Susannah (Susie) Bannon is an award-winning teacher, scholar, and public servant. Susie has a BA in Communication Studies (2012) from the University of Houston-Downtown, an MA in Communication Studies (2014) from Texas State University, and a PhD in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research examines the complex interplay between rhetoric and carcerality and has been published in Essays in Virtual Dark Tourism, The St. Louis University Public Law Review, and Captured Words/Free Thoughts. Susie advocates for prison abolition and higher education in prisons at the local and national level, and in 2017 she co-founded the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network.
I wanted to take a moment and let you know that I created a guide to emotional intelligence, which is something to help you understand your emotions and learn how to regulate them!
It’s totally free and I can’t wait for you to check it out.
https://www.subscribepage.com/emotionalintelligenceguidedrleclair
Here are a few of my takeaways from today with Susie.
1. All it takes is one person who believes in your future that unlocks everything for you and you may find yourself curious about a path you may have never considered.
2. It’s important as a collective to think of everyone as a human and remove the stigma of labels. Once a human is labeled something in a negative light, it takes away their humanness.
3. After being incarcerated, it can be nearly impossible for humans to volunteer or get a job and are often not even given a fair shake with employers simply tossing their applications without even considering them for the position.
4. Punitive consequences are not nearly as effective as social support and programs to really offer an alternative new leaf for humans that have been incarcerated.
5. There are things every day that can bring you back to your traumatic moments of the past, but it’s about looking at those layers and healing from it. There may be new triggers that arise, but choosing to lean in and learn how to heal yourself is so incredibly important in order to take your power back.
6. Journaling can be a really beautiful way to be able to name your feelings or experiences. From there, you can truly start to open up and heal.
7. In helping others by sharing your experiences and traumas, you are also in a way healing yourself.
8. Each person has their own lived experiences, so let’s take a step back and look at someone KNOWING that they’ve had their own journey and try to have more empathy for them.
Susie’s links:
Instagram: @elsooz
Twitter: @susannahbannon
Cassandra on Instagram:
@drcassandraleclair
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