either. It’s all responsibility. I just shouldn’t have done it. I’m a, you know, like, all the running ourselves down or the opposite, which is like, well, you know, of course I did that.

Eric Zimmer 00:48:59  Like, I was just this, you know, I, you know, I was abused. I had all these things happen. And there’s a middle ground of agency in there somewhere. I’ve straddled it a bunch of times and hopefully maybe in in later years I’ve gotten a little bit better at doing it. But you talk about that really eloquently here and in the book a lot.

Shaka Senghor 00:49:18  Yeah. And I think that’s the thing about the world we live in now where we want to have these very clear binary philosophies. Right? Yeah. It’s an either or proposition. And it’s one of the, you know, things when I think about the Robert Frost poem and it’s like the road less travel, right? You can take this path of that path. And the reality is, a lot of times you got to carve a new path. There’s a new ground to be, to pursue, and that is when you can kind of merge these worlds, right? Where, yes, there is some agency there. Yes, there are some responsibility.

Shaka Senghor 00:49:51  And these things really did happen to me, right? I really did get shot. I really got shot and there was no treatment and there was no care, and there was nobody to coach and talk through all these things. And then I also made the choice to carry a gun, and I created a narrative that led to me pulling the trigger. Those things, we can hold space for both of those. Right. And it’s not about letting me off the hook. I’ve served my time right. So I don’t I don’t have a vested interest in not being responsible. I’ve already served the time. but what my real interest is, is telling the truth. And if you can tell, if I can tell the truth, the whole truth, it helps us recognize, hey, if we see somebody else on that path and we see them early enough where we can catch it. Maybe we can prevent, you know, a catastrophe from happening. That’s what agency really looks like. Is ownership over all of the experience? Not just part of it?

Eric Zimmer 00:50:44  That’s very well.

Speaker 4 00:50:45  Said.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:46  Before you check out, pick one insight from today and ask, how will I practice this before bedtime? Need help turning ideas into action? My free weekly Bites of Wisdom email lands every Wednesday with simple practices, reflection and links to former guests who can guide you even on the tough stuff like anxiety, purpose and habit change. Feed your good wolf at one you feed. Net newsletter again one you feed your net newsletter. I want to jump to another part of the book that I think brings this whole messy nature of like, things just aren’t one thing or the other. They are. They are confusing and it’s a story. As a as an Ohioan, I live in Columbus, Ohio, so I am a a, you might imagine.

Speaker 4 00:51:36  A.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:37  A Cavs fan. right. And you tell a story about a Cavs game. The game I know it well everything about it. Tell this story because hey it’s you know I resonated with it just from like, oh my God what a choice kind of thing.

Eric Zimmer 00:51:52  But it also gets into this fact that there aren’t clear answers about what the right thing is.

Shaka Senghor 00:51:57  Yeah, that’s such a great question. That story is one that I will hold over my son’s head for the rest of his life.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:04  You’re going to be like 90, and you’re going to be like, you are coming here to to change my diaper because. Exactly. Exactly.

Shaka Senghor 00:52:12  Yeah. No, I you know, it was game seven. You know, NBA finals. And I got invited to be courtside at the game. And it was also Father’s Day. And I made a promise to my kid that I would be home from for Father’s Day to spend it with him. And and I made the choice. You know, he was I think he was maybe 4 or 5. And because I gave him my word, I felt this, you know, this immense sense of responsibility to actually fly back because I was already in L.A. I was in L.A., I was living in Detroit, and all I had to do was take an hour flight up north to to Oakland, to watch this game seven, you know, and, against Golden State.

Shaka Senghor 00:52:55  And I opted to honor my word with my son and fly back. And it was one of those moments where I realized that, you know, there’s moments in life where we’re, you know, we’re we’re faced with a decision and we can over index on how we choose to make the decision. And that’s what I did. You know, I felt this immense sense of guilt that if I didn’t show up on Father’s Day, that I was somehow letting my son down. And it wasn’t until years later that I’m like, he wouldn’t know the difference between Sunday and Monday. I could I could have went to watch that game seven. The LeBron block. I could have been a part of history potentially.

Speaker 4 00:53:35  Yeah.

Shaka Senghor 00:53:36  One of the great and I’m a big basketball fan. So yeah, I’m like, I probably would have been on the screen immortalized in every NBA film as the crazy fan that ran on the court. Like it was crazy. Yeah. And I and I, and I for, you know, for went that moment for for my son, you know and so it’s, it’s it’s wisdom.

Shaka Senghor 00:53:56  It’s life lesson learned. You know, and now it’s, you know, now it’s a funny story I can tell him. and hopefully because he’s just now kind of getting in the basketball and I’m like, oh, I can’t wait till you fall in love with it, because I can really hammer home the the point of how much I love you.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:12  What a good dad I am. Well, what really hit me about that story, besides the fact of like you missed this iconic moment, was you talk about the ambivalence that pulled at you not just then, but has continued to write. There’s there are there are two easy narratives there. That one narrative is what a great dad you are. You gave up this huge, important thing to go spend Father’s Day with your son. That’s one narrative. The other narrative is you shouldn’t you shouldn’t give up everything that’s important to you for somebody else. And neither of them are right. Right. Right. The fact that you’ve had ambivalence for so long about this, I think, really hits at this fact.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:58  And I think so many of us fall into this thing at a certain point in life. Many of us were battling between our values and our desires, and that’s a certain type of battle. But but I think the next version of that is when you’re when you’re battling between your values and your values. Right. When you’re battling between love of your son and yet something that is also hugely personally important to you. Those are the ones that I think make life so challenging. Absolutely. Is that there’s no right answer.

Shaka Senghor 00:55:32  That’s the thing about it, right, is that, you know, it’s a great thing, but it’s also the challenging thing of life, right? Is that there are no, no right answers. You know, in some of these things. And the reason that I share them is that we end up beating ourselves up over and over again, even though there is no right answer. And like, that’s that’s the hidden prison part of it is sometimes you have to recognize that, you know, there is there’s no clear and easy path.

Shaka Senghor 00:56:00  And whatever path you choose, you just have to make peace with it. And I did that with my son is yes, I missed the game. And yes, I you know, I could have been in that moment, but also loved the fact that I made the choice because I love being a father. and whether he remembers it or not, I still found a way to have a great evening watching the game and still was able to celebrate, you know, being a dad in a special way. And that’s sometimes that’s what you get from it. You know.

Eric Zimmer 00:56:29  I feel pretty certain you’re gonna help him, remember. Oh, absolutely.

Shaka Senghor 00:56:34  I can’t wait.

Eric Zimmer 00:56:35  Shaka, thank you so much for coming on. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I really enjoyed the book. And thank you.

Shaka Senghor 00:56:42  Truly an honor and really appreciate it and love everything you’re doing. I mean, it’s such a great title for a podcast.

Eric Zimmer 00:56:49  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend.

Eric Zimmer 00:56:57  Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.