This is a series of blogs that Dr. Dickinson wrote after returning from a recent trip to Africa. A few reflections, a few lessons learned. Enjoy the journey. 

Stories from Africa: Chapter 3

A Jail Without Bars

There is no gate to Kibera. There are no bars. The wall surrounding Kibera wouldn’t take much to get over or through. For all practice purposes people can come and go as they please. No one is going to stop them, in fact, probably no one would even notice. However, without question, one of the things that has stuck with me the most is the fact that many of the teens we encountered had never left Kibera. Just to review, Kibera is about a square mile. Can you wrap your mind around that? They have not ever walked outside the walls of Kibera. To be honest, I have a hard time imagining that.

It’s hard for me to imagine spending my entire life in a space that significantly smaller than the distance I ran at the gym this morning. It’s hard for me to imagine not being curious about what was on the other side of the dilapidated wall. It’s hard for me to imagine not wanting to see if the city, less than a 15 minute-walk away, had any opportunities to offer me.

But the more I think about it, the less astonishing it becomes. Let’s face it. We all do this to some degree. I can’t help but make the comparison to our own lives. We don’t have to look too closely at our lives to find prisons of our own making; that are often without bars. We live in captivity to something – fear, a relationship or a career, an addiction, perceived comfort and security, etc. We choose the known over the unknown. We sacrifice to maintain the status quo. We settle for living with an addiction when freedom calls to us beyond the walls.

Walking out of our walls takes courage. It takes determination. It takes standing up to people who don’t see the vision. It is sometimes lonely, occasionally dangerous, and always an adventure. So the question becomes – what are the walls you have chosen to live behind? And most importantly, what beckons from the other side?

Wendy Dickinson, Ph.D.
WDickinson@ GROWcounseling.com