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Realness Project is a nonprofit committed to expanding human connection globally, starting with people who are the most disconnected in society, those living behind bars.
Billy Rhea was one of those people.
Billy served in the Army and spent 15 months deployed in Afghanistan. He experienced much loss before, during, and after his military service. Billy struggled with the effects of PTSD, taking 7-8 heavy pills twice a day for years. “I believed by taking these I could mask my issues.”
The bottom fell out for Billy when a nasty road rage incident led him to spend four years in prison.
“I was an aloof ‘asshole’. I only cared about myself. I thought I was tough as nails and that asking for help was a sign of weakness. I used to run on ego and pride and would peg out whenever I got angry.”
Billy went on to say, “I struggled with low self worth and didn’t believe I was worth anyone’s time. I couldn’t look people in the eyes. I was the guy that would curse and run out of the room the moment you said anything about working with a group.”
The feelings of disconnection and isolation eventually led to Billy realizing he needed to do something differently, so he enrolled in his first Realness Project workshop while serving his sentence in Colorado. Billy says Realness Project’s “ART of Being Human” workshop was pivotal in transforming all of his most important relationships -- especially with himself.
“I can honestly say that I like the guy I am now. I have an inner peace that’s super chill,” he said. “I’ve learned that in this workshop, like in life, you get out of it what you give. As long as you give your whole self, you’ll get something meaty and delicious back out. I lost everything coming in here [prison] and now I understand it’s important to talk about what happened in combat, what happened with my PTSD. I had to talk about it to have peace.”
Billy has now been off his pills for 3 years. He is slowly repairing a troubled relationship with his 18 year old son and has reconnected with his son’s mother, who he hadn’t seen since they were together in high school.
Billy’s sister, Michelle, says she can’t believe the changes she’s seen in him, “I can now have a conversation with Billy because he wants to talk about the deeper issues and what’s really going on.”
Billy believes these huge relational strides are because he now wants to hear the other person’s perspective. “I make sure the other person knows their viewpoint is valid.”
In contrast to when he had trouble making eye contact, Billy now enjoys looking people in the eyes when he talks to them. Jokingly, he said sometimes people are like, “Why are you staring at me?”
There are more than 18,000 people like Billy in the Colorado prison system who feel isolated or dehumanized and are longing for healthy human connection.
Realness Project workshops help meet this need by bringing incarcerated people together, helping them to see their own worth, their common humanity, and they catalyze the potent medicine of human connection.
If Billy is able to overcome his reticence toward eye contact in order to see the humanity in others and connect, perhaps we all can bring more of this into our lives That’s why we’ve created this challenge, along with two others...