Bringing Meditation to People Who Are Incarcerated: One Love Prison Meditation Project w/ Tim Bryant
This is the most important episode I've recorded to date. Tim Bryant is the Founder of One Love Prison Meditation Project, a non-profit organization that provides the necessary emotional and spiritual support to those in prison. In our conversation, he shares tips on developing classes and curriculum, no matter what your setting is. A fun fact about Tim is he started meditating 20 years ago by regularly attending Michael Singer's Temple Of The Universe. Tim shares ways you can get involved by helping to coach a prisoner or starting a meditation program at your local prison.
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Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello, friends. Welcome to another interview episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. I am so excited to share our guest today. Tim Bryant is founder of one Love Prison Meditation Project. It is a nonprofit organization that provides necessary emotional and spiritual support to those in prison. He has conducted hundreds of prison meditation programs in the last 15 years. His work shows that they do matter and they are worthy of love. The meditations Tim does helps create an experience of peace and lightness and helps students live more positively in challenging circumstances. Tim, thanks for what you're doing. I'm so excited to have you on the.
Tim: Oh, you're welcome, man. Thanks for having me, Lou.
Lou: So maybe just right off the bat, color in a little bit more about one love prison project and the work that you are doing with it.
Tim: I started in 2018 after many years, probably 14 years of just volunteering, doing one or two meditation programs a month in prison. And maybe we'll get to how that started. But as you can imagine, it meant everything to them to have that space and to have that time. It's not something they get in prison. Rarely, really, if ever, are they allowed, even away from the guards or away from the noise or away from the chaos, to gather.
Tim: I started that in 2018, and so now I'm in Florida, and we go to five prisons on a weekly and bi weekly basis. Our classes have grown from when I was first starting to go to three to four to now we have a couple of places where we have 60 people in our meditation gathering. But it's quality, not quantity,
Tim: to be real. People have amazing experiences. We come together just in this solidarity and in this desire to connect deep within to that place that's that place of presence, that place of being. And it happens. It happens for people. And it's amazing, too, because everything, it's from the deepest experiences to people just getting to rest, people just getting to think about things to let their mind unwind. So it's really awesome, too, because it's a space that people can use in whatever way that they see fit to just sort of renew their spirit. And, yeah, man, it's been incredible.
Lou: We'll talk lots more about it. But first, we were talking before we hit record about, you live in Gainesville, and you were asking me if I'd been down. And I mentioned that the only time I had been down was intentionally going to see Michael Singer and his place, the temple of the universe. I wanted to see a talk, and for those of you probably know who Michael Singer is, but if not, he's a really beautiful spiritual teacher, he's written kind of a couple classics in the spiritual texts of the untethered soul and the surrender experiment. And when I said that, your face lit up. It sounded like you mentioned that being some of the start of your meditation. So that was a question I wanted to ask you of. When does meditation enter the picture for you? And please, I would love to hear some stories about Temple of the.
Tim: Sure. You know, it's amazing when you live in Gainesville and you start to. I grew up here. I did live in south Florida a little bit for high school, but I came back here for. And, like, when you live here, if you start to get into any yoga or meditation, it's not long before someone says, you got to go to the temple of the know, and it's just outside of town. And so a friend of mine turned me on to meditation, but then also at the same time was like, you got to go to the temple of the universe.
Tim: I started going out there. I guess I was 22. I'm 47 now. And it's such an incredible space. Just like open. Twenty four seven. The building is just open. I've gone there in the middle of the day to meditate. There's actually a story one time, wherever some things happened, and I didn't have a place to live for the night. I shouldn't say this, but I went over there and just chilled for like 2 hours at like three in the morning, and I was waiting for the sun to come up, so I probably shouldn't put that out there, but anyways. But it's just a really special place that offers Meditation and free yoga and Mickey's talks and. Yeah, I just discovered I also started really studying some of the meditation masters out there. And that's kind of what took me down my path even deeper. Folks like Yogananda and Swami Muktananda. Nichyananda and like that. Yeah, that became just like a huge part of my journey, was sort of diving into those meditation masters. And for a lot of people that don't know this, and if you read the surrender experiment by Michael Singer, you'll realize he actually started going into prisons, like, a long, long time ago and bringing meditation. And what's interesting is when I got back to town and started going, many years ago was right when he sort of stopped. And I called up and said, hey, I want to come do a meditation class. And they're like, that's perfect, because he just had to stop coming. So it was kind of interesting, the legacy kind of picking up where he left off and going to the same place, and some of the same guys are still there that were there 40 years ago, people that are serving life that were in his classes 40 years ago that are still coming to our classes now.
Lou: That's so incredible. I was going to ask you that, because I remember reading that book and him having a lot of impact in prisons. And what I was always fascinated about is he would talk about his teaching was not any different. It's like, it wasn't like he needed to do it differently in this way, as it into this way. He was just sharing kind of the essence of his teachings. And it's so cool to know that you were 22 years ago. That's probably before untethered soul comes out. So Michael Singer is still not how Michael Singer is today. Or I know he goes by Mickey, but I'm just from a fanboy perspective, I'm just curious of when that book came out. Was there a big shift in people showing up to that space, or has it just kind of been a natural.
Tim: You know? So here's the other interesting piece. I would go out there. I was friends with them. I actually went and lived at the city yoga ashram in Oakland for a year in the mid 2000s. That became, like a big part of my path. That's actually how I started doing prison work, because city Yoga has a prison project where they offer a course to people who are in prison. It's actually a twelve year meditation course that comes every month, and it's incredible. So when I came back, actually, at some point, I started working at the temple of the universe. I was the office manager when the untethered soul came out. And so I was, like, in charge of. And so, yeah, there was a definite uptick in phone calls of people wanting to come. In fact, I actually remember getting the call from Harpo productions, which was, like, when Oprah wanted to interview him. And that, of course, was like, it's interesting. I think it was called, what is that? The Sunday Soul? I can't remember the name, but it was the interview that he did with Oprah. And of course, that was a huge catalyst in terms of spreading the message and his teachings. But the thing is, man, he's always been the same guy. And to tell you an interesting story that really connects with my spirituality is I remember going to him. I remember when I was meditating just in my journey, as I would sit for meditation, I would feel this energy in the back of my body, and I would have emotions and I would have thoughts, but I just would feel this really strong energy, like, in the back of my body. And it was always so comforting. And it felt like the word I like to use is, like, presence or being or whatever. And it felt like the essence. People say the self. It's hard for me to claim what things are. I don't know what they are. But I was having this experience, right?
Tim: That experience has been the light of my life. But I remember going to him early on and being like, I'm having this experience. And he just was like, cool. He's like, good, hang out with it, hang out with it. And I just remember it was like, in passing. We were just like. It was like, after one of the Sot songs, and I was like, hey, he's like, hang out with it. Hang out with it. And anyways, it's just one of the moments I always remember. And it's like, that's my life. Thing is, hang out with it.
Lou: What a great teaching for so many things, right? This is what's going on in my life. I'll just hang out with. Right. Like, even if it's incredibly challenging.
Tim: Totally.
Lou: That's such an essence teaching. I love him. I love Yogananda, too. Yogananda had a big influence on me. And when I found I read Mickey's stuff and being like, oh, wow. That was his teacher, in many ways, is really profound,
Lou: I think, for everyone listening. And I think what attracted me about the work you're doing, and I'm going to share more, and I would love to hear kind of where I'm getting it wrong. But I guess before I ask that, it's clear, I don't know why it wouldn't be clear to some people. I'm sure it wouldn't be clear to some people of why prison work is important, why bringing this is important. It's probably a little bit more obvious, and so obviously speak to that. But I'm curious, why is it important for you, your personal story or journey or narrative? What makes you almost like, this is your gift that you're giving to the world, is really to bring this into prisons. And so maybe just highlight a little bit more about what is pulling you to do this work in prisons.
Tim: I ask this question myself often, too. It just comes up where I'm like, why prison? Why meditation? It's actually a really cool. It's just a cool practice to constantly ask ourselves why we're doing what we're doing. You know what I mean?
Lou: Wait a second.
Tim: Why am I doing, and especially doing something like this? Because I'm just sensitive to, am I causing harm? Am I being helpful? What is this? And so it's like, why am I doing this? Why are we doing this? And I grew up, man, I grew up in the south. I grew up around a lot of racism. I had my own experiences of my family. I have my own experience of know being racist as a young child and learning those things.
Tim: At some point, things started to shift. I did have some cool people around me in my family, but also even just, like, culture, media, music, right? Hip hop was coming up, was on the scene, and different things were really enlightening me to what was going on around me. And of course, people. People that I was meeting, all these people from different backgrounds, right? And started realizing all this shit that I've been hearing and that I still hear and that I see is not reality. It's racism or whatever, right? It's all of these things. And so social justice became a big part of my life. Even before I got into meditation. It was something I cared about. It was stuff I read about. It was things I talked about. It was in school. I majored in sociology. When I found that, I was like, oh, I was trying all these other things. And then when I found sociology, I was like, oh, this is what I think about and talk about on a daily basis
Tim: to separate that piece. So one reason why prison. I mean, on a base level, it's like, these are our people. This is our community. These are fathers and mothers and brothers and sons of our people. Just because we take them and put them off in this place doesn't mean they don't exist like they do exist. And they're here. And we have so much access that we can pop in anytime and do a meditation or pop in, and not everybody does, right? But a lot of people do have this opportunity to be able to tap into this, whereas for them, they don't have that. In fact, they often can't gather. Like I said, they cannot gather unless somebody else comes in. It's not like they can say, hey, can we do a meditation class on Tuesday night just for us? That doesn't exist. Some places it does, but it often doesn't. But for me, too, the reality is
Tim: I do this meditation, this spiritual work and stuff with them, but it's all from an abolitionist mindset and belief, which is. What does that mean to me? It means that this system that is created is harmful, is reinforcing trauma. It is oppressive, and I feel a responsibility to do something about that.
Tim: I feel responsibility to do something about that, to disrupt that in some way. And I think there's lots of different ways. There needs to be care beforehand so people don't end up in these situations. But then the reality is people are being policed, right? Certain people are being policed and other people are not. Certain people cause certain harms, and those harms are considered crimes. And other people do something and it's considered the opposite. Something to be rewarded or whatever, right? So it can't just be about providing people with whatever, because we have to start to think about how we dismantle these systems, right? So how we take care of people beforehand, how we take care of people afterwards, how we get people out, actual out. That's the thing that can be hard for me sometimes. I'm like, we're just sitting here meditating. I think these people need to be getting, they need to get so much more care and support. They need to be able to have a pathway out. They need to be able to be with their family. They need to stop being exploited financially. There's so many crazy fees and things for families to stay in contact with the people. And it's all of it, right? There's all this labor, free labor that they provide for the counties and the cities and corporations. And it's just so twisted. We're sitting there and I'm like, this is not enough. We're just sitting here in this space. And yet at the same time, it's what we got to do, in my opinion. We got to show up in every single way that we can. And the more that we can do that and the more of us that can do that, we can all take different parts in terms of breaking these things down and building something that we can really care for each other.
Lou: Yeah, man, I heard you discuss the, I think you use the term rehabilitation. This might have been on Instagram. And how prisons not doing that or maybe not even supposed to do that. And my very limited understanding of what happens in a prison may be based on reading books like Buddhist on death row or watching 13th amendment, just these very little glimpses into it. And also just my, I've done a lot of work in mindfulness in schools, and so not a prison, but maybe a prison of some sorts of similarities, for sure, of how kids, how treated that are acting out and whatnot. And often I'll just speak from what I know, which is more, in schools, the way they handle kids that act out is a punitive way. Right. That they get in trouble and they're punished and they're shamed and that on a larger scale maybe, is how we treat bad people or people that do something that's wrong and we shame them. And there's a punitive aspect. And our intention with bringing mindfulness work into schools is to create a different avenue that's restorative, right? That actually, yes. Obviously, it can't just be anarchy in schools and everyone can do what they want, but it's handling it not in a way, in a more restorative way. Because having an understanding of trauma and how that impacts kids, having understanding of all these underlayers that are actually at the root cause of it, because like you said, putting them in a thing that's just going to re aggravate their nervous system is not a healing experience, doesn't work for kids. And I'm imagining it definitely doesn't work to throw someone who's experienced a lot of trauma into a box that maybe begets more trauma. So let me know if I'm off on anything that I'm saying or if maybe you can point me in a different direction. And then I'm curious, do you see what is the alternative? I guess, what are the options in your ideal world? Where does this go? And how do we handle situations in a different way?
Tim: So you're not off base at all, man. It's right. What's interesting, too, I always think about this because people often want to say, well, what do we do? Well, what can we do? One thing is, I think we need to take a step back and just also just think, like, do we really think that this is it? We've created the greatest thing ever and we're done.
Tim: This is peak humanity right here. We've created all the greatest systems, and they're all running perfectly, and we should just double down on all of them. No, man, we got to dream about how things can be. And we're not done. We're far from done, right? These systems are just as toxic and just as racist and just as patriarchal and all the things that they have been. You shared something that's interesting. A friend of mine who did some time said, it's like prison exists. It's like when you enter prison, it's like they cut off your finger and then they put it in this box and stab it and step on it and break it. And then when you leave, you pick it up and they put it back on your hand and it's supposed to work. And it's like that's what they do to your soul and your body really in there. And so what are the alternatives. I mean, I'll tell you what really interesting. I like to go back to this point. There are some obviously alternatives and I'm not an expert in restorative justice. There's restorative justice. Restorative justice is really powerful. There's somebody that I have followed. Her name is Marley Liss. She's on instagram. Anybody can check her out. It's like M-A-R-L-E-E-L-I-S-S. But she talks about, you can check out her story herself, but she talks about she was one of the first people, if not one of the first to use restorative justice through with an actual sexual assault case where the person was required to do all of these things and it was done within the justice system but was not done with this punitive measure. And it was extremely powerful. And there's a lot of stories out there like that. And one of the issues though with that is that people aren't all getting paid like they get paid with the prison system. That's another thing I think people don't realize is that the prison system does not really exist as a place to put bad people. I mean it really does function as a money making scheme. It's the number one funded department in Florida. Department of Corrections is the number one funded department in Florida.
Lou: It's insane.
Tim: And not to mention there's so many different corporations know, there's stories recently talking about, know like McDonald's and all these people are using prison labor and stuff, which some of that stuff I didn't even quite realize. Right? People think they're just like making license plates or whatever. It's like, nah, those days have passed. They're actually working for corporations for so. But there are other models, right? But this is what I really want to bring home. It's going to take everyone to imagine it and you can read about it and read about restorative justice and read about transformative justice and read about what they're doing in other countries.
Tim: There are models that exist. But I think what's more important I almost is like the mindset of like, we can't harm somebody into, you cannot harm somebody into care and into love. You can't have somebody hurt somebody and then you take that person away and beat the shit out of them for ten years. That's not real in terms of what helps people. It's also not real what helps survivors of violence. Survivors are speaking out more and more saying, no one's taking care of us. You guys are spending all your time and all your resources to torture this person that did something to me. And I'm left here on the streets trying to pick up my life from this event that happened. So that's another thing is like shifting our perspective to taking care of survivors. And then what's interesting is a lot of the people, perpetrators of violence or harm, were survivors at one point who were discarded, right? Who were not taken care of as kids, who were punished as kids. And I'm always fascinated by that, how this harm can come to a child. And we can sit here and say, oh, that poor kid. But then in four years after that kid has not received any support and love or resources, they do something and now they're evil. They were just that poor kid a little bit ago, and now they're the evil. It's like we have to take a bigger perspective. And also the thing that really comes up for me that I really want us to imagine and dream about and challenge is this idea that certain people and certain things, certain crimes are crimes while other things are dismissed. Like if you steal a radio, you might go to prison.
Tim: If you cut off somebody's health insurance illegally, you're good.
Tim: If somebody steals something from Walmart, they can go to prison. If Walmart steals wage stuff from their employees, they're fine. And so we have to start looking at bigger picture of just like, what is harm? Harm is real. But what we're policing is a very unique set of things. And it's often, and like you said, and I'll just end with this, which is we know what people need, we know what root causes are, we know how poverty impacts things. We know how race impacts things. We know how all these different things, what these root causes are and the support that people need, people know that. But it's a paradigm shift for sure, in terms of like, we're going to care, we're going to have. This phrase came to me somewhere, I don't remember where, but I love it so much. And it's kind of one of the reasons why I started one love, which was an economy of care, like thinking about jobs that are based and work that is based on caring for people, that's not based on consumption and extraction and exploitation and oppression. But what if all of our work was based on caring for each other?
Lou: So profound. The question is this causing harm? Because when we look at it, and this takes a kind of a consciousness shift, like you said, paradigm shift, potentially, of actually the actual spiritual principles of what we do to another we doing to ourselves. So to think of the karmic imprints of that over a long time, of how much harm a humanity has done to other people and how we're in some ways maybe working through that. I don't want to get too esoteric here, but just the essence of it just goes on in so many areas. It goes on, I'm thinking even of my parents and sometimes how one treats the other of like to continue to blame or to punish or to bring negativity into it. Not to say that we don't look at things that are challenging, but what's the cliche? What we resist is just going to persist. So you taking that care, I love that word so much here of how can we bring care to this situation? How can we bring love to it? Because if we really look to a lot of the teachings, love is the great healer. And obviously there's many people, many.
Tim: People.
Lou: Need to find care that are more specific, right? Like if someone has been child molestation at a certain age, obviously we need to find that care. And I definitely don't know what the answers are, but I'm glad you're doing your part, brother, and at least raising the awareness to people in our quote unquote industry or people that want to do this work. Because I want to start this podcast to really have conversations that also challenge me, that also challenge me around. Am I doing this just for me, for my own ego, for look at want to be successful and whatnot? Or am I really doing it for service? And I know that I got into it for service, but it can creep up on you when you start getting some notoriety or you start getting some brand. It's like, oh, look at me. And so I'm constantly getting humbled and trying to check myself here on this show and just to bring this awareness and to really root home, I want hope people that are listening to this are doing it because they care about something and they care about serving something other. Serving yourself is great. Of course we got to make sure we're doing great, but also understanding it coming from something greater. I don't have a really question in that, but just a reflection on what you shared. I'll ask a question. You're welcome to reflect on anything I shared too, but maybe on a more just simple for people that don't have experience in prison. You kind of mentioned a little bit about it with how people are free labor and they're not getting paid and how corporations are exploiting different ways. But I guess if there's anything else of what most people, and maybe most speaking to meditation teachers and wellness people that do this work, what do they not understand about what goes on in prisons?
Tim: You know, it's coming up for me when I think about that, is like, I don't know. We don't understand or we don't want to look. Yeah, because it's hard to imagine that we don't really understand. You know what I mean?
Lou: That's powerful.
Tim: But do we want to look? And it's. It's painful, you know, it's a really painful place, man. You can just, like, imagine. It's like, imagine the worst thing you could imagine, and then it's probably worse than that.
Tim: And I think one of the things maybe that people don't realize, too, is just that how strong the human spirit, I mean, people do realize this, but how strong the human spirit is, it's almost like it overcomes this thing. So it's almost like we think that the thing is not that bad because the human spirit is so strong. But we all know that's not the case. And the reality is many, many people cannot overcome it. The statistics are staggering for people that have served time in prison, like, what it does to life expectancy, to even serve five years, what it does to people, 100%. I saw some studies that said 100% of people come out of prison with ptsd and experiencing symptoms. It's 100%. It's a war zone. It's a war zone in there. And it's.
Tim: Yeah, man. I don't know what people think. That's why I think. I think that we do think of something, but I think we do think that maybe it's not as bad. But I also think in our hearts we probably know that it is. It's one of the many things that's hard to face. Like, the reality of the world that we live in is painful, man. It's beautiful. But at every turn, you see just harm. You see these systems in place that are just doing these things to people, and it's like, fuck, man, what can we do? And so I guess I'll tell you this, though. This is the thing that has come up for me. And it's like people have said to me, I have a lot of privilege. Obviously, I'm white, I'm cisgender, I'm from the south. So I can walk into a prison and they could think I'm a good old boy or whatever. They might not even know the difference or whatever. I don't throw a howdy to them or anything like that, but I walk in, but I say that because people have said to me, too, is like, I can't go there. I can't go into a place like that. And I believe them. And some people, it's not a safe place for them to go and offer what they do based on whoever they are. But a lot of us can. A lot of us can show up in these dark places. That's the thing, too, is you know how this is with meditation and spirituality. At some point, it all becomes the same. At some point, this pain and this love all becomes the same. And it's like, why do I have to, like, why do I have to feel good or only be in pretty places or whatever? Because it's like, that's not even real. It's just an emotion. But sitting with somebody and grieving with somebody and being in this terrible situation for somebody, and again, I'm only one 1,000,000th of it. I get to get in and get out and all that. I'm not saying anything like that. I'm just saying this is the places for us to be. These are the places for us to be as much as possible. My dream is always like, I'm always like, I want, and this is what's happening this year. We'll get into a little bit, but there's been people reach, a lot of people have reached out to me the last couple of years being like, I want to do this where I'm at. And so I'm finally getting it together to like, all right, how can I support people around the country and even around the world to go into prisons or wherever they want to go and bring their talents? It doesn't have to be meditation. It could be music, it could be art, all those things. So I'm definitely going to be putting together some stuff and having some trainings and just getting people on board to do what they want to do? I don't know where I was going. I think I was going somewhere else with that, but I'll just stop.
Lou: I do want to talk about that. I think my question to you of what people don't understand, and your answer is profound, and it highlights something that I've been sitting with personally and how my personality conditioning, who knows what it is, tends to be. But I'm very optimistic and I'm very future forward thinking, and that's great. And I think I'm glad I am. I don't know if I'd rather be the other way, but I think with that, and this has shown up on an ecosystem way recently where I'm like, well, things can get better, right? We can get better, we can fix it, we can improve it, right? But just looking grieving, that's, I think, where I tend to have a resistance, too, like grieving what already has been and what has been lost. And that could mean, again in our world, in our ecosystem, in nature, in just the impact in this case, of actually looking at what's happened from however far back this system started, whether that's slavery to modern day slavery or however this shows up now for me, I don't want to look at it, and I'm sure some peak thing or have a resistance, there's a resistance, or just my nature wants to go to a different direction. And in some ways, as I think of it, that's kind of a spiritual bypass, right? To think that, oh, we can just sing Kumbaya and get better. But actually, to look at the hard things, I think I know for me is something a big part of my own work this year in 2024. So your response just reflected that back to me really well. So thanks for that. Yeah, that was actually going to be a question. So I love that idea of how can you're doing it. Obviously, you're only one person. You're only in one area with this thing. I think virtual is okay, I guess, but I think what can be really healing is someone going in and actually physically being there and taking their time. So to anyone listening to this, that's like, wow, I want to get involved or I want to figure out how to do this. I'm sure you get that question all the time, like you just said. So, yeah, tell me more about how you're thinking about creating that and what that could look like.
Tim: So one of the things that I started last year was I got connected with a bunch of incredible coaches just by different circumstances, life coaches, spiritual coaches, hypnosis coaches, and I sort of just put out a call and was like, who wants to coach people? It has to be online, it has to be like through email because that's the only communication they have. Sometimes they have phones, but that can be trickier to use and there's a whole bunch of issues and stuff with that. But they have these tablets now in prison, so they're able to do that. And what was amazing, though, right, is that that doesn't seem like the best way or whatever to communicate. It'd be awesome to be able to do zooms and everything, but they try to do everything they can to limit communication and limit all of that kind of stuff. So my experience has been is that when that's the only way the love shows through. And so we've been having like 60 coaches now coaching people, and it's been going on for a little over six months. And people are having amazing experiences. They're getting one on one. They're doing credible stuff back and forth via email. So that's one way you get involved is people that have experience with that and want to do something like that and test, like if they're a coach or anything, and they want to reach in and bring some love and support, but also want to even just challenge themselves to do something unique, to disrupt these systems in a unique way that's really powerful. And so that's going on. I'm doing the classes inside. And then the other thing is, yeah, people can reach out to me. The website, onelovemp.org one Love prison meditation project. I'm on Instagram on one love prison meditation. But also, yeah, what's going to happen is basically sometime in the next few months. I'm working with a board member, Onika Mays, who actually taught mindfulness at Rikers island for ten years, the jail in New York City. And she's an incredible meditation and yoga teacher. And she and I are working together to put together a training for people. And it'll be like a Zoom training or whatever, virtual training, just to go over lots of different things and just kind of help prepare people to be able to bring what their gift in to people on the inside. So, yeah, I'm hoping for have something in spring, but definitely just reach out, stay in touch. I'll be talking a lot about it.
Lou: Sign me up for a coach on that. I really love to do that. And I'm sure other people listening, please reach out. And it's such an amazing offering and I'm genuinely excited to explore that. So count me in on that one. And then super exciting that you're creating a training and giving people more structure and how they can go about, let's say there's someone listening that's like, I want to do this now, would you say, I imagine how I would go about it. I would call the prison, say, hey, this is what I do. I'm wanting to bring mindfulness into. Is there any opportunities? Have a conversation? Is that the obvious? Next.
Tim: Yo, that is exactly it. I'm so glad you're bringing this up. I'm so glad that you're bringing this up, because I'm like, yeah, don't wait. Yes, it is. It's straight cold calling if you go to department of corrections or the federal, like a website, typically they have a place in there. Whatever state you're like, they'll have a place in there for volunteers, and you could kind of click on that and see what the protocol is. Sometimes you have to fill out a little online application, but you can start there. You can go to Department of Corrections website for your state, or like I said, the federal Bureau of Prisons, I think it is. But the other thing is exactly that. I mean, that's what I've done, is just cold call a place and say, look, I want to volunteer. This is what, you know, how could I bring this? What could I do? And their stories, I mean, that's the thing. We're talking about me. We're talking about all this stuff. But the people in there are incredible, man.
Tim: When you're facing that type of darkness and surviving in there, man, they're incredible artists and thinkers and philosophers and musicians, and their stories are heartbreaking and incredible.
Tim: Yeah, call up.
Lou: So call up. Sometimes we just need, like, hey, you got to get your little entrepreneurial energy going, right? I'm just got to go make it happen and get the opportunity and whether, obviously volunteering and I want to shift into business and marketing stuff here in a second, but I'd love. You mentioned people's stories. Is there any story of someone that you've worked with? I don't know the confidentiality, background or what you can share, but is there anyone specifically that you've noticed or their growth or just someone just speaking about their stories and their gifts, maybe on this podcast? Anyone come to mind?
Tim: That's the thing. Yeah, tons of people.
Tim: What could I say? And that's the thing. I don't really consider myself a teacher. We're in there together. We're peers. We're meditating together. I mean, these are incredible meditators, incredible people. We're just all doing this thing together. I mean, I guess I want to say that, too. I talked about, this is not rehabilitation. This is not like me going in here helping these bad people or whatever. All that kind of mindset is BS, in my opinion. It's like showing up in solidarity with fellow seekers and creating a space where people can dive into themselves and share. And so that's what we're doing. But, man, I mean, I'm trying to think of who to share about. There's so many, um.
Tim: Oh, you know,
Tim: I'm gonna think about. I'm thinking about one of my dear, like, one of these dear people. His. His name is Eduardo. And he was incarcerated for a really long time, like 20 years. And he got transferred before he was released, and I didn't really know where he ended up, and I kind of lost touch with him. He came to our class for like, ten years. It was amazing. He would come and bring a flower and candy every time to our gathering, and he would put the flower up on this little altar, and he would put the candy up there so that everybody could take a piece when they left. It was like Prasad, like a gift at the end of our program and our gathering. But he was released, and I kind of lost touch with him. And then somehow I can't remember how, but he wrote this organization or something that got in touch with me, and he was living in a homeless shelter in Tallahassee, Florida. And I reconnected with him. I called him and went and saw him. And, man, I mean, he had nobody. Nothing, no family, no money, no anything, was just put out on the street. And he was getting up every morning at six in the morning and biking to the park to do sun salutations and to do meditation and to chant. In fact, one time his pose officer showed up and he was gone. And he wasn't supposed to leave before 06:00 a.m. But he was at the park doing yoga, meditation, like when the sun rose. So he's like, you can do that. You just can't leave here before 06:00 or whatever, just ridiculous stuff like that. And he has gone through so many trials and tribulations, and still to this day is such a challenge, man. But he's so full of love, man. He's so full of love and full of shakti and just, like, his dedication to the path and to the spiritual teachings and being of service, he's always just, like, when he was even staying at the shelter, he would get up early and go around and clean everything up. Like, clean everything and pick everything up and go outside and pick up trash and do all this stuff. People were kind of messing with him and stuff, too. Like, you're making us look bad or whatever because you're, like, doing all this amazing stuff. But he's incredible, man. He's incredible. But it's a challenge. It's a challenge for him. But he does it like, man, with just unbelievable spirit.
Lou: Beautiful, man. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. On a programming, I guess question, because it's, I think, helpful to just tactical. Like, you're going in 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour. Do you do a talk? Do you open up conversation? Are you sitting in a circle or are you in front of a group? Do you meditate for 10, 20, 30 minutes? It could be all of the above, maybe at different times. But I'm just curious if someone's like, okay, I'm going to call. I found the number is ideas, obviously, everyone, this is your art. I would say if you're having questions, you bring it. That's your art of how you structure your class. But for you, just. What's like a typical lab look like?
Tim: I love that question, man. It's like, spoken like somebody who's done some classes or something. You know what I mean? But I love it because the nuts and bolts are interesting. So typically we have 2 hours. One of the things that goes on in prison, you'll recognize this if you go or if you've done it. It's like we're meaningless to them. Volunteers, whatever. Just meaning they run on their clock, they run on their time, and they're not holding up stuff for class. When I say that, I mean they have count, usually have count, like every two to 3 hours sometimes, where they have to count the whole prison. And so there's these little windows of time where there's movement, where they go to class, go to this, go to whatever. And so that's typically I was done. And again, every place is different, but like a two hour block. And so most of ours are like a two hour window, but then people can come in late. It can be kind of like. It's wild because you have no control, really, of how it's going to go down. But at some point, we're all in this room, and most of the time, there's never any. Pretty much all the time. I think I have a couple of times there's been situations where a guard is like, sat in for some reason. I don't even really know why that happened. But most of the time there's no guards. But we're just there.
Tim: Yeah, man. We do different stuff. Like, as you talked about, Mickey Singer, many times I've done his course, living from a path of surrender, which was that nine hour dvd or whatever video course. Yes. So I have used that multiple times. So we've watched that for like 45 minutes, then meditate, then talk about it. Super awesome. So we've done multiple groups that have gone through that. So again, we might watch that for 45, talk about it for 20 or 30 or whatever, and then meditate for 20 or 30. But oftentimes I might do a beginning little, always do sort of a little centering, like coming into the room for, like, five minutes. Little relaxation. I'll talk. Sometimes I'll open it up to questions or comments or shares, and people will just start talking about some stuff that's going on with them. Sometimes it can be really informal. We might even just get started on some joke or whatever. But then we'll come back and we'll meditate. Usually we meditate for 20 minutes. Is sort of like, usually around. I feel like we all kind of get a little bit more antsy, maybe like getting up to 40, but we have done that sometimes. But, yeah, that's pretty much it.
Lou: So great. Just thought something sparked in my mind of like, oh, actually, sometimes you have to think, like, you have to prepare a big talk or have all these ideas, and it's like actually thinking of anyone here, like, creating a class. You can actually just someone who's much more involved than I am. Let's listen to what they have to say for 30 minutes, and then let's have a conversation about it. What a beautiful idea for anyone in any class to do a little. Let's watch this together and bring your own piece to it. I love that.
Tim: Totally. And I actually love bringing some teachers that I love or teachers that I think they might dig and some people I don't even know, but I've just been like, I heard good things about this. Let's try it out. And just a guided meditation from somebody else. And it's actually always incredible. People always have, really. You just get having these awesome other, like, share their love. So we do that, too. You know, Vinny Ferrero, I have heard of his name. Is he, like, in Francisco?
Lou: Yeah, I know he does some work in prisons, and I did a silent retreat with him. He's just unbelievable. He's funny. He's great. He's great. He's come up on this podcast before when I've asked people. So, interestingly enough, the way we had this conversation is I actually saw you make a comment on an Instagram post from someone I follow. It seems like maybe you have more of a connection with her, but Simone Soul and I saw what you're doing. It was like a post on podcasts connecting with each other. And I saw you were doing. I'm like, oh, man. I immediately reached out to you. So I'm excited that you just said yes, and we're here. So I'm curious, marketing wise, what you've learned to market what you're doing, if you can call it that, or to grow it in any way. I know you made it a nonprofit. So anything. Maybe I'm going to ask, like, ten questions at once, like I sometimes do or anything. For someone that wants to start a nonprofit, what's that process been like? What's your advice? So marketing business, kind of just giving a splatter of wherever you want to take it?
Tim: Yeah. Well, it's interesting. When I decided to sort of like that, I really wanted to just, this is all I wanted to do. It was definitely a heart moment. It was like life had changed drastically for me in a lot of ways. And it was just this moment of, like, what I've been doing is fine, but what do I really want to offer? What do I really want to do? And I knew it was this, but I tried to kind of resisted it because I was like, how am I going to do it? How am I going to do it and try to make a living or whatever doing it? And I remember going to this class. I was in Atlanta at the time, living in Atlanta, and I remember going to this class they had about how to start a nonprofit. And I remember going and being a part of this whole class and then walking out and being like, well, that's never going to happen. That seems way too fucking difficult, or whatever. I was like, okay, what's next? What can, you know, what else cool thing could I do or what company could I work for or whatever? But I couldn't give it up. I couldn't give up this gnawing feeling like that this is what I wanted to do. And it wasn't so much that I wanted to start a nonprofit. I was just like, how do I go and support them as much as possible and get resourced in order to do that? And it was inevitable that I guess I have to do it in this way, although I think there's probably other ways. But this was the way I chose. Well, one thing I want to say that was amazing for people is I did have some money saved, but I paid, I think it was like, $1,000 to a company that helps people start up nonprofits. They helped me with all the paperwork. They did all the filings. And I remember when I heard about that, I was like, I will pay them, whatever, because I think that's, like, a real hard part and a real stumbling block for people. It's like all those different things, and not everybody, but I just was like, so that was a game changer for me. I was like, okay, you do that. I'll do this other part now then. Okay, cool. I got nonprofit, but I just started, like, who's going to give me any donors?
Tim: Moms.
Tim: Exactly. And so that has been obviously just an incredible journey. But there was this feeling, and I have worked a different. I still work another job or whatever because I'm not able to. Like, even though this is full time, does it pay full time for me yet or whatever. But
Tim: I guess the thing is, when you start a nonprofit, you have to pick a board. You have to choose a board of directors. And I think a common thing that people do is choose people they know. And I think that's cool. It's good to do that. People, you know, you can work with in the beginning, but also at some point, you really have to kind of develop a working board, a board that's invested, a board that really wants to put in the effort to help. We're in the process of that. I've added more people over time. I think we're in the process of adding some more people. I'm just going to put that out there, too. If anybody has experience with that, reach out to me. We'll probably do some sort of applications or some sort of thing to review with people. So that's an aspect of nonprofit. And the board sort of decides things, like, decides your salary, decides how to pay, is going to know, makes sort of decisions in conjunction or whatever, but they sort of, man, you know, I. I think I've really taken the stance of, like, I have a lot to learn when it comes to marketing. That's how I found Simone. Right. Simone was this a marketing coach or whatever, but I loved everything that I was reading from her. And one of the things that I loved was just being authentic, not trying to put on this, like, oh, now, here's my fancy post, here's my graphics, here's my whatever. But be genuine and be real and be authentic and work on the rest. I feel like I'm in a phase now where I'm like, all right, I could clean up some things. I could make some things look a little prettier. But I've just been trying to just share their stories, like, amplify their stories, amplify what's going on, just keep showing up and doing the work, do what I got to do to be able to do that,
Tim: and then recognize, like, I think now it's been five years, and we got a grant in, a $20,000 grant from a buddhist organization in 2022, which was really incredible, that was able to parlay into a couple of other big donors, like, jumping in, I think the most we've ever received in a year is like 58,000. And then last year we were around 26,000 in donations. But I guess what I want to say about that, what's been really powerful for me, I think, has been like, we're here. We've been here. We've done over 370 classes in prisons now we've got 60 plus coaches and more coming on board. And this past year has just been in a recognition of, like, okay, we're here. This isn't starting. I'm not asking somebody to help start this thing. We've been here and we're doing this incredible stuff. And what I want to know is I just want to amplify that impact. When I started this, my vision was, I know I'm only one person, but if I do this, other people will see this and other people will say, I want to do that, or I want to do what I want to do. I want to play that part in creating this economy of care, to create these jobs of care.
Tim: Yeah, man. So I don't know. I'm still learning the marketing side, but this year has been cool. I got a volunteer that's helping me a lot. We've been strategizing on some certain things that's been really helpful. And I just applied for another grant last week, and so I don't know, I just feel a certain level of, like. I mean, really. I say it's confidence, honestly, but it's what it is. It's just like I'm seeing how much this matters to them. They want us there. We want to be here. I think when you start something like this, I know I'm going on and on, man, but when you start something like this, I think it's so easy to make it personal. Like, I'm doing this, and what if I'm not good enough or what if this is not? But all of these visions that we have, they seem like they're personal. And we can almost think that they're ego driven, but deep down they're not. They just are coming through us.
Lou: It's like our unique ego is the one that can fulfill it in a way, right? It's a yes end, right? So we don't demonize the ego. It's like, actually it's coming from another place. But our unique imprint, our unique array can do it. This thing maybe different than another person can do it. And I know we're coming at our time here, and I want to be respectful of your time, but I'm just curious because it sounds like fundraising, right? I'm assuming you're the number one fundraiser, you're the head of the fundraiser. But my mind goes to, like, how do you grow that fundraising? So I'm imagining there's donors out there and it's just like moving this money to here. And so it's like, do you do. I can see it in. I donated once by seeing a talk in San Diego. I donated to this organization called Reality Changers, and it helps kind of urban youth do what they need to go to, like, the essence of what their program is doing. But I remember donating it because I saw him do a talk. Right. So it's like, are you developing maybe that. I don't call it a keynote, but it's almost like the pitch story speech that you can get on stages and open up to that. Or my other question my business mind goes to is like, can you hire a fundraiser that has some percentage of commissions? I don't know what the logistics are with nonprofits where their job is full time fundraising while you're in schools and developing that. So I don't know. Not to make this like a coaching session, but I love talking about this stuff.
Tim: I do, too. And this is what I'm super into these days. And I've had a couple of people come on board, like, one person recently that was like, look, man, I've been watching this. I love this. I want to support, and I'll do some pro bono stuff. I want to be an ambassador or whatever. And they're like, I want to talk to some people and try to get you connected to some people to share what you're doing. So more people like that, I often think about that because I'm doing it, but there's only so many people I know, and there's only so many people I meet. But it's been incredible. I've gotten more and more people contributing. People have done fundraisers for us, like, random people I don't even realize or following us have done Facebook fundraisers for us. And I often think there's so many people that have contributed. I'm like, if each one of those people did a $200 fundraiser for us, that would be a game changer. You know what I mean? So I think people just recognizing the power that a lot of people have. But you're on point, man. I mean, this is going to be an interesting year in terms of a talk, a keynote. Like, some of that stuff's been around, been tossed around of trying to do something like that to get this message out there more. Yeah, man, we should have some more conversations about that.
Lou: If you're always down for that, it's super fun for me. There was one thing I wanted to say about that, but it lost my track and maybe it'll come back, but do you have time for one more question?
Tim: Yeah.
Lou: So this is the question, actually, I was like, maybe I just don't ask it because we're at time, because it's the question I don't want to ask because I feel uncomfortable asking it. But I think it's important for people listening. My intention this year was to lean in and look at the things I don't want to look at or I don't look at or I push to the side. So you are very vocal on Instagram around Gaza and everything that's happening in the Middle east. And I know for me personally, I've tended to shy away from anything political or cultural. And I have a part of me that judges that. And then I have a part of me that's like, well, it's really genuinely, it doesn't feel authentic to me to speak on it. It just feels like I'd be placating to trying to look good in front of other people and that's not a good intention to speak out of it. But then there's like, well, even if you're doing it for that, for the good reasons, it's still beneficial to say something. And so there's this kind of comfort privilege in me that I don't. And then I'm on Instagram and there's people roasting spiritual teachers that aren't talking about things. So there's this whole kind of menage podge happening to anyone else who I'm sure I'm not the only person that has maybe these thoughts or these kind of internal experiences on the back end that doesn't share about it. I'd love to hear from someone who is, know what you might say to someone like me or another coach or meditation teacher that might be not sure how to approach not only this situation, but things that come up around things that have happened in the past, maybe like a George Floyd or these kind of social justice revolution type of moments. So I'm saying a lot, but I think you can. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. I know it's probably a very long last question to ask.
Tim: First of all, I appreciate you asking that and I appreciate you sharing sort of your honest perspective and sort of like where you're at with that. And
Tim: it's interesting to put on my coaching hat or whatever. Not that I'm a coach, but like, when I hear you say that, what, what you said about, you know, I. I don't really know exactly what I want to say. I don't want to say anything. That's like, I almost am, like, say that, which is. I don't know what to say, but I know when something's not right and this isn't right or this is not what I want to see in the world. This is not the world that I want for myself and for people and for them. But I think it's cool to add the caveat that maybe I don't know exactly where this is coming from. Just what you said, that authenticity of what you said, saying that. And so I think that that's really real and I think that's really powerful because there's so many people that feel that exact same way, which are. I don't want to say anything, just to say something, but then at the same time, we need to say something. And it reminds me I'm going to actually go back. It reminds me of when I remember this as, like, I remember wanting to buy a Black Lives Matter shirt. And this was actually after Trayvon Martin. So this was like, I don't know when this was, but I can't remember exactly what year that was, but that was for people who remember that case. That was the young african eleven or something. Yes. It was a long time ago. And it was when the Black Lives Matter movement sort of started, sort of after that. It was well before, like George Floyd. But I remember wanting to buy a shirt, and I remember having this thought that was like, I can't buy this shirt because black people are going to think this is stupid, that I'm wearing this shirt. They're going to think that I shouldn't wear this shirt, whatever. And then I sat with that thought for a while and I was like, where is that coming from? And I'm like, that's not coming from them. That's coming from white supremacy. That's coming from something that says you should not be an ally to that. They're going to ridicule you. They're going to make fun of you. You got to stick with our team. You can't represent that. That wasn't coming from them. That was coming from what I learned growing up, that you can't ally with those people. You can't be an ally. You can't be an accomplice for justice because that's a betrayal. And I remember thinking about how uncomfortable I was when I first bought that shirt, and of course what happened, I wore the shirt and all I got was tons of people coming up to me, including tons of black people coming up to me going, thank you for wearing that shirt. Like, I love your shirt. Thank you for wearing that. I remember this old man with a cane came up to me and was like, thank you so much for wearing that shirt.
Tim: I say that because I think a similar thing is happening where people know what's on their heart, but they're like, there's this discomfort because it has nothing to do with the jewish people are so incredible and they've been fighting for liberation for people, including themselves, for so long. And there's everything, so many things I learned about social justice, I learned from jewish people. What Israel is doing to Gaza has nothing to do with Judaism, has nothing to do with the, you know, it is imperialism, it is backed by the United States and the United States military. It is, hilariously enough, I talked to a lot of my jewish people who have been fighting for peace for a long time for Palestine, and they're than, there's nothing more anti semitic than supporting what Israel is doing to the people of Palestine, which I think is a powerful statement on their part. They're like, we're being used. We're being used by these imperial powers.
Tim: Again, it goes back to the same the people of Palestine have been living in. It's like what you like. If you could imagine, again, the worst thing you could possibly imagine, it's been worse than that for 75 plus years, right? So you could say what you will about all these different aspects of it, but the reality is you cannot harm people into love and into community. And I think we all have to be able to say that out loud in our own way, in our own time. But it's important.
Lou: Thanks for sharing all that, brother. And this, I think, goes as probably one of the most important interviews I think I've had. And I'm just so excited to share your work and your wisdom. And I think if I had to sum up everything that's been shared is like, you can't harm people into love. And so sitting with that care, and also the care might also be getting uncomfortable, like doing things that are uncomfortable, looking at things that are uncomfortable. That's something that I'm going to be definitely sitting with. And so I'll put a call out to anyone listening to take Tim up on the offer of coaching, of working with someone via email and any ways else that you can get involved. Donate. Please donate some of your funds to the work as Tim is doing. Tim, if you want to share your socials and website and stuff and anywhere, anything else you want to ask of the audience, feel free.
Tim: I will say, know we're in men's prisons, women's prisons, although both of those prisons contain trans folks and non binary folks in both of those places. So I want to just put that out there for coaching, too. If anybody particularly wants to coach somebody, that's available for anyone. And so, yeah, you can find me mostly on Instagram is where I'm most active. Is one love prison meditation also. I'm also on Facebook as well. And then our website, onelovepmp.org. And yeah, just like, come say hello and get involved. But also, I'd love to just connect with people. And Lou, I was really looking forward to this. It's a rare person to reach out like you did and to see something, to see what we're doing.
Tim: It's just rare, I think, for someone to see that and to acknowledge it and to reach out to me in such an amazing spirit that you did. And we're like, I really want to talk to you. I really want us to connect about this. And so I just want you to know it means a lot and it means a lot to the people inside. I bring this to them. But everybody comes with me, and you all come with me. Your care, your love comes with me. It's why we're able to do it. And so thank you so much for your spirit and your love and sharing this time.
Lou: Thanks, brother. It's been a joy. And to everyone else, we'll see you on the next episode. Take care.
Tim: Bye.