I Found Peace in Prison Through Yoga

By Sadie Dawn Robertson

Editor’s note: Sadie Dawn Robertson is currently incarcerated at Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala, Fla.

[dropcap][/dropcap]When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had sciatica bad and would do anything to relieve the pain. I went to a yoga class once. It didn’t help. That was my life experience with yoga until I was incarcerated in 2012.

I spent two years in county fighting my case, which is an incredible amount of time when you are a high-risk inmate due to suicide attempts and have to be housed in maximum security.

A woman named Bonnie from Gadsden Correctional Facility was there, back in court fighting her case, and knew yoga. She was 60 and in great shape and spirits. She invited me to join her in a session, and in that one session, I fell in love with yoga. That day, yoga became my way of life.

Some people can’t stand staying still. Other people do yoga for exercise and, like me, fall in love. I was raised a hippie child with a spiritualist mother, so yoga fit into my character like a missing puzzle piece.

I phoned my mom and asked her to send yoga books. My beginner book was hatha yoga. There were approximately 100 poses that I taught myself. Then, I designed my own routines. I studied everything about yoga: the history, why’s, where’s and meaning of it. Yoga is purely and simply a connection between your soul self and your body that extends out to the universe touching all that is. When you open up and find that connection, the awakening is emotional. I discovered what true balance is. I found out what it means to be centered.

When you are dwelling on yesterday, obsessing about tomorrow or replaying the dramas of the day, you cannot do any of those things during yoga practice. A yoga session is one time of the day that you are absolutely conscious and in the present moment. Yoga does not allow you to think about the past. Your attention on your body and the poses is a focus that has no room for thoughts. It is a meditation.

Yoga is special on many levels. I have cried during many sessions because I am releasing pent-up energies.

From Darkness to Light

This is the first time I have thought about where I was emotionally “then” and how yoga coexisted within that dark time.

A 20-year sentence was devastating for my family and me. I wanted to die. I have always had suicidal tendencies since my early childhood. I went through different traumatic experiences that led to being a depressed kid. Fifth grade was the first time I played a suicide attempt all the way through my mind. I believed if I jumped off the balcony and hit my back on the fence below in the right spot it would kill me.  I lived with my dad and my stepmom at the time.

As I grew older, even more traumatic events entered my life, and suicide was always the answer. But the other part of me was the thinker. Despite feeling like a depressed, damaged failure, I was a straight-A student all the way through graduation. I always held a job.  I felt that my parents did not care for me, so I learned to take care of myself.  Becoming a thinker with intention was exciting and entertaining for me. I wanted to learn about the human experience and thought about everything: how people worked, how I could have done better, what my beliefs were, what the universe was. Light bulbs were going off left and right.

Unfortunately, my own problems did not go away. I developed an alcohol problem and still wanted to die.

It is difficult to explain the battle I lived with my entire life. I could always feel the “knowing” or “pulling” from within—someone wanted to tell me something, but my human experiences, trauma and alcoholism were more powerful than the distant scream inside. This was a battle between the heart and the mind. I know that now.

Through my 20s, I worked as a vet tech, did great things, and I was also a depressed alcoholic. I have been to every counselor and psychiatrist, on every medication you can think of, and not one person or thing helped me. Now I know that the trick for a depressed person holding on to trauma is to let go. Not letting go is most of the problem people deal with today. Letting go and accepting what was.

When I was in the depths of my alcoholism, I got pregnant with my only child at 28 and sobered up real quick. I breast fed and swore I would never drink again. The day she was weaned, I drank. I hid it. I ended up back in the sea of alcohol and depression. One day, I drove drunk, with my daughter in the car, and got a DUI. I could not believe I became that person again. And now I was a mother who drinks? How disgusting.

I was ordered to treatment, which ended up being one of my greatest experiences in learning because I had an angel there named Chris, who pushed me to face all of my trauma and taught me how to let go. In six months, I learned to leave my entire past behind me. Life was making sense, and I was on my way to opening up to my spiritual growth.

An entire lifetime of events occurred between treatment and my arrest day. I just could not beat my alcoholism and other addictions, and I relapsed again and ruined everything I had worked to build up for my daughter and me.  I was working at a major hospital and going to an RN school to become a registered nurse. I was so sickened that I disowned myself and went back into the depths of depression. I believed I was not worthy of life. I set out to die.  My value as a human being was gone.

While I was in county jail, I met Bonnie who introduced me to yoga.

Fast-forward to prison. I arrived with a yoga foundation and all intentions to kill myself.

But there have always been two parts to me; my heart and my mind. While my mind never stopped telling me to just leave this earth—look at where I am, what I have done—my heart spoke during my yoga sessions, and it became my center. I learned that I don’t have to be part of this human experience if I don’t choose to be. I could not forgive myself. I could not let go. How was I going to live a life away from life?

I spent two full weeks writing letters to my family, my mom and my daughter who hated me in preparation for my death. I had no will to do 20 years in prison. I was over-sentenced and over-charge. My appeals lawyer and my 3850 lawyer concurred and apologized to me for what had happened with my case. I sit next to women who have shot and killed people point blank. These women received 8 years, 25 years, 18 years, 30 years. I have no injuries in my case. And I got 20?

The day I had planned my death was interrupted by an officer calling me to classification, which took all morning. Several strange events happened after that, and I lost my window of time. My opportunity passed.

I went to sleep and woke up feeling like something had shifted. The suicidal state I had lived with my entire life was gone. I even searched for it. That urge that always nagged me—the familiar thought of leaving this earth—was gone. All I can say is that a miracle occurred. Something happened while I slept that night. The thought of suicide disappeared, and I awoke with an awareness that I had always known deep inside.

This understanding now became my new reality. I wanted to grow, learn and grasp my spiritual nature. After that, there were no two me anymore. I felt grounded and alive.

I had continued to do yoga when I came to prison, and I believe that was the catalyst that healed me.

I believe yoga can heal anything. I can only attribute my “awakening” to yoga and to my creator. There is no other explanation. That is the only reason why I am alive today and living with hope in prison. Ten more years to go. I can do it.

Sharing the Journey

My strength is amazing, and my connection with the universe is with me all the time.

When I was sentenced to 20 years in prison, I was not allowed to bring anything but my legal papers with me. I wrote all the routines and poses on the backs of my depositions and discovery so they came with me. I was entering a new world armed with yoga.

The world of prison is devastating at first. I did not know this kind of world existed. I can’t even compare it to anything. It takes at least a year or so for a strong individual to begin to understand prison and still, in my seventh year of incarceration, I am discovering new things.

Prison is a condensed population of manipulation and anger, uneducated and underdeveloped broken women who need guidance and repair that they will never receive. This is coupled with uncaring and uneducated staff who have no skill or desire to mentor and have no issues treating the women as numbers. It is embedded quickly that your value as a human being no longer exists. We are cattle.

After my acclimation with this new environment, I created a routine. In prison, routine is necessary if you want to make it through your time smoothly. I learned from lifers and long-timers how to make my bed, fold clothes into my laundry bag, crease my uniforms, how to behave and what to know. I even learned to not look at mouths while other inmates are talking. Why? We learn to read lips over the years.

During my informal prison routine, I studied yoga even more and learned where I might be able to do a yoga session. Prison doesn’t accommodate your passions or interests or anything positive. The corner of the day room became my practice area.

I was nervous doing yoga in front of inmates who’d been down awhile while they played cards and watched TV because everyone in prison has something to say and wants everyone to know what it is. The women here are very opinionated, confrontational and can be mean and intimidating. So if they don’t like me doing yoga in their day room, I’d be sure to know.

All eyes were on me. I could feel it so strongly that my focus became off. This is where I learned to tune out prison. Thank the universe for MP3 players. I pushed through my first session, ignored side comments and welcomed women interested in learning.

Teaching has always been difficult for me because I love the unity between myself and my creator—by itself. When I teach I am not as connected, so I dedicate teaching sessions to being of service.

Only three or four women could fit in the corner of the day room in between tables, and that is where I taught myself how to teach yoga. I did not have a yoga mat yet, so I was doing yoga on concrete for almost seven years—knees and all.

Our wellness center had a yoga class at one point with a civilian instructor. The instructor asked if I taught yoga in the free world. I explained I was self-taught. She recommended a book, Light on Yoga and it expanded my knowledge and poses.

I was asked to teach yoga at the wellness center. I had my first real class. In the dorm, I started working out with a women named Dia, who also knew yoga. But she knew power yoga. I fell in love all over again.

Power yoga is definitely my talent. Since I learned power yoga, I have created a new aspect of it—power dance. This is power yoga created into routines of movements to music. It is yoga dance.

I now teach power yoga dance every Monday to the women. We are in a run-down wellness room with old equipment, gray walls and an 1980’s stereo system with no air conditioning. I managed to get yoga mats donated through my mom’s efforts, and we make it into a great two-hour class. I teach beginning yoga the first hour and power yoga and dance the second hour. We finish with meditation and visualization. The women are always so amazed at how great they feel afterward. I teach them to be balanced and centered, and I enjoy seeing them be in that moment of balance.

There are things that have allowed me to do my sentence with peace—my mom and yoga. My mom is my soulmate and spirit traveler. Yoga is my universe. The yoga I have created now hopefully will be taught in every prison because it inspires the women here to be better.

Within the white and gray walls and on the cement floors that echo the sound of women crying, I found yoga. I found a movement that creates strength and balance. It is a fluid dance that is done with such grace and beauty.

I have found my passion here, and I know now, through yoga, that I am as valuable as anyone else who walks mother earth. I know my purpose in life is to be of service. I am a light worker. My intention is to open a studio called “Love and Light.” I dream of teaching all forms of yoga to the young and old. I want to share the peace I have today with everyone who has no peace.

Who knew you could find peace in prison.

Read how Kathy Carlin, Sadie’s mom and a Florida-based activist, is keeping hope alive during her daughter’s incarceration and how Jan Shelly, a retired attorney, is working with Kathy to fight for prison reform.

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