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Let Your Light Shine: How Mindfulness Can Empower Children and Rebuild Communities
This story of three men's work helping traumatized kids in one of America’s most underserved cities reveals how mindfulness tools can help children and communities not only survive but thrive
In this inspiring book, founders of The Holistic Life Foundation Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez describe how they have spent the past twenty years teaching yoga, meditation, and breathwork to thousands of at-risk kids in Baltimore schools helping them to develop deep reserves of patience, empathy, resolve, and—when needed—the righteous anger that fuels deep structural change. Their work has received wide national attention due to their remarkable The schools that have participated in their programs have seen suspension rates plummet and graduation rates go through the roof.
Ali and Atman discovered as young children the power of mindfulness practices to sustain them through the challenges of growing up in a neighborhood in Baltimore that was struggling with poverty and violence—a community they now serve. The Holistic Life Foundation’s mission is to empower kids to find this same stillness and light within themselves and to let it shine out to help change the world. In this book, Ali, Atman and Andres share hands-on mindfulness and meditation tools readers can teach kids that will empower them to do this same work in their own communities. Let Your Light Shine is essential reading for parents, educators, activists, and anyone looking to make a difference in the lives of young people.
In this inspiring book, founders of The Holistic Life Foundation Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez describe how they have spent the past twenty years teaching yoga, meditation, and breathwork to thousands of at-risk kids in Baltimore schools helping them to develop deep reserves of patience, empathy, resolve, and—when needed—the righteous anger that fuels deep structural change. Their work has received wide national attention due to their remarkable The schools that have participated in their programs have seen suspension rates plummet and graduation rates go through the roof.
Ali and Atman discovered as young children the power of mindfulness practices to sustain them through the challenges of growing up in a neighborhood in Baltimore that was struggling with poverty and violence—a community they now serve. The Holistic Life Foundation’s mission is to empower kids to find this same stillness and light within themselves and to let it shine out to help change the world. In this book, Ali, Atman and Andres share hands-on mindfulness and meditation tools readers can teach kids that will empower them to do this same work in their own communities. Let Your Light Shine is essential reading for parents, educators, activists, and anyone looking to make a difference in the lives of young people.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published October 18, 2022
28 people are currently reading
360 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 22, 2023
A very enlightening and perspective-shifting book. I learned about yoga and mindfulness and how those practices can help kids (and adults too) work through their trauma. And also how I can work through my own trauma and ~little~ daily stressors. They give you specific practices to do, which I will be doing! Also harrowing and eye opening to read about the experiences of youth in inner-city Baltimore. I’m continuously trying to be empathetic to all people’s lived experiences as much as I can and this book helped me out with that. I recommend for educators, anyone who works with youth, or anyone who wants to be an ally and see what the real-life struggles are for Black children and their communities.
This quote from the book: “Enough tiny points of light, added together, can illuminate the world.” YESSIR. Hoping to take what I read from this book and be a tiny point of light in the world.
This quote from the book: “Enough tiny points of light, added together, can illuminate the world.” YESSIR. Hoping to take what I read from this book and be a tiny point of light in the world.
January 1, 2024
We call our philosophy and program Involution. Involution was another Smit and Uncle Will–ism. Uncle Will defined it as: “To change the outside world you have to go within and change yourself first.” The way he saw it, our real gurus were inside of us. The real learning is in going deeper and deeper into yourself and, if you’re very lucky, breaking through to experience the expansive, unending, infinite self within each of us. This is a profound concept for someone who’s lived within the spiritual community or explored different practices over the years. Now imagine being eight or nine years old, from the worst part of Baltimore, and your life is on the edge of falling apart. It’s not surprising we get some blank looks on the first day of class.
And it’s not just the oppressed who are traumatized. Everyone out there resisting change, retreating in fear to some old vision of “how things used to be,” well, they’re traumatized too. It’s a different kind of trauma, because it’s the trauma that comes from knowing you benefited from the evil actions of your ancestors. It’s the trauma that comes from holding on tightly to the past, because you can’t face the accountability of the present. It’s the trauma of finding any way—no matter how convoluted—to justify unjustifiable belief systems. They’re the people waving guns at peaceful protestors or pouring water on a child’s chalk drawings celebrating the Black Lives Matter movement, all the while spreading rumors and innuendo about people doing the actual hard work of social justice.
To start the year off with this book is stunning, either none will compare or the year will be a bonanza of great books. I loved everything about this book; it is a compelling story, it is lyrically written, it is real and genuine, and it teaches us so we can bring it forward in any little way there is possible. There is so much to be cynical about in the world these teachers/mentors inhabit in Baltimore, but they transform as much as they can and help and save lives. I am blown away and I hope it can be replicated, I have a lot of traumatized teens and young adults in my practice, and I am going to find a way to share a lot of what they teach. Just amazing.
Research has shown that most people in Baltimore have three or more ACEs. Eventually these repeated ACEs affect the brain, shrinking the hippocampus (where we process our emotions, consolidate short-term memories into long-term memories, and manage stress). As a result, the brain doesn’t develop fully, and the child, already running on fumes from the daily stress of his or her life, is now struggling with self-regulation, fear processing, decision-making, and stress management.
Uncle Will always told us that you have to “wipe the dust off, and let your inner light shine out.” On an individual level this is easy to understand: If you’ve ever had a deep meditation, you’ve experienced that sensation of clarity, calm, acceptance. But it has bigger implications too: We interpret this as a light that has the potential to sweep across the world, like a lighthouse illuminating a rough sea. This light is less about us swooping in and doing the work than it is about highlighting the talent and energy and potential already in these local communities. We share our knowledge, and support—but once these groups are up and running, they need us less and less.
Uncle Will was a peaceful person, and a joyful person. He was a powerful person. He believed that life is a tsunami of love and that it was all our jobs to spread it to as many people as possible. He was a man who loved life in all its elevated and otherwise ways. Hell, he even used to tell us that he loved George W. and, later, Trump. When we asked why the hell he was wasting his love on them he told us, “They need it more than most.”
Not only was yoga a way to heal your body and your mind outside of the mainstream medical tradition (a tradition that then as now wasn’t super worried about the health and well-being of Black bodies to begin with), it was a path to spiritual liberation, and maybe, one day, social liberation too.
The three of us started to refine our program as we worked with Ra’Mon and the Tays. We knew that our program would have three foundations. One was love, and we had plenty of that. The kids in our neighborhood were starved for love and attention. They were the kids and grandkids of the generation of “hungry kids’’ that Cassie and Smit had tried to help. Their parents and grandparents had been under-loved and under-cared for. Now their kids were doubly feeling the pain. They needed to be seen, heard, and recognized. To this day, love is the foundation of everything we do, and it’s the core reason why anything we do works. The day the love slips is the day that our system will stop working.
The other essential elements would be things that we knew worked firsthand. By this time, we’d all been regular yoga and meditation practitioners for years. At the same time, we knew the kids we were working with were going to be confused at best or openly resistant at worst to these more esoteric concepts. And finally, the environment, both in terms of caring for it and experiencing it—first with small park cleanups and veggie gardens, and later with hiking and camping trips.
And it’s not just the oppressed who are traumatized. Everyone out there resisting change, retreating in fear to some old vision of “how things used to be,” well, they’re traumatized too. It’s a different kind of trauma, because it’s the trauma that comes from knowing you benefited from the evil actions of your ancestors. It’s the trauma that comes from holding on tightly to the past, because you can’t face the accountability of the present. It’s the trauma of finding any way—no matter how convoluted—to justify unjustifiable belief systems. They’re the people waving guns at peaceful protestors or pouring water on a child’s chalk drawings celebrating the Black Lives Matter movement, all the while spreading rumors and innuendo about people doing the actual hard work of social justice.
To start the year off with this book is stunning, either none will compare or the year will be a bonanza of great books. I loved everything about this book; it is a compelling story, it is lyrically written, it is real and genuine, and it teaches us so we can bring it forward in any little way there is possible. There is so much to be cynical about in the world these teachers/mentors inhabit in Baltimore, but they transform as much as they can and help and save lives. I am blown away and I hope it can be replicated, I have a lot of traumatized teens and young adults in my practice, and I am going to find a way to share a lot of what they teach. Just amazing.
Research has shown that most people in Baltimore have three or more ACEs. Eventually these repeated ACEs affect the brain, shrinking the hippocampus (where we process our emotions, consolidate short-term memories into long-term memories, and manage stress). As a result, the brain doesn’t develop fully, and the child, already running on fumes from the daily stress of his or her life, is now struggling with self-regulation, fear processing, decision-making, and stress management.
Uncle Will always told us that you have to “wipe the dust off, and let your inner light shine out.” On an individual level this is easy to understand: If you’ve ever had a deep meditation, you’ve experienced that sensation of clarity, calm, acceptance. But it has bigger implications too: We interpret this as a light that has the potential to sweep across the world, like a lighthouse illuminating a rough sea. This light is less about us swooping in and doing the work than it is about highlighting the talent and energy and potential already in these local communities. We share our knowledge, and support—but once these groups are up and running, they need us less and less.
Uncle Will was a peaceful person, and a joyful person. He was a powerful person. He believed that life is a tsunami of love and that it was all our jobs to spread it to as many people as possible. He was a man who loved life in all its elevated and otherwise ways. Hell, he even used to tell us that he loved George W. and, later, Trump. When we asked why the hell he was wasting his love on them he told us, “They need it more than most.”
Not only was yoga a way to heal your body and your mind outside of the mainstream medical tradition (a tradition that then as now wasn’t super worried about the health and well-being of Black bodies to begin with), it was a path to spiritual liberation, and maybe, one day, social liberation too.
The three of us started to refine our program as we worked with Ra’Mon and the Tays. We knew that our program would have three foundations. One was love, and we had plenty of that. The kids in our neighborhood were starved for love and attention. They were the kids and grandkids of the generation of “hungry kids’’ that Cassie and Smit had tried to help. Their parents and grandparents had been under-loved and under-cared for. Now their kids were doubly feeling the pain. They needed to be seen, heard, and recognized. To this day, love is the foundation of everything we do, and it’s the core reason why anything we do works. The day the love slips is the day that our system will stop working.
The other essential elements would be things that we knew worked firsthand. By this time, we’d all been regular yoga and meditation practitioners for years. At the same time, we knew the kids we were working with were going to be confused at best or openly resistant at worst to these more esoteric concepts. And finally, the environment, both in terms of caring for it and experiencing it—first with small park cleanups and veggie gardens, and later with hiking and camping trips.
August 29, 2023
This book is so inspiring! Let Your Light Shine is about brothers Ali Smith, Atman Smith and friend Andres Gonzalez who started a program in Baltimore called the Holistic Life Foundation. Woven among the pages are details from their lives, stories of students they’ve taught, and how yoga/meditation can benefit kids and how to teach it to them.
I love the authors’ view of the intersection of systemic issues and individual actions: “We believe that helping [our students] develop a yogic sensibility, and foster feelings of self-love and self-respect, is a powerful political act…meditation, breathwork, and yoga can help keep young Black and minority men and women safe in interactions with authorities. Yoga is a radical force both of peace and equanimity and righteous, justified anger. Meditation can cure many things, but it can't cure systemic racism and structural inequality. It can, however, give practitioners the inner resources to fight back against forces that would hold them down.”
“Something is missing in Black communities these days. It's partly resources, partly hope. There's an excess of trauma, felt by multiple generations living in fear for their lives, knowing that even a nine-minute video of your murder will be denied and disputed by anxious White people in suburbs across the country. We don't have all the answers, but we think we have some. It starts with finding some kind of inner peace among the chaos. It continues with the fight to reclaim our culture and resurrect our pride in it. And it concludes with a radical decolonization of our minds.”
“Yoga is a practice and process for developing a deeper contemplative state. In one moment the clouded screens that block the true nature of existence seem to shift, opening up a clear and unimpeded view of something bigger than you could have ever imagined. You open your eyes and the world is still the same. Your living room wall at the end of your yoga mat, the crack in the paint, the slightly askew painting hanging on the wall, remain as they were. Yet you are different in a way that can never be undone. You can observe those external aspects of your life with equanimity. They are not you.”
I love the authors’ view of the intersection of systemic issues and individual actions: “We believe that helping [our students] develop a yogic sensibility, and foster feelings of self-love and self-respect, is a powerful political act…meditation, breathwork, and yoga can help keep young Black and minority men and women safe in interactions with authorities. Yoga is a radical force both of peace and equanimity and righteous, justified anger. Meditation can cure many things, but it can't cure systemic racism and structural inequality. It can, however, give practitioners the inner resources to fight back against forces that would hold them down.”
“Something is missing in Black communities these days. It's partly resources, partly hope. There's an excess of trauma, felt by multiple generations living in fear for their lives, knowing that even a nine-minute video of your murder will be denied and disputed by anxious White people in suburbs across the country. We don't have all the answers, but we think we have some. It starts with finding some kind of inner peace among the chaos. It continues with the fight to reclaim our culture and resurrect our pride in it. And it concludes with a radical decolonization of our minds.”
“Yoga is a practice and process for developing a deeper contemplative state. In one moment the clouded screens that block the true nature of existence seem to shift, opening up a clear and unimpeded view of something bigger than you could have ever imagined. You open your eyes and the world is still the same. Your living room wall at the end of your yoga mat, the crack in the paint, the slightly askew painting hanging on the wall, remain as they were. Yet you are different in a way that can never be undone. You can observe those external aspects of your life with equanimity. They are not you.”
December 7, 2022
I heard the authors on Dan Harris' podcast, and I love, love, love them. They are the best humans. They grew up in the "hood" in Baltimore, but their parents were vegan hippies. They learned to meditate and practice yoga from non-traditional spiritual leaders, and after finishing college, they went back to the hood to help kids from the street, whom everyone else has given up on, through meditation and yoga. Their program is super successful and inspiring... But I don't know who this book is for. It's kind of a guide to how to teach meditation and yoga to troubled kids. But it's also kind of historical and autobiographical. But it's only kind of any of those things, and eventually I just put it down. I wasn't the right audience for it, but I also don't know who would be the right audience. But I do just love the authors!
June 24, 2023
4/10
Teach kids to meditate, its good for them and helps them to take control of and moderate emotions. Kids often have very little agency in life, so this can be incredibly empowering. That's pretty much the whole book interspersed with stories. I don't know, I think this was just a miss for me as it was missing any real evidence. I agree with the authors, I just thought the exposition and justification were weak.
Teach kids to meditate, its good for them and helps them to take control of and moderate emotions. Kids often have very little agency in life, so this can be incredibly empowering. That's pretty much the whole book interspersed with stories. I don't know, I think this was just a miss for me as it was missing any real evidence. I agree with the authors, I just thought the exposition and justification were weak.
January 9, 2023
Great message - the book itself did not flow particularly well, but it was enough to inspire me to begin a yoga practice. These guys deserve to be celebrated. They are making a difference in the lives of underserved and at-risk children and adults.
It's worth a read! And listen to Dan Harris' podcast featuring these guys on his Ten Percent Happier platform. Totally inspirational.
It's worth a read! And listen to Dan Harris' podcast featuring these guys on his Ten Percent Happier platform. Totally inspirational.
January 25, 2023
I went into this book because I heard the guys on the Ten Percent Happier app. I thought it was going to be some instruction on getting kids involved in yoga and mindfulness which it was. But there’s so much more to this book than that. The deep dive into culture, racial, and economic divides were eye opening. Such a great book.
January 11, 2025
The authors combine personal stories of growing up in Baltimore City with practical mindfulness techniques, highlighting the profound impact of self-awareness and inner peace. Their methods have significantly improved participating schools, leading to lower suspension rates and higher graduation rates.
February 14, 2023
Really good information for teaching young people yoga, meditation, breathwork. Also a great story of the three men who brought these practices to the baltimore public schools. I followed them on instagram and would love to get training directly from them.
March 16, 2024
I want to revisit this book again. Allow the learnings to settle and then come back - not just the philosophical and spiritual lessons here but all I discovered of their community. Inspiring and eye opening.
January 23, 2024
important work
An important read - thank you to HLN for all you are doing. Your teaching would benefit all school curricula. Coming from a family of educators - thank you
An important read - thank you to HLN for all you are doing. Your teaching would benefit all school curricula. Coming from a family of educators - thank you
March 26, 2024
Deeply moving, honest, real. A powerful work and one of the most meaningful books about yoga and mindfulness that I’ve ever read.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews