I teach a class once a month at a local detention center.  There is a group of women in a drug and alcohol program at the jail, and my class focuses on ways to reduce harm as it regards managing the disease of addiction.  We talk a lot about coping skills--safe ways to manage anxiety and loneliness and anger.  

Often to get the ball rolling, I bring an activity for the women to participate in.  For this session I said, "Now imagine you're going on a very important and much-anticipated trip.  You can only take three pieces of clothing, and a coat.  You already own a nice pair of leather shoes.  What would you choose to take and describe your coat?"  The small room began to buzz with their imaginings. What woman does not like clothes?  And these women do like to imagine themselves in prettier, nicer clothing, because they are outfitted in the same uniform--dingy gray and black striped prison wear, their shoes cheap plastic open-toed slides.  Sometimes seeing their bare feet in those shoes fills me with sadness--big toes with chipped polish and heels toughened and black.  Almost none of them wear socks, and their feet look cold.  A thin-stick woman with haunting blue eyes breaks me from my reverie and says she would take black pants, a black top and a lime-green scarf--her coat heavy with a detachable hood and zip out lining.  "I don't know where I'll be going, so I'll be prepared for any kind of weather."

Then I said, "Imagine that metaphorically you can only take three coping skills that you've learned in your classes here at the jail and one character strength.  Like your beautiful leather shoes, you have the beauty and sturdiness of your sobriety.  What will you take as you're on your way?"

An instant hush filled the room, I could almost feel their collective intake of air.  But soon the ideas came, and I wrote them on the white board.  "I'd take remembering that's it's okay to ask for help," said the woman with long, shiny blonde hair.  "My character strength would be courage."  Others sang out, "Rejecting perfection and embracing excellence; learning that I can meet my own needs; minimizing sugar and exercising; sharing my feelings with someone I trust; being assertive; valuing myself and my recovery; talking less and listening more; praying; writing.  Resilience, faith, love, hope, resourcefulness and flexibity rang out as cloak descriptors.

Soon the board was covered with my documentation of what they would pack, how'd they'd travel.  It was as if we'd written the words to our own "freedom song" in the confines of that prison.

After the group, I began to think about how I'd pack for this brand new year--what three coping tools would I take?  What would my character cloak be named?  I decided my "wardrobe" of coping will include, living in the present, taking realistic, consistent, daily steps toward writing goals and speaking words of life over myself and my family.  My cloak?  Passion to keep loving and promoting others--pointing them to the One who can meet their needs, offer them hope and connect them to grace, His love hovering, the nearness of Him tangible, real.