Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 16: Ali Smith

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

Ali Smith goes into some of the toughest neighborhoods in one of the toughest cities in America, and teaches yoga and meditation to troubled and at-risk school kids. And the results have been incredible. Smith, a certified yoga instructor, is the co-founder and executive director of the Holistic Life Foundation. His workshops and after-school programs reach approximately 4,500 kids every week – and that number only continues to grow. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. One of the things that annoys me the most about the meditation world is that it is by reputation and sometimes frankly by design for whole food shoppers, you know, upper middle class white

people. And I'm not, I don't hate those people, I am one of those people, I shop at whole foods and I'm upper middle class in white, but it's baloney and malarkey that this is just for one small privilege set of people. Meditation was invented 2600 years ago by an Indian guy and by the way that that's just one form of meditation. It's been around for millennia practiced by all sorts of people who are not living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And in fact, in the United States right now it is being practiced by all sorts of people with all sorts of socioeconomic

backgrounds and all sorts of racial backgrounds. And so the idea that this is just for one select group of people I find very, very annoying. And so I'm very pleased to have, as my guest today, somebody who is bringing this practice into some places that I think some listeners are going to find very, very surprising. The first time I ever heard Ali Smith give a public presentation, Ali Smith, by the way, is the co-founder and executive director of something called

the Holistic Life Foundation, which I will explain in a minute. The first time I ever heard Ali speak publicly along with his brother, Otman and their colleague, Andy. He got a standing ovation, and I was one of the people standing and hooding and hollering and clapping, and I had never met him before. Why did he get a standing ovation? And why was I one of those people standing as part of it?

Because what he does is incredible. Ali, as part of the Holistic Life Foundation, goes into some of the toughest neighborhoods in one of the toughest cities in America, Baltimore, Maryland. He goes into some of the toughest neighborhoods to the toughest schools and says, give me your toughest kids. And he then teaches those kids yoga and meditation and the results have been phenomenal.

And I'm not talking about anecdotal results. I'm talking about scientific studies, which we will get into, showing that they've had real benefit for real human beings who really need it. So anyway, that's my long introduction to Oli. I make no bones about the fact that I'm a fan and I'm very grateful to you for coming on. Thanks for having me. So I want to talk about everything you're doing now, but let's step back for a second because your your background is very interesting. How and when and why did you come to meditation?

Um, I'd say the first thing that got me into meditation was my dad's prostate problem back before I was born. Um, he had a prostate exam. He hated the experience because of the problem with his prostate and uh, his best friend taught him a couple yoga poses and he wanted more. So as he learned more yoga, he got into meditation as well. He started off with hot. I got into meditation. And then me and my brother were kind of born into it. We grew up in a self-realization fellowship church meditating every day. Our dad would have us meditate every morning before school and meditation, just a part of our lives. And so this is, you were growing up in inner city Baltimore.

Oh, yeah, we grew up in West Baltimore, right in the heart of where the Y was filmed and the rights happened last year. So, Hardow West Baltimore, our experience outside of our homes was similar to everyone else, except for the fact that inside of our homes, we meditated every day. So you have referred to it. This is your term.

You said you were raised by hippies in the hood. Totally. My brother coined that term. Opens comes up with that one. Hippies in the hood, that's what we called them. We were vegan. We were meditating. We went to a Quaker school.

My parents spent a lot of time taking us camping and in the outdoors. So like back then, we were the lame kids. Now we would have been the cool kids. Right. So be a little bit more specific, what kind of meditation were you doing? So, it was a start off in the Self Realization Fellowship Method just like a subjective meditation was what they called it. So it was a lot around focusing on your inner light and the inner, same light that shines

in me is the same light that shines in you and everybody and everything else. But it's taking a time to still your mind and steal your body and focus on that light so that it can shine through your meditation. And then when you're finished meditating, it's still kind of shining through you and your actions and your words and your deeds and your thoughts. How do you see the interlight, you close your eyes and what do you need to see it? Feel it? Tell me a little bit more about that? All the above. So it starts off with like kind of traditional yoga meditation with Pratya Hara, which is withdrawal of your senses. So you pull your senses from the outside to the inside. So you're going to see the light, you're going to feel it, you're going to hear it, you're going to taste it, you're going to smell it. All your senses are withdrawing into that light and then you learn to focus on it and you can meditate on it with the end

goal of becoming one with it. And when you say the light, what do you mean by that? Just kind of the fact that the lights are on and that we're alive? More like that universal energy, universal spark with inside of everybody and everything. So it's just that that force that is inside of everything and everybody that's like the similarity and like the part of me that's in you and the part of you that's in me

and just focusing on that. And what is this church here that was a big character? It's called this, it's in the and the part of you that's in me and just focusing on that. And what is this church here that was? It's called it's in the self-realization fellowship lineage, autobiography, Yogi. The church we grew up in was called the universal church of absolute oneness. So this is Hindu, Hindu stuff? Oh, no, not at all. It was totally...

I thought autobiography of a yogi was written by yoga non Dio Gananda so the the way that it worked was yoga non descent they started churches But they were churches were based on all different types of faith So there was a big sign on the wall. It said truth is one men call it by various names So it was the base for a church was always the Bible, but then it would go to The Bhagavad Gita or the Karan or the Torah or Native American spirituality. Anything just to show the underlying truths and all religions so that religion wasn't what it was based. It was more of a spiritual church.

But the meditative technique, is that it was that a Hindu-tective? Because I've come up more in like sort of secular mindfulness slash Buddhism and that's something that I've never heard of. So I'd say it's more of a yoga form of meditation. Like I don't consider it at Hindu really, because there's no mantras involved or anything, maybe in the home, but that's in, you go to yoga class and here in the home, but it's more of a spiritual form of meditation

than a religious practice. And so what are the benefits of it? Because it sounds to me like the benefit would be stillness and also sort of compassion. As opposed to what I, what the kind of meditation I practice, which is really the benefit is mindfulness. So I mean, I think there's a lot of benefits. I feel like it gives you, it definitely gives you the stillness, it definitely gives you the compassion. I say, interconnectedness, like connected with

yourself and with others becomes a lot easier. And I think a big part of it is like putting up that kind of shield in the morning before you go out into the world and you have to deal with all that stress and then kind of burning off the stress that you do pick up at the end of the day. I don't want to things our teacher always just to tell us where start your day and end your day in the light and you'll notice a difference.

And so you were meditating as kids and then and I'll pick up the story a little bit and you tell me where I'll go wrong. But then you and your younger brother, I'm just saying to his kids and then I'll pick up the story a little bit and you tell me where I'll go wrong. But then you and your younger brother, Ottman, went off to college at the University of Maryland, is that right? And that's where you met your friend, Andy, whose last name is Luttingmeer right now? Gonzalez. Gonzalez.

And so what happened there? Out on the party scene, I mean, Andy started hanging out and talking and realized we see the world in pretty much the same way. A lot of suffering that was unnecessary and kind of seemed like people didn't really care about it. And we started asking questions and we weren't really happy with the answers that we found. So we got it. We started reading. We read more during that, I guess, year period than we did in any of our other four or five years of college, however long we were there.

But it was like like we wanted answers, and it let us back to meditation and yoga and mindfulness and contemplative practices. Entry's to what specifically? Why were here? You know what I mean? Like what are we doing here? Like there has to be more to it than just graduating

from school and going to get a job and buying a house and waiting for retirement and waiting to die. You know what I mean? And like we said, we saw a lot of problems that didn't seem necessary and people didn't really seem to care about them. So we wanted to do something like there had to been more to it that we weren't giving the answers to. What problems were you bothered by? I was an environmental science and policy major. So I mean, I saw a lot of environmental problems that seemed like like, okay, we have one planet. So I mean,

we got to do something to protect it. And, Opan was a criminology and criminal justice major and a lot of our friends through, for whatever reason, they were in the criminal justice system as kids and then as adults. And, yeah, and I think just the lack of caring and empathy and compassion that people had for themselves and others seem to be the biggest problems. And so, it brought you back to meditation.

And so, had you lapsed in your practice? Oh yeah, we had totally lapsed. Once our parents got divorced, we weren't really daily meditators anymore. We probably went, I mean, we still would go to church every once in a while, they had meditated church, we went to a friend's schools,

there was meaningful worship in the moment of silence before things started, but it was just, yeah, our daily meditation practice had really lapsed. And so you started again in college? Oh yeah, jump right back on it. And the same kind of meditation, or do you move something different?

Different forms that we studied as many forms as we could. Because we knew that I don't think we knew that why we were studying so many forms of meditation in the end, it was because I think it was because that somewhere deep down we knew we wanted to share it with other people and we knew that we couldn't teach one form of meditation to everyone and people wanted different things and we couldn't really go into like an elementary school

talking about and focus on the light inside of you and all of them and like that's not really going to work. So I think somewhere deep down subconsciously we may have known that we needed to learn all these forms of meditation but our personal practice is what it is and what we teach is something a little different. So your personal practice right now is still what you just grabbed earlier? It's a lot of different things, depending on the day and what I got to get prepared for. I mean, so I know, I mean, there's tons

of different forms of meditation, so it's just depending on where I am, what stresses I have in my life, what stresses I may not have in my life, or what I want to do. I'll do a certain form of meditation, but that one where I focus on my inner that inner spirit, or that inner light inside of me is one that is a go-to.

So the three of you guys graduate from college and you try to figure out what you're going to do with your life and you made an interesting decision. What was that? I started nonprofit organization, which we had no idea how we were going to do it. We had no idea about really what a nonprofit was the only thing We knew that you had to have a nonprofit get grants from the federal government and you wanted to do what with this Non-profit with this money and with this organization initially We were gonna save the world with federal grant. I mean from federal grants like the federal government was gonna pay us to save the world That was our initials land, but no particular way. We were just gonna save the world. Oh, we're gonna do everything We were gonna we're doing environmental programs. We're going to do yoga programs, meditation programs.

We're going to do gardens. We're going to do food. Like we're going to do everything. We were literally the three of us. We're literally going to save the world. You were pretty idealistic. Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, it was, I mean, now we look back at it, we can laugh

because we, I mean, three people can't really make a dent in a neighborhood. But I mean, it's, that was where the genesis for HLF came from. You're OK. You've made more than a dent, but a little bit will get to that in a neighborhood. But I mean, it's, that was where the genesis for HLF came from. You're okay. You've made more than a dent, but a little bit we'll get to that in a second. So, so what did you ultimately settle on as the thing you were going to do? We were going to do environmental programs and we were going to do yoga programs. Those are two things you're going to do. We came with

the name and we weren't really sure how we're going to do them, but those are two things we're going to do, environmental and yoga programs. So as I understand it, and having talked to you about this before, the first step you took was to actually go to the local elementary school in the neighborhood where you grew up.

So that was like the second, the first step was we were like, sit around doing pretty much nothing, like we had our practice and that was it, and we would pick our mom up from school that she was working at she was doing a Social emotional learning program at elementary school in the principal would see us every day I'm like there's no guys working at this school really what they want to coach football So then we got approached first by one the principal Windsor Hills Elementary School and

She wanted you to coach football and you said what? and she wanted you to coach football and you said what? I'm initially like, yeah, we'll do something, but I think with our practice and the way that we felt from our practice, we were like, we got to share this with other people, we went back to her that Monday and like, well, can we do an after school yoga program? And she was like, well, honestly, I don't care what you guys do

as long as you guys are working with this group, you can do whatever you want. And if she gave you not her most well-behaved children. Oh, no, we got all the quote unquote problem kids. We got the kids that were beating each other up that were getting kicked out of school, that were getting suspended, that were constantly in detention. And those were the group.

That was a group of 15. We started with my end of the year, a group of 20, but it started off with 15 kids. And when you took these kids, how old were these kids? All in the fifth grade. Fifth grade, okay. She's 10-year-old kids. And you said,

you guys, we're going to teach you yoga and meditation. What was the response to that? I think that we were crazy. I mean, because now yoga is really popular, but in 02, when we started with them, yoga wasn't as big, particularly not in Baltimore. So it was just, they looked like we were crazy. Like you guys, I mean, but we robbed them with basketball after yoga or kickball or dodgeball or something. So it was like, okay, if you guys do yoga, then we can do this. If you guys do yoga for a week, we'll go on a field, we'll have a pizza party. If you guys do yoga for two weeks, we're going to field trips. So it's just anything to kind of get them into the practice. A lot of bribery or incentives is something like to call them. But I mean, we got them to

start doing the practice. I look, I could don't every step you've taken, at least as far. So, and the, do you find it worked? They were willing to do it once the pizza was procured. They were willing to do the yoga and I guess some breathing exercises. Yeah, so it was physical yoga, some breathing exercises, and some meditation at that point. But it worked. I mean, and I think they started to feel, I think we caught the kids once they started to feel that inner peace that you get from first the movement

and the breath and then sitting and being still, like still in your mind and still in your body. And they weren't getting it anywhere else. It was just something that they felt a little different, but felt really good to them, because in the world of chaos around them. And even inside their minds, the world of chaos, they were finally getting stillness. So that I think that's what called them.

What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what's going on in their homes? Um, Baltimore is there, I mean, pretty well known for like being high up on the list of negative statistics for cities. I mean, the people there, strong people, resilient people, but there's a lot of negativity going on, whether it's drugs or violence or I mean, anything along those lines, the ACE scores are really high for young people in Baltimore. Adverse childhood experience. Yes, like very, very high. Like we're like shockingly high when I actually when we actually looked at the numbers.

So like child abuse neglect, very high. Like we're like shockingly high when I actually when we actually looked at the numbers. So like child abuse neglect, sexual abuse sexual abuse parents being incarcerated like any of those that you can pick like the kids have gone through lots of them. And these in these 15 to 20 kids you're talking about like they had drug abuse in the family, maybe prostitution in the family. They were going through any and everything you could possibly think of. Some of them had it off, had it a little better than others, but some of them had the worst of it. So some truly well-earned anger. Oh, yeah, definitely well-earned anger. I mean, we were breaking up fights pretty much every day for the first, first, maybe three months of the program. Like, literally one or two fights every single day we broke up.

Then the fight started to dwindle. The amount of kids in detention started to start started dwindle more. None of the kids were getting suspended and then like the parents and the teachers and the principal actually come to us because we were in the back part of the building. So no one knew what we were really doing, but they would always say whatever you guys are doing, keep doing it because it's working. So when you say it's working, what do you mean? So, so the kids went from reacting to responding to things that were going on around them. Like they, they

learned the ability to kind of take that pause between just someone saying something about them and punched them in the face to stop them for a second and maybe walking away and going to breathe. They were able to focus better in class. They weren't getting in trouble. Like they were just less impulsive and they were able to kind of regulate themselves a lot more in any situation at home or at school. What, what is it? I know we just said yoga, breathing exercises

and meditation. You just break that down a little bit. What exactly were you teaching them? Okay, so we did a lot of movement because we saw first that they had a lot of energy. So we wanted to kind of get them to just be able to still their bodies. And so the movements to still your body, the breath work.

Some of it's like a Praniyama techniques from yoga, but we kind of take all the Sanskrit out of it and let the kids name the breath work. And it just kept it pretty simple. Just stuff that was gonna help them still their minds. What kind of names they come up with? The Taco Breath, the Stress Breath, the Big Foot Breath, the Snake Breath.

What is taco breath? It's called traditionally, it's called cocky or it's a tally crea where you curl your tongue and you bring them through your tongues, your tongue's like a taco. So they call it the taco breath. Yeah, so they've got names for everything. We let them name them.

But I mean, they felt the benefits, like their minds started to slow down some. Then they were actually able to sit and their bodies were still in the minds were still or still are, and then they were able to kind of start the meditation process. So what kind of meditation were you teaching? A lot of breath-based meditation, some mind from this meditation.

Any and everything we could just expose them to different forms because we wanted them to be able to stick whatever stuck with them. Like me and my brother grew up meditating together, but he loves walking meditation. I hate it. So I mean, we knew if our likes and meditation were that diverse and we grew up meditating together, but he loves walking meditation. I hate it. So I mean, we knew if our likes and meditation were that diverse and we grew up meditating together, taught by the same person, our dad, like we had to give people different tools

and whatever they decided to use. That's what they use. So we started off with a lot of God. We did a lot of guided meditations because the kids had been through a lot of trauma, so we didn't want to give them like those empty spaces for the trauma to come up. So we kind of got them through it all the way through. But then after a while, when they got comfortable with it, we would just like are you guys? What's it's time to meditate and everybody would just get silent and they would do whatever practice they spoke to them

Any stories from that first year that stick out of people of kids and transformations you saw Um All right, so was there was one kid that fought literally every single day Um literally every single day his his mom even told him at one point that if he, she finds out that anyone hit him and he didn't hit them back, that she would, she would whip them herself. So he was like constantly on edge, constantly fighting. And at one point, he bit a kid in the forehead and the kids forehead started bleeding.

Like it was just, it was a mess with him. And then by the end of the year, this kid was like leading the classes and doing breath work, like leading the breathing exercises, leading meditations. And at the end of the year, he was like a totally new person. Wasn't beating me. And he was good. Like he wasn't like one of those kids

that would fight all the time and get beat up. Like I don't think I've ever seen him lose a fight from fifth grade all the way through adulthood. But he was just one of those kids that learned to calm himself down. And then as an adult, he became one of our best teachers. So that kid's working for you now? Not anymore. He worked for us for maybe like four years, four or five years he worked for us and was an amazing, amazing teacher. What's he doing now? He's doing transportation for like people disabilities.

for like people with disabilities. So this kid was headed towards something almost certainly, pretty bad. His mother was telling him some pretty negative stuff and he was fighting all the time. And he went on to become a yoga and meditation teacher and now is driving people with disabilities. Yeah. Today is a completely different life trajectory.

Yeah, I mean, he's one of those people that'll tell you, like if it wasn't for having the program in Opman, Andy, and on his lives, that he probably would either be dead or locked up because that's the trajectory. That's what he was headed. And is this unusual? Or do you see a lot of this? No, I mean, actually, most of our staff,

our former students, so a lot of the kids that we worked with from fifth grade, or, and I guess, the group from our neighborhood we started with in the second grade. Most of them are our staff. So there are kids that were those bad kids that were going through a lot of things that the practice helped, and they want to give back and help other people with it. But for you, to see these kids who, you know, odds are heading toward a life of incarceration or death or crime to all of a sudden be doing something that is sort of undoubtedly constructive. What's

that like for you? I mean, I think it shows me that like there's like everyone has a good heart, you know what I mean, they might not have the opportunity or the push in the right direction or the outlet for that energy So they've got all this energy They're gonna use it for something positive or something negative So all their outlets are negative so they're using them for negative things But once you give them the opportunity and the resources and particularly someone to support them They're gonna use that energy in a positive direction because they want to uplift their communities

They don't want wanna be stressed out, they don't wanna have to worry about getting locked up or killed or murdered, like they wanna help but they just don't know how to. Take me back to 2002, I mean, how did you guys know what you were doing? I mean, a lot of people, I've been meditating for whatever, seven years or something like that.

I am very careful not to call myself a teacher because I can barely get my own meditation practice together. You guys were kids and you were teaching very vulnerable kids how to meditate. How did you know what you were doing? At the time we really didn't. We were kind of just helping. We didn't start right away with meditation.

I feel like the physical practice we jumped right into, the breath worked, we kind of eased into, and the meditation was more long-lots. The start off was like, okay, let's just practice on being still. Can you lay here and be still and watch a couple breaths? Like it started off really, really slowly. And I think as we became more experienced, then we got deeper into the meditation practice

with that group. We stuck with that group for fifth grade through eighth grade. So we were with them for a while. And I think by the time they got into seventh and eighth grade was when we started to deepen the meditation practice that we did with them. And so this is 2002, the program started to grow at that point in what ways? I think we just saw other opportunities out there.

We're like, well, this works with 20 kids that were the bad kids at the school. Like maybe it can work in other places. Some remember we we found a high school, we did some work in. My dad's girlfriend at the time worked for the Baltimore County School Board, and she talked about how stressed out all of our co-workers were. So we did a program for them. Harambe Drug Treatment Center was another place that we started, like one of the initial places that we expanded to.

So it was just like, hey, this stuff, this stuff works for everybody. It's just a matter of presenting it to them in a way that speaks to them and the problems that they're going through in their lives. So it was just very, very slow. And we were just jumping on any opportunity that popped up. Like at that point, we weren't really thinking strategically. It was just like, oh, they need help. Let's go help them. Oh, they got a program. Let's go help them. And it wasn't lucrative work. So I've, I've, I recall you guys were working overnight said a mental institution

a mental hospital. Yeah, we worked at a crisis center, mental crisis center for pretty much the entire weekend. We work probably like 60, 70 hours during the week, maybe 80 hours something like it's just like a full full full time job during the weekend. And we go and work three shifts on the weekends to keep money in our pockets. A lot of commitment. It's at some point, I believe it's John Hopkins or the University of Pennsylvania, maybe both of them swooped in and said they want to start studying what you're doing. Who came in and what did they find? It's our office, Dr. Mark Greenberg from Penn State University, and he connected

us with Phil Lee from Tomah Mendelsson from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And I remember Mark telling us that we needed to do a study approved that it worked. And we looked at him like we know it works. Look at the kids. He's like, no, no, you guys need to do a study. So we did the first randomized control trial on yoga and mindfulness and urban youth and we got some great results. Most of the measures for the first round were cognitive cognitive so it was just around self-regulation, rooming thoughts, focus, attention and stress and we got really really good results for all those and there's actually a scientific article published in the Journal of abnormal child psychology so we got some really good results for that one and was that the only study or have there been more We actually did a second round of the study which which was, I think, was pretty cool, because

actually with that, when we did follow-up, we did six months, 12 months, and 18 months follow-up to that one, and we did some physiological measures, and took the school data as well, because, I mean, principals don't, I mean, principals care about cognitive measures, but they want to know, like, is it just decreasing suspensions in fights and increasing attendance and grades? So, we studied all of that, and I think the coolest thing that came out of that was the fact that we saw that Kids were going back to the breath like over the movement and the meditation like almost every single kid that they followed up with a I guess a year later 18 months later. We're all still doing breath work

Wow, and and did it improve there? Did they show that it improved the their behavior at school and their performance in school? Yeah, there were some links to, um, I think they looked at test scores. They didn't look at grades, they looked at test scores, promotion rates, and suspension rates. And there was definitely a few positive measures around those. Uh, so at this point, you feel pretty confident saying this, this works. Oh, yeah, I think it was, I mean, without the study, I still feel confident saying it works.

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total we work in about 14 schools serving about 4500 kids a week in Baltimore City Public Schools. We work in the private schools a lot now. Um, I and I grew up in the private school system and when we graduated we wanted to work in underserved communities and we felt like they needed to practice more but then as we started to look we were like, nah, I mean like everybody stressed out for different reasons like so we started working in the private schools as well. We do a lot of trainings and workshops and yeah, a lot of trainings and workshops because people are interested in how we do what we do so we do trainings in a lot of different places to show people how to bring yoga and mindfulness and other contemplative practices to kids in general, not just urban

youth but kids in private schools as well who may be more affluent. So, we do that. We're working with, we'll concepts on the grow mindfulness routines app. We're doing a lot of curriculum development. We're doing trainings around trauma informed yoga and mindfulness. There's a lot that we do and a lot of it's, the thing about it now is that op- and I are stuck in the office most of the time and we don't get to do a lot of hands-on teaching in Baltimore but when we do travel we do get to teach and we do get to facilitate a lot of training so we now may not be directly reaching the kids but our staffs reaching the kids and the

teachers and the people that we train our reaching kids. It's amazing what it's grown to. Yeah amazing it's pretty it's pretty nuts to think that we started to like we expected to constantly be sitting in in a classroom teaching kids but now we're behind a desk but like I said at our most we served about a hundred kids a week and now we're 745 hundred kids a week so. So just are there stories that you can tell about transformations among kids that you think will be worth sharing? Yeah, so I know that one of the first kids from our neighborhood that we met was a kid named, I don't say his name, but he was a kid that, at least called him smiley because

he smiled all the time. And he became one of our best young teachers. I think in the second grade, we did a workshop for the Baltimore City Department of Parks and Recs, like all their leadership staff. So we walk in there, it's Opman Andy and I, and this kid smile and he walks in and we look at him, we're like, you're going to teach this class. He's like, what do you mean I'm going to teach this class? These are adults. We're like, now you teach the kids at the after school programs, pretend they're kids and go teach them. This kid goes in there and second grade knocks it out the box. Like these people from this people from the Baltimore State Department of Parks and Recs are like,

look at him. I'm like like they're amazed at this kid And he's up there. He's confident. He knows a practice. He's explaining everything perfectly Demonstrating everything and then for like fast-forward a little bit to high school He was a great student of ours then like I think this must have been like 10th grade this kid He lost his dad He had some problems with his moms and some drug abuse, his brother got arrested. So he was kind of on his own. He got locked up like three times.

I went to court with him the last time. And the judge was like, well, you can't go back home where you're gonna live and he pointed at me. He was like, I'm gonna live with my mentor. And I wasn't expecting that. So I called my girlfriend at the time. My kid's mom was like, hey, we got Jarelle's coming to live with us.

And he came to live with us. And he lived with us for a while. He was doing well. And then he went back to the neighborhood. And now he's working for us again. So he made like everything came full circle. So that's great. And I'm sure I just have to imagine after doing this for for so long,

that you've lots of stories like that. Oh, yeah. Tons of kids like that. You got two boys. Do you teach them to meditate? My oldest son, yes. My nine year old, we were meditating together since he was four. And what about the Emerson?

He's not really there yet. He's more into the physical practice. He's more of a... How old is he? He's four. So what is the right age? I have a one year old. You met him.

You met him when he was a couple months old. What is the right age to, so this is a very selfish line of questioning I'm launching here. But What is the right age to, so this is a very selfish line of questioning I'm launching here. But what is the right age to introduce meditation to kids? So I think it differs from kid to kid, but I think it's once they start asking the right questions. I know my oldest boy,

awesome one, like at the time when he started, he would start to look at me meditating. Then he'd start like mimicking me when I was doing my physical practice or doing some breathing exercise Then he started asking questions about like well, well, what is that? And why are you sitting still? Why are your eyes closing like what you really want to learn? So it wasn't me forcing upon him. It was just me answering his question

So when when he was ready and then we rolled from there. Okay, so it's not so as a dad I shouldn't be pushing this on him It's more like if he asks questions answer them Yeah, cuz I didn't want to be like I know the things that my dad pushed on me I mean you kind of rebellion like all that's lame. It's more like if he asks questions answer them. Yeah, because I didn't want to be like, I know the things that my dad pushed on me. I mean, you kind of rebellion like, all that's lame. It's coming from my dad. And I didn't want meditation to be one of those things. Like other things find like multiplication or long division. Right.

I can push on him. But I don't want to push meditation. I wanted to be something enjoyable that wasn't a punishment. It was something that was fun that he could go back to whenever he needed it. I'm trying to convince myself not to rip the faces off of our cats. That's really what the level we're dealing on right now. So I have a hard time imagining him ever meditating. What do you say to parents who say, my kids really need this?

I think all kids need it. For whatever reason, I mean, I think there are resources out there and I think all kids need it for whatever, for different reasons, whether it's focus, whether it's anger, whether it's needing to connect with themselves or self-regulation. Like there's plenty of reasons to meditate and there's plenty of different forms of meditation. So but I think all kids can benefit from the practice.

But I guess what I should phrase that question better. I imagine a lot of parents listening to this right now who may be thinking, I would love to have my kid do this. How and where do I start? I'd say it's maybe start with your own practice. I know that's what my son connected to it was seeing his parents practice, seeing me practice.

And I think that might be a good start, it's to maybe find some resources for yourself and make something that you all can share together. I'm sure you can find classes out there, resources they can reach out to the Holistic Life Foundation if they want to like, we can get us some resources, but figure something out. But I think I think there are resources out there, but I think connecting to your own practice and then sharing it with your kids is a good one. That's something I often say when people ask me and I'm kind of making it up, but my sense is it can be very hard to have mindful kids if the parents aren't

mindful. So you just you need to be very hard to have mindful kids if the parents aren't mindful. So you just, you need to be modeling this behavior. If you're freaking out every time, you know, and you don't get an email, you don't like or you're yelling at your spouse or, you know, whatever, you know, eating uncontrollably but right before bed, there, you're, it's going to be hard for your kids to learn how to control their emotions. Yeah, because kids call BS early, like they'll see it and they'll call it. So I mean, you got to kind of walk up before you can talk it with them.

Well, what about how you talk about these practices to the population that, because you're not just dealing at this point, you're, you're, you're way beyond just inner city schools. You're in private schools too. But how do you talk about yoga and meditation that doesn't get you laughed out of the room? Um, I think the way we deliver this is like, we tell people it's a complimentary skill to whatever you're doing. So like you can be mindful with whatever you're doing.

You can practice breath work and be inconspicuous. You can meditate and it's all just going to enhance your life. It's going to enhance your connection to yourself, the people your life. It's going to enhance your connection to yourself. The people around you, it's going to decrease your stress level. You'll know when you feel certain emotions rising that you may not want to deal with and it might not get out of control. You'll be aware of your thoughts. So it's just like an enhancement.

It's like the cherry on top of the cake. You know what I mean? But what is the most common pushback you get? I mean, in terms of skepticism, people saying, you know, this is whatever, this is what, I don't know, BS or lame or what kind of skepticism do you confront? So surprisingly, we usually don't get skepticism.

I mean, we're, because we've gotten good at delivering it in a way that people, it resonates with people. So the way we deliver it to a group of pre-K kids at a private school would be different than how we delivered it to kids at an underserved urban high school. So just showing them skills that they can use. And a lot of experiential practices like where the kids can feel what's going on. So it's not a bunch of theory. It's like they're, they're embodying the practice and they know what it's about.

Well, tell me more about that. So you walk into a underserved high school in the inner city and it's the first time you're meeting these kids. What do you say? How do you how do you talk to them in a way that gets them even willing to entertain the notion of meditation? I mean, we talk about the lack of peace in their lives because I mean, most of the kids are dealing with lack of peace.

We learn through working in high schools that most high school kids, particularly, I mean, I don't know if it's particularly in the underserved communities that we work in, they don't sleep very well. They're stressed out a lot, they're angry about a lot of things, they don't feel connected to anyone or anything, and we explain to them and actually get them to feel how the practice does that. It's a lot less movement with kids, with older high school kids because they don't want to mess up their clothes or they don't want to look foolish in front of their friends. So it's a lot more inconspicuous practice practice. But you can sit there and no one knows if you're sleeping or if

you're practicing. So they can practice it on the bus, take practice at home, they can practice in class, they can practice around their peers who may not be doing it and they're not singled out as moving around a lot. They're just kind of sitting there. So it works that way. And a lot of discussions kids want high school kids want to know. They want to know what's going on and why things are and why things aren't in a better place for them or for their peers or in their community. So it's a lot of discussions, a lot of breathwork and a lot of meditation and mindfulness practices with high school kids. Do you run into kids who are just unwilling to do it? They'll close their eyes and just actually sleep and they're just not buying it. And

if so, what do you do with those kids? Let them sleep. We just let them sleep. I mean, and then eventually they're friends, they start talking to their friends and their friends start talking about how much they love the practice and how much they use at home. And then they may not do it with the group, but they'll come back and meet with a separately and come talk with us about the practice.

So are there nuts that are that are you just can't crack? Two kids that just you never you never reach. So we used to think there were and a couple of the examples of kids that we've worked with that we would see years later that would bump back. And because Baltimore is not a huge city, so you bump into a lot of these kids randomly in certain places around the city.

And they'll tell us how they did the practice, like how they may not have done it around us, but they thank us. And they say that, you know, when things are really stressed out for me, I do remember how to take a belly breath. Or I do know how to focus on my breath and relax. So they'll go back to it. And it may look like we totally failed with that kid, but it's in there somewhere.

And when the things get really, really bad, they go back to it. What are the biggest problems you face day to day in your line of work? I guess on the nonprofit side of things it's just like funding funding and I guess just expanding the programming in a sustainable way. And I guess just day to day implementation is finding time during the school day because a lot of times teachers don't want to give up their teaching time and it's hard to incorporate into the schedule. So I think those are the two major challenges. What are your thoughts on the thing, the stuff I was talking about at the beginning of the podcast that the cover of Time Magazine when they did the mindfulness revolution, they

had a blonde woman floating off into the cosmos on the cover. And I thought on some levels it was fine, but on some level, first off, excited at the Time Magazine was covering the fact that mindfulness has become a big, big, big and bigger deal in society. But on the other hand, there were a lot of people who were like, you know, why, why reinforce the stereotype that this is for, you know, wealthy white people? What's your view on this? Did you get us annoyed about this as I do? Or do you think I'm making too big a deal of it?

Nah, I think it's just spot on with it. We, I don't think Op Man Andy and I thought about it at first because we were teaching like Op Man Andy, Op Man and I African American Andy's Puerto Ricans. We were teaching most teaching mostly people of color when we started in Baltimore. So it was just, that was what we saw. I don't think we realized it until we started

going to retreat centers, then we'd look around and we were the only people that looked like us there. And then we would show up to, like, and then as it was Tom went on, we would go there to teach, like, to lead retreats. And we'd walk up to the people greeting us, they'd be like, hey, you guys must be the band. What?

No, it never, ever had an instrument. I don't even play an instrument. Band, what kind of, are there bands at meditation retreats anyway? I guess, I guess there are bands there, but we were always the band, like for the first few times, and we started running with and I'm running joke was that we were an Aboriginal folk band.

And Andy was our lead singer. I've been played a didgeridoo and I played the bull roar. And people would believe us. We haven't gone for days. They would see us like walking into the teach. They were like, where are you interested? We didn't. You said we were a band.

We teach meditation. That's not what we do. So, yeah, we try to make light of it and have fun with it. But it's a serious problem, I think. Oh, yeah, it's really serious. I mean, because meditation, I think it makes people feel like meditation or mindfulness or contemplative practice aren't for them when they don't see people like them doing it or and also if they don't see studios in their neighborhood Or if they can't afford a retreat center

It's kind of cool now that we have students that tell us when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up They're like I want to teach yoga. I want to teach meditation. I want to teach mindfulness like that's the kids are saying Makes me want to cry with with happiness. I mean mindfulness like that's the kids are saying. That makes me want to cry with happiness. I mean, I think that's amazing. But what, I mean, aside from the phenomenal work you're doing, what can be done to change these stereotypes? Because I feel like my role, I mean, I've tried to kind of do my little part to break meditation out of the sort of Uigha, Uigha, Uigha,

ari-fairy ghetto of like touchy feeling is that too long it was in, but I'm limited in my reach because I am who I am. I'm not saying there's any wrong with who I am, but I am who I am. I was born on third base, You know, I was raised by doctors in suburban Massachusetts and I haven't had a lot of the challenges that the population you're talking to has had. So I don't know that I'm the right guy to be reaching everybody. So what can be done and how can somebody like me even help? I think just shedding light on people who do look different than the cover of Time magazine. You know what I mean, on the work that they're doing and also, I mean, so one of our best

volunteer of all time at the Holistic Life Founder, a lot of people would ask us though, I don't look like you all, I can't really do this work, but our best volunteer of all time was about six feet tall, blonde, and talked like she was from Northern California and the kids loved her. Because she was herself, she was authentic and she was always herself. So I think it's just one of those things, like you can go and introduce people to the practice.

I mean, from, I mean, people know you, people know your face. So I mean, it's just one of those things, like you can introduce them to the practice and show them that, like it is for you, it is for everyone. So I think you can give back in a lot of different ways that may not feel comfortable,

but as long as you're authentic in yourself, people, it resonates with people and they feel the love and they, and you can get them experience the practice and they roll with it. And beyond me, what do you think should be done just overall to sort of change the, the stereotype about who meditation is for? I think just making it accessible to everybody as many people as possible and as many forms as possible and not just having it be a cookie cutter of this is what meditation is but we'll introduce people to different styles of practice so that they can pick what's right for them and then it's just something and one thing we do is we do reciprocal teaching so our kids that run our NIH after school program or in a program that we run we'll let them lead the

practice and explain to them how it works and then they go and spread it into their community because we never were able to get parents in for parent programs, but the kids would go home and share the practice with their parents. So it shifted the culture of our neighborhood without us actually having to work in our neighborhood. The kids did that for the most part. Do you still live in that same neighborhood? I don't anymore.

I'm an Andy do. I got two kids. So I had to relocate a little bit. But I'm an Andy still lived there. And did they think that neighborhood has really changed? Oh, it really has. We're around there a lot. It's just the culture has changed a lot instead of not

being able to interact with your neighbors because you didn't trust them. Now it's like everybody's walking around and they're interacting with each other and they're asking us quite like I still go around there. Like, hey, yoga man, what's up? Or asking questions about meditation to help them with smoking or the stress level

or what's the first stage of mess? So like, even the conversations are starting to shift and change. So you really think just being there for the last 16 years, do I get my math right on that? 14 years, that actually the way the neighborhood, the way people in that neighborhood treat each other has changed, even if just a little bit.

Oh yeah, I know it has. And because a lot of the kids that would be doing some of the negative things in that neighborhood treat each other has changed, even if just a little bit. Oh yeah, I know it has. Because a lot of the kids that would be doing some of the negative things in that neighborhood, now they're helping, they're teaching yoga or they're teaching meditation or they're teaching mindfulness. And they're friends that are incarcerated or are doing negative things, they're seeing what they're doing.

And they're like, well, you make more than me, you're happier than me, you're less stressed than me, you're doing something positive like I need to get with these guys too So so it's like they're pulling their friends to the other side too. So you you have to feel really good about that Oh, yeah, I'm very happy. I love what I do like I love it I couldn't see myself doing anything else Maybe more of it in different ways, but yeah, what is the future for you and for the organization? I think we'll continue to grow. I think we have to look at scalability in a realistic way, just because at some point,

I mean, we're in a lot of schools now, but it has to be our model now is training teachers to go into those schools. So Baltimore City public schools came and said, hey, we want you in every single school in Baltimore City. We're working on being ahead of the curve for that one. Well, for another school district comes to us. We're looking possibly a hub like in another city because I mean, we, we think the best solutions are homegrown and we're about training people

in their actual place to do more work. We want to do more trainings. We want to expand what we do. We're going to do a little more online. We got to do some writing. We need to find some time to kind of disappear for a little while and get some things out of our heads and out of our hearts and on the paper and mean like put out a book. Oh, yeah, totally.

I would read that book. I would also I would also have the three of you on to promote it and get behind it. I think you should write a book. Yeah, and we just got to I think we're going to make ourselves take the time and just go ahead and do it. I mean, the story that you have to tell is phenomenal. What is just out of curiosity? We talked about this a little bit again. I mean, the story that you have to tell is phenomenal.

What is just out of curiosity, we talked about this a little bit again, a little bit before, but what did you just walk me through your daily practice? So my daily practice is a lot around, so I have a meditation I do in the morning, I'll meditate in the morning, I'll do some mantras. I'm like my own personal practice is different

than what I do in my day, I'm a bit of a problem. I meditate, I'll do some mantras. My own personal practice is different than what I do. I'm gonna take the wrong practice. I'm gonna take it, I'll do some mantras. And a lot of it is about like off the mat yoga practices. Like I'll do like back to yoga, like when I'm pissed off at someone like working on seeing the light in me and the light in them despite how angry I may, or how I feel they may have justifiably made me mad. Just trying to work through that

and still see the light in them and related to light in me. Being aware. So somebody has what? Cut you off in traffic or made a big mistake in the office or your brother is annoying you or whatever and you have to try to recognize your shared humanity. Exactly. Like the connection you have with that person, which is a lot of people say it's the hardest

and the easiest form of yoga to practice, to love someone when they've wronged you. And particularly when you feel it's unjustified, but still at the same time, you still share that deep connection with that person and you share humanity, you share a universal connection with them, and it's hard, but. How often does it work?

I mean, if you practice it, it works all the time. Really? It's just the hardest part is actually getting to that point, like getting past your ego saying that you're just to fight and being angry. And once you can get past that, then you can really start to love them. And in the meditation, the formal meditation practice, you're doing in the morning. How long is that five, 10, 20 minutes? Um, so there's different. So there's one that I practice is 31 minutes. And there's another one I practiced. It's just a I my, my mind tells me to stop. What is the 31 minute?

It's, it's an old Kundalini meditation, uh, that, that I practice. And it's, it's probably never heard of it. But I don't know what Kundalini is. Uh, it's a, it's a form of yoga. So it's just an old, old Kundalini meditation in our practice. So it's a yoga movement? No, no, no, it's actually still, it's just, it's mantra-based.

I see. I'm gonna focus on one of your chakras. So you're, sorry, mantra and you're focusing on a chakra? Uh-huh. How can you do that? You learn to do it. Okay, so you're, you're focusing on one part of your body, which is the chakra right there.

Yeah, this is stuff that I'm not doing. Yeah, one of your energy centers, you focus it on your, your third eye, they call it, yeah. Okay, so the space between your eyes but but a kind of above and And you're repeating a mantra to yourself and you do that and and And that's the 31 minute one. That's 31 minute timer for that. Yep. I got a cool little gong app on my phone that works the entire timer. I should get the inside

Yeah, the inside timer and also my kids really love them up. It's that manamana songs. Yeah, it's my timer sometimes too. And and the other one that you go for just as long as you feel like going what what what is that? That's the one I used to practice on a little like my my heart center and just focusing on the light inside me and just going as deep as I can into it. Gotcha. You hear about your practice because, you know, my mind is so much more, is so much, I guess, I don't know, um, dryer, is that the right word? Be where it's much more based on just, uh, watching my breath coming in, in and out or just trying to non-judgmentally note whatever is coming up in my consciousness.

It's a lot less, uh, uh, it's a lot less, it's a lot less, it's a lot simpler on some levels. I mean, I don't think there's, I think it's what's right for each person. You know what I mean? So like whatever's right for you, that's what you roll with. I mean, I don't think it's, like what I do is right for me,

what you do is right for you, what everybody else does is right for them. As long as they're meditating, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Do you ever have really bad days where you're like a complete jerk to people? If I don't meditate, you can tell, like there's a difference between meditating

and non-meditating, I'll be, I try not to go two days without meditating. Your girlfriends here, I don't, does he, yes or no, does he ever act like a jerk? No, she's saying no. Does she, she's behind the glass? I'm not sure I believe her. There's a difference. She can behind the glass. I'm not sure I believe her. There's a difference.

She can tell the difference if she'll, so we were in Boston doing some programs that are friends birthday party. And so we were up there and it was like day two. Like for every travel day on day one, we didn't get to meditate. It was a long travel day day two. She's like, I'll leave what's wrong.

She could tell something was off. And then sat we stopped, we meditated, and then she said, okay, there you are. So there's a difference. You're pretty cool baseline. I'll say that. I'll at Smith co-founder and executive director of the Holistic Life Foundation. If people want to find you, where do they do that?

The internet's the easiest place to find us. Our website is www.hlfinc.org. Anything else? People should know before we let you go? We love everybody. We're just trying to spread some love. And anyway, people can connect to the practice we're down for. And if there's any help we can give you

and helping you, your family, your community, just reach out to us. Thanks as always to the producers of the show, Lauren, Efron, Josh Cohen, Sarah Amos, and Dan Silver. You can hit me on Twitter at DanVHarris anytime you like. If you liked the episode today and you want to hear more like it, you can subscribe to the podcast, rate it, and, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

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