Donna Hylton on Healing and Hope

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. Yeah, thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Donna Hilton, a women's rights activist and criminal justice reform advocate. Donna is a sought after speaker who speaks publicly about

the trauma of sexual violence and abuse. She emphasizes how the root causes often result in victimization, and that of women who have been abused are being incarcerated, especially women of color. Her book is a Little Piece of Light, a memoir of hope, prison and a life abound. Hi, Donna, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. It is a real honor to have you on. You have an incredible story in an incredible journey, and a wonderful book called A Little Piece of Light, a memoir

of hope, prison and a life unbound. And we're going to get into all of that in a moment, but let's start like we always do, with the parable. There is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter and she says, 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. And the granddutter stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at our grandmother says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. 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, so that parable actually asonates with me a lot. And I say that because I looking at my entire life, my childhood, you know, all the things that I went through, the abuse,

the trauma, the violence. I could have become a product of all those things at any time, and I didn't because I knew there was something more that that wasn't me, wasn't who I should be, and I didn't. I don't know what was keeping me, So I would say grounded or knowing for a little girl, but I kind of knew, but I just didn't know how to navigate. I didn't know how to articulate. I just didn't know what to

do because I was a child. Um. But I continue to hold onto the light, which is the good wolf, right, because I knew that that other stuff that was happening around me wasn't me, but I just didn't know how to get out of it. Yeah, And it's just something that I knew was just in age. I think, you know, I try to like figure that out, and I just knew, I really did, and because it felt right, It felt

right as a as a little girl. It just felt right to know, like knowing the things that were going on around me were bad, but I just didn't know how bad and really know what to do with it. Yeah, it's a great perspective and I love you know, sort of equating the good wolf with that little piece of light, which is a theme that runs through your book that despite all the darkness you you held onto these little

points of light. So maybe let's start with just having you walk us through some of the darkness that got you to where you ended up. I don't want to say too much. It would be nice people get the book. But I was born on the island of Jamaica, and I was born to a mother that looking back now and my adulthood and understanding, I know she had some mental illness. My diagnosis right now, I would say she

was bipolar, man oppressive. I could be wrong, but I think I'm kind of glow still and being on point, especially understanding human behavior and human condition. Um. And so she was. But she was my mother. She was abusive, but then she'd be loving, and then she'd be abusive right after she's loving. It was really difficult for me as a child to you know, understand what was wrong with my mother and and understand why she wasn't around

as much. And when she was around, why would she always, you know, go from one way to another way good, too bad, be loving, and then not loving, be really cruel. Um. But she was my mother and I still loved her, and so by the time I was around UM six, six and a half six, couple was introduced to me,

and I eventually was brought to America. When I found out later much later, actually when I was writing the book and putting the pieces together, then I was sold and I was brought up to America with the couple, and I was told that they were now my mother and my father. And I was hard for me to really understand because I knew my mother, I knew other

people in my family in Jamaica. UM. I was seven and a half when I got here, and so by the time I was nine and a half, so it's about two years, the man who was now my father started taking me to a closet and raped me almost every day. And I was like nine and a half. So I went from one series of um or horrific

conditions to another. I actually would have preferred being home with my mother because she was my mother and I knew her, you know, and she gave birth to me, So I mean, I grew up in a country that I know, I remember it well, and being here in this country and not always asking for my mother, when will I see her again? You know, it's just on top of the abuse, the trauma, the rapes and the molestations and stuff. You know, it was just really difficult,

really difficult. It was very traumatic, you know. And your your adoptive mother was not um a stroll in the park either. She wasn't you know. When I came here. She was a psychiatric social worker, but she was working towards her other degrees. So at some point, and I'm not sure when she was in a duel or some kind of master's program where she got her master's and PhD and all these things, and she went on to

becoming one of New York State's mental health directors. And she used to take me with her to some of her places where she had her patients. They called them patients then, And UM, I knew that they were different. I knew, I understood. I understood clearly that they were mentally challenged or some things were wrong. Didn't really get it,

but I understood something with different. Um, but I watched how she treated them, and she treated them very nicely, hearingly, and all I wanted her to do was just giving me a key so I could lock my bedroom door, so I wouldn't be hurt anymore, you know. Um, And I didn't understand how she didn't I didn't understand why she couldn't help me. But then I also was told that, well,

I believed everything that was happening was my fault. As a child, you believe everything bad that happens is your fault, and so you start owning other people's stuff. You don't know how to, you know, rationalize and and and and analyze what's going on around you. It was just very painful. One of the themes of the book to me is all the different systems that failed you, And one of the early ones was you finally got up the courage to tell a school counselor what your adoptive father was

doing to you. I was about twelve twelve and a half, and um, I was on the track team by then, I was the captain of the track team, and so I was finding a sense of freedom in running track. I think that's probably why I became good at it, because I was running away right in my mind as I ran but one day, I just I was tired. I just tired. I just was so tired, and so I went to tell the counselor that I needed some help.

And I tried to tell her. I told her basically, my father was hurting me and I couldn't take it anymore. And she asked me, does my mother no And I said no. As a child, I said no, I'm looking back though I knew. Now I now know she knew. But so she said she would call her. That's okay. All I really wanted out of that to happen was for her to give me a key, say she would give me a key from my bedroom door. And so that was my childish way of saying that would be

my help. But that didn't happen. I don't really know the conversation on the phone, but I just know that the counselor passed me the phone that your mother wants to speak with you. The next thing I know, she was yelling at me and called me a liar and

threatened me. There was a show that I used to watch that scared me after death as a kid, and um she told me that I would become just like the people that I would see the women that were on that show, and I would be locked up and I would never be able to come out and wouldn't be home. I mean all kinds of things, and it just shut me down. But she told basically told them that I was lying, told the councilor I was lying,

and so I shut up from there. And so then not too long after that, you are in a position where, uh, there is an older male that comes into your life who pretends to want to help you. The story is just it's just reading it. It's just I know, people tell me what people say. I have the comments like, oh, that could possibly have happened. Everybody couldn't have done that. Sort, yes, it does happen. I'm not the only star you're You're not.

Unfortunately you're not. No, I'm not. I'm just speaking about it and bringing it and making you uncomfortable with it by bringing it to the surface because we have to talk about it. We have to do that so we can stop this and get to the root causes and stuff. But you're right, So an older person did come into my life. Why because I found out, well, look at

understanding it now, my father was involved with immigrants. I don't even know what you call that, getting people to get citizenships by marrying them to people that were American citizens. While he was doing that, and so there was one older gentleman who's definitely older than me. I was fourteen by at that time. He was like twenty, and he just started talking to me, asked me, how are you, you know, just being nice and I would talk to him, and one day he said, you know, you can talk

to me. You can tell me anything that you want. I care you know, I care about you basically. And so this just two years later, and he felt he sounded since here to me, you know, So I said, okay, I would tell him, and I started telling him what was going on. I think over a course of like two days or so, two or three days. I didn't tell him all at one time. And by the end of the conversations, uh, he told me that he would help me. He would take me away, get me away

from there, and no one would hurt me again. You would make sure that I was okay. That's all I wanted to hear. That's all I needed. You know, I couldn't get the key. I still hadn't gotten a key to the house to get inside. Get out or in or to my bedroom. So I was like, okay, maybe this will work. You know, I just needed help. I mean it was an adult, so I figured, okay I

would get help. Became my worst nightmare, and it just you know, one thing I'd like to tell people that people, especially girls who are facing or dealing with trauma, trauma such as that, in that capacity, um, it does something different to us, our psyche. We're already made to believe that we are second before men, before boys, right, and

so we're less valued. You kind of know that in your own way as a kid, you kind of know that, and so and people, the adults reinforced that around you, right, and especially for me, And so I believe he was a man. I believe you would help you know that kind of thing. But I also had an older man that was abusing me, already raping me, you know what I mean, So it kind of made sense that, well,

a man can help me in this situation. Two weeks after um um, I ran away with him because he talked me to running away, he started abusing me and raping me even worse than I could imagine, and became the father of your child. So I mean I say clearly that Adrian is a product of rape. I was fifteen years old. I didn't want to have sex with her. I didn't. That's not what I ran away for. I ran away to get to be safe, to be protected.

But that's not what that turned into. And yeah, I got pregnant with Agent and she's a product of that. But I love her, you know, UM, I know what it's like not to be loved and to be hurt. So I could never do that to her or any other human being. UM, But it's difficult. Sometimes it's difficult. How is she? Are you comfortable talking about that? I'm okay. I wrote it in a book to Adrian. You know,

I was hurt herself. Family member heard her. Um. She ran away the same age as I did, and ran to me in prison, and I helped her as much as I could. I eventually signed her into the army. That's what she wanted to do. UM, But she was still kind of messed up. Why because her mother wasn't there. And it does have an effect on your children when the mother is in there, A family you know is in there, definitely the mother and she carries that to this day. So our relationship is a work in progress.

She started um doing drugs, heroin and really badly, and I've been trying to deal with that, doing the best that I can with that. She's an adult now, so it's not much that I can do. She says she's off. I would like to believe her, you know, Um, I would like to believe her. I'm here, but I have to keep a healthy distance also because Adrian likes to continue to throw in my face that I wasn't there and blame me not be not being there when she

was younger to the things that happened to her. And after a while, you gotta have to like grow up and you know, And I've tried to do everything that I can. But I'm still there as best as I can. I'll always be there for her, always love her. But it's a work in progress. Well, I sincerely hope and wish for the best for her. So without belaboring too much of it, I want to get on with with parts of the story. But the abuse doesn't stop there. By the time that you um, you know, you you

referenced at prison. We'll talk about that in a minute. By the time you've gone into prison, you have been abused and raped by your math teacher, a police officer, a clergyman. I mean, you have been damaged over and over again. You know. I get these questions like how can you talk about it and just talk about it? And I said, it comes with practice. It comes to practice, It comes with many, many years of therapy healing. But

it also comes from that place of light. So it comes from that good wolf that I feed because I know that to talk about it, I released it as well. Instead of holding on. And as much as you talk about and you think you released all the pain and the stuff that you go through. Their echoes, right, and so your body and your mind and your you have echoes of trauma. You have echoes of things that happened

to you. And so you know, I tell people that I talk about it because I know I need to tell people what happens and what we do to people so we can face it and understand it and try to stop it. Mind you, everything that happened in the book up until I went to prison how been to me by the time when I was nineteen twenty. It's not like I lived and this was like my life. This is something that since my childhood. You know, the

one with the police officer. An older man was trying to make me be his girl girlfriend or something like that, and I just kept my distance. And this he found where I was staying in the bronx and was waiting outside in the night. And I had just happened to go outside with a friend to go to the store,

and he was waiting. He knew where I was and he was waiting, and he snatched me up by gunpoint, took me into a cab, took me to his home, and he raped me, kept me there for three days, and a friend of a neighbor, a family neighborhood friend who just happened to be a person of the church or a local pastor, invited him a I don't know how that happened. I just know he was there, I knew who he was, and he raped me as well.

So those things do happen. It was from that incident where I was able to get away after three days and I went back and she told I told what happened, and she told me she knew he had snatched me because she was there when he took me by gunpoint, and she said, need to go to the police and say something. I was afraid too, but I did it. You know, I did it. I went. I had burns on my body because he had burned me. It beat me really bad. The detective who took the case took

me to Jacoby Housewell was a burned unit there. I was treated and he was taking me back. He pulled me over on the street, Dark Street, Court Street, in a bronx and he raped me. So it does happen, and yes, so you know, I was saying referencing before that. You know, when you're young, you you you, and especially for young girls, you really start owning and really believing

that everything that happens around you as your fault. And so you continue to make those series of same mistakes because you don't know how to navigate, You don't know how to rationalize what's going on, and there's no positive or the good wolves around you just like, hey, I need help, and they really help you. Predators no prey. And when predators recognize prey, they victimized, they hurt, they do these things and they're I mean, there are a lot of broken people in this world. There are a

lot of broken people in this world. And I said, there's a lot of walking wounded people, and I've turned my life into becoming a wounded healer as opposed to hurting people. So you go to prison, Um, maybe we spend a minute or two on what brought you there, although I think that's less important to the overall story, but maybe you know, walk us through that and then you know, then I'd like to talk about your time in prison, because that's really when things started to really

change for you. Being young and trying not going back to the Hilton's after I run away and I got away from Adrian's father, I was trying to figure out life and trying to figure out what I was gonna do as a young mother. I was a child with a child that would get odd jobs and trying to become a model because I thought if I was a model that that would help me. I don't know why. It was my childish dream. I was like, Oh, they

can be they're pretty and no one hurts them. I really believe that people always thought about how pretty I am, so I equated that were like, they're pretty, no one hurts them. I want to do that. I want to be like them. Anyway, it was me working and trying to do that build up model, modeling career. At sixteen seventeen, eighteen nineteen, I started working at this hotel gift shop

and I met my son to be co defended. And I was gullible and just nice, and I just everybody I wanted to be my friend on the walk and wounded. I needed family and needed friendship. I needed at all, a very needy because I was so broken, and she just seemed very nice and not like everybody else. She was that you know, people shy away from people because they don't look like everyone else. And she looked frumpy

and you know whatever. And I was like, oh, she's my friend, you know, like I was going to protect her like I couldn't protect me. And I felt I was becoming her friend. And it was after a series of conversations with me telling her everything. I just told her everything, did you do that? And telling her what I wanted to do be a model and about my daughter, and I just, you know, I don't know what to do.

I have her staying with the people that hurt me, right, my my mother and my father, but I don't know, I don't have a place. I was eighteen nineteen and um, so she told me one day that Oh, I can get my godfather to help you. He knows people, he knows everyone didn't. She started talking about being um in the mafia, and UH said okay. I didn't say okay, it didn't matter. I was like her, heard help, no problem, Fine,

that didn't go well. Um he said basically, I'm a kind of speed it up so he won't spend so much time on it. But it's important. It's very important because of Mr v Um that he would help me. Oh, he just wants me to um do something for him.

I was like sure. So the bottom line was, would I, you know, say I witnessed a sexual encounter between his business partner and Maria, who became my co defended and they both game my defended and so I said, okay, that's where I read wrong, as you never have said okay, because it's nothing okay with that. But I didn't see it that way because sex at this time, that kind of stuff didn't. It didn't matter to me because people

were that's what they were doing to me. So at there was no judgment call, there was no rationale for me there. The day came for for me to do that be you know, walking on a sexual you know, intimate scene with um Mr V, who I didn't know, but no later on was mr V and Maria and I walked into a kidnap. Kidnapping was already in place and I couldn't walk out of it. And because of that, I became a co defendant and an accessory. That was

not my crime or anything that I put together. But you would not know that based on media, you know, and on what other people have to say, UM, but it was actually known in the court that you know, I and a couple of the other girls were accessories to list thing. We didn't have any clue. We didn't even know who Mr V was. We had no We weren't into these things. We were young and I was the youngest. So I received life and I went to Bedford.

But the crimes of kidnapping and murder, because that's what the convictions were for. I didn't kidnap mr V and I didn't murder mr V. Actually Mr V wasn't murdered in the sense when we see someone killing someone UM, but he was murdered because it was in an act of a felony where he had he was kidnapped and so he had a gag over his eyes and his mouth and he suffocated because I think he was trying to move it or no one suffocated him. And they

said that the autopsic shows that. So it was like a slow kind of progression, um, which is horrible, And how could a person die? You know? And I'm around like how could I not do anything? Like? How could this happen? But I I blame myself for a very long time, a very long time, and so that's where I had to start with the healing. I had to start for giving myself before I could even go anything else.

And it happened when I went to prison. You say in the book, the people that involved you in this crime, you know, had threatened to your family if you did not help and participate. And I didn't want anybody dead. I didn't. I didn't like what does that mean? And they were saying they were mafia related, and there I believed them. Adults stay doing all these things around me. I don't know what that means. I don't know, um, but I couldn't as what I said. When I walked

into a kid and I couldn't walk out. Everything just turned upside down. It was just I had no I just did not know what to do. So let's move on to prison, because in prison, ironically, you know, it's a it's kind of a sad testament to a lot of things. That prison became, uh the safest place for you in some awful ways. Um, although not entirely, but you know, but but that you started to really heal there.

And you know, for me, there seemed to be a real turning point in the book when you got involved with helping a woman named Helen. So why don't you tell us about that? So as so some years later, and I was living on a unit with this woman named Helen, and we used to you know, on units, women are very maternal and nurturing, and so we cook and you know, eat together, or do things together, wash,

you know, wash our clothes together, stuff like that. And I started doing that with her, just gravitated towards her. She was very quiet to herself, but I like she other people don't gravitate to our gravitate too. That's just who I am, are you? So one day I didn't see her, like where is Helen? And so I went to the office and I was like, because I didn't her door seemed to be closed. I didn't look into her the little tiny window her door, and so I went to the the officer, and the officer said he

didn't know where she was. He thinks she's in her room. I was like, but it's so late in the day, like she's usually out there. Just you know, behavior wasn't right. So I was walking to her or a an older woman on the unit said don't go in there. I already knew she had the virus. And by the virus, you mean early days of the AIDS crisis. I was like, what, why wouldn't I go to her, you know, check on her at her door. I went, she was in there, but she was in there. She looked like she was dying.

And I just streaked out. I was like, wait a minute, you know, because I got to care for her like a sister. And when I went in. I went in, I felt and she felt very very hot. She was like she looked her mouth was very dry, she just her skin was ash. She just not didn't look right. And I got scared, like, oh my god, is she dined. I can't have another person die, I mean, not helling like you know, it just couldn't happen again. So I

got the rag. I put it on her head. I was trying to put water in her mouth to like just give her something so you know, she wouldn't be so dry. And I was screaming for the officer and get and people are yelling at me, Oh, you need to get on. She's sick, she's you're gonna die, you know, the stigma that happened. Then when I didn't here, the officer wasn't moving fast enough for me. I picked her up. I picked her up, and I took her out and I was taking her to the hospital, which just happened

to not be far. But I just could not see another person dying. And I didn't like how people were treating because we were you know, people are afraid stigma. You know, you thought that just breathing the same air as a person I had to virus, you would get sick. And it didn't matter to me, you know, it just didn't matter to me, and I just needed her to get some help. And it just started from there. It was my that moment where I was like, I cannot see another person be hurt and I don't do something.

If I'm able to do something about it, yeah, and then you know, Unfortunately Helen died, But you said in the book, Um, you know, when Helen died, I said farewell, not only to her but also to who I was before I knew her. I no longer need to stand by, to stay silent when something bad happens to me or another woman. From this point, I'm my own person, focus and holy on my goodness and my growth. Yeah. No,

it's a it's clearly a poignant moment for you. And I did I. Um, I said goodbye to the little girl, that little girl who was silent, but I embraced the little girl who found her voice, and I started telling her I love her. I started holding her and just letting her know that she didn't have to be silent. That is gonna be okay, We're gonna figure it out together. I always had to talk to the little girl in me because nobody else did. And then I just started

just doing that more. And I just started just not so much changing, because I don't believe we change. I believe we become who we truly are, given the circumstances and opportunity, and as ab normal and as dismal and as crazy as a as prison is, because there's no such thing as a humane, healthy There isn't. But there was the need in me. The want in me was

so strong that I fed that. I fed that. So you and and some of these women go on to start the AIDS Counseling and Education program, which was the first of its kind, right in anywhere in the world. In a prison, and you begin a response to HIV. And as we'd figured it out and said we need to do something, we didn't turn our backs to this. You began to take care of women in prison, and

you're healing continues to grow. Yes, and um, I was adamant that we needed a hospice kind of unit because too many women were dying and they needed a place to convalesce or we needed that space. And finally the warden, the superintendent was able to make that happen. And it wasn't just me, was the women. But I was really like adamant about that, Like we had this small little space that the women were in and it just wasn't right.

We needed a unit like a hospice unit, and we were able to get that and we just build it out. I helped build it out from there and was taking care of the women from that moment on. I was always a part of the medical program and and all these other programs. And one of the things that I think, what what happened in my time an hour two people

I write about our time there. We had We were fortunate enough to have a warden, a superintendent what we call here in New York, that understood you have to ask the women what they need so they can tell you what they need. We can't tell you what they need. They can tell you they know what they need. Give us that. She helped build our voices and allowed us UM to have some kind of autonomy over our surroundings.

And that's how we were able to create the first HIV AIDS program in the prison has modeled all across the world. We brought college back, We created a children's program that's the first of its kind in prison UM, a family violence program that uh the came out of the Governor's office after they were serious of hearings that happened and say why most women do go for being battered and and abused and hurt, and some do kill

their batterers. And it does happen because after a while, sometimes you just snap or whatever, you just are the opportunity, and it's not like you know, these women are happy about what they did or like you know what I mean, they've blacked out there, Like I mean, the trauma is amazing. Like for me, I can't even some things as heeled as I am, it's also still as broken as I am that I can't even put certain times together like

what time was this? What like year or what? You know, Like it's kind of confusing, especially as a child, like the blackout things like where kind of having pictures of things like what was that? Like a remembrance of something, because your mind goes into that place where it protects us. We were created with these mechanisms where our bodies would protect That's why search like horrible crimes and people have

car crashes. After a while, the endorphins in your body are released, so you don't feel the pain as much, you know, I mean, there's things that happened that we it's just innate and and I try to get people to understand we're not the worst moment in our lives. We're not the our mistakes were not, their crimes were not those. We're human beings that have been through something. And even for people that do really do bad things.

Why do they do it? Most people just don't wake up and say, oh, I'm gonna go out here and I'm gonna murder and I'm just gonna whatever. People, it's not we just had a shooting here. I mean not here, but in country yesterday. It was yesterday before yesterday. Guy just shot up his coworkers. They're like, what happened? Right? Something off? And no, we're not going to catch everything, but there are signs of things and people need to pay attention and are at least acknowledge it when they

see it, because it's there, it happens. Don't act like it doesn't exist when we see something. After nine eleven, the country is like, if you see something, say something. If you're seeing a child getting hurt, say something. If you see anyone getting hurt, say something. You know what I mean? Like, we need to get back our humanity and we would be able to do that in Bedford at that time. Yeah, hurt people, hurt people. It's the reality. And and so you were part of what you guys

did there was you worked on. I think tell me if I get this right that you worked on at least allowing women backgrounds what had happened to them be part of what was admissible in court and considered in their sentencing. Yeah, so that was the bill you're talking about, the d v s j A. Yes, we got it into law. Oh did he signed it last? Are we last month? Yeah? Yeah, so he signed it last month and we were celebrating, celebrating now a little bit. So, yes,

the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. Well, it's not just women, it's also we didn't leave men out because it happens to ment to men or abuse where they can at least if they can show that they had significant amount of trauma and abuse in their lives that led them, you know, that led them to either participate in the crime or the crime happened because of such abuse, then they're able to get their sentences at either an alternative

program depending on the severity or intervention. Right M. Definitely not as much time because people need help with like, abuse to that extent does have an effect on people, and people react, people snap people. We're human beings. And again, no one's saying that it's okay, No one's saying it's right. We absolutely know at least those look that I know that I did time with and continue to be friends with.

We know and we're not okay with it. But that's why I do the work that I do, because I need the world to understand we cannot keep doing this and people don't. We shouldn't have people coming, I mean even getting to a place where they just snap. They don't even know what they're doing. They just know they have to survive. And I tell people if you're hungry, if you are hungry, I mean starving your your body saying eat and it doesn't care how you feed it.

You have to eat. And so when you see people stealing because they need to eat because they're hungry, if you're hungry, you're gonna do the same thing. If you see something, you're gonna take it. Whether you are supposed to take it, is allowed or is legal to take it or not, you don't care. You have to satisfy those things in us we have no control over it. We have to sleep, we have to eat, we have to drink, we have to do things that we have

no control over. And so when your body has put under so much pressure, it's going to react to it. Tell me about Sister Mary, mother in my heart, Oh my god, what can I not say about sister her birthdays two days from now. Um, my mother or sister Mary was and continues to be an amazing, amazing human being. I have never met anyone that exemplified unconditional love as she did. She was unconditional love. She is unconditional love. She taught me a lot. She fought for the women.

She's the reason why we have this domestic violence conversation going on. She started it way back when. Um, She's always been fighting. She's always been fighting for people, especially women. She's like when it's not right, She faced anyone and just tell them. And you had to listen to her because she comes from a place. He came from her place that you felt this love, you felt this truth, You felt her and you knew that she was in line. You knew what you're saying is true, and you're just like,

how could you tell this? None? No, all right. So

she helped me get out of prison. She helped me become the donna that I am right now, the activist, the person that speaks out even more and just tells the story and tells the story of women and just tells about the conditions and stuff because it's important, and she really reinforced how important it is for us as people to stop hurting people, for us as people to love people at least respect to people, no matter color, no matter religion, no matter your sex, sexual preference, doesn't matter.

That's who sister Mary continues to be. Yeah, she sounds like a just a beautiful woman and obviously was a hugely influential figure to you and a lot of others as you were leaving jail, which you eventually did. Um, you say you shared a message with with the women, and I'll just I'll just read it here because I think it's it's beautiful you say that. Um, I share with them the most important understanding I've developed during my time here, that we can connect deeply with humanity if

we look through the eyes of love and compassion. We have to treat each other with constant love, both here and out in the world. We understood it, We kind of knew I think that. The more, Um, I won't say the more, I just know that a lot of the women there understood that they might not have known how to do it, you know what it would look like. What knew that that was it, and we just wanted the world to know that, and so some of us are doing that. We're telling the world. I stand up

until the world. I get death threats because of it. I get a lot of things because of it. I've got all these so I've got a Wikipedia page that was created by somebody I don't even know whom. I mean all these things, but I continue to stand in my truth and stand in that truth that we have to come to this place where we love each other we get our humanity back, because if we don't, we're gonna definitely feed that bad like that bad wolf is getting bigger and bigger every every second of every day.

And we can't. We can't. We can't do that. We cannot do that. That's not who that's not how we were we created and love. How could we not look at the beauty that's around us this world? Like who could imagine doing this? I hadn't have a clue how to do anything like this. I mean, this comes, but this, this is love, This is beauty all around us, that we just recognize it and really understand it, well, I think that is a beautiful place to end it too.

Thank you so much, Donna for for spending the time with this, sharing your story, for the work that you do in the world, and and it's just so inspiring and like I said, it's it's a real honor to have you on. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And make sure to get a little piece of light. That's right. We'll have links to your book in the show notes for sure,

as well as your website and on your website. You have a foundation that people can support, and we'll have we'll have links to that for all our listeners. Thank you so much again, Thank you, Donna. I really appreciate it. So you have a great one you too. Okay, if what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head

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