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The Founding of Lifespring

Reflections on the Worth of Lifespring

The Business Acceleration Workshop

The Basic Training In Federal Prison

How to Realize Your Dreams and Improve Your Life

A Graduate's Story

A Graduate's Story - Page 2

Then she broke into a paroxysm of weeping which absorbed her whole body. As she stood there, alone and stricken, emotionally naked before us all, another young woman jumped from her seat and ran to the platform where she threw her arms around the weeping girl. She hugged her for uncountable minutes as Raye wept uncontrollably on her comforting shoulder in a cathartic outpouring that left the audience stunned and tearful.

When she finally stopped crying, Trainer Bob Kausen gently led her to an understanding of her experience by questioning her as to its meaning.

Haltingly, she replied, after much thought, "I want to give myself-to give love. I want to love and to be loved!'

Her wish was father to the fact. We all loved her. We had seen an astounding display of courage and honesty which had left us limp. We wanted to help her free herself from torment, her guilt absolved.

But there is more to the story than that. During the lunch break, Raye telephoned the district attorney who had prosecuted her and told him that she wanted to change her story and to tell him the truth about the whole episode which she had denied during the trial. He said he would send someone down to Pleasanton to take her statement. This is of special significance because her case is on appeal and, until her Lifespring experience, she had been determinedly seeking a reversal of her conviction.

Later, in an interview, she told me that the Lifespring experience was probably the turning point in her life.

"It has taken a terrible weight off my shoulders," she said. Now her hair was pulled back from her face, caught in a clasp at the nape of her neck, and we could see her smiling face.

"I'm so happy," she said. "I'm free, and I don't have to hide anymore. I had expected when I was standing up there with my eyes closed that everyone would hate me, but, when I opened my eyes, all I could see on their faces was love. I never have felt anything so intensely before."

You have never seen such a happy girl.

Now she plans to study zoology in hopes of preparing herself for some kind of work with animals if her life sentence is ever modified.

"I've always loved animals", she said. "I would like to work at Marine World or someplace like that, or work for a vet!"

But whether or not Raye ever gets out of prison, she will have learned to live with herself and to make the most of her life under adverse circumstances.

That's her firm belief, and she freely credits Lifespring for her new vision.

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