Meet Gabe Rosales

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gabe Rosales. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gabe below.

Hi Gabe , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I have been a creative person since I was very young. As an only child, I spent hours entertaining myself in my formative years. I would take on different personalities and record fake radio shows, I would draw, I would write lyrics, and I would play instruments. Eventually my hyper focus on tasks led me to becoming a professional musician in my older teenage years. Right out of high school, I went on tour with a national act metal band. A few years after that, I landed other high profile gigs, touring internationally with pop stars. I was creating my own music during these years as well and the balance of professional touring and creating original music kept me inspired.

Despite a promising career, I grew up in an alcoholic household and I inherited and nurtured some of the worst habits I witnessed. By the time I was in mid twenties, doctors told me I had the liver of a 70 year old man, and my blood pressure was so high from alcohol and drugs that I was on the verge of a stroke. I attended a vipassana silent meditation retreat and learned Buddhist lessons of impermanence and equanimity and it drastically altered how I saw myself and the world around me. Though I had these new tools to get out of my own head, I continued on a path of destruction and 3 years later I was arrested for a DUI at 330pm in the afternoon, and then 3 years after that, I was convicted of a violent crime that I committed when I was drunk. I got a years long sentence reduced to months in county jail with the help of private counsel.

My carceral experience opened my eyes to the business of the criminal justice system, the plight of others who were less fortunate than I, and how dehumanizing being incarcerated can be. After my release, I pledged a vow of sobriety and I went back to school for a formal education in criminology. After I graduated with a bachelors degree in 2017, I got into law school in 2018. At that same time, I began teaching a rehabilitative songwriting class in a state prison in Southern California. This changed my life. I withdrew from law school and applied to the second highest ranked criminology PhD program in the United States. I still teach in prison and have become an advocate for multiple creative, and educational programs inside. I developed close relationships with the mental health department, the education department and select custody staff.

Working with the population inside, who have had the most horrible upbringings consisting off neglect, physical and mental abuse, and drug abuse, I have been constantly inspired by their drive for self-improvement, community service, and innovation. Many of my students have life without the possibility of parole and they still remain dedicated to sobriety, self-improvement, and empathy. Many of those inside are some of the greatest people I know, but who have made horrible mistakes. They have made mistakes that I can relate to. I see myself in many of their stories and I just happened to be lucky enough to have stayed out. I had the resources and support to help with my success, a luxury that many of those inside have never experienced.

After bringing my own health back through healthy habits, meditation, sobriety, and being of service, I find my resilience through the family I work with inside prison walls.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Currently, I am a fifth year PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine, I am a professional musician and producer, I am the founder of my own nonprofit, and I am researcher.

My research revolves around California prison policy, rehabilitation, desistance, and I am working to advance a new theoretical framework called generative justice. I play gigs every week, am working on a second solo album, and I am working on multiple large-scale prison projects that will have a huge affect on incarcerated folks throughout the United States. The drive is to provide the resources for those inside to become the best versions of themselves. Along with the privilege of working with high-profile music artists outside, I am also working with high profile incarcerated folks as well.

You can check out my website for updates on music projects, nonprofit work, in-prison programs, and my research.
gaberosales.com

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back, I have to say that the self-awareness that I have learned from meditation has been one of the most valuable things I have taken with me in every endeavor. You get where you need to be, when you are ready and this is not always consistent with how you envision it in your head. Improvisational music and meditation have allowed me to flow with the current as opposed to fighting against unbeatable waves. You evolve with the struggles and they make you into the person that can achieve the goals you are working towards.

Meeting people where they are at is essential. Malcolm X told people that they should not be too quick to judge because there was once a time when you did not know what you know now. I have used music as a catalyst to bond and grow with people but before that, I have tried to understand where people are coming from so that I can understand their concerns and stressors. If I can address those, and build in solidarity, we can create unstoppable teams that can accomplish almost anything.

Take a logic class. Learn formal logic so you can see through fallacious arguments people use. Scared people can be swayed in any direction. If you have fear, and cannot discern between legitimate and illegitimate information, you will be constantly picking up the pieces.

What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?

My mother was choosing between suicide and a divorce before her and my father split. Despite her Catholic upbringing and the pressures from religion that would condemn her for splitting up the marriage, she did it anyway. It made realize that no one else will live with your decisions but you. We have one life, and making decisions based on what others think you should do is not always in your own best interest.

My father’s work ethic was unparalleled and he was an innovator. He did not know how to do many things as a general contractor when he first started, but he often still took a job, and then he would figure out how to do it before he started. I have done this my whole life. It is beyond the term “fake it till you make it.” It is about knowing that you are capable of anything but you might not be the person to accomplish it yet, but you CAN be.

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Image Credits

Pedro Nieves, Lee Gibson

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