Today we’d like to introduce you to Georgia Deane.
Georgia, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. My childhood was pretty weird and crazy. My father was incarcerated, and I lived in a house where my teenage uncles grew pot in the backyard. I collected those little Camel dollars from the cigarette packs when I was a kid. While my mom (who was in her early 20’s at the time) and teenage aunts and uncles threw wild parties, they would lock us in a bedroom. I didn’t feel safe or cared for.
In high school, I was promiscuous and wild. I would smoke a lot of pot and sneak out. Somehow I got into a good college. I went to Georgia Tech to study International Affairs but ended up learning more about beer pong and how to pass a class without attending. I was working as a bartender and babysitter to pay my way through. I’m surprised I graduated.
My college boyfriend and I got married soon after graduating, and we had our son not too much longer after that. A year after our son was born, I started having an affair. The affair changed my entire trajectory. The cheating hurt everyone involved and ended up leading to the end of our marriage, and (I know this sounds cheesy), a brand new start for me.
Separation and divorce is hard. Being out on your own, especially financially, as a single mother is hard. And to find peace, I started meditating. I had been a yogi since my early 20’s, but I’d never gotten into the meditation part of yoga. I committed to sitting each morning and connecting with myself. Through this practice, I have found a deep and unshakable sense of peace. Meditation saved me and continues to save me every day.
I wanted to pass this opportunity for peace on, so I became a yoga and meditation teacher. I sold my engagement ring to pay for the training. Yoga teaches that suffering is created in the mind. Through meditative practices, we can experience ourselves as something much deeper than our thoughts. I work to create spaces where people can do that.
Please tell us about Live Free Yoga.
We are a start-up 501(c)(3) non-profit with the mission of leading fully accredited yoga teacher training to reduce the risk of recidivism by empowering incarcerated individuals with job readiness skills, self-rehabilitation, and leadership training. Our goal is 0% recidivism and 100% employment rates among our program participants.
I started it in August 2019 when my little brother was arrested for the 3rd time. He’s been in prison for over a decade now. All he has picked up in prison is a new crime and gang tattoos. I believe that our incarcerated population is largely the result of traumatic experiences. My brother experienced a childhood of neglect and abuse and this has kept him trapped in the cycle of crime. Trauma lives in our physical bodies, keeping us locked in our sympathetic nervous system response (fight, flight, or freeze). When we’re stuck in that, we’re on high alert, have short fuses, and the world is not a safe place. We look for anything to help our systems feel more balanced, like drugs, alcohol, risky behavior, etc. I want to bring yoga teacher trainings to prisons so that people have a space to heal and find hope.
We’re a young organization, but we’ve accomplished a lot in a short period of time. Since December, we have started yoga classes in Georgia prisons, become accredited with yoga alliance as a 200-hour yoga school, fundraised over $10,000, and received grants and donations for yoga mats and blocks. I’m excited to find the prison we will launch our training at (hopefully by Summer 2020). There is nothing like this kind of program. We’re doing something that hasn’t been done before. It feels great to be leading something unique that could transform our prisons and communities.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My challenges have been my greatest opportunities.
…Had I not experienced trauma, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to find how yoga can heal.
…Had I not had the affair and the divorce, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to hit rock bottom and grow out of big mistakes.
…Had I not had an incarcerated father and brother, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to love people behind bars.
All of these experiences were needed in order to be doing the work I do today. They are what got me here. But, when you’re down in the muck, I don’t know how helpful or comforting it is to hear that one day you’ll be able to see the challenges as the stairway to your greatest gifts. I mean, these experiences I mentioned were most certainly painful. They sucked. So, the first words I would offer to anyone that is currently in the thick of it are, “I’m sorry. I hope it passes soon.”
The next words would be, “Stop struggling, but don’t stop.” Yoga teaches us that the struggle against reality is what causes our suffering. If we’re met with resistance on our paths, we can greet it with a smile. Accept it. This little bit of surrender to life clears out the space we need to move through whatever it is and keep going.
Currently, I’m facing challenges in starting Live Free Yoga. Launching a yoga teacher training inside of a prison isn’t easy. There are a lot of doors to get through–quite literally. I’m taking this as an opportunity to become more assertive and step into my personal power. Somewhere along the way I learned that I shouldn’t bother people to get what I want. I can find it hard to stand up to strong personalities, especially authority. I don’t think this is just a thing, a lot of us women have been groomed to people-please and be amenable.
Well, to hell with that. If it’s important, keep at it. Keep bugging. Speak up. And if all the doors keep closing, let’s keep trying new ways in.
Who have you been inspired by?
I look up to Cheryl Crawford, an Atlanta yoga teacher and founder of a non-profit bringing yoga and meditation into Georgia schools. Anyone who has ever met Cheryl would describe her as unconventional. She is plain weird. And I love her for that. She is unapologetically herself and leads with her heart. In her work, she’s been met with resistance and challenge, and she never stops. One class, she taught that anger is a powerful energy for action. These words are what fueled me to transform my frustration and anger with the system into creating Live Free Yoga.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.livefreeyoga.org
- Phone: 6787965088
- Email: info@livefreeyoga.org
- Instagram: livefreeyogaorg
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/livefreeyogaorg/?modal=admin_todo_tour
- Other: www.georgiadeaneyoga.org
Image Credit:
Michael Frederick of My Human Trip
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