044: What Prison Taught About Fear, Safety & Freedom | Oneika Mays

From the first breath to the echoes of Rikers Island, this conversation with Oneika Mays invites us to reconsider what safety, love, and freedom really mean.

We follow Oneika’s journey from feeling like the “odd one out” as a queer Black woman to becoming a mindfulness and yoga teacher whose work is rooted in Buddhist and yogic teachings. She shares how a profound personal loss and the collapse of her carefully constructed life pushed her toward yoga, where a single cue from a teacher cracked her open and set her on a path back to her curious, unafraid younger self.

We explore what it actually means to fall in love with ourselves. Oneika explains how breath creates a felt sense of fullness that does not depend on relationships, achievements, or external validation. She reframes self-love as the capacity to hold our shame, scars, and past choices alongside that fullness, instead of trying to erase them.

Oneika describes the relentless noise, chaos, and unsafety, and how she learned to be her own safe place so she could model that possibility for others. Listeners learn practical, grounded perspectives on awareness, nervous system regulation, and how to build inner safety when the outside world is anything but.

In this episode, you will hear:

Learning to fall in love with ourselves through breath, fullness, and embodiment How awareness and inner safety can coexist with anxiety, fear, and discomfort Teaching mindfulness and yoga at Rikers Island inside constant noise and chaos Transformational stories of incarcerated women finding agency and calm Using loving kindness and metta to soften hatred, work with triggers, and reclaim power

Resources from this Episode

Website: https://www.oneikamays.com/Social media:https://www.instagram.com/oneikamays/?hl=enhttps://www.facebook.com/omays/https://www.linkedin.com/in/oneikamays/https://www.youtube.com/oneikamaysLink to purchase book:https://www.amazon.com/Sit-Me-Journey-Mindfulness-Meditation/dp/0063435551https://bookshop.org/p/books/sit-with-me-a-no-bs-journey-to-mindfulness-and-meditation-oneika-mays/f62ea285a58240d7https://www.walmart.com/ip/Sit-with-Me-A-No-Bs-Journey-to-Mindfulness-and-Meditation-Paperback-9780063435551/16743158405https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sit-with-me-oneika-mays/1147525526www.fearunzipped.com

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