June 10, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode of Educating to be Human, Lisa speaks with Atman Smith, founder of the Holistic Life Foundation, about the transformative power of bringing mindfulness, yoga, and meditation into not just schools, but also rehab centers and senior living centers. What began as a personal journey in search of deeper meaning evolved into a community-led program in West Baltimore—one of the most underserved and over-policed neighborhoods in the U.S.—focused on healing and self-regulation.
Atman shares how early interventions with students frequently sent to detention led to the creation of the Mindful Moment program, a trauma-informed model that replaces punishment with presence. Over time, their work has grown from a single after-school offering to a nationwide movement rooted in the belief that real learning happens from the inside out.
Together, they explore what it means to center emotional well-being in education, the resistance and rewards of shifting school culture, and why teaching students to breathe might be one of the most radical things we can do.
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Atman Smith is a co-founder of the Holistic Life Foundation, a Baltimore-based organization that has brought yoga and mindfulness to underserved communities since 2001. His work spans drug treatment centers, mental health facilities, schools, and corporations around the world, with a focus on supporting high-risk youth. A former University of Maryland basketball player, he holds a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Atman's impact has been widely recognized, with features on Good Morning America, CNN, The Oprah Magazine, and Steven Spielberg’s Why We Hate. He co-authored Let Your Light Shine, contributed to academic research on the effects of mindfulness on urban youth, and was named a 2024 "Game Changer" by Baltimore Magazine.
Resources:
Holistic Life Foundation, https://holisticlifefoundation.org/
Let Your Light Shine: How Mindfulness Can Empower Children and Rebuild Communities, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Let-Your-Light-Shine-Mindfulness/dp/0593332288
On Instagram @holisticlifefoundation and @atmansmith
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Educating to be Human is hosted by Lisa Petrides, produced by Helene Theros, recorded by Nathan Sherman, edited by Ty Mayer, with music by Orestis Koletsos.
Please subscribe and listen to Educating to Be Human on Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts, leave a review, tell your friends and share our episodes on social media. And don’t forget to follow @edutobehuman on Instagram and on Bluesky @edutobehuman
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
This is Educating to be Human,
and I'm your host,
Lisa Petrides,
founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge
Management in Education. In each episode,
I sit down with ordinary people creating
extraordinary impact,
people who are challenging notions of how we learn,
why we learn,
(00:26):
and who controls what we learn. Thank you very
much for listening. Thank you for joining us on
Educating to be Human. Today,
I have the enormous pleasure of speaking with Atman
Smith,
the co-founder of the Holistic Life Foundation,
(00:46):
which is a Baltimore-based nonprofit committed to
the social,
emotional,
and educational well-being of underserved communities
through the practice of yoga,
mindfulness,
and meditation. And in a time when education in
the U.
S. is increasingly fractured,
and in that process,
(01:07):
severing our connection to body,
nature,
and emotion,
Atman,
in the work of his team,
offers a powerful reminder that deep learning takes
place at the level of the body,
not just the mind. And for over two decades,
he and his colleagues have been helping communities
(01:27):
and classrooms develop practices that center the
breath,
body,
and spirit,
not just as tools for individual healing,
but as pathways to improve our experience and our
ability to learn. And you've spent years teaching
yoga and mindfulness in a variety of settings,
(01:49):
and particularly with underserved and high-risk
youth. And I remember that many people first came
to know the work of the Holistic Life Foundation
through this groundbreaking approach of replacing
school detention with meditation,
starting in Baltimore and now expanding across the
country. What were you noticing in schools early on
(02:12):
that made you feel this kind of practice could
make a real difference?
First off,
thanks for having me on here,
Lisa. It's great to reconnect with you. In regards
to why we thought that these practices would help
in a school setting,
my brother,
who's one of my business partners and one of the
co-founders,
and my buddy Andy,
(02:34):
you know,
we,
in our last year of college,
we were looking for,
like,
we knew there had to be more to life than just
graduating from college,
getting a job,
getting married,
have some kids, retire and die. You know what I
mean?
There had to be more to that.
And we were looking for what that more was.
And in our search for what that more was,
we went to the different libraries on campus,
(02:55):
obscure libraries,
studying anything from ancient history,
creational theories,
astrology,
astronomy,
philosophy.
And it seemed like the more we've read,
no questions were getting answered.
But they would always talk about the answers are
within,
the answers are within.
And no one ever told you how to go within. During
that time,
(03:16):
me and Ali's godfather,
who became our teacher,
Uncle Will,
was trying to teach us yoga and meditation.
And in one of his books by this Yogi Yogi Bhajan,
told you how to do like some esoteric things with
the yoga and meditation. Like,
you know,
it was stuff like how to maintain your body
(03:36):
without eating or if you injure yourself around
where there is no hospital around,
what can you do? And,
you know,
all this type of stuff where.
You're cultivating the energy that's within us and
that's outside of us for specific purposes.
So,
you know,
we were like,
yo,
yoga and meditation can help me do all this
stuff. You got to teach it to us.
And his thing was,
alright,
(03:57):
I'll teach you anything and everything I know. You
gotta agree with two things. One,
you have to show up at my house at 4:30 in the
morning tomorrow.
And then he was like,
you all gotta promise to be teachers.
I'm going to teach you all everything.
But I like my being a recluse. I like being in my
house.
You all are going to have to teach any and
everybody that wanted to learn. And,
(04:17):
you know,
that started our journey. And during that time,
we were diving deep into our practice. We ended up
graduating from school and then we moved back into
our old neighborhood in West Baltimore,
which at the time was one of the most violent
neighborhoods in all of America. You know,
a lot of the scenes in The Wire,
the HBO show,
were featured.
My neighborhood was featured.
(04:39):
So,
of course,
there was like a lot of chaos,
a lot of gun violence,
a lot of dilapidated housing,
open-air drug markets,
shootouts. And the crazy thing was,
is that,
you know,
we were amongst that chaos,
but we were still bliss-ing out because we had
these practices.
We realized that we really needed to share these
(04:59):
with other people,
not only because we made the promise to our
teacher,
but just because we saw humanity was suffering and
we had some techniques-ancient techniques that people
weren't really practicing at the time.
We started this like 23 years ago.
So yoga,
meditation,
mindfulness,
breath work wasn't in pop culture like it is now.
(05:20):
And a lot of our friends would come to our
neighborhood and they would see,
like I was saying,
the open-air drug markets,
the violence,
and all that stuff.
And they knew we were broke as hell.
And they used to come to us and they used to be
like, 'man,
you guys are so happy yet you're broke.'You live
in this crazy neighborhood,
yet you guys are happy.
And then our question to them would be, 'well,
(05:42):
you all have a significant other. You all have a
nice house,
nice car,
nice job,
but you all are miserable.'And we were like, 'all
right,
well,
it may be something to this. 'So we knew we
wanted to start teaching these practices to other
people.
And the first opportunity was an afterschool yoga
program at a school that my mom taught at because
(06:03):
we knew if it was helping us bliss out.
Amongst the chaos that it would do the same thing
for any and everybody that we taught.
And,
you know,
that's what we did. We started off teaching 15
fifth graders at Windsor Hill Elementary School at
an after-school yoga program.
And these were the most challenging kids in the
school,
always getting into fights. Attendance was low. Some
(06:26):
of them were like socially awkward. And,
you know,
we just started the program up with them when we
first started. We would have to pick up more than
half of them from detention because they would get
in trouble. As we progressed in this program,
we would pick up less and less kids from
detention. We started noticing the change in the
kids,
and so did the parents,
(06:48):
the teachers. And that's how we first started in
schools. And,
you know,
things have just snowballed from there.
What year was that? How many years ago?
That was in 2001,
I think.
That's amazing.
That's actually incorporated in 2001. And our first
program was in 2002.
So,
you start off in this after-school program. If you
(07:11):
look at your work today.
You're across the country.
You're working in schools,
in detention centers,
in drug rehab.
I mean,
this work has just amazingly spread. And
interestingly,
you know,
there's much more of an emphasis today on wellness
and things like that.
But it really feels like what you've been doing has
(07:32):
been so connected to,
you know,
how learning,
I mean,
particularly in schools,
right?
If the mind and body isn't connected,
then these kids certainly aren't learning in
schools,
right?
There's been this huge disconnect between the mind
and the body and its impact on learning,
(07:52):
or if we learn,
in fact,
right? So how did you,
did you start to talk about that with folks? And
then you,
I guess,
tell me a little bit about what this looks like
today. You know,
in the classroom,
like what the practice looks like. And I know I've
heard you tell some stories before of what happens
(08:13):
in a school when you start working with not just
the students,
but the administrators and the teachers as well.
Yeah,
like,
like you said,
we started off with an after-school program for all
boys.
But then,
you know,
we developed a lot of different programs. The main
program with like the most impact in schools,
I think,
is our Mindful Moment program.
Like you said at the beginning,
(08:34):
the whole program that was highlighted in the
Upworthy viral video talking about changing attention
to meditation.
And,
you know,
that program is like a tier one,
tier two,
and tier three intervention where,
you know,
we have a school-wide practice that's led over the
loudspeaker.
So everybody in the school,
not just the students,
but the staff,
administrators,
(08:55):
even the janitors and cafeteria workers can stop
for a second. Do the practice to kind of get them
centered. Kids are dealing with so much coming into
school,
whether like in our neighborhoods,
you know,
they have like; we live in food deserts,
and kids are coming to school eating sugar-filled
snacks,
processed food. They may be coming from a traumatic
(09:16):
situation where,
you know,
they're dealing with a lot of undiagnosed trauma.
So it's really hard for people to even think that
kids can just sit down in a chair and learn right
away. At the beginning of the school day,
we have practices,
whether it's breath work or seated yoga and brief
(09:37):
meditations that the kids do before they start
their school day. The bending and stretching from
the chair kind of gets that restless energy out of
their body,
gets that circulation flowing,
makes their bodies kind of more like a safe
space. The breathing practices help them still their
mind.
And then the meditation can kind of tap them into
(09:57):
that inner peace. Then we also have push-ins into
classrooms where during those specific times where
students are bouncing off the wall,
whether it's transition times,
whether it's if it's a substitute teacher,
whether it's after lunch,
just specific times during the course of the day
where teachers need a quick breath break,
(10:18):
a quick three or five minute practice,
our staff will go in there and lead that and
help.
kind of get the class grounded and present,
better for the school climate,
the classroom environment.
You can get to that point where that's possible.
You go in initially and you do some of this
training with the students and then you work with
the teachers.
(10:38):
Like,
what does that,
you know,
for those folks who are working in schools every
day where this is not a practice that is,
you know,
embodied there,
I would imagine that this seems like a strange
concept.
That kids would show up and they would willingly do
breath work before they started their day?
I mean,
it starts off in the summertime.
(11:00):
Like we go in,
like we don't go into any schools unless we talk
to and present to all the staff in the school,
social workers,
teachers,
administrators,
principals,
assistant principals.
And,
you know,
during that time,
we kind of sell them on the practice by either
the neuroscience behind how it helps heal trauma.
(11:21):
How it helps kids have access to executive function.
And then we also take them through the practice.
So they actually experience with their students and,
you know,
the teachers during our self-care sessions get to
experience during the school day.
And then,
you know,
after we get them on board,
we will go into the school and do a residency to
(11:42):
get the kids bought into the practice where we'll
go into every single classroom.
So every single student will know why we're there.
what the purpose of the room is.
I didn't even get to the room yet.
Tell us about what the room is.
It's the Michael Moment Room.
It's like the alternative to suspension room.
Kids call it the oasis in the school.
It's basically,
(12:03):
you know,
it has like aromatherapy.
It has oil diffusers.
Himalayan salt crystals.
So it's actually a room that's set up at the
school that kids can go to.
Do they get sent there or do they take themselves
there?
How does that work?
Like a detention room,
you get sent there,
right?
Yeah,
it's a combination that either they can self-refer
when they're in high school or when they're in
(12:24):
elementary and middle school,
they have to get referred to by a teacher or
administrator.
And they have like a certain duration of time that
they can be in there because,
you know,
some people try to be slick and,
you know,
try to get out of class and try to stay.
In the room the entire day,
but they only have a 15-minute time limit to stay
in the room.
And while they're in there,
they have to do a practice or be practicing the
(12:47):
entire duration of time that they're in there.
When they come in there,
we aren't counselors.
So all we do is actively listen and mirror to
empower the kids because people always talk at kids
and they never listen.
So that right there kind of helps the kids kind of
drop in.
Achieve a little bit or lean more towards
(13:08):
homeostasis than before they were in the room then
we'll talk to them about stress,
stresses how the stress plays out in their body
and then we'll do like a breathing practice
meditation and then you know we'll talk to them
about like you know next time you see that
classmate that usually gets under your skin or if
you're about to go into that class where the
(13:30):
teacher uh kind of picks on you,
Try to do these practices so you can self-regulate
so you won't have to come into the room.
We have a tea machine in the room.
Kids love tea.
So at the end of the session,
we give them some tea and send them back out,
we track when they come into the room.
So,
you know,
if the kid comes into the room the exact same
time during the course of a school day,
we'll realize,
(13:50):
all right,
well,
they're trying to avoid something.
Let's try to have a sit-down with either a teacher,
administrator or a couple of students that might
that might be triggering the student.
And,
you know,
try to resolve the conflict.
And the beautiful part about that program is like
the numbers start off really high at the beginning
of the year,
but they don't go down next to nothing because
kids do learn how to self-regulate.
(14:11):
And I think that's why we signed a commitment with
the Clinton Foundation through their Clinton Global
Initiative to help us expand this program,
because it does help out with school-based outcomes.
Test scores go up,
detention and referral numbers go down,
attendance goes up.
And then,
you know,
it does a lot.
We're partnering with the Trauma Research Foundation,
(14:32):
Dr.
Russell Vander Kolk's foundation to kind of study
what it's doing to help heal trauma of not only
the students but the secondary trauma that the
teachers get in working in those environments.
So there's really a lot of science behind this.
And it sounds like you're gathering evidence that's
really supporting that.
Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that.
(14:52):
Yeah,
I mean.
Like I said,
you know,
it's easy to gather school-based outcomes just
because,
you know,
you can get the test scores,
attendance,
referral rates and stuff like that.
But,
you know,
with us partnering with the Trauma Research
Foundation,
they're studying things as far as anxiety.
You know,
before COVID,
(15:13):
a lot of the reasons why we were going into
schools was because of violence.
You know,
kids were getting into fights,
but now kids are more anxious and more alone and
they have that lack of connection.
So we're trying to show how these programs kind of
help kids deal with anxiety,
help them have a higher self-worth.
(15:34):
We've gotten anecdotal evidence for years,
but we haven't gotten any empirical evidence.
So that's what we're looking for now.
And,
you know,
how it heals trauma,
like I said,
helps heal the trauma with the students and then
also helps with the secondary trauma.
Another element of the program is our self-care
sessions with the teachers where we teach them
practices that kind of help them can get centered,
(15:57):
help release that secondary trauma that they are
going to pick up during the course of a day
working with all those students.
Right now,
we're just working on getting the empirical evidence
to show what the anecdotal evidence has been
telling us for years.
Yeah,
it's just so important with the work that you're
doing.
You know,
when I think about such an overemphasis on
(16:20):
school-based outcomes,
you know,
the test scores,
and we're not looking at what's happening with
trauma,
with kids'sense of self-worth,
the kind of healing that they need to do
themselves or to empower themselves in that way
with these tools.
Why don't we do this in all schools?
Like what's preventing,
you know,
maybe what I'm asking you is,
(16:41):
you know,
where do you see resistance to these kinds of
practices as you're talking to people about it?
I mean,
the fact that you can replace a detention room
with a meditation room is so profound.
I mean,
it's philosophical in a sense that you don't
believe that when a child misbehaves,
it should be punitive,
right?
It's exactly the opposite of that.
(17:03):
Like,
why aren't we doing that?
There are a lot of people who claim to be like
trauma-informed,
trauma-responsive.
And it's just more like a buzzword and that they're
not really authentically teaching from that space.
That's not really the foundation of what they're
doing.
A lot of people teach from like curriculums.
(17:24):
And,
you know,
what we do is,
you know,
we teach people how to have a toolbox and meet
their students where they are.
So I think it's all about like the programs and
what exactly.
What practices people are implementing.
Our practices have been shown to help heal high
ACEs scores.
Baltimore has some of the highest adverse childhood
(17:47):
experience scores in the nation.
Can you explain just for the listener who doesn't
really know what those ACEs scores are and how we
use them and what they mean?
Yeah,
ACEs scores are like adverse childhood experiences.
If you've gone through some type of violence and
other things that may have caused trauma in your
life,
whether it's trauma that you've been through on a
(18:09):
personal level,
secondary trauma,
all types of trauma that you have been through in
your life impact you.
If you have high ACEs scores,
it leads to a lot of heart-centered diseases,
pulmonary issues,
and high blood pressure,
and a lot of stuff like that.
So if your viewers or listeners out there want to
(18:32):
hear a great TED Talk,
Dr.
Nadine Burke Harris does a great TED Talk on high
ACE scores and the impact on health of people with
high ACE scores.
Yeah,
when we think about the classroom place,
right,
the consequences of sort of ignoring this,
you know,
the mind and the body connection,
the emotional with the intellectual,
(18:55):
right?
If you're not able to self-regulate in this way and
heal in this way,
you know,
what happens with learning?
Right.
I mean,
it just seems again,
it seems so obvious,
but it's not something that we see or that we
don't see enough of.
Definitely.
I mean,
people with high ACEs scores and deal with a lot
of trauma,
their vagus nerve isn't firing properly.
(19:17):
And that's that threat perception or that connection
with your mind and your body.
And there's definitely techniques and breathing
practices that we teach that help people heal their
vagus nerve up.
So,
you know,
they can have that connection with their mind and
your body.
They say that like whatever trauma that you've been
through,
Dr.
Bessel van der Kolk talked about this,
(19:38):
that you can heal it,
except like blunt force trauma to the head.
But,
you know,
every other trauma that people have been through,
you can heal it with love and other practices.
Kennedy Krieger did a study on different programs
that help heal people's high ACE scores.
(19:59):
Our programs and our techniques,
not ours,
the ones that we teach,
because,
you know,
this stuff is timeless,
way older than the Holistic Life Foundation,
but our evidence-based practices that we teach.
I think that that's one of the reasons why our
stuff is so successful,
and the reason why a lot of people are hesitant
because they have had people come in and say that
(20:21):
they are going to be trauma-informed and give
people practices to help do exactly what we are
doing.
And,
you know,
they failed miserably.
There's been time and time again,
all across the nation and the world,
that people have bought us in because,
you know,
the program that they invested in wasn't really
delivering what they said they were going to
deliver.
So they get us to kind of see where they're at
(20:43):
and help the people that are implementing the
program with the techniques and philosophies that
when our programs run with high fidelity is the
reason why our numbers are so promising,
to teachers,
administrators,
funders alike.
That's the reason why seeing the fidelity not being
(21:04):
high across the board is the reason why we created
our year-long certification program to where
teachers,
administrators,
even nurses,
social workers,
psychiatrists,
all of those demographics are part of our year-long
certification program so they can learn how to
(21:25):
teach like we teach.
Where it's like 11 online modules,
reading assignments,
homework assignments,
in-person intensive at the beginning.
And at the end,
you know,
like a celebration to culminate the year-long
certification program.
And then it's once a month online live sessions
with one of the co-founders.
(21:45):
That way we're able to kind of impart the knowledge
and the successes and failures that we've gone
through in our 23 years of experience.
If the graduates want to,
they can join Holistic Life Foundation's workforce
and we can kind of use our resources,
our administrative team to help them set up
(22:07):
programs in their cities,
schools,
and stuff like that.
How long have you been doing the certifications?
We have been asked to do it for years,
but we finally took the time to put it together
and we had our first cohort maybe three months
ago.
Doing them all across the nation.
We're doing a couple in Australia,
(22:28):
New Zealand,
the Philippines and,
you know,
all over the nation.
So your work and the work of the foundation has,
it seems to me,
really been restoring something very powerful.
And I know that you've done it now,
not just in schools,
but across communities in different contexts at
every stage of life.
(22:50):
I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about,
I know you've gone from classrooms to,
as we said,
to rehab centers,
correctional facilities,
senior centers.
How does this practice adapt across these different
worlds?
What are the threads that kind of run through it?
The practices are pretty much the same that we
(23:12):
teach across the board.
It's just speaking to people's struggles.
In schools,
you might talk about test anxiety,
like people are anxious about achieving high on a
test,
so they get anxious,
or they might have anxiety over a presentation they
have to do,
or a performance they have to do,
(23:32):
or a sporting event.
In the drug rehab community,
you might be speaking on a memory that might get
you depressed,
which will lead you to using or abusing drugs.
You know what I mean?
So it's about speaking to those communities about
how if you don't control your mind,
(23:53):
your mind will control you and giving them
techniques to get them to be able to,
first off,
see what thoughts are going through their mind,
see what emotional state they're in.
And then using these specific breathing practices and
techniques to kind of release those ruminating
thoughts and get them back to the present moment
so they can kind of go about their day and change
(24:15):
those negative habits into positive ones.
And neuroplasticity is a real thing.
We talk to all our communities that we teach about
that,
where they can rewire their brain with either good
or bad things.
And the good thing about what we do is we teach
people practices.
When they do find themselves going down that dark
(24:36):
part of their life,
a way to be able to reel themselves back in and
kind of take themselves back into their light,
you know?
Is there anything else about the science of this,
you know,
the benefits of meditation and science and the work
around it that you think needs to be talked about
to kind of convince people of it?
Or do you feel like Or do you feel like the
(24:59):
evidence is there in the numbers,
right?
The lowering or the complete dissipating of detention
in certain schools or,
you know,
I know you're working in rehab centers and some of
these other places.
You know,
are you seeing the same kind of evidence that
would support that?
In the mental illness facilities that we work in,
(25:22):
we've seen with these techniques,
because you have to lead like groups and stuff.
In those mental illness facilities and in those
groups,
you know,
we'll teach them the same stuff,
packaging it differently,
where they can kind of help self-regulate and
manage their own stress and anxiety.
Where,
you know,
before they might rely on going to the front
(25:45):
office and asking for a med,
they call them PRNs.
And,
you know,
in those mental illness facilities where we do run
our programs.
They notice that the PRNs go down as we work with
them.
So,
you know,
it's all about teaching people how to self-regulate
no matter who the demographic is.
Self-regulation.
That's something we could use a lot more today in
(26:06):
our society,
I think.
I know that you've done work with senior centers as
well.
That's fascinating,
applying it in that context.
What is that like?
So we roll out the mats and we get them to bend
themselves up like pretzels.
It's like,
no,
I'm just joking.
The way we teach is very similar to every
(26:29):
demographic,
but it may look a little different.
I was just joking about rolling out the mat and
bending yourself up like a pretzel.
I thought so.
With kids,
you definitely want to roll out the mat and kind
of get that circulation flowing,
get rid of that restless energy first,
then breathing practices,
then meditation.
And it's the same thing in the senior centers,
but instead of rolling out a mat.
(26:51):
We'll do a chair-based practice where,
you know,
they're still getting their circulation flowing in
their body,
but all from the chair.
Then we'll do like some breathing practices,
meditations and discussion topics.
You know,
people get a lot out of that because when people
get older in the senior centers,
they really aren't moving that much.
(27:11):
So if they can learn techniques that they can do
from their chair or even from their bed,
like some people-you know,
like when they're sitting in the bed,
they may just do some breathing practices and
meditations to help them fall asleep at night.
Or they have a-we have specific practices that help
with like headaches or tension headaches and stuff
like that.
They'll do these practices to kind of help them
(27:32):
alleviate some of the pain and suffering that
they're going through.
So yeah,
we love working with the seniors just because they
light up because they don't think that they can
actually get a physical workout in if they can't
really move as well as they once did.
But,
you know,
if you can kind of empower them with these
practices from the chair,
they gravitate to it and excel.
(27:53):
The work that you're doing is really profound and
it's having quite an impact.
It's so obvious that,
you know,
the consequences of an education system that's
ignoring,
you know,
the impact of the body and the emotions on how we
learn is problematic.
(28:13):
And I'm just wondering,
what you're seeing is the consequences of an
education system that does ignore these versus an
education system or an institution that is really
addressing this connection.
When kids are in elementary,
middle,
high school,
their mental health and self-regulation techniques
(28:37):
aren't addressed.
That leads to high suspension numbers,
referral numbers,
lack of engagement in classes,
more fights in school and stuff like that.
But outside,
once they graduate from high school,
it becomes more life and death where having a
split second to be able to breathe and respond
(29:00):
instead of react to something may help you save
your life.
Or if you're dealing with a police officer or
something like that,
it can help you kind of once again respond to be
able to get yourself out of that situation instead
of react and make things worse.
So,
you know,
I think that the schools that I've seen use these
(29:22):
techniques,
not only does that set the kids up for success in
the future,
but it helps them kind of see the world through a
bigger scope and see that they're not just limited.
A lot of kids are limited to what they see in
their one block radius of where they live.
A lot of people don't get out of that radius of
(29:45):
what is in their neighborhood.
And sometimes if that's all they see,
it's a very depressing reality that this is all
you're capable of.
But all the kids that we have worked with achieve
at a lot higher level than their peers that don't
have these practices in their life.
We've had kids in our programs shoot documentaries
(30:07):
in China or win lacrosse championships,
graduate from Emory,
countless success stories.
And I account that to them being able to have
these practices and being able to navigate the
highs and lows of the human experience.
Because no matter where you're from,
what demographic you're a part of,
what socioeconomic status you're in,
(30:28):
the human experience is highs and lows.
And if you have skills or techniques and tools to
be able to navigate them,
that is kind of setting you up for success.
Yeah,
you need a lot more support in other ways,
but that's a great foundation to help set you up
for success mentally,
physically,
spiritually,
and emotionally.
(30:48):
We're living in some pretty tumultuous times right
now.
So what gives you hope right now?
I mean,
what gives me hope is the fact that from where we
started off 23 years ago,
where we were talking to people about bringing yoga
to schools and they were like, 'yoga'or 'Yoda'?
(31:10):
You know,
now this stuff is like pop culture.
You know,
everybody knows what this is.
And,
you know,
even if people aren't presenting it in the highest
of fidelity,
at least they're trying,
you know what I mean?
So I think what gives me hope is the fact that
there are programs popping up all around the
nation,
all around the world to help kids empower them
(31:33):
with,
you know,
these self-regulation techniques.
And the fact that our program is growing nationwide,
you know,
we have like three schools in Milwaukee,
a school in Denver,
a school in Chicago.
We have a whole satellite program at Aguasazne,
a Mohawk reservation in upstate New York and
(31:53):
Canada.
So the demand for our programs is giving me hope.
You know,
our whole thing is reciprocal teaching.
And like our teacher,
he was like, 'Man,
I'm not teaching.'I'm teaching teachers.
That's how we do in all of our programs.
If we have direct services with,
you know,
100 kids,
but if we turn those 100 kids into teachers,
(32:14):
then imagine the impact of that.
I think that the reverberation of these practices is
leaking into communities and it's help helping
people change,
you know,
help them not evolve,
but involve.
You know,
we call it involution where they start changing
from the inside out.
(32:35):
And then once they start changing from the inside,
they can start changing their outward environment.
And what that looks like,
it may vary to different people depending on what
their reach is,
but you are going to make a change when you can.
And also the fact that we are helping shift
systems.
Like,
you know,
if you look at the educational system,
(32:57):
now everybody is trying to change attention to
meditation; changing what it means to deal with a
kid that is quote unquote 'a problem'kid or acting
out on some of the trauma that they're dealing
with in their life and giving them,
instead of making it punitive,
making it empowering.
And I think that's very hopeful in regards to where
(33:17):
society is going.
No matter what,
things are going to look chaotic and you're going
to have to adjust to what's going on,
whether it's whoever's in office or you know,
whatever,
like that's,
you know,
the net,
the highs and lows of the human experience that's
been since the beginning of time.
And it's going to be until the end of time.
(33:39):
So I think it's just all about being the hope or
being the change that you want to see in the
world.
And I think that's what everybody has to be able
to do.
Just change,
first change yourself and then see what you can
change outside of you.
Before we finish,
I always like to leave space for one final
(34:00):
question,
something I ask all my guests.
Can you make up the title of the book that you
wish more people would read?
A title of a book that I wish people would read,
I think it would be 'Let Your Light Shine'.
And funny enough,
that is our book.
If you check out your local bookstore,
it shows techniques,
(34:21):
talks about our experience in the educational field
and,
you know,
in our community.
Thank you for joining us today,
Atman.
I have been inspired by the work you and your team
do at the Holistic Life Foundation and in the many
communities you have impacted through yoga,
meditation,
and breathwork training.
(34:41):
And in a time when education often distances us
from our bodies,
our emotions,
and the natural world,
your work challenges us to return to what we
already know,
which is that learning isn't just a cognitive
process,
but something that is felt,
practiced,
and lived through the body.
(35:03):
Thank you,
everybody,
for listening to the show this week.
This has been Lisa Petrides with Educating to be
Human.
If you enjoy our show,
please rate and review us on Apple,
Spotify,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
You can access our show notes for links and
information on our guests.
And don't forget to follow us on Instagram,
(35:24):
Blue Sky,
at edu2behuman.
That is E-D-U to be human.
This podcast was created by Lisa Petrides and
produced by Eleni Theros.
Educating to Be Human is recorded by Nathan Sherman
and edited by Ty Mayer,
with music by Orestes Caletzos.
This is Educating to be Human,
and I'm your host,
Lisa Petrides,
founder of the Institute for the Study of Knowledge
Management in Education. In each episode,
I sit down with ordinary people creating
extraordinary impact,
people who are challenging notions of how we learn,
why we learn,
(00:26):
and who controls what we learn. Thank you very
much for listening. Thank you for joining us on
Educating to be Human. Today,
I have the enormous pleasure of speaking with Atman
Smith,
the co-founder of the Holistic Life Foundation,
(00:46):
which is a Baltimore-based nonprofit committed to
the social,
emotional,
and educational well-being of underserved communities
through the practice of yoga,
mindfulness,
and meditation. And in a time when education in
the U.
S. is increasingly fractured,
and in that process,
(01:07):
severing our connection to body,
nature,
and emotion,
Atman,
in the work of his team,
offers a powerful reminder that deep learning takes
place at the level of the body,
not just the mind. And for over two decades,
he and his colleagues have been helping communities
(01:27):
and classrooms develop practices that center the
breath,
body,
and spirit,
not just as tools for individual healing,
but as pathways to improve our experience and our
ability to learn. And you've spent years teaching
yoga and mindfulness in a variety of settings,
(01:49):
and particularly with underserved and high-risk
youth. And I remember that many people first came
to know the work of the Holistic Life Foundation
through this groundbreaking approach of replacing
school detention with meditation,
starting in Baltimore and now expanding across the
country. What were you noticing in schools early on
(02:12):
that made you feel this kind of practice could
make a real difference?
First off,
thanks for having me on here,
Lisa. It's great to reconnect with you. In regards
to why we thought that these practices would help
in a school setting,
my brother,
who's one of my business partners and one of the
co-founders,
and my buddy Andy,
(02:34):
you know,
we,
in our last year of college,
we were looking for,
like,
we knew there had to be more to life than just
graduating from college,
getting a job,
getting married,
have some kids, retire and die. You know what I
mean?
There had to be more to that.
And we were looking for what that more was.
And in our search for what that more was,
we went to the different libraries on campus,
(02:55):
obscure libraries,
studying anything from ancient history,
creational theories,
astrology,
astronomy,
philosophy.
And it seemed like the more we've read,
no questions were getting answered.
But they would always talk about the answers are
within,
the answers are within.
And no one ever told you how to go within. During
that time,
(03:16):
me and Ali's godfather,
who became our teacher,
Uncle Will,
was trying to teach us yoga and meditation.
And in one of his books by this Yogi Yogi Bhajan,
told you how to do like some esoteric things with
the yoga and meditation. Like,
you know,
it was stuff like how to maintain your body
(03:36):
without eating or if you injure yourself around
where there is no hospital around,
what can you do? And,
you know,
all this type of stuff where.
You're cultivating the energy that's within us and
that's outside of us for specific purposes.
So,
you know,
we were like,
yo,
yoga and meditation can help me do all this
stuff. You got to teach it to us.
And his thing was,
alright,
(03:57):
I'll teach you anything and everything I know. You
gotta agree with two things. One,
you have to show up at my house at 4:30 in the
morning tomorrow.
And then he was like,
you all gotta promise to be teachers.
I'm going to teach you all everything.
But I like my being a recluse. I like being in my
house.
You all are going to have to teach any and
everybody that wanted to learn. And,
(04:17):
you know,
that started our journey. And during that time,
we were diving deep into our practice. We ended up
graduating from school and then we moved back into
our old neighborhood in West Baltimore,
which at the time was one of the most violent
neighborhoods in all of America. You know,
a lot of the scenes in The Wire,
the HBO show,
were featured.
My neighborhood was featured.
(04:39):
So,
of course,
there was like a lot of chaos,
a lot of gun violence,
a lot of dilapidated housing,
open-air drug markets,
shootouts. And the crazy thing was,
is that,
you know,
we were amongst that chaos,
but we were still bliss-ing out because we had
these practices.
We realized that we really needed to share these
(04:59):
with other people,
not only because we made the promise to our
teacher,
but just because we saw humanity was suffering and
we had some techniques-ancient techniques that people
weren't really practicing at the time.
We started this like 23 years ago.
So yoga,
meditation,
mindfulness,
breath work wasn't in pop culture like it is now.
(05:20):
And a lot of our friends would come to our
neighborhood and they would see,
like I was saying,
the open-air drug markets,
the violence,
and all that stuff.
And they knew we were broke as hell.
And they used to come to us and they used to be
like, 'man,
you guys are so happy yet you're broke.'You live
in this crazy neighborhood,
yet you guys are happy.
And then our question to them would be, 'well,
(05:42):
you all have a significant other. You all have a
nice house,
nice car,
nice job,
but you all are miserable.'And we were like, 'all
right,
well,
it may be something to this. 'So we knew we
wanted to start teaching these practices to other
people.
And the first opportunity was an afterschool yoga
program at a school that my mom taught at because
(06:03):
we knew if it was helping us bliss out.
Amongst the chaos that it would do the same thing
for any and everybody that we taught.
And,
you know,
that's what we did. We started off teaching 15
fifth graders at Windsor Hill Elementary School at
an after-school yoga program.
And these were the most challenging kids in the
school,
always getting into fights. Attendance was low. Some
(06:26):
of them were like socially awkward. And,
you know,
we just started the program up with them when we
first started. We would have to pick up more than
half of them from detention because they would get
in trouble. As we progressed in this program,
we would pick up less and less kids from
detention. We started noticing the change in the
kids,
and so did the parents,
(06:48):
the teachers. And that's how we first started in
schools. And,
you know,
things have just snowballed from there.
What year was that? How many years ago?
That was in 2001,
I think.
That's amazing.
That's actually incorporated in 2001. And our first
program was in 2002.
So,
you start off in this after-school program. If you
(07:11):
look at your work today.
You're across the country.
You're working in schools,
in detention centers,
in drug rehab.
I mean,
this work has just amazingly spread. And
interestingly,
you know,
there's much more of an emphasis today on wellness
and things like that.
But it really feels like what you've been doing has
(07:32):
been so connected to,
you know,
how learning,
I mean,
particularly in schools,
right?
If the mind and body isn't connected,
then these kids certainly aren't learning in
schools,
right?
There's been this huge disconnect between the mind
and the body and its impact on learning,
(07:52):
or if we learn,
in fact,
right? So how did you,
did you start to talk about that with folks? And
then you,
I guess,
tell me a little bit about what this looks like
today. You know,
in the classroom,
like what the practice looks like. And I know I've
heard you tell some stories before of what happens
(08:13):
in a school when you start working with not just
the students,
but the administrators and the teachers as well.
Yeah,
like,
like you said,
we started off with an after-school program for all
boys.
But then,
you know,
we developed a lot of different programs. The main
program with like the most impact in schools,
I think,
is our Mindful Moment program.
Like you said at the beginning,
(08:34):
the whole program that was highlighted in the
Upworthy viral video talking about changing attention
to meditation.
And,
you know,
that program is like a tier one,
tier two,
and tier three intervention where,
you know,
we have a school-wide practice that's led over the
loudspeaker.
So everybody in the school,
not just the students,
but the staff,
administrators,
(08:55):
even the janitors and cafeteria workers can stop
for a second. Do the practice to kind of get them
centered. Kids are dealing with so much coming into
school,
whether like in our neighborhoods,
you know,
they have like; we live in food deserts,
and kids are coming to school eating sugar-filled
snacks,
processed food. They may be coming from a traumatic
(09:16):
situation where,
you know,
they're dealing with a lot of undiagnosed trauma.
So it's really hard for people to even think that
kids can just sit down in a chair and learn right
away. At the beginning of the school day,
we have practices,
whether it's breath work or seated yoga and brief
(09:37):
meditations that the kids do before they start
their school day. The bending and stretching from
the chair kind of gets that restless energy out of
their body,
gets that circulation flowing,
makes their bodies kind of more like a safe
space. The breathing practices help them still their
mind.
And then the meditation can kind of tap them into
(09:57):
that inner peace. Then we also have push-ins into
classrooms where during those specific times where
students are bouncing off the wall,
whether it's transition times,
whether it's if it's a substitute teacher,
whether it's after lunch,
just specific times during the course of the day
where teachers need a quick breath break,
(10:18):
a quick three or five minute practice,
our staff will go in there and lead that and
help.
kind of get the class grounded and present,
better for the school climate,
the classroom environment.
You can get to that point where that's possible.
You go in initially and you do some of this
training with the students and then you work with
the teachers.
(10:38):
Like,
what does that,
you know,
for those folks who are working in schools every
day where this is not a practice that is,
you know,
embodied there,
I would imagine that this seems like a strange
concept.
That kids would show up and they would willingly do
breath work before they started their day?
I mean,
it starts off in the summertime.
(11:00):
Like we go in,
like we don't go into any schools unless we talk
to and present to all the staff in the school,
social workers,
teachers,
administrators,
principals,
assistant principals.
And,
you know,
during that time,
we kind of sell them on the practice by either
the neuroscience behind how it helps heal trauma.
(11:21):
How it helps kids have access to executive function.
And then we also take them through the practice.
So they actually experience with their students and,
you know,
the teachers during our self-care sessions get to
experience during the school day.
And then,
you know,
after we get them on board,
we will go into the school and do a residency to
(11:42):
get the kids bought into the practice where we'll
go into every single classroom.
So every single student will know why we're there.
what the purpose of the room is.
I didn't even get to the room yet.
Tell us about what the room is.
It's the Michael Moment Room.
It's like the alternative to suspension room.
Kids call it the oasis in the school.
It's basically,
(12:03):
you know,
it has like aromatherapy.
It has oil diffusers.
Himalayan salt crystals.
So it's actually a room that's set up at the
school that kids can go to.
Do they get sent there or do they take themselves
there?
How does that work?
Like a detention room,
you get sent there,
right?
Yeah,
it's a combination that either they can self-refer
when they're in high school or when they're in
(12:24):
elementary and middle school,
they have to get referred to by a teacher or
administrator.
And they have like a certain duration of time that
they can be in there because,
you know,
some people try to be slick and,
you know,
try to get out of class and try to stay.
In the room the entire day,
but they only have a 15-minute time limit to stay
in the room.
And while they're in there,
they have to do a practice or be practicing the
(12:47):
entire duration of time that they're in there.
When they come in there,
we aren't counselors.
So all we do is actively listen and mirror to
empower the kids because people always talk at kids
and they never listen.
So that right there kind of helps the kids kind of
drop in.
Achieve a little bit or lean more towards
(13:08):
homeostasis than before they were in the room then
we'll talk to them about stress,
stresses how the stress plays out in their body
and then we'll do like a breathing practice
meditation and then you know we'll talk to them
about like you know next time you see that
classmate that usually gets under your skin or if
you're about to go into that class where the
(13:30):
teacher uh kind of picks on you,
Try to do these practices so you can self-regulate
so you won't have to come into the room.
We have a tea machine in the room.
Kids love tea.
So at the end of the session,
we give them some tea and send them back out,
we track when they come into the room.
So,
you know,
if the kid comes into the room the exact same
time during the course of a school day,
we'll realize,
(13:50):
all right,
well,
they're trying to avoid something.
Let's try to have a sit-down with either a teacher,
administrator or a couple of students that might
that might be triggering the student.
And,
you know,
try to resolve the conflict.
And the beautiful part about that program is like
the numbers start off really high at the beginning
of the year,
but they don't go down next to nothing because
kids do learn how to self-regulate.
(14:11):
And I think that's why we signed a commitment with
the Clinton Foundation through their Clinton Global
Initiative to help us expand this program,
because it does help out with school-based outcomes.
Test scores go up,
detention and referral numbers go down,
attendance goes up.
And then,
you know,
it does a lot.
We're partnering with the Trauma Research Foundation,
(14:32):
Dr.
Russell Vander Kolk's foundation to kind of study
what it's doing to help heal trauma of not only
the students but the secondary trauma that the
teachers get in working in those environments.
So there's really a lot of science behind this.
And it sounds like you're gathering evidence that's
really supporting that.
Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that.
(14:52):
Yeah,
I mean.
Like I said,
you know,
it's easy to gather school-based outcomes just
because,
you know,
you can get the test scores,
attendance,
referral rates and stuff like that.
But,
you know,
with us partnering with the Trauma Research
Foundation,
they're studying things as far as anxiety.
You know,
before COVID,
(15:13):
a lot of the reasons why we were going into
schools was because of violence.
You know,
kids were getting into fights,
but now kids are more anxious and more alone and
they have that lack of connection.
So we're trying to show how these programs kind of
help kids deal with anxiety,
help them have a higher self-worth.
(15:34):
We've gotten anecdotal evidence for years,
but we haven't gotten any empirical evidence.
So that's what we're looking for now.
And,
you know,
how it heals trauma,
like I said,
helps heal the trauma with the students and then
also helps with the secondary trauma.
Another element of the program is our self-care
sessions with the teachers where we teach them
practices that kind of help them can get centered,
(15:57):
help release that secondary trauma that they are
going to pick up during the course of a day
working with all those students.
Right now,
we're just working on getting the empirical evidence
to show what the anecdotal evidence has been
telling us for years.
Yeah,
it's just so important with the work that you're
doing.
You know,
when I think about such an overemphasis on
(16:20):
school-based outcomes,
you know,
the test scores,
and we're not looking at what's happening with
trauma,
with kids'sense of self-worth,
the kind of healing that they need to do
themselves or to empower themselves in that way
with these tools.
Why don't we do this in all schools?
Like what's preventing,
you know,
maybe what I'm asking you is,
(16:41):
you know,
where do you see resistance to these kinds of
practices as you're talking to people about it?
I mean,
the fact that you can replace a detention room
with a meditation room is so profound.
I mean,
it's philosophical in a sense that you don't
believe that when a child misbehaves,
it should be punitive,
right?
It's exactly the opposite of that.
(17:03):
Like,
why aren't we doing that?
There are a lot of people who claim to be like
trauma-informed,
trauma-responsive.
And it's just more like a buzzword and that they're
not really authentically teaching from that space.
That's not really the foundation of what they're
doing.
A lot of people teach from like curriculums.
(17:24):
And,
you know,
what we do is,
you know,
we teach people how to have a toolbox and meet
their students where they are.
So I think it's all about like the programs and
what exactly.
What practices people are implementing.
Our practices have been shown to help heal high
ACEs scores.
Baltimore has some of the highest adverse childhood
(17:47):
experience scores in the nation.
Can you explain just for the listener who doesn't
really know what those ACEs scores are and how we
use them and what they mean?
Yeah,
ACEs scores are like adverse childhood experiences.
If you've gone through some type of violence and
other things that may have caused trauma in your
life,
whether it's trauma that you've been through on a
(18:09):
personal level,
secondary trauma,
all types of trauma that you have been through in
your life impact you.
If you have high ACEs scores,
it leads to a lot of heart-centered diseases,
pulmonary issues,
and high blood pressure,
and a lot of stuff like that.
So if your viewers or listeners out there want to
(18:32):
hear a great TED Talk,
Dr.
Nadine Burke Harris does a great TED Talk on high
ACE scores and the impact on health of people with
high ACE scores.
Yeah,
when we think about the classroom place,
right,
the consequences of sort of ignoring this,
you know,
the mind and the body connection,
the emotional with the intellectual,
(18:55):
right?
If you're not able to self-regulate in this way and
heal in this way,
you know,
what happens with learning?
Right.
I mean,
it just seems again,
it seems so obvious,
but it's not something that we see or that we
don't see enough of.
Definitely.
I mean,
people with high ACEs scores and deal with a lot
of trauma,
their vagus nerve isn't firing properly.
(19:17):
And that's that threat perception or that connection
with your mind and your body.
And there's definitely techniques and breathing
practices that we teach that help people heal their
vagus nerve up.
So,
you know,
they can have that connection with their mind and
your body.
They say that like whatever trauma that you've been
through,
Dr.
Bessel van der Kolk talked about this,
(19:38):
that you can heal it,
except like blunt force trauma to the head.
But,
you know,
every other trauma that people have been through,
you can heal it with love and other practices.
Kennedy Krieger did a study on different programs
that help heal people's high ACE scores.
(19:59):
Our programs and our techniques,
not ours,
the ones that we teach,
because,
you know,
this stuff is timeless,
way older than the Holistic Life Foundation,
but our evidence-based practices that we teach.
I think that that's one of the reasons why our
stuff is so successful,
and the reason why a lot of people are hesitant
because they have had people come in and say that
(20:21):
they are going to be trauma-informed and give
people practices to help do exactly what we are
doing.
And,
you know,
they failed miserably.
There's been time and time again,
all across the nation and the world,
that people have bought us in because,
you know,
the program that they invested in wasn't really
delivering what they said they were going to
deliver.
So they get us to kind of see where they're at
(20:43):
and help the people that are implementing the
program with the techniques and philosophies that
when our programs run with high fidelity is the
reason why our numbers are so promising,
to teachers,
administrators,
funders alike.
That's the reason why seeing the fidelity not being
(21:04):
high across the board is the reason why we created
our year-long certification program to where
teachers,
administrators,
even nurses,
social workers,
psychiatrists,
all of those demographics are part of our year-long
certification program so they can learn how to
(21:25):
teach like we teach.
Where it's like 11 online modules,
reading assignments,
homework assignments,
in-person intensive at the beginning.
And at the end,
you know,
like a celebration to culminate the year-long
certification program.
And then it's once a month online live sessions
with one of the co-founders.
(21:45):
That way we're able to kind of impart the knowledge
and the successes and failures that we've gone
through in our 23 years of experience.
If the graduates want to,
they can join Holistic Life Foundation's workforce
and we can kind of use our resources,
our administrative team to help them set up
(22:07):
programs in their cities,
schools,
and stuff like that.
How long have you been doing the certifications?
We have been asked to do it for years,
but we finally took the time to put it together
and we had our first cohort maybe three months
ago.
Doing them all across the nation.
We're doing a couple in Australia,
(22:28):
New Zealand,
the Philippines and,
you know,
all over the nation.
So your work and the work of the foundation has,
it seems to me,
really been restoring something very powerful.
And I know that you've done it now,
not just in schools,
but across communities in different contexts at
every stage of life.
(22:50):
I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about,
I know you've gone from classrooms to,
as we said,
to rehab centers,
correctional facilities,
senior centers.
How does this practice adapt across these different
worlds?
What are the threads that kind of run through it?
The practices are pretty much the same that we
(23:12):
teach across the board.
It's just speaking to people's struggles.
In schools,
you might talk about test anxiety,
like people are anxious about achieving high on a
test,
so they get anxious,
or they might have anxiety over a presentation they
have to do,
or a performance they have to do,
(23:32):
or a sporting event.
In the drug rehab community,
you might be speaking on a memory that might get
you depressed,
which will lead you to using or abusing drugs.
You know what I mean?
So it's about speaking to those communities about
how if you don't control your mind,
(23:53):
your mind will control you and giving them
techniques to get them to be able to,
first off,
see what thoughts are going through their mind,
see what emotional state they're in.
And then using these specific breathing practices and
techniques to kind of release those ruminating
thoughts and get them back to the present moment
so they can kind of go about their day and change
(24:15):
those negative habits into positive ones.
And neuroplasticity is a real thing.
We talk to all our communities that we teach about
that,
where they can rewire their brain with either good
or bad things.
And the good thing about what we do is we teach
people practices.
When they do find themselves going down that dark
(24:36):
part of their life,
a way to be able to reel themselves back in and
kind of take themselves back into their light,
you know?
Is there anything else about the science of this,
you know,
the benefits of meditation and science and the work
around it that you think needs to be talked about
to kind of convince people of it?
Or do you feel like Or do you feel like the
(24:59):
evidence is there in the numbers,
right?
The lowering or the complete dissipating of detention
in certain schools or,
you know,
I know you're working in rehab centers and some of
these other places.
You know,
are you seeing the same kind of evidence that
would support that?
In the mental illness facilities that we work in,
(25:22):
we've seen with these techniques,
because you have to lead like groups and stuff.
In those mental illness facilities and in those
groups,
you know,
we'll teach them the same stuff,
packaging it differently,
where they can kind of help self-regulate and
manage their own stress and anxiety.
Where,
you know,
before they might rely on going to the front
(25:45):
office and asking for a med,
they call them PRNs.
And,
you know,
in those mental illness facilities where we do run
our programs.
They notice that the PRNs go down as we work with
them.
So,
you know,
it's all about teaching people how to self-regulate
no matter who the demographic is.
Self-regulation.
That's something we could use a lot more today in
(26:06):
our society,
I think.
I know that you've done work with senior centers as
well.
That's fascinating,
applying it in that context.
What is that like?
So we roll out the mats and we get them to bend
themselves up like pretzels.
It's like,
no,
I'm just joking.
The way we teach is very similar to every
(26:29):
demographic,
but it may look a little different.
I was just joking about rolling out the mat and
bending yourself up like a pretzel.
I thought so.
With kids,
you definitely want to roll out the mat and kind
of get that circulation flowing,
get rid of that restless energy first,
then breathing practices,
then meditation.
And it's the same thing in the senior centers,
but instead of rolling out a mat.
(26:51):
We'll do a chair-based practice where,
you know,
they're still getting their circulation flowing in
their body,
but all from the chair.
Then we'll do like some breathing practices,
meditations and discussion topics.
You know,
people get a lot out of that because when people
get older in the senior centers,
they really aren't moving that much.
(27:11):
So if they can learn techniques that they can do
from their chair or even from their bed,
like some people-you know,
like when they're sitting in the bed,
they may just do some breathing practices and
meditations to help them fall asleep at night.
Or they have a-we have specific practices that help
with like headaches or tension headaches and stuff
like that.
They'll do these practices to kind of help them
(27:32):
alleviate some of the pain and suffering that
they're going through.
So yeah,
we love working with the seniors just because they
light up because they don't think that they can
actually get a physical workout in if they can't
really move as well as they once did.
But,
you know,
if you can kind of empower them with these
practices from the chair,
they gravitate to it and excel.
(27:53):
The work that you're doing is really profound and
it's having quite an impact.
It's so obvious that,
you know,
the consequences of an education system that's
ignoring,
you know,
the impact of the body and the emotions on how we
learn is problematic.
(28:13):
And I'm just wondering,
what you're seeing is the consequences of an
education system that does ignore these versus an
education system or an institution that is really
addressing this connection.
When kids are in elementary,
middle,
high school,
their mental health and self-regulation techniques
(28:37):
aren't addressed.
That leads to high suspension numbers,
referral numbers,
lack of engagement in classes,
more fights in school and stuff like that.
But outside,
once they graduate from high school,
it becomes more life and death where having a
split second to be able to breathe and respond
(29:00):
instead of react to something may help you save
your life.
Or if you're dealing with a police officer or
something like that,
it can help you kind of once again respond to be
able to get yourself out of that situation instead
of react and make things worse.
So,
you know,
I think that the schools that I've seen use these
(29:22):
techniques,
not only does that set the kids up for success in
the future,
but it helps them kind of see the world through a
bigger scope and see that they're not just limited.
A lot of kids are limited to what they see in
their one block radius of where they live.
A lot of people don't get out of that radius of
(29:45):
what is in their neighborhood.
And sometimes if that's all they see,
it's a very depressing reality that this is all
you're capable of.
But all the kids that we have worked with achieve
at a lot higher level than their peers that don't
have these practices in their life.
We've had kids in our programs shoot documentaries
(30:07):
in China or win lacrosse championships,
graduate from Emory,
countless success stories.
And I account that to them being able to have
these practices and being able to navigate the
highs and lows of the human experience.
Because no matter where you're from,
what demographic you're a part of,
what socioeconomic status you're in,
(30:28):
the human experience is highs and lows.
And if you have skills or techniques and tools to
be able to navigate them,
that is kind of setting you up for success.
Yeah,
you need a lot more support in other ways,
but that's a great foundation to help set you up
for success mentally,
physically,
spiritually,
and emotionally.
(30:48):
We're living in some pretty tumultuous times right
now.
So what gives you hope right now?
I mean,
what gives me hope is the fact that from where we
started off 23 years ago,
where we were talking to people about bringing yoga
to schools and they were like, 'yoga'or 'Yoda'?
(31:10):
You know,
now this stuff is like pop culture.
You know,
everybody knows what this is.
And,
you know,
even if people aren't presenting it in the highest
of fidelity,
at least they're trying,
you know what I mean?
So I think what gives me hope is the fact that
there are programs popping up all around the
nation,
all around the world to help kids empower them
(31:33):
with,
you know,
these self-regulation techniques.
And the fact that our program is growing nationwide,
you know,
we have like three schools in Milwaukee,
a school in Denver,
a school in Chicago.
We have a whole satellite program at Aguasazne,
a Mohawk reservation in upstate New York and
(31:53):
Canada.
So the demand for our programs is giving me hope.
You know,
our whole thing is reciprocal teaching.
And like our teacher,
he was like, 'Man,
I'm not teaching.'I'm teaching teachers.
That's how we do in all of our programs.
If we have direct services with,
you know,
100 kids,
but if we turn those 100 kids into teachers,
(32:14):
then imagine the impact of that.
I think that the reverberation of these practices is
leaking into communities and it's help helping
people change,
you know,
help them not evolve,
but involve.
You know,
we call it involution where they start changing
from the inside out.
(32:35):
And then once they start changing from the inside,
they can start changing their outward environment.
And what that looks like,
it may vary to different people depending on what
their reach is,
but you are going to make a change when you can.
And also the fact that we are helping shift
systems.
Like,
you know,
if you look at the educational system,
(32:57):
now everybody is trying to change attention to
meditation; changing what it means to deal with a
kid that is quote unquote 'a problem'kid or acting
out on some of the trauma that they're dealing
with in their life and giving them,
instead of making it punitive,
making it empowering.
And I think that's very hopeful in regards to where
(33:17):
society is going.
No matter what,
things are going to look chaotic and you're going
to have to adjust to what's going on,
whether it's whoever's in office or you know,
whatever,
like that's,
you know,
the net,
the highs and lows of the human experience that's
been since the beginning of time.
And it's going to be until the end of time.
(33:39):
So I think it's just all about being the hope or
being the change that you want to see in the
world.
And I think that's what everybody has to be able
to do.
Just change,
first change yourself and then see what you can
change outside of you.
Before we finish,
I always like to leave space for one final
(34:00):
question,
something I ask all my guests.
Can you make up the title of the book that you
wish more people would read?
A title of a book that I wish people would read,
I think it would be 'Let Your Light Shine'.
And funny enough,
that is our book.
If you check out your local bookstore,
it shows techniques,
(34:21):
talks about our experience in the educational field
and,
you know,
in our community.
Thank you for joining us today,
Atman.
I have been inspired by the work you and your team
do at the Holistic Life Foundation and in the many
communities you have impacted through yoga,
meditation,
and breathwork training.
(34:41):
And in a time when education often distances us
from our bodies,
our emotions,
and the natural world,
your work challenges us to return to what we
already know,
which is that learning isn't just a cognitive
process,
but something that is felt,
practiced,
and lived through the body.
(35:03):
Thank you,
everybody,
for listening to the show this week.
This has been Lisa Petrides with Educating to be
Human.
If you enjoy our show,
please rate and review us on Apple,
Spotify,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
You can access our show notes for links and
information on our guests.
And don't forget to follow us on Instagram,
(35:24):
Blue Sky,
at edu2behuman.
That is E-D-U to be human.
This podcast was created by Lisa Petrides and
produced by Eleni Theros.
Educating to Be Human is recorded by Nathan Sherman
and edited by Ty Mayer,
with music by Orestes Caletzos.
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