By Bill Brown, Director of Programming, Publishing, and Advocacy
This past weekend, I had the honor of attending and speaking at the Ananda Yoga Festival in Riverside, California. It was a weekend filled with heart, healing, and transformation—a powerful gathering of people committed to the shared journey of inner growth and community care.
One of the most moving moments for me was witnessing Alex Acuna, a former participant in our prison yoga programs, and his wife Becky receive their 200-hour yoga teacher certifications from the Community Yoga Center. This remarkable initiative is led by Kristin Varner, a longtime facilitator with Prison Yoga Project. Seeing Alex and Becky step into this new chapter was deeply inspiring—a testament to resilience, healing, and the power of practice.
Following morning practice and the graduation ceremony, I had the privilege of joining Alex and Paige Jennings—another incredible facilitator from our Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility program—for a keynote panel discussion. Together, we shared stories of transformation rooted in lived experience and our work in correctional facilities.
We spoke about how prison can act as a mirror—reflecting not just personal histories, but also the larger systems of harm, control, and disconnection that shape behavior through cycles of punishment and reward. In that reflection, we see how deeply trauma and conditioning are held in the body.
But we also shared how yoga—offered within prison walls—becomes a path of liberation. It’s a way to peel back layers of shame, fear, and learned defensiveness to rediscover what has always been there: our True Self. This work isn’t one-directional. As facilitators, we are continually called to engage in our own healing, so we can hold authentic space for others doing the same.
It was a beautiful, humbling, and energizing experience. My deepest congratulations to Alex, Becky, and their entire cohort of new yoga teachers. May your teaching be grounded in truth, fueled by compassion, and a source of healing for many.
