So many people that are suffering, that feel like they're isolated, they feel stressed out, they feel angry, they feel depressed, that feel sad, to feel like the life is hopeless and helpless, and it's because they don't have a connection to their true self. I mean, like in the universe, like I teach you, wouldn't I teach you. Literally wouldn't leave the house because we would ask him like, hey, do you want to go out and do something with us. You'd be like, Wow, I need to leave the house.
There's a whole universe inside of me to explore. So it was like, that's what people are missing. Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Ali Smith, Atman Smith and Andrea's Gonzales on the podcast. Brothers Ali and Atman met Andreas at the University of Maryland College Park during the last semester. The trios spent a lot of time reading books on spirituality, philosophy, history, politics, and
other related topics. At the same time, they began their yoga practice and developed it under the guidance of Ali and Atman's godfather. Months of hard work and planning ensued before they finally co founded the Holistic Life Foundation. Together, they tell their story of how yoga and mindfulness have transformed countless communities in their amazing book called Let Your Light Shine. I love that title so much. In this episode, I talked to Ali Andreas and Atman about mindfulness and education.
For twenty years, they've been teaching yoga and wellness to underserved kids, resulting in a decrease in suspensions and fights and an increase in attendance and grades. But it's not just about the numbers for these gentlemen. What matters even more is changing the school's culture to become a loving and empathetic space for all by teaching stillness and introspection. I had so much fun chatting with these guys. They are so compassionate, caring, and freaking cool. I can't wait
to hang out with them more. I know after listening to this podcast, you're going to want to hang out with them more as well. So, without further ado, I bring you Ali Andres and Adminton. Hey guys, I'm so glad to have you here on Psychology Podcast. How y'all do and it's you know, don't all talk at once? It's great to play here. Thanks for having us Yeah, thank you so much for having us. It's really an honor to be on here, definitely is. It's an honor
for me. It's not honor for me, you know. I read your book let Your Light Shine, How mindfulness can empower children and rebuild communities, and I like, page after a page it like filled me up with hope, filled me up with like hope for humanity. We need this way of thinking so much more in our society right now. I thought we could kind of just start with going one by one, you know, and each one of you
just kind of just introduce yourselves to our audience. And while you got into this at all, I mean, we can just start random hero. So Ali Smith, tell me about yourself. So I'm Ali. I'm from Baltimore. I got into this stuff because my dad decided that me and my brother were going to get into it. We didn't really have a choice. He was a coach, He was a tough dude, he was a disciplinarian. But he was
also the one that taught us to meditate. So when we were kids, he forced us to learn how to meditate, like he was practicing TM at the Transcendental Meditation. Uh. So we that was what we practiced at home. We joined a church that was a self realization fellowship church and it was the Divine Life Church of Absolute Moanism and became the Divine Life Church Absolute Oneness. So we
meditated in church. We did subjective meditation there, create yoga stuff, and then got out of our practice when our parents got divorced. But our godfather, who we've known since we were born, I was one of those people that got into yoga in the sixties and uh never got out of it, and decided that we went to him asking to teach us. He said yeah, and then we just
started soaking up from there. So I think it was like all these different moments in my life that were kind of leading towards doing something with contemporary practice yoga, meditation, breath work and sharing it with people that's strong. So wait, who's Uncle Will? Is that? Uncle Will? Yeah? That's our godfather. His will join it was uncle Will, right, yeah, Uncle Will, Yeah, he's our godfather. I want to make sure I'm thinking
of the right person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the you're he You're hear say Uncle Will a lot, probably during the time we're talking with than when we hang and we come hang in person, talk about uncle a lot. He was one of our he's one of our favorite people. He was our teacher, he's one of our best friends. He was our homie, like he was a mentor, Like there was a lot that our relationship was with him. I love it so much. And then let's let's go
to Atman Smith. Tell us about yourself, well, Atman Smith from Baltimore, And just to build off of what Ali was saying, one of the main foundations of what we do is the yoga and meditation, but it's about being an entrepreneur as well. You know, our father pushed all three of us, Andy, and you know Ali and myself.
Me and Ali are brothers, and he's a brother from another and you know, after college, you know, our dad told us if we move into our childhood house in West Baltimore, in the middle of the hood, in the epicenter where all the Freddie Gray stuff happened, that he would financially take care of us if we became entrepreneurs.
You know, he saw a lot of his older relatives, you know, give their heart and soul to their career and then at the end of it, their jobs just kicked them to the curb and you know, didn't honor a lot of agreements, that a lot of benefits, and you know a lot of other things, and you know, whenever they wanted to, they could just fire his relatives. So he knew that he didn't want us to go that route. And one thing he used to always stress to us is that you know, you want to be
the check and not earn the check. And you know, we didn't know how we were going to become entrepreneurs. We just knew that, you know, we wanted to work for ourselves. We wanted to help the planet. And you know, our dad wasn't too excited that, you know, we wanted to go the nonprofit route when we became entrepreneurs. But you know that's what materialized out of our minds and hearts was, you know, creating a nonprofit to be able to help It started off as underserved communities. Now you know,
we help anybody and everybody. And you know the reason why we got into that. We saw this commercial where there was this guy named Matthew LESCo and you know, he had a whole bunch of questions on him, like a mad science and we were in my creb looking reading books and you know, looking at documentaries and there was a commercial on and it was him and he was like, do you want the government to pay for you to write a book? To do this? To do that?
We looked at each other like, holy shit, that's what we're going to do. We're gonna get the government to pay for us to save the planet. And you know, in our mind, you know, that's what was going to happen. We were going to save the planet. And you know, that's kind of it. We've been doing our part to try to ease the chaos and the trauma that's going
on in the world through our work. And you know, I think the other cool part about what we do is we create jobs for folks like you know, a lot of people that may not have opportunities to work legal nine to five and earn you know, financial gain, financial independence. They do that with us. You know, we teach them about financial literacy, teach them professionalism and a lot of other things that go into making a successful employee.
And you know, we provide those people with financial independence and they're able to support themselves, support their families, and inspire their peers to come work force as well. So inspiring let's go over to Andy Gonzales and and yes, yeah, you say pretty good. Good for you. I'm trying to try it. Yeah, so I'm under the Gonstalees. Everyone calls me Andy. I met Ali and Iman, the Smith's brothers in college, so I didn't have a practice like they did earlier on in my life when I was younger.
You know, I came from a Puerto Rican family, so you know, love and family that that is really really big in you know, our culture and our household. So I did have that basis, and I think that that's what really echoes through as I grew up longer and longer, as I got older and older. You know, that love was always something that was around us. And I think that's something we really focus on with Holistic Life Foundation or just all the work that we do when we're
going out and try to share these techniques. And a big reason I got into the practice was because, you know, I was hanging out with alian Ama and like they had said, you know, to echo what they said kind of, we saw a lot of suffering in the world and we wanted to do something about it. You know. We we are into comics and superheroes and stuff like that. So for us, it was easy for us to kind of envision us being these three guys that are go
out there and save the world. And you know, we learned early on that it takes way more than just three guys to pull this off. And we were lucky and blessed to have the support and resources that we did, and people always kind of had our backs and believe in us, even though you know, for years and years and years there were a lot of doubters and haters looking at us, like, man, when are you going to get a real job or when are you going to
really do something? Because we're just our minds were set on we're going to try to help people help themselves. And I think that's ultimately what we are. As you know, our teacher used to he didn't like us calling him a teacher. He'd always said that he's a reminder and all of us know everything already, we just kind of
forgot it right. And if we can start getting people to remember that light within them, like the books and letting it shine, you know, that real infinite self of who they are and seeing themselves and anything and everything around them, that their life changes, you know, and it's a transformation that occurs, and it makes you see the world differently and treat people differently, treat the environment differently, and understanding that we're all interconnected and that we're all
one and if we can remind people this and hopefully it'll make it easier for us to unite and be this one entity that we all truly are. So it's been a crazy ride. I don't think when we met and we were hanging out in college we were party animals that we would have taken it to where we are now, you know what I mean, Like, the transformation occurred within us and we're like, man, we got to get this to everybody. And you know, we always say to people, you know, we didn't make any of these
techniques up. You know, these are things that have been around for thousands and thousands of years. We just listened to our teacher and we became scientists. And when we were introduced to a practice, we did an experiment, we did it on ourselves. We did the practice, we saw the results, and we were like, damn, this does this.
I'm gonna keep doing this. And then we try to find another practice and we keep doing that and doing that and doing it until we found enough techniques that we thought, hey, these are the ones that we were going to focus on spreading to the world. And twenty years later, here we are hanging out with you. You You know.
The crazy thing is that that transformation was real And Andy said transformation, like it was such a drastic transformation that we did a ted X talk at Columbia University and afterwards like, we feel like a little happy hour at a bar. And like all the friends that we used to party with at college, a lot of them that were in New York, they came and they hung with us. They were like, so, what are you guys doing, Like, yeah,
we started this nonprofit. We teach meditation and yoga. The kids they were like, well, shit, what are y'all really doing. We were like no, they were like, that's what we really do. We pulled up the website on our phone and they thought we had created a fit. Like they were just like everyone was totally blown away from where the people they knew at our senior year in university around College Park had slowed things down enough to be able to start a nonprofit, and then not only a nonprofit,
but a nonprofit. They taught yoga and meditation at that point. The kids with the only is at that point, they were blown away by that when I thought we would totally bullshit them. Okay, I have some thoughts of that. First of all, I really want to party with you guys. Someday we're going to make that happen. We're going to make that happen. And second of all, I resonate with that at such a deep level when I went back to some of my high school reunions. So something you
don't you all probably don't know about me. I was. I was in special education as a kid for an an auditory learning disability I had. They thought I was dumb for for a lot of my childhood. So you know when I when I talked to some people for these reunions and I'm like, yeah, I got a PhD
from Yale, They're like what that's awesome. They're like you what you I was like yeah, me, so yeah, yeah, yeah, you know the one you bullied, remember me, the one you beat up in the bathroom at Pengwin Elementary School. So yeah. So it's just, uh, it's wonderful to give back in that way as well and be able to help those I think all all of us. All, I'm counting five, all five of us? Did I count right?
Believe in wanting to take our prior experiences using a launch pad to to make sure that, like a lot of people don't fall through the same kind of cracks that maybe we fell through. I think that, like these days, there's different paths to go. I feel like some people kind of just stay in that victimhood sort of mindset their whole lives, Like they stay in that sort of way of thinking of like, you know, that was my past and I'm still there, you know, and like there's
no way out. And I feel like you all are kind of taking a different strategy, which is like trying to give these kids hope, you know, that they don't have to stay in that their whole lives. Is that Is that fair to say? Yeah? I think that's totally true. I mean, I know they're so like ib and I grew up meditating. We meditate to a lot. I was in like the fourth grade and he was in the second grade, and then didn't meditate again until I guess
like our junior year of college. And I know, not having a practice suck, you know what I mean, Like like there was so much going on mentally, and like just the life emotional rollercoaster that it is, and like just everything that was going on, and like I think getting back to my practice, I was like, oh, okay, so that's what's been missing for all this time, and I think we wanted to give that to as many
people as possible. It was like when our teacher got was when we were in our teacher's hands, like Uncle Will's hands, like later on when we were finishing up college, like it's kind of like starting over. Like as I started practicing more, some of us started to come back
to me. Like when we first sat down with him, it was like hitting the reseup button and trying to learn all these practices from the beginning, and it was like such a profound change that it was like, man, we got chans practice with everybody, like as many people as possible, because like, this is what people are missing
in their lives. So many people that are suffering that feel like they're isolated, they feel stressed out, they feel angry, they feel depressed, that feel sad, to feel like their life is hopeless and helpless, and it's because they don't
have a connection to their true self. I mean like in the universe, like our teacher wouldn't Our teacher literally wouldn't leave the house because we would ask him like, hey, do you want to go out and do something, but it'd be like, well, I need to leave the house. There's a whole universe inside of me to explore. So it was like, that's what people are missing, Like you're connected to everything, but you don't know how to get there,
and you don't know that it's there. So I think that's what we want to give kids because a lot of kids we work with in these traditionally and like historically underserved communities, like if they were only connected to their physical environment, it would be a miserable, hopeless and helpless situation with a lot of fear, with a lot of anxiety, with a lot of anger. And why not
give them something bigger to connect to? So the ones they can connect to something bigger than their neighborhood, then they can start to dream on a bigger scale and do different things with their lives and have a lot more peaceful and loving existence. I don't think I could have said that any better. Yeah, And going back to you were saying about you know, kids getting caught in you know, past experiences and you know, stuff like that
that kind of blocks their forward progress in life. You know, there's this quote that our teacher used to always tell us. He used to say that the past brings up fear and anger, the future brings out anxiety. Focus on the now because that's all there really is. And I think that's one of the ways, one of the things that the kids learn and we learn through the practice is
you know, being in that present moment. And you know, it's hard for anyone to ever really always be in that present moment, but it's just all about having the awareness we need. You get caught up in past thoughts, whether it's a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, a decade ago, that kind of puts you and we call it shitsville, you know what I mean, gets you in a depressed mood, angry mood, jealous mood, which doesn't
do you any good at all. Or if you're worried about the future, you know, worried about you know, am I in the right career? Am I? You know, doing the best that I can be instead of just focus focusing on right now and excelling in whatever way you
can in this present moment, you know. And I think that's one of the things that the practices does for people is it allows them to be in that present moment and let them know when they slip and they're in the future or the past, and gives you techniques to get back, push for set on your mind and get back to that present moment. And then also, you know, physical practices sometimes, you know, people go through trauma get stored in the body, and their bodies not a safe space.
You know. The physical practices that we teach helps release that trauma, makes their body a safe space. Then we go into the breathing, which kind of slows your mind down so you can actually get the most benefit out of meditating and connecting to that universal center that Ali was talking about. Yeah, I read somewhere that you guys want to create an oasis in the school. Can you
kind of unpack what that means a little bit? And the way I see it, A big part of that is giving these kids tools to deal with the adversity in their lives as opposed to shrinking away from it and getting disconnected from themselves. But yeah, is that along those lines, Yeah, definitely, I mean me just imagine when you were in school. And I know when I like reflecting when I was in school, it's a long ass day, right,
you know. They put you in there from the morning to the end, and you're supposed to stare at the teacher after teacher, learn lesson after lesson, and that can be overwhelming. And a lot of times if at the administration and the teachers, the people in the building don't understand what's going on at home, then they're they're totally
just just just not analyzing the situations seriously. So when Johnny comes to school, he hasn't eaten, he hasn't slept, he lives in an environment at home that's just so overwhelming, and then you expect him to sit there and stare at this board and listen to you. And then when he falls asleep or he's not paying attention or whatever, then he gets punished. It's like like, damn, this is
how do you think this is right? You know? So what we wanted to do was to create, like you said, an oasis in the school that allows the students and the staff to go there when they need you to take a break, to take a moment for themselves, you know, and and the goal is to make it feel completely
different than the rest of the school. So when we put these rooms together where we have the you know, the Himalayan salt, so we have the oils diffusing, we have cushions and zafoods and little chairs and these posters and water fountains and just just so when you walk even walk by the room, you're like, what is going
on in there? And you want to be able to kind of feel that essence of being a piece of tranquility when you walk into that room, and I think, you know, ultimately that's what we were trying to do. We were trying to create that space. And then when they come in and they do come into the room, that's when we can give them tools and techniques to deal with that adversity you were talking about that allows them to find that same piece and tranquility within themselves
wherever they're at. Right So, you know, give them the space and the school, get them start understanding, hey, you can access this. You know, like i' must say, if you stop focusing on the past in the future and you're in this present moment, you're gonna notice you can really appreciate every single second of your life and then understanding that they are going through so much, we're like, hey,
I got you. How about next time you're faced with this adversity, try this breathing technique and it'll pull you back to center. Or try this meditation and it'll get you back to being present and in this moment. And you know, that's the goal, is to keep kind of putting that into their heads and letting them know that they're capable of self regulation, They're capable of bringing themselves
back to center whenever they need to. And and it's tough because you know, if no one ever told you that, then you just assume that man, life sucks and and I can't deal with this shit type stuff, you know what I mean, Like, it's so easy to think that way. But what we try to do is create that that feeling. And really also, you know that that program that we have, it's called our Mindful Moment program, it really focuses on
removing punitive practices. So there's a viral article that went out for why I was like school changes attention to meditation, and that was our program where instead of punishing the kid for what's going on in their lives or in the moment, you can send them to the room and we can give them tools and techniques that will help them at that moment for the rest of their lives.
One thing about that program the coolest I think the coolest thing about that program is like you know, you see the kids changing, You see the schools start to change when you look at the cold hard numbers. Like the program works no matter where we set it up. There's a school in the center of where the epigrade at these pretty gray uprisings happen, like where they haven't had suspension for like seven or eight years. There there's
another school called Fort Worthington. The year before we got there, I think they had like one hundred and fifty something suspensions. After year one that number was down to around fifty seven, I think, and after year two the suspension numbers down to thirteen. And no matter where we go, like we go around and we train people to be able to
do this program. So like if anybody wanted a program set up, we could show how to set it up the right way, showing the paperwork everything, the referral rules, how to track the data, and it will work on reducing suspension numbers. It's helped with act scores, it's helped with tendance, it's helped producing fights at schools. But I think the coolest thing is the energy of the school changes.
The first place we started this program the school called Patterson High School with Vance Benton, doctor Vance Benton now, who's like our brother. He's a real good dude. He set us up with the program. We knew we were in the right place. And we walked in the in the in to his principle and in the principal's office, into his office and he mentioned he said a Yoda quote, and we're huge Star Wars, huge Star Wars fans. It was like, right, we're in the right place. So this
is our school. And we went there. The program went well, and then it was just like you know, the all the numbers got better. But he noticed one thing that he went to another school and he could feel the friction and the tension and the anger in the air. And then he went back to his school and that he could feel the calmness at his school and he was like, huh, maybe there's more to this program than just these numbers. Like energetically, my school feels a lot
different than the schools where this program isn't. Yeah, I remember another story that he told us, just an observation, like things don't happen overnight. But you know, we changed the school culture with being having that program implemented in school. But he said, we have a number of staff staffing the room all during the school day, but sometimes they have to go out and work with some of the
teachers or the administrators or entire classes. So you know, on very rare occasions, the room is empty and it's locked, and kids can't go in there even if they're in crisis because we don't have anybody staffing it. He said that one day when he was coming into the school, he saw a kid who was in crisis just walk to the door. It was locked, So we sat down and just started doing his breathing and meditating and you know, getting himself back to homeostasis. You know, that's the beauty
of the practices. You know, it allows kids to learn the tools to be able to self regulate. And one thing he was like, man, you know that definitely wouldn't happen in my school, like three years ago, because like three years ago, if somebody saw kids sitting down with his eyes closed, they might have just kicked him in the head or punched him or something. But now because there is a culture of everybody knowing what that is,
it's just regular. It's just normal. Part of our day is that, you know, people do have these contemplative practices interwoven into our school. And like Ali was saying, there's so many different ways that this program and Andy was saying too, that this program helps the school climate. It
helps teachers that you know have burnout. We had this one teacher that hated our program, and we knew he did in year one because every time we would go into the administer the principal's office, it would be a whole group of teachers talking, him being one of the main ones, and then when we get up there, they would all be silent. We're like, man, we know you're
talking about us. But eventually, you know, we have a besides the room, we have a mindful in this practice that's played over the loud speaker at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day. And he was one of the teachers where you know, they weren't really engaged in that practice. There was supposed to be a school wide practice and he actually used to turn the volume down, and you know he would just
be like, man, I don't pay attention to that. And then Andy went in there one day and he actually led the class through the practices, even though you know, the teacher wasn't really feeling it. He allowed Andy to do that, and you know, when the students started disrespecting the teacher, Andy had the teacher's back and was like, look, man, y'all learning I think it was they were learning CAD stuff right here, and you know, he was telling me, He's like, man, you're all learning a skill that is
going to help the employability of your life. You know, like, you all need to take this serious. This guy as a wealth of information. Y'all need to give them respect. And you know, just reasoning with these kids about why they should respect their teacher, it kind of shifted the energy in his classroom, and the teacher, you know, felt like he was respected and actually seen and it made him start actually doing the practice and participating. And that dude went from he would tell us I can't wait
to retire. I'm getting out of here this year. I can't stand these kids to ten years later he's still teaching because he has a contemplative practice. And you know he went from wearing all black clothes to wearing like floral print shirts and giving us huge hugs. And you know, so the program not only helps the students, but it
helps the teachers and administrators as well. Wow, and that works both ways as well, So the teachers having more respect for the students even though maybe the trouble students. I mean, you talk about the reciprocal teaching model, could you kind of talk elucidate a little more on what that means. When our teacher taught us, when we went to him and asked when we were the first time went to Uncle Will, we were like, hey, can you teach us this yoga stuff? He was like, I don't
want to devots. I'm only teaching teachers. He believed in teaching people to be able to share the practice with others. It was all about former black panther. He was about empowerment. We wanted to empower us with the practice so that we could use each other people. And I think that informed the way that we taught. We didn't even know it was reciprocal teaching until our buddy, Until our buddy Heather actually told us that we were doing using reciprocal teaching.
So then we started using the term reciprocal teaching. But it was like what we knew, Like, hey, like we need empower these kids with the practice. We need to show them how to do this they can share with other people. So we would bring the kids to the front and they would lead the practice. So like when people come visit our after school program, they wouldn't see any of the three of us up there leading the practice. It would be little kids up there leading the bending,
the stretching, the breathing, the meditations. They'd be leading all of it, and they would be killing it and then they would go home. Actually, we didn't even know if they were doing this until parents started coming up to us. Like one little kid, one little girl's mom came in and said, I didn't even I thought y'all were doing yoga. I didn't know y'all were doing breathing the meditation because
one day I came home all stressed out. My daughter sat me down and said, Ma, you need to breathe and meditate with me because she looked stressed out, and she helped us. She breathe and meditated. There was another little girl whose grandmother's stomach was upset. She told her to a breathing exercise instead of the stomach and the list of stories goes on. So it was like we wanted to empower the kids with to practice. So like when we always say, if we can go to school
with two hundred kids, that's awesome. If we can turn those two hundred kids into two hundred teachers, then we make a huge impact and the ripples go out. Definitely. Wow, that's some profound stuff. Another phrase is is involution? What's that involution? All right? So you know our teacher, you know, like Ali said, he was a black panther and you know they went to revolution, and you know one thing that he would say is, you know, violence begets violence.
You know, the only way that you can really make a true change in society is going within yourself and involving. Like our book says, let your light shine. And the only way to do that is with these practices, tapping into that universal center that's the same as my universal center, that's the same as yours. And it's like once you start, like Ali always says, start your day in the light, in your day and the light. That's what involution is about, is trying to be in your light as much as possible.
Then it makes it that much easier to kind of think on a higher vibration. And that's what the evolution is about, is going in ways and then dealing with the world from that inner views. Yeah, because you really can't change the outside world, but for so much, you know what I mean, Like you made people to rearrange your house to like, you know what I mean, put a guard in your lawn. There's not huge shifts that
you can make on the outside. But if enough people should like move from their higher self, then you can change the whole world I mean, So that's what that evolution is about. They also say that evolution took too long, like for us to evolve would take a long, long long time, Like the revolutions were violent. So if everybody went inward and had an evolution and worked from their light instead of from their ego, then the world would be a much better place. This is really so important.
There's obviously there are systemic injustices, right, there's systemic racism. Someone could listen to what you're saying and say, like, well shouldn't we A lot of people create this false dichotomy, right, that. It's like, well, shouldn't we just focus on all of that first and not worry you know, it's it's a
privilege to worry about involution. This is not my belief, is not my mo But I'm just I'm just saying, Like, someone, what do you say to someone who thinks in such black and white terms the way they say that to you? How do you respond to that? Like that's the most important thing going on when in your human existence is touching your universal self? You know what I mean? Like you can do all this you mean, I know you know what I mean? Like I feel like that. I
feel you, brother, I feel you brother. Like what else are we here for? Like that, We're here to express our universal self, whether it takes what we do at this time or in ten lifetimes or one hundred lifetimes, you know what I mean. Like that's the goal of being a human. Like you experience the highs and lows of being a human. You experience all the fields, you experience everything that there is to offer with gratifying your senses, and none of it makes you happy, Like you end
up miserable trying to go outward. But like the whole thing is about touching your true self, experiencing it, let it shine not just on your meditation cushion on your mat, but like out into the world, so you can inspire yourself and inspire other people. So all that stuff is important because we are humans. Like, you can't ignore it.
It's not going to go anywhere. But at the same time, the most important thing is is touching your true self and like touching the light and ship experience the experiencing it,
let the shine. In society nowadays, it's like it's so common for everyone to be focused on that external you know, on the outside, and it's almost like we've been brainwashed to think these things, Like and then when I was younger, to me, God was in the clouds, he wasn't even attainable, right, He's like out so outside and far away from me that and the only way I could have a relationship was through a certain person with him, Like I needed a middleman to be able to get me to communicate
with these type of things. And when you start really seeing the world for what it is and beyond this external stuff and you start going inward, that's where the real stuff is, That's where the truth is, that's that's like your real self, you know. And it's amazing to me how often people are so focused on like Ali was saying, on the material, on the senses, on the ego, and those are parts of you, but that's not your
real real thing, you know. Uncle. We used to always say, like all this out here is illusion, you know, and we need to keep removing the veils of the illusion that we're seeing, to identify with what we really really are and who we really are, and work on that part of ourselves, you know, because the light within us is in everything that there is, in all existence, and it's just muddled by ignorance, you know, and not ignorance like calling someone dumb, but ignoring the truth of who
you really are, of your real, infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent self. And when one realizes that and they start to learn to love themselves more, that helps them learn to love other people more. And if you can work on that, like I always you know, lately, I've been thinking a lot about this, like, you know, Wow, it'd be great to solve all these issues and problems with this external world. And maybe that's the way we need to go to
make stuff better. But if everyone just learned to love and take care of themselves, wouldn't that make the world better too? Right? You know, like if everyone focused on being the best version of themselves, then you're solving all the issues on the outside world because now there's not as many douchebags and assholes. Because you're working on yourself and you're seeing yourself in everyone and everything and it's
just all love. Then it's so good. I also love your vocabulary because it's uh that I used when I was a kid. I used to call people douchebags and and if you were cool, you were my homie, you know, like kind of you you're bringing backwards from my nineties youth. So, and we were meant to hang. I'm telling you that we were meant to hang. Yes, I believe that's true. I believe that's true. We all have a we have a mutual friend. We should give a shout out to
Sharon Salsburg here we love you. Do you remember the Rings of the Roof thing too? Do you remember that from? Yeah? Do you remember that Sharon Salsburg? So he's doing the mix it too. I don't think that she definitely has the most infectious laugh that you know we've ever been around. If she starts giggling, it will like tickle you, you know what I mean, It'll make you just giggle and
put you into that light inside of yourself. That's you know, she's she's one of our favorite people on the planet. I remember one thing about it, like when we first started, like when people started paying attention to us and we started going to all these conferences like around the country. We hear all these people who were like supposedly these profound spiritual teachers speak and we were so like underwhelmed
with most of them. We were like this is like this isn't But Sharon was the first person we saw that it spoke. We saw at the Yoga Service Conference at the Omega Institute, and I'll never forget it, Like we were looking at each other like holy shit, like this lady is amazing. Like she was the first person actually talked about love, she talked about connection. The way she taught was very fact like Avian said, her laugh
was infectious. The way she taught was amazing, and it was just like from that very first moment we saw her speak, we were like, this lady is amazing. It'll be amazing to learn from her. At that point, we weren't even thinking about teaching with teaching with her like, but then like she approaches like she Yeah, she's opened up a lot of doors for us. But I think, just uh, she's one of the most profound teachers that
we've ever come in contact with. And it's cool to teach with her because every time I feel like, every time I teach with her, I become a better teacher myself. Just seeing the way did she tells stories, the way that she interacts with everyone, the way that she engages, the way she shares about her practice. I just see such a great confluence between the work she does and her conceptualization of love and what you all are bringing into the world and the light, the light you're shining
is so it's so cool that connection there. There's someone else that I wanted to bring up and see if you know her. I'm a big fan of Ronda McGee's work, and I don't know if you've come across her work at all, the inner work of racial justice, that's another one. She's a homie too, man, I want to be a homie. You guys, you went about homies too now, but you're part of the fan. I mean, that's I mean, unbelievable
squad we have here, Ronda, Sharon, you three. That's we could could do her whole, a whole TV show on that. But I'm so glad, you know, Ronna, she's been on this podcast and she's become a friend of mine and just I see a very complimentary between her her view of kind of that light shines outward from within, right as opposed to well blaming everything on the outside world. Right. Whenever we are at a conference with her, we always get a chance to sit down just hang with her.
And she's another one of those people that are just so real and the work she's doing is so neat in the world. And yeah, and she's you know, it's few and far between when you meet those authentic, genuine people with big hearts who really care, who are brilliant too, you know, like geniuses, and they just just profound. So whenever we get a chance to hang with her, we always sit down and chat. And she's awesome, she really is.
I agree. Well, there's another quality to you three that I really like that I think is sorely lacking in the world today. I think all of your qualities are that seeing today are sorely lacking. But one that I want to call out in particular is fun. You three seem like a lot of fun. And I noticed in your book you say we want students to have fun, and I think that's actually really profound. You know, like you don't you don't hear that much from education books.
They're all so serious, you know, they're like, like our learning theory is about playing action. It's like show the fuck up, Like, like, what does it mean to actually let the kids enjoy school? Would that be such a terrible thing? Yeah, you talk about it. The teachers that mean something to you in your lifetime that you know, there's lots of teachers that you've forgotten, but those teachers that actually you know they taught you stuff, but you have fun in their class, those are the ones that
have a lasting impression in your mind. And you know, our teacher always told us, man, if your class ain't laughing, then you ain't doing shit, you know what I mean. So we try to infuse humor into everything that we do, just to lighten up the mood. That's an easy way to get people in to their light. And then you know, dive deep into the rabbit hole of this thing we call contemplatar practices. Yes, you all are interested in yoga, right, and you're interested in applying a lot of yoga principles.
You know, there's like this stereotype of like the yo When I think yoga, you think like white blonde girl like in yoga pants. Like, I don't know, I don't know if I should be editing out what I'm saying right now when I'm just trying to keep it real. No, that's truth, man, I keep it real, Keep it real, Okay, good, good. I tend to do that on my podcast, so I'll be consistent and keep it real. What I'm trying to say is there's like a societal sort of stereotype of
the yoga practitioner in America. In America, now it's not all the original roots of the point of yoga, right, but you tend to think of like, you know, oh, you know, like we're doing this to you know, you are greatness. You are believing yourself, you know. But I think in a lot of ways you you three are not white blonde yoga chicks and yoga pants. And yeah, I don't That's not what I'm perceiving right now, you know, So like yeah, you and you three are interested in yoga.
So but my point is like maybe maybe you three, maybe it's important to expand This is my point. This is my point. Stay with me, folks, stay with me. Maybe we can expand our notion of yoga beyond this kind of superficial stereotype that we have in our society, kind of even get to maybe the roots of what the point of yoga was in the first place. That was my point. I mean, honestly, I think if we would have gone that yoga studio Lululemon yoga pant route,
we wouldn't have been into the practice. I know, you know what I'm saying. But we learned from again learn meditation as a little kid from my dad got deep, deep deep into the practice with Uncle Will from and lived in East Baltimore. Like I mean he didn't it didn't, you know. I mean, it didn't do much more in Baltimore than Uncle Will. So I mean, like what the dumbbar you know. I mean, like went the University of maryl Eastern Shore. He was like a very very Baltimore dude,
and like that's who we learned from. Actually, The crazy thing was, we didn't even realize how white the yoga world was until we went to the Garrison Institute for a conference, like because you know, we had we learned from them. We taught in Baltimore City, which is the second most segregated city behind Milwaukee, so it was like we were teaching black kids. And then we go to the Garrison Institute and we walk in and everybody else there was white, and we were like, what, Like, this
is what yoga is Like. It definitely threw us for And then we started as we started looking more and looking at Yoga Journal and all these other things, we saw how white the yoga world was. But it was a shock to us that that's what it looked like, because that wasn't our experience with it. Like even when me and Iven went to the church we grew up in, there were other kids of color that were in that church meditating with us. So it wasn't like it just
it just seemed weird. But it's definitely something that's a practice for everyone. It's not for one group, it's not for just somebody like price wise, it maybe just for one group, but like we I think that's one things that we want to do is make it accessible to everyone. Like we don't the programs we do in schools, the schools pay for. It's always free to the kids and the families. So we want everyone to be able to
use these practice. Everybody is dealing with stress and anxiety and like all these things that are part of the human experience, and yoga is a beautiful practice to help you kind of mitigate a lot of those problems, you know what I mean, and get some stillness. Like I think the two biggest things that the kids we work with get out of the practice are stillness and connection.
Like a lot of them don't have a place for peace in their lives, whether it's in their mind, whether it's in their home, whether it's in their school and their community. There's no there's no peace anywhere. And they don't have the money to go to a yoga class or go on a retreat. They don't have the money for that. So we show them how to get to that place of peace within them that's always there and
they can always retreat to. And that connection. Like we learned that kids weren't connected to themselves at all, and they didn't love themselves at all, So it was just like a it's always good to see that light bulb go off, and kids shift the way that they see themselves in the world when they connect to themselves. And then once they connected themselves and love themselves, then it starts to spill outward, like seem to become more compassionate, empathetic,
more loving towards their friends. They're less violent, they're less impulsive. All these things are going on just from that connection and that place of inner peace. So the practices are
for everybody, and we're growing. And I think I think another thing is like kids seeing us teaching the practices and our teachers teaching the practices makes them shift the way that they feel about yoga, because I mean a lot of them probably would think that it was a practice for middle aged white ladies, you know what I mean,
Like that's what that's what they would think. But I think seeing us in there doing it, like a lot of the kids now, like the kids that we were working with, Like when you ask them what they wanted to be like, they would say, I want to be a yoga teacher. I want to help people like you all do. And I don't think that's something they would feel as accessible if they didn't see people looking like
them teaching and doing the practice. Dude, I really think it's cool how we're kind of breaking down that image and that stereotype with a lot of you know, because we're bringing you know, people to places that you wouldn't see people like us leading the exercises. I remember once being at the Omega Institute, we had like a lot
of our younger students with us. I don't know if you Fellas you all remember this, but remember like we walk in and like security came up to us and they're like, oh, ho, what are you all doing here?
Like one of our young guns had like had like gold he had gold fronts send remember that Qualmate and gold fronts, and he had like he took around here like he's like, oh no, we're the yoga instructors and you can tell the security guys like what like But again, you know, like that we can do that, you know, we can break down that idea that it's just supposed to be you know, middle aged white women or blonde white women that teach U yoga stuff that no we
have you know because the majority of our staff from minorities that we're coming in and we look nothing like what everyone else does. And then when we come in and we even do it different, you know, so like they are more a lot a lot of times. That's why I don't think it wouldn't have would have worked if we went to those type of classes, because it's always like, okay, and here is what what we're going to do, and they're like they want they expect like
this white robed guru image type stuff. And now we come in with our superhero T shirts and we are who we are. We keep it rude, ourselves beard not dreadlocks. There you go, right, yeah, right right, that's what people expect a beard, but they don't expect dreadlocks. You know, I'm with you, you know, I think it's so great that we can do that, that we can change and it's still tough sometimes. You know, I think we're not
the only ones that are surprised. They're surprised to you because you know, countless times Ali Atman and I have gone to a conference, will be the keynote, our picture will be on the back behind the person checking people in as you know, speakers, and we'll walk up and they'll be like, oh yeah, almost be the band, Like we have no instruments on this is you know, there's used to seeing it and we would we play along with you would love it. We have so much fun.
So we're an Aboriginal folk band, is what we say when people make this this comment. Who plays the bull roar? Is it Atman Ali and Otman plays the digiti? Dude, I'm on vocals. So that's what we'll tell them. And then when we get on stage and we start in the meditation, you can see the person like in the crowd like, oh, I can't believe that. I would probably mess with them. I'd probably mess with them even more
than that though. I'd probably be like, yeah, yeah, we're the rappers here, you know, we're here to sit you know, sing like you know, you know, like say some really vulgar lyrics we do, Yeah we do, yeah, yeah, like something like that, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah, we're you know, because sometimes when people have the stereotypes, I just like to mess with it, right and just like all the way, you know. But no, that's wonderful. That's wonderful.
Another thing that I love from your book is you talk about how love and empathy need to be consistent and reliable. That's I feel like that's a big principle with a lot of the work you do. Can you kind of expand on that a little bit? Yeah, So I think it started. I don't even think we realized how important it was. I think it was two things.
One we just talked about the other day. But like when we after we finished, like we we started with a group of fifth graders Winds Hills Elementary School and then one of them I'll actually keep for us now to this day. And this was like two thousand and two when he was twenty years ago, he was a fifth grader. Now he works for us. But he was like, all, it's nice to know you, guys, nice to know you.
We're gonna be in your life forever. And you just got this confused look on his face, like you guys mean, but we literally have been because he still works for us to this day. So, like we definitely believe that consistency is key, like because a lot of people don't have consistency, especially consistent like people who are present and like treat him with love and respect, they don't really have that in their lives. So we always felt that that was important. So like we were there all the
time and we were working with our students. We tried to when we have a staff person at a school, we try to keep that person consistent year to year so they can build that bomb with the kids. And actually we were in Madison earlier this week and the first time we ever left Baltimore to not have the after school program was when we did a three day program up in up at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School up in Madison. And when we got back that that next Monday,
the kids were like, oh, you guys got locked up. Huh, Like what do you mean we got locked up? You know, like they were like, I mean, why else would you guys not be here day after school program? Like you guys are here every day. So it was just like that would be the only thing that the reason they would see we weren't there, and they knew we loved them and cared about them so much that they would
expect it. But consistency is the key, Like I mean, like it it helps those kids to break that Like a lot of kids have walls built up because they don't have people who are consistent, Like they may have a teacher that cared about them, you know, if teachers get burnt out. They might transfer where they go to the next grade. The next teacher might not, or they might have a mentor a mentoring program that might be around for a little while, and they might might disappear.
But I mean we're with our kids, like they're kids that go from our elementary school, I mean our after school program, to our mentoring program, to a workforce develpment program and then work for us. So there's just kids that we've known pretty much their entire lives that are working for us now. And even the kids that don't work for us, some of them have worked for us
and they're doing other things now. Others still stay in contact with us, so they know that we're Like even our cell phone numbers, I'm the same SOULFHO numbers since like nineteen ninety seven, you know what I mean. Like, so like they know how to find us, they know how to track us down. So it's like they know that they're going to get consistency from us, and it's important. I mean, it's important in relationships and love too. I know you mentioned love. Love is I mean we always
said it's the most powerful force in the universe. And our teacher every time I hear love, I can always see him being saying like v E lov E the way he would say and he would just for us. It's a big thing of who we are is you know, seeing the light, knowing that there's that light within you, seeing it in everyone else, and then loving them because
they're just you. And I think that that's something we really embody and people say to us sometimes when the three of us walk into a room or a conference, that they can feel the love like exuding from us, permeating out of our beings. And we used to say, you know, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make love zombies. You know that we're trying to infect all the chapter right so that they can go out and infect more people. And we can keep just
spreading this love throughout the world. And the more and more love happens, the easier it is to see it, to witness it, to be engulfed by it. One phrase Uncle East always say. He's like, you know, the world is like an ocean of love, and you can you can dip your toe in it, you can take a sip of it, or you can just dive right in. I feel like we're the type that we just dive right in. I love that so much. I think we
probably should end on that note. So it's such a beautiful tone, unless any any of you want to add to that. I bet, I bet, yeah, no, okay, so let's look good. Then let's end on that. And I just want to thank you all so much for coming to my podcast. I liked you guys instantly, and uh, I love you your soul and I love your way of being in this world. It's just incredible. It's it resonates. It's such a great frequency. So I just want to encourage you to keep doing the work you're doing and
let me know how I can help. Yeah, man, awesome, you awesome to be here, bro, for real. It's likewise what you said right away, just you know, when we were just before setting up, just laughing and talking like this dude is super cool. We gotta hang when we are around you. We will make sure we link up and we're going to pot too. Thanks for listening to
this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at thus Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast. We also put up some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well, so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being such a great supporter of the show, and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.