Part Two: Charged With Murder at 19, Sentenced to 40 years, and Came Out Freer Than Most People Will Ever Be — Shaka Senghor on Forgiveness, Shame, and Escaping the Prisons Nobody Talks About

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Mayim Bialik's Breakdown
Episode: Part Two: Charged With Murder at 19, Sentenced to 40 years, and Came Out Freer Than Most People Will Ever Be — Shaka Senghor on Forgiveness, Shame, and Escaping the Prisons Nobody Talks About
Date: May 6, 2026
Guests: Shaka Senghor (author, thought leader, resilience expert)
Hosts: Mayim Bialik & Jonathan Cohen

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Episode Overview

In this powerful conclusion to their two-part conversation, Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen dive into Shaka Senghor’s personal transformation after spending 19 years incarcerated, including seven in solitary confinement. The episode centers on Senghor’s insights into healing, forgiveness, shame, and the “hidden prisons” we all face. Through vivid storytelling and emotional candor, Senghor shares the path from literal and internal incarceration to deep personal freedom, offering practical tools for listeners to confront their own emotional barriers.

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Major Themes & Sections

1. Shaka Senghor’s Journey as a Writer & Meeting Oprah

• From Prison Publishing to Meeting Oprah:

  • Released from prison, Shaka immediately began selling his self-published book—at one point out of his backpack at a parole office ([01:48]).
  • Built momentum speaking at schools, selling at events, and leveraging media opportunities.
  • The journey culminated in Melody Hobson (George Lucas’s wife) being moved by his story at an event, getting the book to Oprah—who initially hesitated but then felt compelled after reading fifty pages ([09:52]).
  • Shaka and Oprah developed a genuine friendship following an extended, deeply personal interview at her California home ([13:13]).

  Quote Highlight:
  “She literally said, Oprah said that she took the book and she kept moving it around her house because she doesn’t throw books away. And then one day... she decided to take the book with her, 50 pages in, she was like, I want to interview this guy.” — Shaka Senghor ([09:52])

2. Solitary Confinement: Psychological Impact & Lessons

• Nature and Trauma of Solitary:

  • Describes the intense chaos and mental strain, not only from isolation but also overwhelming noise, unpredictability, and encounters with severe mental illness ([16:15]).
  • The lack of structure and perpetual uncertainty forced introspection: “That the willingness to go deeper, I don’t know if that would have been triggered anywhere other than where I was” ([16:15]).

• Lessons of Enduring Uncertainty:

  • Drew parallels between solitary and the pandemic: both imposed periods of radical uncertainty that exposed people’s struggles with being alone and loss of control ([18:39]).
  • Via a viral Medium post and subsequent conversation with Oprah, spread tools like journaling, structure, and mindfulness as survival strategies ([19:30]).

3. Facing ‘Hidden Prisons’: Anger, Shame, Grief, and Forgiveness

• Universality of Emotional Prisons:

  • Senghor’s book, How to Be Free, addresses deep emotions (grief, anger, shame) in a relatable structure, providing writing prompts and actionable tools.
  • Emphasizes everyone has grief and shame—though the scale may differ, the feelings and the need to process them are universal ([24:46]).

  Quote Highlight: “Not all grief is created equal. But in most families, we’re all going to grieve at some point. And it doesn’t minimize your grief because somebody else’s is a little bit more extreme. ... That’s why I wrote the book—the hidden prisons.” — Shaka Senghor ([24:46])

• Personal and Societal Examples of Hidden Prisons ([30:13]):

  • Overbearing parents, toxic relationships, careers tied to self-worth, comparison to influencers.
  • “You deserve to get out of that, too. Like, you literally deserve to get out of that too.” ([28:02])

4. Deep Dive: Forgiveness, Revenge, and Self-Acceptance

• Confronting the Man Who Shot Him ([34:04]):

  • Only decades later did Shaka learn the identity of the man who shot him at 17. The realization provoked a surge of old anger and the temptation for revenge, highlighting that “old things will come back” ([35:03]).
  • The episode became a test of his philosophy that “forgiveness is for you, not for the person” ([38:18]).

• Letters from the Family of His Victim ([41:03]):

  • Received forgiveness from the godmother of the man he killed, which over years helped him move towards self-forgiveness and personal change ([41:14]).
  • “That letter was integral to self-acceptance and all of it because... she wanted to get to know this deeper part of me. And that was... not comfortable...” ([44:45])

• Exploring Anger ([49:28]):

  • For years post-release, Shaka suppressed anger to avoid repeating past mistakes.
  • Eventually recognized that accepting and expressing anger, rather than bottling it, was critical to healthy processing. Shared a story about the death of a family dog as a moment when he gave himself permission to vocalize anger—leading to self-liberation ([49:59]).
  • “Perpetual anger is usually a sign that something else lives beneath it, and for me, it was shame.” ([54:38])

5. Re-entering Society After Release

• Technological & Social Shocks ([59:22]):
  • Describes emerging from “Fred Flintstone walking into an episode of the Jetsons”—technology, social life, and even simple pleasures (birds, plants, quiet) had dramatically changed.
  • Experienced anxiety, panic attacks, and difficulty with basic orientation—offers candid advice for those supporting people coming home from incarceration ([62:08],[63:52]).

6. Living a ‘Free’ Life and Giving Back

• Current Fulfillment and Community Impact ([65:22]):
  • Life is surreal but deeply appreciated—focuses on fatherhood, nature, and the joy of small things.
  • Opened the Shaka Senghor Literary Lounge in Detroit—a hub for young readers featuring his original prison writings ([67:19]).
  • Emphasizes the importance of keeping creative writing and storytelling alive for kids.

7. Systemic Justice Reform & Resources

• Recommendations for Societal Action ([69:32]):

  • Recommends viewing 13th (Ava DuVernay), The Alabama Solution (a film made inside prison), reading The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander), Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson), Malcolm X’s autobiography, his own memoir Writing My Wrongs.
  • Highlights organizations: Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), Prison Creative Arts Project, Edovo.
  • Advocates for visiting prisons to build empathy, understanding, and accountability for a broken system ([74:18])—shares international examples (e.g., German prison system prioritizing citizenship and restoration).

  Quote Highlight:
  “In Germany... they think of people who are incarcerated as still citizens... They have to have access to their families, work in community. If you think about what we’re doing, it’s the opposite.” — Shaka Senghor ([77:24])

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On coming ‘out free’:
  “I really wanted people to know, look, we’re all in our own iteration of these hidden prisons. ... We’re all deserving of the best of what it means to be human.” — Shaka Senghor ([28:02])

• On facing intense emotions:
  “The last time I became angry, it led to me being in solitary confinement. So for years—nothing. I would let nothing bother me. ... But I also being dishonest because I was putting a cap on it.” — Shaka Senghor ([49:28])

• On the system and hope for change:
  "Over 90% of people incarcerated will come home. We get a choice in how they come home. Are we contributing to them coming home healthy and whole?" — Shaka Senghor ([73:32])

• On daily gratitude:
  “The details of life that I get the most excited about…when I come home off the road, I’m watering the plants—that excites me, that brings me joy.” — Shaka Senghor ([65:31])

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Important Timestamps

• [01:48] — Shaka’s first day out, hustling books, grassroots beginnings
• [09:52] — How Oprah found and decided to champion his work
• [13:13] — Preparing for Oprah; becoming friends
• [16:15] — The reality and impact of solitary confinement
• [18:39] — Lessons from solitary applied during the pandemic
• [24:46] — Universality of shame, grief; the “hidden prisons”
• [34:04] — Discovering the identity of the man who shot him; choosing forgiveness
• [41:14] — Receiving a forgiveness letter from victim’s family
• [49:58] — Processing and integrating anger after release
• [59:22] — Sensory, technological shock upon reentry
• [65:22] — Life now: joy in details, fatherhood, giving back
• [69:32] — Systemic reform, recommended resources, the case for prison visitation
• [77:24] — International best practices: Germany’s restorative approach

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Memorable/Emotional Moments

• Shaka laying his clothes out before meeting Oprah ([13:12])
• Comparing reentry into society to “Fred Flintstone walking into the Jetsons” ([60:02])
• Deeply moved by the Literary Lounge named for him—kids reading his words on prison walls ([67:19])

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Final Takeaways

• Shaka Senghor’s story is not only about extreme transformation after incarceration but about how we can all free ourselves from “hidden prisons” like shame, anger, and grief.
• Forgiveness—both of oneself and others—is a radical act of self-liberation.
• Systemic change in the justice system is possible with empathy, improved policy, and a focus on restoration, not punishment.
• Shaka's life is proof that persistence, vulnerability, and storytelling can break cycles and inspire universal healing.

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Additional Reading & Actions Suggested

• Films: 13th (Ava DuVernay), The Alabama Solution
• Books: The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander), Just Mercy (Bryan Stevenson), Autobiography of Malcolm X, Writing My Wrongs (Shaka Senghor)
• Organizations: Anti-Recidivism Coalition, Prison Creative Arts Project, Edovo
• Personal Action: Visit a prison, support education/arts programs for incarcerated people

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Shaka Senghor’s How to Be Free: A guide not just for those who’ve faced literal incarceration, but for anyone ready to confront their own “hidden prisons”—and find practical hope on the other side.

Transcript

[Shaka Senghor]

Foreign.

[Mayim Bialik]

Bialik and I'm Jonathan Cohen.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And welcome to part two of our conversation with Shaka Senghor. He's a globally recognized resilience expert, best selling author, and a transformative thought leader. His journey took him from incarceration for 19 years, including seven years in solitary confinement, to a career where he empowers executives, entrepreneurs, athletes and audiences around the world. We're discussing, discussing his book, how to be Free, a proven guide to escaping life's hidden prisons. In part one of our conversation, we talked about the journey that he took for the first 19 years of his life and how that ended him up in prison with an almost 40 year sentence.

[Mayim Bialik]

In part two, we get to his personal transformation and what we all can learn about transforming the limits of our own lives. If you've ever imagined yourself trying to accomplish something other than what you're doing right now, he provides the hope, the inspiration, and the way forward.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We're also going to focus on forgiveness, anger, and the PTSD symptoms that have not left him since he got out of prison. Really, really important part two of our conversation. We can't wait for you to hear it. Here is part two of our conversation with Shaka Senghor. Break it down. Once you got out, you were able to begin a career as a writer, which ended up being, I mean, I think, better than your wildest dreams. This is your third book, so can you talk a little bit about how it all came to be that Oprah eventually read your book?

[Shaka Senghor]

It's the wildest story. So my, my journey as a writer has been the craziest winding road, you know, So I published this first book from prison. And you know, the first thing I did when I walked out of the prison, they took me to the parole office. And soon as I got done talking about parole office, I sold my first book out the trunk in the parole office parking lot. And, and that was just like the greatest affirming thing of like, because I was telling this guy who was coming home, you know, you come home and they give you whatever cash you have in your account, they give it to you in cash. And this guy probably had like $35. And I was like, I told him, I was like, yo, I get out, I'm selling books, blah, blah. And it's funny, cause like every, every year, you know, it pops up on Facebook and me and him have our little celebration because it's a photo of it. It's a photo of me selling him the book. And he just gave me like, pretty much more than half of what? He had to buy a book. And I was like, I don't have any change. And he was just like, keep the 20, you know, and. And so I sold that book, and I got out, and I was just like, I'm going to go and sell books everywhere. And I. I literally went everywhere. Anywhere people were. Parks, strip clubs. I was like, I had no money to make it rain, but I got these books. Like, yo, you want to buy a book? Trade a book for a lap dance? I don't know, but it's what I sold. I mean, I went to churches, I went to parks. I would like to take a backpack and just, like, I got 10 books. I'm not coming back in until those books are sold. And, you know, slowly but surely, people started getting kind of momentum. And, you know, and then I also had posted on, like, Facebook that. I posted on Facebook, like, three days after I'm home. I'm just like, if you got music that I can review, like, just send it to me and. Cause I was just trying to get caught up on music. Like, in prison, they had stopped us from getting CDs, and. And tapes had went extinct. So there was a gap of probably about eight years where I didn't have access to new music. And a local newspaper saw the post and was like, hey, can you review music for our newspaper? So I'm like, okay. So I started doing these reviews, and then one day, they was like, can you, like, cover this story? One of our writers are down. I'm like. I told the editor. I'm like, I've never. I'm not a journalist, but I can try. And I'll go and I write this. I go to do this movie. The movie wasn't that great.

[Jonathan Cohen]

What was?

[Shaka Senghor]

It was a movie about, like, this guy and God. It was, like, some type of gospel moves. It was independent movie, but it wasn't. It wasn't the most amazing. But the actor in it, he had an incredible story. And so I wrote about his life. He was, like, addicted to drugs, and then he found theater and movies. And so I ended up writing. And the newspaper gets, like, more responses than it's ever got from, like, any story. And so they started asking me to just, like, cover, like, local stories. And I would go and talk to business owners and people and, you know, actors and comedians, and I would just, like, write these stories that became a big part of the newspaper. And simultaneously, I'm just hustling these books. And then I started. I would put together, like, these book signings, like, you know, 10 people would come out, five people would buy a book. And I started realizing when I would go volunteer speak at schools, you know, I would sell more books. And I started getting people to just book me to come speak. And my only agreement would be, can I bring, like, a hundred books? And I would, like, sell all of them after I got done talking. And so that what happened started to happen was that people would say to me, you don't seem like someone who's been in prison. Like, the way that you speak, you don't talk like someone who's been in prison. They meant it in the most loving way. But I'm like, I just left the greatest philosophers, the greatest legal minds, the greatest thinkers and strategists, and we were having profound conversations. And these men are incredibly articulate. They're amazing. And, you know, all the things. And that's when I decided to write my memoir called Righting My Wrongs. And so I write this book, and now I'm going from, like, I put my first book sign together around that book. And I remember. I remember going to the lady I did at the museum in this Charles H. Wright museum in Detroit, and I remember going to talk to the lady about doing it there. And she was like, what are you talking about? This is like, you're gonna. You're about to spend money to rent this place out. And she's like, people are not gonna come out like that for, like, books. And I'm like, this is the great thing about being naive, is I think when you're naive about something, you're willing to try harder. And, you know, and I was like, yeah, that doesn't sound like a lot of people to you, but I think I'm gonna get a lot of people to come out. And so I just got out in the streets and was passing off flyers. Hey, I got this book signing coming. Come to the book signing, blah, blah, blah. And like, 400 people show up. And I, like, literally sell 400 books the first time I do a book signing at this. At this place. And I'm like, and it's self published. And so I started getting booked more and more. I was booking myself. I was like my own speaking agent. And then one time I get invited to speak. I became a fellow at MIT Media Lab, and one of the advisors of the fellowship was like, hey, we want you to come speak at this event in Utah. And so I'm like, I'll come do it, whatever, right? So this is the craziest thing. So they invite me, and then they send me this little booklet. And the booklet has who's gonna be at the event. So I'm going through it. I don't know none of these people, except for two people. One was Melody Hobson. And I knew who Melody Hobson was. Cause I was reading Black Enterprise when I was in prison. And she used to write a column on finance. And she was just so intriguing to me because she was this little sweet black lady who was like, managing all this money. I had never heard of such a thing. And then the other person was George Lucas. And I'm like, well, I know who George Lucas is. So I'm like, okay, if those two people in the room, this must be an incredible room. I go to the organizer, and I said, hey, can I send you books to put in their swag bags? And she was like, sure. I didn't have any money at the time. I probably had about maybe $300 in my business account. And I'm sending a hundred books, which was like $25 a piece. It's like $2,500 worth of books. And so I sent it, and I go and do this talk. And I just remember, like, a moment in the talk, and Melody was, like, sitting right. Her and George sitting right in the front. I remember this moment, like, during the talk, where Melody was just, like, tears. And I was just like, man, I'm like. I felt like I was doing my thing, right? So they had a hospitality suite. I'm in the hospitality suite. This guy comes up to me, suit on, clean cut guy. He was like, us, black guy. And he's like. He's like, I got a bone to pick with you. And I'm like, oh, man. You know, I'm like, here we go. I'm thinking he's about to be like, you know, I'm tired of hearing these hood stories and blah, blah. Why didn't you go to college? And he is like, man. He's like. He was like, man, I'm supposed to be hanging out with my wife, but she won't come out the room. She's in there reading your book. So I was like, well, we should just have cocktails. We had a joke about it, having cocktails. His wife, turns out, used to be the president at Harpo. And she takes the book to Oprah. After she reads. This is like, months later, she takes the book to Oprah. She gives Oprah the book. Oprah gets the book, and was like, why would I read this book? This guy is on here. He got tattoos on, and he's like the prison photos. Like it's ridiculous. Like why would I, why would I read this book? And she literally said, Oprah said that she took the book and she kept moving it around her house because she doesn't throw books away. And then one day she was flying from Chicago to LA and she decided to take the book with her 50 pages in. She was like, I want to interview this guy.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Shaka Senghor]

And so it's like all these just pivots, these, these moments. And I remember when they called me to go out. Originally, I was supposed to go to Hawaii. Then they called back and was like, no, she wants you to come to California. And so the Hawaii trip was about three weeks out. And I'm like, okay, I can kind of give myself time to get my things together. And then when they changed, it was like, the next week, they're like, you're going to Oprah's house. And I went the night before. I. I don't know if this is a cultural thing, but I know growing up, like, the night before school, we would just like, lay all our clothes out on the bed and we're like, so that was me the day before Oprah. It's like, I'm laying on my clothes.

[Jonathan Cohen]

What'd you wear?

[Shaka Senghor]

I had some jeans, I had a polo shirt. I had some Ferragamos, some great socks. I was like, the socks gotta be right. And then I tried it all on. I was like, the night before, you know, I had to test it out, sit in the mirror, like, oh, this is how it's gonna look. And then I went to her house, and we were supposed to do an interview for like, 45 minutes. We talked for three and a half hours straight.

[Mayim Bialik]

Wow.

[Shaka Senghor]

And she went on to say that not only was one of the best conversations in her career, it was one of the best conversations in her life. And then, like, Oprah called me. This was crazy. She calls me like, I get back to Detroit. And she was like, hey, it's, it's. Oh, I just wanted to give you a call. It's Oprah. And, yeah, she's like, I want to give you my number because I want us to be friends. And I was like. I was like, in my mind, I'm like, okay, is this just a courtesy thing that happens after interviews? Like, you know, and.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Or am I Mr. Oprah?

[Shaka Senghor]

Right, right, right, right. Is this not my homie Right. And so literally, she gave me her number and. And we've been rocking ever since. Wow. And she is the. She's the sweetest. Like, I remember when me and my wife first started dating, I was like, listen. I was like, occasionally I might get a very late night text, and it'll. I'm like, but it'll be Oprah. It'll be like, you know. And she was like, what are you talking about? I'm like, well, sometimes she's in different parts of the world, whereas morning air. And we'll, you know, we'll have an exchange.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And that's your hall pass. Is it text from Oprah?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, text wo. Oprah's like, you gotta accept this one at three in the morning. And. Yeah. And we ended up just. We really developed a sweet friendship. And, you know, anytime her and I are in the conversation, almost, it's always the most emotional thing. And, you know, she's truly one of the sweetest people. And. Yeah, so I did that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And I'm thinking of the guy on your cell block who said, this ain't Oprah.

[Shaka Senghor]

Oh, I had a petty moment when I was pulling up to the. I said, I wonder where this guy is at? Like, I'm pulling up at Oprah's house. And. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

I have two questions about divine timing. The first is really, I'm a little stuck on still the solitary confinement because of the inhumanity of it. Right. Like, you see the moments mostly in movies and TV shows where a prisoner gets thrown into solitary and it's like this horrific. Like, they know what's happening. Right. And. And most people who are listening, like, they can't go 10 minutes without checking their phone for a distraction.

[Shaka Senghor]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

Like, and you're talking about years of not knowing, of not having structure, of also and being left with yourself, like, sitting that deeply with yourself. You basically describe the process of doing deep therapeutic work to examine yourself, to ask those questions. Why did I get here? Do you think you could have done that deep work in general? Pop. Not being in solitary.

[Shaka Senghor]

It's always one of those things that when I reflect on the journey, that those questions arise for me. Right. Like the what ifs or what would have been different? What could have been different? You know, there was some work I was doing in general as far as, like, the reading. Right. And just like that, I was always reading and studying. But I think that. That the willingness to go deeper, you know, I don't know if that would have been triggered anywhere other than where I was, because I didn't have access to that information until I was there. So it's kind of like theoretically, like, okay, what if I would have read that in general pop would I had of had the same reaction now, the time would have been different. Right. The concentrated. Focused. The ability to focus and uncertainty, which is very difficult. Like, people think it will be an easy thing to do is just be like, oh, well, you're in solitary. You should be able to do it. Solitary is chaotic. Is what more chaotic than general population? Because you're dealing with the highest levels of just like mental illness. And so the noise level, just the abuse and the constant stimulation of officers coming in, pepper spraying people and just brutalizing people and people just going to war. And I was in solitary in different type of prisons. I was in solitary in those type of prisons. You see in the movies, the old school, it's, you know, it's a little small cell. You can stretch your arms out. I'm not the tallest guy, but I can literally touch both walls. So I've been in that version and then I've been in the more modern where it's just like the steel door and so you can't even see outside anything other than your window. And so I don't. I don't know whether it would have happened in a different way. I mean, I've met incredible guys who have figured it out without going through what I went through because they had access to information that shifted how they think. And then they had some structure where, you know, now in some of these prisons, you get people who come in from the outside. They're running programs, they're, you know, when I first went to prison, you can go to college. And then they took it away, like probably about a year or so after I was in prison, you know, so. So it's one of those things where. I'll tell you this, you. You made a point about people and, and how they can't, you know, they

[Mayim Bialik]

can't sit with themselves.

[Shaka Senghor]

Right.

[Mayim Bialik]

We're constantly looking.

[Jonathan Cohen]

We can't do four and a half minutes alone.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. So. So one of the things that inspired writing, you know, how to Be Free, was I saw that during the pandemic where some of the most accomplished, successful, wealthiest people in my network, dear friends and associates, were struggling with being alone. And what they were really struggling with, with uncertainty because they would say, okay, the pandemic is over this month. Nope. Maybe it's over this month. Nope, maybe we'll get back to it now. Right. And that would. And so what happened is I. I saw some of my friends who were struggling here in la, and they lived in apartments and condos and different things. And I. I had just bought a house, like, three or four months. I bought a house in December 19, like, literally December 2019. And so I just said to my friends, like, hey, you can just come and work in the back. None of us knew what was happening, right? But it's enough space for people to spread out. You can come work in the backyard. And then I was like. I started talking to friends, and I was like, oh, they need some tools. And so I wrote this piece on medium about. Here's the. I can't remember what the number was. Here's seven things I learned in solitary confinement that you can apply to what's happening right now. And the pandemic. I write this thing. I literally wrote it for my friends. The thing goes viral, and then I literally get a call from Oprah, was like, hey, so I heard you wrote this piece, and I might have sent it to her. She was like, I think you can help a lot of people. And so we should talk about it. And so we ended up doing a conversation around. Here's how you use these tools, right? Journaling, meditation, mindfulness exercise, like setting some structure so that you can have some control. And so to your point, it's really tough for the uncertainty is probably the hardest part of solitary is not knowing when the thing is going to come to an end. And I've seen that with people, which is one of the things that inspired, you know, the overall book was like, I know how hard it is to navigate hard things, and I'm. I've done the hard work for you, and so I'm gonna provide you with a framework that actually helps you access different parts of who you are.

[Mayim Bialik]

I think a lot of people are still struggling with uncertainty. World events are uncertain. Political divide is uncertain.

[Shaka Senghor]

Absolutely.

[Mayim Bialik]

Progression of technology is extremely uncertain in terms of how quickly a lot of industries are changing. There's a lot still that people can't anticipate.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that's. That's. That's. That's where I think the book is really going to be super helpful in terms of, like, oftentimes when. When things are turbulent and they're. You know, it feels like the world is literally coming apart at the seams, which is what I think we're all experiencing right now. There's these moments of, like, we forget about what's. What do we really have access to, you know, because if you. If you just get stuck in a news cycle and then doom scrolling. You think that's the world and that's a part of the world, but it's not all of the world. You know, if you come out, what if you come out and you have an experience with your neighbor that helps you like, mentally process. Like, okay, yes, the world is coming apart, but this part that I have agency over, I can help me get through another day, right? Like I pulled up yesterday, I have, I have neighbors. So they're these three little kids, they're. Two of them are twins and they love me. They're like, it's the funniest thing. Like when I pull up, if they're like out, they just come running like these little bitty kids. And like the, the twins are like two or three, right? And like in that moment, you know, nothing that's happened externally matters. It's just that I get a chance to see these little kids and, and you know, I bring them joy and they bring me joy and it's like that's real life. That's, that's the all the time life. These are big, big moments I don't want to minimize. Like the moment we're in is the, this is a big historical moment that we're going to look back and figure out what did we do wrong? What did we do right?

[Jonathan Cohen]

I could write a book about that.

[Shaka Senghor]

And it's tough. No, we're going to need a lot of, a lot of books written about these moments, right? But then it's also in the adversarial moments where the best of what it means to be human tends to show up and we can access that, you know.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, and I think that's, you know, and I want to sort of get to how to be free, you know, I mean, first of all, the book is organized in a very, I like how your brain works. It's organized very logically. So you have, you know, I don't want to call them like the seven deadly sins, but you basically take the hardest emotions. Grief, anger, shame, right? And you drill down, you drill down on each of these kind of what it looked like in your life, what it looks like for everybody's life. And then what are the ways to literally kind of work through it? And you, you, you offer, you know, writing prompts and exercises, but you then sort of flip the tables and you say, what about vulnerability, forgiveness, resilience? What are the things that it takes to build up the muscles that allow you to experience hope, love, joy, success, Right? All these things. And I I will say, you know, one of the things that I felt on page one is, is I felt incredibly guilty because here I am like, oh, my kid won't do what I want them to, or I can't remember to work out when I'm supposed to, or I don't wanna go to therapy. All these kind of first world problems. And I wonder if you can help us understand how you write something knowing that people are not experiencing the level of complexity, pain like that you were forced to go through. Right. Because of a decision on one day. Right. How do you frame that? Because you know what I mean? I'm like, I have grief too, but I'm thinking it's nothing like what you're talking about. Right? How do you sort of frame that? Where's the balance of where your experience is universal and you do achieve that.

[Shaka Senghor]

That's a great question, and it's one that I actually love to entertain for a variety of reasons, is that we live in this world where now a lot of times we can't even accept ourselves if it does not, if it's not attached to the severity of pain that somebody else suffered. And it's one of the reasons that I wrote the book, like, not all grief is created equal. Right? But in most families, we're all going to grieve at some point. And it doesn't minimize your grief because somebody else is a little bit more extreme. And that's important to really understand because that's why the subtitle was the Hidden Prisons. And it's hidden because a lot of times we are either in denial because our experience isn't as bad as somebody else's, so we'll tuck ours to the side and hyper focus on something that exists outside of us. And meanwhile this thing that we've stuffed down is reaping havoc in our lives. And so what I wanted to do is really, you know, I've done a lot of the hard work, for sure, but at the same time, it's all relative to a person. And how do you experience it? And these tools are universal tools to help you. Because grief is not just even a life loss. Sometimes it's a love loss, sometimes it's a friendship, it's an opportunity, it's a moment. You know, if you're a parent, you're going to grieve at some point when your kids fly the nest, you'll be happy about a lot of things. But there's other parts where you're like, man, did I get this right? Did I send this kid out into the world. I miss those sessions of just hugs. Right. And it's not a severe grief, but if you can unpack it in a healthy way, it leads to greater opportunities to be really connected. And so what I wanted to do with the book is even in the structure, let's handle the tough things up top. Right now the metaphor is that, is that I actually patterned it after how I served time. I started my time in the hardest way possible, but I started to work my way down through it and I started to just get lighter and hopeful and things started to look up. And you know, I describe like this, I have a letter from my dad and I remember he wrote that, you know, son, while this is a dark, dark time, you and there's light at the end of the tunnel. And I remember thinking to myself, well, not all tunnels are created equal. You know, if you're looking at a, a quarter mile tunnel, you can probably see that light at the end. But if it's a 10 mile tunnel, you can't see that light. So what you need between that 10 mile tunnel and you is just these little slivers of light just to give you a little bit of a path forward. And so the way that I structured the book was like, there's these little slivers of light that you'll see yourself in. The same chapter was so profound to me because I had read Brene Brown when she was just talking about, you know, tell the story, tell the story. And I'm like, now I'm tired of telling the story. Story is a hard story to tell. But I realized that agency over the things that elves us is really what she was saying. It's like if you, if you can say it, you can own it. And then you take away the power of it to be operating in the background.

[Jonathan Cohen]

If you can name it, you can tame it, let's say.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. And if you think about like a lot of the things like we, we live in this, this society is so weird now where it's like, you know, and I, and I do like, just to be clear, the world is not fair. Like it's just not a fair world. Some people are going to be, you know, six, five, you know, just based on genetics and become amazing basketball players, right? And somebody who's an amazing basket player, that's four or five probably will not get that same opportunity. It's just life. It's what it is. And like we're not comfortable saying things are not fair anymore. We're not comfortable saying that, hey, I was Lucky to be literate. Like I'm telling you, I would not be here if I wasn't literate. I was literate before I went to prison. I was lucky. That was my luck. And that luck changed my complete life outlook. And so what happens is that the society has got us into a space where we're like, well, I can't talk about my shame because it's not as great as this person's shame. And it's like, no, that's your hidden prison. You deserve to get out of that too. Like, you literally deserve to get out of that too. And that's where we can create. Purity is like, we're all deserving of the best of what it means to be human. And we had to create pathways for us to access that. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book, because I wanted people to know, look, we're all in our own iteration of these hidden prisons. And some of them are hard, some of them are very hard, some of them are not hard, but they have very. I mean, there's well intended prisons. Like, you know, you break up with a lover and you're like, you know, wasn't meant to be in a relationship, but we'll remain best friends and occasionally we'll hook up if we happen to be in the same space. But meanwhile you're like, I want to get married and I want to have kids, I want to have a family. But you're anchored to this old thing that you won't cut the ties because you're not having the arguments, you're not having the dust ups and it's cool and it just works. But then it's like, are you getting to what you really want? If you're holding on to something that's just a fill in. And so that's one of the things about the book. Yeah, it's a hidden prison.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah. You have a list, actually. The helicopter parent who never lets go. The lover turned friend who stays out of comfort rather than love. The CEO who wears a mask of toughness because vulnerability feels like weakness. The privileged child whose comfort breeds complacency. And you also talk about, you call them kind of the more personal prisons. Comparing our lives to celebrities and influencers and carrying the pain of a marred childhood like an invisible weight. Toxic relationships we cling to out of fear or habit and the cultural mindset of entitlement. And I really, I do think it's the lessons and sort of the tools are there and so incredibly universal. There's something about forgiveness that you talk about. And this chapter, you know, it encompasses forgiveness for your mother. And that kind of runs throughout the book. Forgiving yourself for what happened. But I have to tell you, I near fell off my chair. You found out who shot you when you were 17. Tell us about how you found out how old you were, where you were, and what you learned from that.

[Mayim Bialik]

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[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Mayim Bialik]

This episode is sponsored by Wandering Jews, an open door media brand.

[Jonathan Cohen]

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[Shaka Senghor]

Yes, I got shot March 8, 1990. And, you know, when the shooting happened, it was literally a matter of 20, 30 seconds. You know, me and this guy, we got into an argument. He literally pulled up in the car. We had never met before, so our first meeting was this quick argument. And I'm thinking, old school. He'll get out the car, we'll have a. You know, we'll have a fight. And he pulled out a pistol and shot me multiple times.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Where were you shot?

[Shaka Senghor]

I shot twice in the leg and once in the foot. And then he just peels off. And I never see this guy again. I mean, like, after I get out of the hospital, you know, I'm in a retaliatory kind of space of mind, like, I'm gonna find this guy. And, you know, never could find this guy. One of the things that I didn't realize until later in life was the hardest part about that is I never really saw his face. So he's kind of like this ghost that just kind of sat in the back of my life and about to turn 50. I think it was 20, 22, somewhere in there.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So you never knew the whole time

[Shaka Senghor]

you were in prison the whole time?

[Jonathan Cohen]

Never knew.

[Shaka Senghor]

Never knew. Never knew the guy. Never knew his name, never knew his face. And Lily, a friend of mine, he texted me. He was like, yo, he was like, I got this letter. And I was like, what are you talking about? He was like. He was like. He was like, do you know this woman named Angie? And I was like, yeah. It's like her boyfriend, like, wrote to her ex, you know, baby's daddy or whatever, wrote you this letter. He wants me to give it to you. And I'm like, I'm like, what? And he's like, it's the guy who shot you. And I was like, yo, I was like, Send it to me like right now I'm like, don't even wait to send it to me in the mail. Just like send me a, like I want to, you know, send me this, the screenshots. And so he sends me the letter and I'm reading this letter and this guy is like, he was, he's in prison. He's serving life in prison now for murder. He's. And so a couple of things happened. One, it triggered like a old feeling of like revenge. And like that's one of the things that I, I think is so important for people to understand is like old things will come back. You know, in, in the design of the book, there's a little door at the chapters. And the door is because sometimes you go in and out of these things, right? And so it triggered that 17 year old boy who wanted revenge. And I'm like, oh, you're in prison. I'm, I'm, I'm well respected and I can just, you know, put a couple dollars on somebody books and how you taken care of really quickly and. But I'm reading the letter and it's the wildest thing. So this guy was on the phone in the, in the cell block. Another guy is walking past him and he has my book and he's talking about, they're talking about what books they're reading. He's like, oh, I just got finished reading this book, it's right My Wrongs. And he's like, let me read it. And he's literally reading the book and there's a story of me talking about when I got shot in the story. Oh my God. And he literally realized he's the shooter and so he writes me this letter.

[Jonathan Cohen]

So he had never known that he was part of your story.

[Shaka Senghor]

Never known. Never known. He writes me this letter and he was like, I'm the one who shot you. And I feel responsible for how your life turned out because I believe if I wouldn't have shot you, you probably would not have went on to shoot somebody else. And I remember this moment of like this is what, what I. So we talked earlier about God and spirit. And I always tell people, you know, when you are on this journey to live a different life, you got to be prepared for how it's going to show up in your life. Like your, your principles, the things that you say you believe are going to get tested. So for all those years, up until I got that letter, I had been saying that people should not be held hostage to their worst moment and that forgiveness is for you and not for the person. And the universe was like, ta da. Here you go.

[Jonathan Cohen]

How about now?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. See what you believe now, let's. Let's test this out, right? And I was like. And I sat with. I was actually in my garage. My garage office, and I just sat with it. And I just remember sitting. Sitting there. And I was like, okay, okay. So I'm gonna write this guy a letter, and I'm gonna say, you know, thank you for, you know, this. This letter you wrote, and apologize. You know, I started writing, and I just balled it up, and I was like. I was like, that's not what I believe. Forgiveness is like. I don't. I don't owe him a letter,

[Jonathan Cohen]

but

[Shaka Senghor]

I can accept his forgiveness because it's really for me to let go. And so I went and I looked him up. I just wanted to see his face, see what he looked like, so I can close that part of the chapter. And I was like, oh, that's the gift. He just gave me the gift. I could see him. But what it did is it inspired me to write my mom this letter about really seeing and understanding her, because she had started to open up to me about all the things in her life that led to her becoming a woman that she was. And, you know, it's this powerful thing that happens, like, when you're an adult parent and you start to look back and you think about how old your parents were when they had you. My mama had her first child when she was 16. There's no way that that woman who had been abused. She had been sexually abused as a kid. She had been beat. Like, it was no way she could be any other kind of parent and the parent that she was. And I just wrote her this letter and just told her. I was like, you know, I'm happy that I'm in a space in my life where I can forgive her and that I can be present with her and that she gets a chance to see this version of who I am as a man. But that's the power of the forgiveness was like, it's really for me. And my instinct was to write that letter to him. And I was like, wait a minute. That's like. It almost felt performative. It's almost like, oh, that's a nice thing to do, is to write this guy a letter and just say thank you. I was like, no, I don't. I don't owe him that.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You haven't written?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, No, I haven't.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Do you think you will?

[Shaka Senghor]

I don't know. I Mean, every now and then I think about it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Let's write it together.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, every now and then I think about it, because I think about what the impact would have on the other men in the cell block. And so that's the part where sometime I'm like, maybe I'll write that letter one day. Yeah. Because I'm thinking maybe some young guy will say, you know, oh, man, maybe I should apologize to the person.

[Mayim Bialik]

You had a moment that I think people should better understand. You got a letter from the relatives of the man that you shot. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. About. About five years into my sentence, I get a letter from this mysterious woman named Nancy. And, you know, one of the things that happened in prison is, like, people, like, randomly will just write people who are incarcerated to start pen pals, and some of them are, like, love interest and all type of things. But you get a lot of people who are, you know, whether they're coming from, you know, a spiritual space, sometimes they come up as college students. I get this letter. I had never saw the name, didn't know who this woman was. And I opened the letter, and the letter starts to lay out who David, the man whose life I'm responsible for taking, who he was, you know, the father, the son, the friend. And Nancy said that she was his godmother. And she said to me, like, despite this devastation you've caused, I forgive you. And not only do I forgive you, I love you, because that's what God would do. And, you know, I wish that would have been, you know, one of those moments that you see in movies where it's kind of like that come to Jesus moment. And you're like, all right, life is forever changed. But at that time, I was, like, so deep into my own hurt that I couldn't even comprehend the power of this gift that she had just given me. And so initially, I wanted to just ball the letter up and throw it away. I wanted it all to go away. You know, when you're a broken kid and a broken human being, you want the hard things to go away. You know, you don't want to deal with the discomfort of not knowing what to do emotionally. But something was like, don't throw that letter away. And so I would just read the letter week after week, just read the letter and try to feel like a change. Try to feel like what forgiveness felt like, you know? And it wasn't until years later when I began to start to forgive myself. When I was journaling and really writing through hard Things where I'm like, oh, here's the truth. Like these are, yes, you did very bad things, poor decisions, but here's all of who you are, here's the whole of it. And that letter was integral to self acceptance and all of it because like we corresponded, we went back and forth for years, you know, just talking about. I remember her asking me about the night and I gave her a very, very generic, you know, kind of rendering of that night. Like, here's just the boom, boom, facts of the thing. Like here, just beat by beat, this is what it is. And she was like, no, who were you? You know, who is that 19 year old kid with a gun in his hand? Like, who is that person? What led you down that path? And like, she wanted to get to know this deeper part of me. And that was like, it was not comfortable because I was like, who was I? You know, because at that point all I feel is like, I'm a bad kid, I'm a bad person. I did this horrendous thing and I've caused all this harm and devastation. And so it took years of like, peeling back those layers of like, okay, yes, you did a bad thing. And here's the circumstance that set you up to become a person who can do a bad thing.

[Mayim Bialik]

That kid in that moment who is experiencing a flood of emotion. Who were they at an emotional level.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. At a very molecular level. Emotionally. So highly traumatized kid that had, had. I mean, the levels of trauma I've experienced in my life is like almost impossible to comprehend. And like, even as a writer, I've never written all of them, you know, because some of them, I mean, in this book I talk about a very key thing that happened that I hadn't read about, that I hadn't even talked about with my parents until I was about 50 years old. And I just called my dad and I was like, do you know that a neighbor that you all trusted us to be in the care of attempted to molest me? And like, I suffocated that feeling and that thought and that betrayal for years. And I acted out of that, you know, like, I remember burglarizing his house just to kind of like say to him, like, that was wrong what you tried to do. And I got in trouble for it. And my parents, they didn't do their due diligence to really try to understand.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, your dad said he had a feeling that there was something more behind that burglary.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

But he couldn't put his finger on it. And also, especially at that time in our culture. Yeah, we didn't talk about this stuff at all. Men didn't talk about it. And especially in the black community. Right. This is a very, like, there's an extra set of stigma surrounding this. I mean, it's really. And you talk about the significance of vulnerability.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And in particular for, for, for men that you, you said that is your strength. Your strength is being emotionally available to feel and to act on the understanding you have of your emotional state. That's enormous.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. To me, I think it's one of the greatest mental unlocks in the world is like, when we can lean into the things that, you know, make us holy human, you know, like love, joy, compassion, empathy, vulnerability, and recognize that that takes strength to like be vulnerable, you know, and it was scary, like to write these tough things. Like, these are like, tough things to like talk about as a man. And like, you know, because what happens in those moments when you're feeling that level of vulnerability is like, can I protect myself? You know, do I have agency? And, and I, you know, I always attribute like my ability to maneuver out of that situation because that's literally, as a kid, that's what it was. I had to maneuver out of the situation. I attribute that to just having older siblings who, you know, they, you just kind of the trickle down effect of like they've learned how to navigate things and they've, you know, you just, they just teach that as you're going up. But not all kids have that. Not all kids have that safety net.

[Mayim Bialik]

I want to explore something that feels almost unfair. But you talk about the fact that people have very different backgrounds, very different experiences, but there's a through line. And why it feels unfair to talk about is because the emotions that were running through you based on the intensity of your, your whole life and, and all the trauma that you've gone experienced led you to do something that most people don't have the experience of. Right. You had in that moment, you took an action that you couldn't take back. The similarity, not on the same scale, is that a lot of people have actions that they regret. Right. Like they lose it. And the similarity is in that moment you lost it, you lost control and I assume acted the emotions acted through you versus you acting.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Mayim Bialik]

And other people can relate by either they've said something they can't take back, or they break something, or they've cheated

[Jonathan Cohen]

on someone, or they've hit someone, or

[Mayim Bialik]

they've ran their car aggressively and caused an accident. Like, I've had my Own experience. I remember an accident, car accident that I was in. I was pulling out of a driveway and I was so frustrated in my life. My emotions were driving that car. I wasn't and I didn't look right away and I was just like, wanted to get out and I got sideswiped and thank God my son wasn't in the car, but the car was totally total. So we know that emotions unchecked, absolutely can take us and in a split second change our lives. Do you ever think about the core of that emotion and like, are you monitoring it? You know, you've changed and become a totally different person. But is there ever a thought of like, oh, I have to track when the emotion bubbles to a point. Right. Because I think we can all relate to like after my car accident, I was like, I gotta make sure that I'm never act. Like I gotta, you know, keep the monitor on and have a red alert if I get to that place of heightened emotions so that it doesn't drive me.

[Shaka Senghor]

It's a great question. You know, one of the things there's. The chapter I write is on anger. I was terrified of becoming angry because the last time I became angry, it led to me being in a solitary confinement for, you know, four plus years, plus the time out, the anger that led to me being in, in prison. And so for years, nothing. I would let nothing bother me. Nothing's going to get me to that point of anger.

[Mayim Bialik]

It's dangerous.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, because I'm like, I don't know who I am if I get there. So I got to be able to be even killed balanced. I got to practice hyper vigilance around. Okay, I feel something escalating. What do I do here? Mindfulness meditation. You know, what are the, what are the tools in the toolbox? And it's great to have the tools, but I also being dishonest because I was putting a cap on it. I was telling myself this story of like, I'm not upset about that. I'm not going to let that get me upset. I'm not going to let that get me out there. Because I was really afraid of what would happen. And then what ended up happening when I actually embraced the anger was one. My brother was killed in July 2021. I remember being angry about that, you know, but I had some tools of like, how do I remedy that? Right. In October 2021, we had this beautiful, beautiful puppy named Indy that we took to a trainer the first time. Going off with this trainer and largely because he was a big American Bully. And we tried to do the kind of other, you know, intermediate trainers. He was this big, big loaf of a bully. And, like, if you're not a real dog person, he's intimidating. So I wanted him to be with somebody who really understand working dogs, knows what to do. We take him to this trainer, and within a day, our puppy is dead. And the trainer. So we drop them off, I want to say, on a Sunday, because I was traveling, we needed them to be housed somewhere. Drop them off on a Sunday, Monday evening, he's dead. They call me to the vet, and I get there and, you know, the trainer is just, like, telling me this story, and instantaneously, I know it's some. And basically what his first version of the story was, that he was walking Indy and Smiles walking past, and Indy tried to bite him. And I'm like, I know this is just not true. One, you're stereotyping the dog because you think because he's a bully, that this is a. You know, what. What he would do, what he doesn't understand that American bully is way different from a pit bull. But also, we have a very pedestrian neighborhood. Indy walks with my kid, who he outweighs. Kids walk up and pull his ears and rub on them and touch them. And you know, you know how it is, you walking the dog. And especially if it's a beautiful dog, people like, hey, they just go in for the. For the rub, right? So you can't tell me that this is the story. Then the second story was that he was walking him and he tried to bite him, and he slipped out of his collar, collar. And I'm like, dude, the dog's head is this big. So he definitely did not. And I've seen how you train. This is why I took him to you. Like, you. You're a working dog trainer, so you got a choke collar on him. I know what I know the. The things, right? And so the story is he slips out, runs out, gets hit. What we. I didn't notice the. The true. I'll tell you about what we found out after we sued him, because he didn't anticipate that I would sue him. So he tells me the story, and I'm going home. And it's heartbreaking. I'm like, this is my son's first puppy, and I gotta explain to him, you know, what happened. And so, you know, he's nine at the time, and I tell him the next morning, and he just lets out this wail, you know, and calls out the puppy's name and I'm. I'm broke. I'm dead. I'm like, it's heartbroken. I'm hugging him. It's gonna be all right. We're gonna be fine. Next morning, I'm scrolling, aimlessly scrolling, and the dog trainer's page comes up, and he's literally with his daughter. And they have a beautiful. I think it's a melanese, one of those beautiful hyper shepherd type dogs. And I'm just watching this baby play with this puppy, and she's so happy and she's so joyful, and that enrages me. And so I tell my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, I'm like, I'm gonna get in my truck and I'm gonna go around here and run his dog over so he can see what that feels like as a dad. And, like, just saying those words was like, first. This is the most absurd thought to have, but it's also a genuine thought that I had. And just being able to talk it out of, like, you know, I'm never going to go and cause harm to an animal, let alone something that's going to hurt the feelings of another kid. But that was real anger. And the real anger was that as a father, you see the joy that your child has. And you can lie to me as a father and say that this is what happened to the dog instead of just being a man and telling me the truth. And so that angered me to the point where I was just like, you know, I verbalized what I thought was like a anger response. And after that, it was the most liberating thing to say. Okay, it's okay. You can have an angry thought. It's not irrational. Like, you're an adult. Like, other adults get hurt and harmed and upset by injustice. That's really what that was, injustice. And so once I got through that part of it, I was like, okay, now, now how do I handle anger when it comes up? You know, and sometimes it's not. It's not the. The best way that I would. You know, I'm still growing as a human being. Like, I could fly off the handle like anybody else. Somebody cuts me off in traff. What are you doing? You know, which is a very thing that you deal with a lot in la. But I'm not about to go chase somebody out and get into a fisticuffs. I'm just going to do the universal gesture of like, what was that? You know what I'm saying? But there's power in that. You know, there's Power in recognizing when we are upset and to channel it in a healthy way versus letting that energy lead, like in. In. In. You know, you storm out the house or you rush off into traffic, and you. You know, you cause unintended harm. Because a lot of times unintended harm comes as a result of unchecked anger. But the real thing is to. To get beneath the surface of, like, if you're angry all the time, that's different than you're angry because the injustice occurred. And really getting beneath the surface of what is that thing that unsettles you? And when I was angry all the time, it was really getting beneath the surface. And I realized it's because I had this suppressed shame and I had these suppressed betrayals that I didn't have language for when I was a kid. And so I stuffed them down and I acted out of that, you know, and once I went on this adult healing journey, I started to realize that perpetual anger is typically. There's something that lives beneath that. And for me, it was shame. And even in prison, the first part of my incarceration, the first eight years or so, like, I was angry. You know, I didn't have language to make sense of how my life ended up here. You know, I didn't have the tools at hand to separate what I was responsible for versus what had happened to me. But once I started to build those tools and I started to be able to create a framework, I was like, oh, here's the harm that I've caused. Here's the things I'm absolutely responsible for. Here's the things that I have to atone for. These are the things that happened to me that had nothing to do with me. You know, that perverted man who attempted to molest me, that was his own perversion that he has to reconcile if, you know, if he can. I can't own that. You know, the. The. The beatings for my mother, that was her journey that led her down that path. Like, I wasn't born some bad kid. Like, I wasn't born some kid that should just be hit and, you know, out of anger. And so being able to just separate those things was powerful. And then, you know, I was able to get to the truth of what, you know, was beneath my anger, I was angry at myself. You know, I'm a smart kid. How am I in here? You know, I'm the kid that breaks up, fight. How am I in here for shooting somebody? You know, so it was like all these things of, like, man, when I get out, I'M gonna have this forever label, you know, and how do you. How do you become somebody else? And, I mean, it's been times like, that's been weaponized, you know, my past has been weaponized. And, you know, and it's like, if you don't heal from the shame of it, then you're, like, back in the anger stage. And so it's really understanding the things that exist beneath it. And by the way, I'm jealous that you were on Jeopardy. I just realized that's what that was.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh, that's right behind you.

[Shaka Senghor]

That's my other favorite nerdy thing to do.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Kind of a lighter question. You're a couple years older than me, so you went to. You went into prison, basically when I was, you know, graduating high school, you know, right about then. So we're, you know, around the same. Same age. And I'm thinking of what happened, you know, culturally in that 20 years, and I'm curious. Like, when we were in high school, there was no cell phones.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah.

[Jonathan Cohen]

You know, like, it was a very different world. What was it like coming out? What was, like, the biggest shock? I mean, computers, cell phones. Like, what was that like?

[Shaka Senghor]

I describe it as like, Fred Flintstone walking into an episode of the Jetsons. Like, that's really what it was like. It's like I'm coming out of this cave, like, world into, like, all this technology. And, like, there were moments for sure where, you know, I remember I didn't know the difference between a Word document and the Internet. And I would freak out every time I had to save a document because all I had heard in prison was about computers getting viruses. And I'm like, I don't want to get a computer or virus. Like, you know, so I would. Like, I had all this anxiety. I had a ton of anxiety around any place I had to go, and, like, a million and one questions, like, okay, where do I park? What is it? Like, what do I got to be there? Who's going to meet me? Whoever, you know, it was, like, on and on and on. There was my. My depth perception was, like, way skewed. Wow. Like, I couldn't. Like, it was hard to determine how far away a thing was, because I had only been around, you know, a prison yard, walking in circles. I mean, the pace at which people

[Jonathan Cohen]

drove, like, driving totally changed. It was from that in those days.

[Shaka Senghor]

I mean, it was like. When I think when I went in, it was like, 55 was the limit. Came out, like, people at 70. Which means in Detroit, 70 means 90.

[Mayim Bialik]

Yeah.

[Shaka Senghor]

And so that was crazy. I remember I first was driving. So in Detroit, you can drive across the bridge to Canada. And, you know, I didn't have. I had, like, a 99 Civic that was on loan, a Honda Civic. And so I only had, like, these paper directions. And I'm like, driving. I'm trying to get somewhere. And I almost go to this last stop. Like, if you. If you go one exit, you're going to Canada, and you can't, like, just turn around. And I freaked out. Cause I'm like, I'm gonna get stopped, right? I can't leave the country. And then I'm going back to prison. Cause they're gonna be like, you're trying to go over. So I'm like, I'm white knuckling it. I'm like, I gotta get off here. But it was wild. I mean, like, I remember one night, me and my cousin, we had went out. We had went to, like, a bar.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Oh, drinking totally changed. Weed changed.

[Shaka Senghor]

Oh, everything changed. Literally everything changed. And we're like, literally in a bar. And all of a sudden, it's just, like, a lot of people coming in at once. And I had a real panic attack. And I was like, I. I was like. I started sweating. I was getting dizzy. I was just like, okay, I gotta. I gotta go. I gotta go. And I remember, like, going. And I walked, like, two doors down. I'm, you know, called my cousin. I'm like, yo, I'm outside. And he like, you know, he's like, what's going on? Like, he's like, all the party is popping. I'm like. I'm like, dude, I can't. It's too many people, you know? And so it's all these things that, like, you know, I tell people when their loved ones are coming home, the party is great because everybody, you know, want to throw. You're coming home, partying, all the things. But it's like, there are real things that, like, you don't go through that. And I have scar. I have scars that. You know, when I first came home, I would have, like, these intense night sweats. I didn't have a lot of dreams about being back inside. I've definitely had them over the years, but it's just. Everything was new, you know, getting used to just, like, all the aspects of life, you know, and the technology was like, I'm so. Because I'm, like, a really nerdy. Like, I loved it. I was like. I remember the first time, like, I did a Skype call. Like, I think I was probably on the screen looking so stupid, because I was thinking. I was just, like, smiling the whole time, like, yo, this is what the Jetsons used to do. Like, in my mind, it's like, it's really happening. And I remember the first time I got in the car that, like, like, talked. Oh, yeah. It, like, freaked me out. It startled me. I was like, like, who. Who else is in here with me? But I'm like. I mean, as a kid, watching Knight Rider and kit the car, like, talk, I'm like, oh, this is the most. Not. It's, like, so normal.

[Jonathan Cohen]

I always feel like David Hasselhoff. So that makes sense.

[Mayim Bialik]

How was the experience of quiet? Because there's a level of quiet that you didn't have access to for years.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, it's really. It's really interesting. The. The first time I woke up in a house alone. Like, that was hearing birds chirp. Like, in most of the prisons I was in, like, there's no birds around because there's no trees. And I almost remember, like, the first of a lot of things, like, just being around plants. The first time I. I think the first time I rubbed a puppy, it had to have been over 20 years, you know, And I was like, oh, like, this little squirming thing is like a. A real puppy. So it's like all these things and just, like, being under the shade of a tree. And that first time, I was. I was home, and it was like, I was up early, and it was just like the morning, the birds are just, like, chirping. I just remember, like, sitting in the kitchen, like, drinking orange juice. Like, orange juice was really good, too, by the way. It's like. It's definitely not good for you, but it was great. But just hearing those birds chirping was just like, man, this is, like, I'm really out, you know? And so it's like all these very nuanced things that you experience, like, a hyper way, you know? And, I mean, I've been out now 15 years.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah. Tell us what your life is like now.

[Shaka Senghor]

That's incredible.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Another son. Yeah.

[Shaka Senghor]

It's, like, surreal.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Like, your wedding was in People magazine.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. That was wild. It's like that was the craziest thing ever.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Pretty, though.

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah. Yeah. My wife did an incredible job, like, designing it. Yeah. No, I mean, life now is. Is. You know, it's still surreal. You know, I'm. I'm. I'm. I think more than anything that I have such a higher, you know, appreciation for the details of life. You know, my life is Big in a lot of ways. I do a lot of incredible stuff. But it's really the details of life that I get the most excited about. You know, I'm still, you know, when I come home off the road, you know, I'm watering the plants and, like, I'm. That. That excites me. That brings me joy. There's a bookstore that I go to in my neighborhood. It's called Sideshow Books. It's like a used bookstore, but it's like complete chaos when you walk inside. And it's the kind of bookstore where if you see a black guy walking in, you're like, oh, this is the start of a horror movie. Cause it feels like that's how. How a horror movie used to start. You just walk into this mysterious place that lures you in. You're never to be seen again. But I find so much joy in just going in there and reading through old books and searching those books out and just being fully present with my life. Nature is a big thing that brings me joy. I'll never forget what it's like to be instilled in concrete and now to be able to be out in the midst of, you know, all these things. So that part of life is great. I love being a dad. It's my favorite, you know, thing in the world is just to really be a dad to an incredible kid and travel. You know, I travel all over the world. You know, I mentor. I work with kids. Just recently in Detroit, they opened the Shaka Singora Literary Lounge, which is, like. It is the. It's still surreal. I haven't fully processed it.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Yeah. Congratulations.

[Shaka Senghor]

Thank you. But when I was there, you know, just seeing kids hold my books, it's like, that's the dream. That was the dream. I wrote that down. And one day these kids would read my books. And the coolest thing is that part of the design of the lounge is my original writings from prison. And, like, that. I remember just being in there and the first time and talking, and it was like, these kids sitting. There's like, a little cubby where my writing is on the wall, and there's bookshelves, and these kids are just sitting there and just looking at them babies and just like, man, they'll find meaning in words, and they'll, you know, love the art and the craft of writing and telling stories. You know, which is one of the thing is, technology advanced. If there was anything that I'm, you know, know that I want to be super intentional about is to make sure that kids still write and they still tell their own stories, and they still find, you know, joy and imagination. And so having a lounge, you know, like that is just incredible.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And so, you know, there's. There's so much. Obviously, every chapter has exercises, kind of ways to drill down and kind of, you know, get to those really deep layers of all of these different chapters. But I wonder, you know, I think a lot of people, when we think about incarceration and if you've seen the 13th, I think that's a really good place for a lot of people to start. Absolutely. But. But I wonder, you know, I think a lot of people feel uncomfortable around it because it is such an enormous problem, and it's so systemic, and it feels like there's nothing that can be done. And I think a lot of people want to shut it away. You have really great resources here for sort of the books that helped you, you know, make your own transformation. But do you recommend any resources for people who do want to get involved with being helpful, whether it's donating books or education or funds? Or do you have other suggestions of how we as a society can start to think differently about what it means when people are imprisoned and treated this way and what it does to society at large?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, no. Tons of thoughts there. You know, first of all, shout out to Ava DuVernay in the 13th. I mean, that film is the most comprehensive film on really understanding the roots and the history and the culture of prison. You know, the prison industrial complex, as it's known. You know, it's rooted in the 13th Amendment, which is where that title gets its name. I actually was in that film, which was, you know, just an incredible honor to be able to talk about, you know, these big ideas. There's a new film out that is, I think, one of the most important films of our times, called the Alabama Solution. It's a tough watch. It is a tough watch. But what I've told people in my life is, like, you can read my words and you can hear my story, but this film is a visual representation of the things that I talk about. And these men basically made this film with smuggled cell phones. They literally put their life at risk, and we're not even certain how their life's gonna turn out' cause they're always throwing them in solitary confinement. And Alabama has a history of the highest level of brutality to people who are incarcerated. So I think people should watch that and sit in the discomfort of that film. You know, Michelle Alexander wrote the New Jim Crow, which is an incredible book. Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy is incredible book and his TED talk is phenomenal. There are some organizations that are doing incredible work. I used to lead an organization here in LA called Anti Recidivism Coalition or better known as arc, which was founded by Scott Butnick. It's one of my favorite orgs to support donate to. I'm also a board member of Prison Creative Arts Project out of the University of Michigan. That is one of my favorite favorite orgs for the joy side of my life. Because what that organization does is it uses art as a restorative vehicle for people both inside and outside. And they host the largest art exhibition in the world of prison based art. So they do that every spring at the University of Michigan campus. Incredible work. And in terms of. Yeah, so I think those are great reads. I think those are great starting points. Obviously the classic Malcolm X's autobiography. I just think everybody should read that. In general, I think it's the kind of foundational piece of what a transformed life looks like. My early body of work, righting my wrongs is I think it's the most proximate. People will get to a story of someone who's guilty of a violent crime. A lot of times we try to separate crime categories, violent versus nonviolent, but the reality is over 90% of people incarcerated will come home. We get a choice in how they come home. Are we contributing to them coming home healthy and whole? I will say this, the work that we've done, different orgs I've been a part of for the last 15 years, has dramatically changed the idea around what's possible for prison reform in America. The commissioner in Maine, he's doing incredible work. Commissioner Liberty, he's just out the box with it. I mean, these men and women are doing organic farming and make sure that the health, nutritional needs are met in the prison in a sustainable way. I mean, there's somebody in Maine who works in Silicon Valley as an engineer from a prison cell because he recognized that being a contributing member to the society is one of the most important things we can do for anybody. There's a parallel between unemployment and high incarceration rates as it is with education and literacy. So they're doing out the box work. They just opened up an incredible center in San Quentin which is a model for what happens when you actually put the resources into not just housing people. When I got sued, they itemized how much it cost to house me a different prison. And that's how they got to that number of like almost a million dollars for the lawsuit. And you think about what we're paying for as a society and are we getting our eye on investment? Right. So just think about this. If 70% of people get out of prison, go back, that's a very high failure rate. If you were invested in the stock market, you would be like, let me get my money out of there fast. This does not look good on the books. Right. But we continue to invest in that way and.

[Mayim Bialik]

Well, it speaks to the incentive structure. What is actually the goal here?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah.

[Mayim Bialik]

Is it to run private prisons or is it to help society?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, privatized business are a big industry. It's a big, big industry. I mean, at one point I was paying $15 for 15 minute call. You know, so you think about these, these corporations that are benefiting from people being incarcerated.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Well, and also the labor that is, I mean, a lot of people don't want to know about that, but the amount of labor that is. Actually we're using prisoners to provide labor at, what was it, 17 cents an hour or something?

[Shaka Senghor]

Yeah, yeah. I was working 17 cents an hour in the school, I mean, in the kitchen. And then at one point I was just like, I'm only doing jobs that help people because that was the only way I can wrap my mind around. Like, I'm not, you know, I remember they tried to put me on the yard crew. I was like, I'm not, I'm not going out there. I'm not, I'm not picking dandelions for like 17 cent an hour. And so I've always just tried to keep jobs and like either tutoring, working in the law library, or working in recreation because I can directly help people and do things that I would do without any, any pay. And I think my highest paid job was working in the law library. And I got like $54 a month. And that, that job that I had is the equivalent of like a paralegal. And so you think about $54 a month versus for, for, you know, doing that level of work to help people, which was really difficult in there because it's like you're dealing with, you know, literacy rates as well, but those are some of the resources. Yeah, this, you know, people can follow me and, and I'm always happy to point them to it. I do, I think everybody should visit a prison. You know, I think that's important because you, you know, you think about like, we're paying for this. And so I think that people in society should like go. I've taken people into prison all the time. I actually go to Prisons across the world. I was just in a prison in St. Martin, like, two weeks ago. I've been in prison in Ghana, Germany, London. Germany definitely does it way different. You know, there was a thing that I learned over there that blew my mind is that they think of their people who are incarcerated as still citizens. And, like, so they don't. They. They're. There was a moment I was in the cell. So we went with this contingent to Germany, and it was a lot of people from corrections, and it was kind of like that seminary type thing. And me and. Me and Scott, who I talked about earlier, we got bored. We're like, yo, we should, like, sneak out and go, like, run around the prison. And so we did. We was just like, bouncing around. And there was this cell was open. And so I went in the cell and I was just like. I was having a moment to myself of like, man, it's crazy that I did this much time in, like, a space like this. And the warden came in and she was like. She was like, are you okay? And I was like, yeah. I was like, I was just thinking about, you know, I did a lot of time in solitary confinement, like, seven years. And the warden started to weep, and she said, we would never do that to one of our citizens. And I mean, when they first invited me to go to Germany, I was like, why would I. Why would I go to Germany or Germany prison? Like, do you not know the history of Germany? Like that. That seemed like these people would have it all wrong. Like, they. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is what I thought. And then I was like, okay, well, let me go and be curious and let me drop judgment. And I got over there and it was mind blowing. Like, the idea of, like, restoration. How do you make sure that people are reintegrated into society in a real way and that they don't lose touch with society? So as part of their constitution, they have to be able to have access to their families. They have to be able to work in community. And I'm like, if you think about what we're doing to people is we're cutting you off from. Essentially, what is the most important thing is a social group. You know, if you even think about people as you get older, what do they say we need more than anything to prevent dementia, Alzheimer's, like, all these counters is just human interaction, a social circle, things that you can do with other people. And we're saying, no, we're gonna send you as far away from that as possible.

[Jonathan Cohen]

And then wonder why you come out angrier than when we put you in there.

[Shaka Senghor]

And anti social when you don't, you know, Unable to function. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, it's not to compare people to animals, but, you know, if you think about what happens when you put a dog in a cage for a long time and like, as soon as you let them out, they're going, ah, they. They, like, you know, they're turned up. Because that energy is not meant to be contained. Like, that energy is meant to be fluid, and whatever type of capacity it shows up in, it's meant to move and to occupy different spaces. And so the brutality of our system is such that it really is undermining real rehabilitation, and it creates a real threat to society. Like, that's one of the things I'm, you know, when I did how to be Free, even though this is not. This is not. I just want to be clear. It's not a prison book. Right. Part of my life experiences obviously are integrated in it, but when I released the book, I gave it away to prisons to, like, 1300 prisons and jails on a platform called Edovo, because I know that the hard work has to take place while you're in there. In order to adjust to life out here. You need to have tools, you need to have a framework, and they're not going to give it to you. So I feel like, okay, if I can give it to close to a million people, then that's what I should be doing. And then I started my prison tour, actually on Rikers Island. So I kicked the prison tour off with my brothers and sisters in there, and it's. I never thought I would go back in prison, but I. I had the best fellowship when I go inside, you know, those My people in there, you know, and it doesn't matter what state I'm in, what country, there's just a kindred spirit that we have when I go in. And, you know, so I'm honored to be able to go in and show love. And I'm happy to take y' all in if y' all ever want to go. I'll definitely take y' all on the trip.

[Jonathan Cohen]

The book is how to be a Proven guide to escaping Life's Hidden prisons. Shaka, thank you so much for being here. We really. You're a miracle. I mean, it's a really miraculous journey that you've been on, and we're so grateful that you shared it with us. So thank you.

[Shaka Senghor]

I'm truly honored, and thank y' all for having me. This has been such a cool way to spend time. And especially, you know, you think about the things we're talking about in the world today, and hopefully this book helps a lot of people.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

[Shaka Senghor]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Jonathan Cohen]

One of the things we didn't get to talk to Shaka about was some of his writing on resilience, greatness, our need for perfectionism. And he says greatness is about persistence, not perfection. And obviously, it's not a complicated concept, but when you think about it. But in terms of the work that he's done, I mean, the success that he has achieved, selling books out of

[Mayim Bialik]

your backpack, it's just like, we all. We all want someone to do the work for us, right? Like, we want the publisher, and we want the book contract, and we want the advance, and we want to them to handle the marketing campaign. And, like, he's just like, I'm gonna make this happen.

[Jonathan Cohen]

His blueprint for success is own your shit. S is for success, H is for hustle, I is for intelligence, and T is for talent. Own your shit, he says. I also just this notion that we can learn something from someone who was in a literal prison to understand the prisons that we hold ourselves in. And that it's not about comparing suffering. It's not about an Olympics of suffering. It's that anger is anger, and it will eat you up. Whether you're angry about the post person getting your mail wrong or about being wronged in a deeper, more devastating way. Anger is anger. Forgiveness is available for everyone. It's just. It's really. It's a beautiful book, and I'm so, so glad we got to speak with him.

[Mayim Bialik]

Unbelievable story and an unbelievable man.

[Jonathan Cohen]

Please make sure to join us over on Substack. And, yeah, check out Shaka's books. Really, just so, you know, inspirational. And, like I said, it's just miraculous. And, yeah, we're so glad that we got to have this conversation. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time.

[Shaka Senghor]

It's Maya Bialik's breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you. She's got a neuroscience PhD or two, and now she's gonna break down. It's a breakdown. She's gonna break it down.