Sonia Brown-Diaz On Trauma-Informed Mindfulness Programs For Marginalised People

Sonia Brown-Diaz founded Yoga on the Inside in 2018. Her heart-felt need to make yoga and mindfulness practices ACCESSIBLE to EVERYONE grew from her lived experience dealing with a diagnosis and symptoms of PTSD.

The stillbirth of her twin sons in 2003 began the path which led to her founding this yoga practice of more than 17 years. This is what fuels this ‘heart-work’ and ‘karma-yoga’ (yoga of service) for Sonia. Since 2018, trauma-informed and embodied mindfulness has reached participants impacted by trauma and trauma symptoms. In 2019 Sonia and Yoga On the Inside became an affiliate of Prison Yoga Project (Founded by James Fox) which has brought yoga to incarcerated people in the USA and other countries for over 20 years. In 2022 alone, Sonia and her team of experienced facilitators have served an average of 197 incarcerated people each month, in 15 programs, across 8 correctional facilities, in 4 states around Australia. Sonia and her team also work with other organisations who support people who live with the symptoms of trauma. Some of these organisations include Mates4Mates, the NDIS (for participants with psycho-social disability) and Beyond DV.

Sonia discusses her experience in providing evidence-based yoga and mindfulness practices to people impacted by trauma and her key learnings from participating in the Elevate+ 2023 Accelerator program.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Eliana Cruz] - To start off, could you share a bit about your background and what led to your passion for creating ‘trauma informed’ training and social enterprises?

[Sonia Brown-Diaz] - I have a history of lived experience with trauma. It originated from the traumatic event that happened in 2003, when I experienced the stillbirth of my twin sons, Izaak and Kurtis. Not long after that tragic time, I ended up falling pregnant naturally with my daughter, who is now 18 years old. However, there wasn't too long between the death of my sons and the birth of my daughter, probably about a year and a half all up. I noticed that there wasn't a lot of grieving time or support around how to process this traumatic event. I started going to yoga classes a year or so after the birth of my daughter, and I noticed that a lot had started to shift in my physical, mental and emotional space. I started noticing a release of a lot of blocked energy, and I was able to get in touch with my body. Upon reflection, I had lots of symptoms of PTSD, which at that time wasn't diagnosed. I had symptoms like dissociation; no connection between my mind and my body. I wasn't really able to feel what was happening within my body when I was feeling any type of emotion. That was really one of the key learnings for me about the practice of yoga; it had the benefit of helping me deal with these symptoms in a more holistic way. It was a nice adjunct modality to other therapy I was receiving, like counselling and psychology services. It was a nice holistic way for me to address the symptoms of trauma, and I started to think to myself that this could be so beneficial to so many people. Eventually, when I finished my yoga teacher training in early 2018, I realised I didn’t have a desire to teach in a studio. In my mind, there are lots of places for people to go to undertake a yoga class. But, I also noticed that in the yoga classes I would typically go to, there seemed to be this expectation (for me at least) that I had to please the teacher. I didn't have much autonomy in how I practiced and I didn't have a lot of choice and control. It felt to some degree like a performance, there was this sensation that I had to keep up and not really listen to my body and what it felt like doing on that day.

I decided what I wanted to do was make an accessible practice for people on the fringes, or if you want to use a different term, who are marginalised. These people may have an array of mental health issues, and are perhaps experiencing symptoms of PTSD or trauma.

They perhaps feel a studio is not the right place for them, and that they wouldn't be well supported in this setting. It became my mission to aid people to thrive and not just survive. It was very important for me to ask that if there are a lot of people out there in need, how can we bring them to the practice of yoga? We can’t just take the practice to them, but how can we bring them into the practice, and how can we make it trauma informed? Sensations they experienced during a traumatic event in their lives were more often than not presented in a scenario where the person felt like they had no choice or control. That's irrespective of the type of event that they went through; it's an underlying thread amongst people who have experienced trauma. They feel that they didn't have any choice or control in what was happening to them, what was being done to them. That was very much the case for me when I lost my sons. I didn't have a lot of choice or control over how I was treated, what was happening to me, or the physical restraints that were placed upon me. I knew that we needed to give people choice and control. We needed to have a people-centred and trauma informed approach to how we facilitated classes for those who are experiencing these symptoms.

As the Founder of Yoga On The Inside, can you please tell us more about the projects you’re involved in?

I started Yoga On The Inside in 2018, not long after I had finished doing my yoga teacher training down at the Byron Yoga Centre. I started by reaching out to community organisations that already supported people at risk; people who had adversity in their lives or were potentially experiencing symptoms of trauma, dissociation or marginalisation. I started by approaching the local PCYC in Carindale, and they have a program called the RUBY Program, it stands for Rise Up, Be Yourself. That's a program which services women who are affected by domestic and family violence. I started by volunteering there and taking a program to them. Early in 2019, I did six months of research into what programs are available to people who are incarcerated. I started looking at incarceration and correctional services in Queensland, because I live in Brisbane. I noticed there weren't a lot of wellbeing programs within prison facilities. There were however a lot of criminogenic programs, programs that address the offending nature of why people are there. There are lots of alcohol and drug addiction programs, domestic and family violence programs, and educational literacy and numeracy programs. They had chaplains that came in and dealt with the spiritual side of people's needs who were incarcerated, but not the wellbeing aspect.

Yoga On The Inside - Prison Yoga Project

I was given an opportunity by Queensland Corrective Services after connecting with them to speak to their violence prevention coordinators at a monthly meeting. I proposed the Trauma Informed Yoga and Embodied Mindfulness programs. I had been to the UK and done training with James Fox and Josephine Wikstrom from the Prison Yoga Project, which fuelled the fire in me to address the need for this practice in incarcerated settings. Finally, we were given an opportunity with the Brisbane Women's Correctional Centre to run a 10-week pilot program, and we did that program with their protection prisoners. We evaluated the program and got some wonderful feedback, which led to them deciding to continue the program and open it up to all the incarcerated people they serve and care for. We have been providing programs there for close to four years. From 2019 onwards, the program in prisons started to expand, and now we have started 15 programs, across 8 prisons and 4 states within Australia. We have brought in ten facilitators to facilitate these programs, and they are highly experienced. We have also been engaged by Mates4Mates, which is a veteran support service supporting existing and Australian ex-defence force personnel. We provided our trauma informed restorative yoga classes for them, and this has been a wonderful collaboration and partnership. We were also privileged to be approached by Beyond DV, which is a family domestic violence support organisation here in Brisbane. They run a whole bunch of programs, and one of those includes our services of providing trauma informed yoga practice to the people they support.

we continue to diversify our services, because the intention of the work we do is to not just serve one particular cohort. We don’t exist just to help people who are incarcerated or affected by family and domestic violence, but We seek to service those peripheral organisations that support people who may be deemed at risk.

This includes organisations addressing alcohol or other substance abuse, rehabilitation clinics, youth at risk, or people from low socioeconomic backgrounds who perhaps don't have the finances to attend a yoga class. There are numerous ways in which we can support other organisations to provide these services.

What have been some of the biggest challenges with starting Yoga On The Inside and what lessons have you learnt as a result?

The biggest lesson I have learnt so far (and I giggle a little bit with this answer) is that particularly when dealing with government agencies like corrections, you need to have a lot of patience. There was a big wait between when we started initial conversations about introducing a program and when that actually came to fruition. Government organisations in general take a lot of time to make decisions, and a lot of the time that comes down to decisions around funding for programs. These are fee for service types of programs, therefore, it's really important that you have practices centred around being patient. We still needed to follow up every so often and see where things were at, because often the people in a correctional facility, especially the people who are interested in implementing these programs, aren't necessarily the decision makers as to whether something will go ahead. It's great to see there is a lot of progressive thinking happening outside of the box, so we just need to be patient. Another challenge for me is funding and applying for grants. There are only a certain amount of grants that are available to people or organisations which are not not-for-profits. There is a lot of funding for not-for-profit organisations and charities, but there aren't a lot of grant opportunities for sole traders or social enterprises. Some of these challenges we were able to overcome by collaborating or partnering with other organisations in this space, who already have access to funding and want us to contribute to their programs. We can still have a huge impact if we collaborate with other organisations that serve these demographics.

Finally, the biggest challenge is just reminding myself on a daily basis that this is never about me. This is never about business for me, this is about those we're serving, how we can serve these people best, and who is it that we're serving? If we make this about ourselves, we lose the purpose of why we're doing what we're doing.

Therefore, it's really important I check in with myself and remember to just keep pushing and keep trying, because this is not about us.

Where do you believe social enterprise helps people experiencing significant difficulties within their lives and what opportunities have you identified for entrepreneurs?

Social enterprises are usually created by individuals with a vision and lived experience in the areas they want to see a change. We usually help people with significant difficulties that are personal to us. Often as social entrepreneurs, we have had a personal difficulty, and then we have been able to find ways in which to address those difficulties in a way where we are now thriving and not just surviving. Having that lived experience is something that fuels my desire to help, and not because of pity but instead for the betterment of all our communities. Social entrepreneurs seem to have this radar they're tuned into, where the change is needed, and they understand the problem which needs to be solved. We also keep talking to people so we don't get into this mindset of, “I had this experience therefore I know how to solve it.” Being able to talk to others and get their experience with what helped them is invaluable. We don't go down this path of thinking we have the answers for everyone, but we’re able to speak to other people with similar lived experiences (those that we want to serve). We’re able to identify their problems and needs, and I think it's a beautiful way of being able to give back to a community.

Impact Boom is proud to be working with you on our Elevate+ Accelerator. What were some of the key lessons from the program that would be valuable for other purpose-led entrepreneurs seeking to create an impact?

The key lesson for me, so far has been to remember who the end user is of the impact we want to make. Who is it that we are trying to bring on board here? Who is it that we're trying to serve? In my case, (because it's a service we provide, not product) I ask who is it that we are serving here? Remembering who that is keeps us connected to our purpose, and it also helps us redefine our purpose from time to time. It's really important we don't go down this path of thinking, “I know what my purpose is,” and being too headstrong about that. Being flexible in your thinking, and instead being able to say, “I thought this was my purpose, I thought this was who we were serving, but actually we're serving a different population and creating an impact which I originally thought I did not intend too.” The Elevate+ Accelerator program has been really helpful in helping me, because Yoga On The Inside's been going for four years. The program has helped me redefine and revisit what it is that we're doing and why we're doing it. From this there were two lessons, who are we serving and why are we serving them? What outcomes do we want for the people who engage in our service? The Elevate+ Accelerator program has also given me an opportunity to think outside the box, or pull back the layers of the onion and consider what is possible? Often, it's very easy to think we have all the answers and just look at things from one perspective. But, you need to be able to peel back those layers of the onion and ask some different questions and involve new people. It's been great to be with this cohort of people who will challenge you by asking, “have you thought about this?” You can also ask those questions, so this collaboration with this cohort has been amazing.

We all have different social enterprises we're working on. They are impacting different fields and areas of community, but we've all got a similar purpose in the sense that we somehow want to make a difference for the betterment of people, whether it be socially, environmentally, or economically. I think the program brings people together like that.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently which are creating positive social change?

One of the ones that stands out and I'm in a similar field to them is Green Fox Studios, who I know have been part of the Elevate+ Accelerator program in the past. I guess they resonates with me because they're also helping people who are incarcerated. They are helping them through graphic design, learning, creation, providing educational learning and work opportunities. They are giving them skills that will help them once they're released and giving these people purpose, so they feel that their time incarcerated is not wasted and that they have the potential to transform their lives through meaningful work and learning opportunities. That initiative really resonates with me on that level. There's also Beyond DV, who also resonates with me because they provide services to people who are affected by family and domestic violence. Sometimes we think their service is just for women, but they're collaborating with some men's groups as well. They're addressing all of the community that can benefit from learning more about this horrible situation that seems to be only escalating. They’re considering how they can address this in a community sense. What they're doing, who they're servicing and the amazing programs they have are really inspirational. Carolyn Robinson, who's the CEO and the founder of Beyond DV is just an exceptional human being. She pushes, fights for change and collaborates with other people as well. It's an all of community approach, I really love what she's doing there. I think the other organisation that I really love from a personal perspective is an organisation called Lemonade Kids. Lemonade Kids was founded by Rebecca Idiens, and it's a community organisation that help kids build resilience, self-awareness, empowerment, and helps them identify and deal with feelings. They discuss, bullying, what a good friendship is and what their values are. They are providing a service to the adults of tomorrow, our future generation. I think their service is for 5 to 17-year-olds, and it's just a wonderful way of connecting and reaching young kids who are struggling in these times of social media and the impacts of that. It's a really lovely program that has got the potential to make a huge impact for kids in our communities.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

There is one book that really got me thinking more about the work I want to do with Yoga On The Inside, and the physical, emotional, and psychological effects of what happens to a person when they experience a traumatic event. Sometimes, those things happen in early childhood, but that's not always the case. It could be that somebody has gone to war even after they've had a perfectly good childhood; it could be something that has happened at any stage of life. The book is The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. I almost use that as a daily reference point to remind me of what I'm doing, how I'm doing it and why I'm doing it. There is an evidence-base around the work that we're doing; this is not some pipe dream we're doing. It's something that is grounded and based on evidence, years and decades of research. That is one book I highly recommend to anyone working in the mental health or therapy space.

Yoga On The Inside - Impact Boom Sonia Brown-Diaz

The other book is called What Happened to You, authored by Dr. Bruce Perry and co-authored by Oprah Winfrey. What I love about this book is that it gets you to look at human beings rather through a lens of “what's wrong with you”, and perhaps instead ask the question “what happened to you?” Often, when we look at even kids in the classroom, and they're acting up or they've got some sort of behavioural issue going on, we're very quick to judge people, stereotype them and say, “what's wrong with you?” What if we instead looked at people through a lens of, “what happened to you?” What happened to you that ended up with you committing a crime of any description? I think people aren't born innately evil, it's usually a matter of circumstances, so it's really important for me to look at people through that lens of what happened to you?

The other book I'm reading at the moment is called Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh. It's just a beautiful book about why we want to make change in the world and how do we go about it with compassion, kindness and purpose? This is without attachment to the outcomes, but we still do the work regardless. The last resource I'll mention is a book by Gregory Boyle, and it's called Tattoos on the Heart. This one resonates with me working with people who are incarcerated. This author, Gregory, is a priest and a chaplain in the US, and he works with young members of gangs who have been involved in gang crime. He provides this amazing support for them, through an organisation called Homeboy Industries. He provides work opportunities, training, counselling, food in their bellies, a roof over their head and anything else they need so that they can start seeing themselves as contributing members of the community without participating in violence. He's made a huge impact on a lot of people.