Today we’d like to introduce you to Monique Claudio.
Monique, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born & raised in the city of Santa Ana, but I graduated from High School from Newport Harbor High School. I became the first in my family to graduate community college, at Orange Coast College with my AA in Sociology and my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Certificate.
I continued my Yoga journey to San Diego, where I was trained by the Prison Yoga Project to teach trauma-informed Yoga to those who are currently incarcerated. I am in the process of gaining my 85 hours Prenatal Yoga Certification as well. After training with the Prison Yoga Project, I was directed by my mentor to connect with the Prison Education Project organization (PEP). It was through PEP where I was offered an opportunity to volunteer at Calipatria State Prison to teach Yoga & Meditation.
Calipatria State Prison is an all-male, maximum security prison and my classes consisted of 40 men from two different yards of the prison. I taught a seven-week Yoga & Meditation class with my colleague, Monique Lopez, to the general population and protective custody yards. Volunteering at Calipatria was one of the most interesting, rewarding, and greatest experience I’ve ever participated in; to say the least. I was impressed by how many of my students were dedicated to their education and sought tools that would lead them to living a healthier lifestyle.
Now, if you’re wondering why I chose to offer services to this particular community, here is why: My father was incarcerated my entire life & I was raised by a single, teenage mother. He was heavily gang affiliated, drug addicted, and got caught up with the dedicating his life to the streets. I have never had a real relationship with my father, but what I do know is that he spent his last lengthy sentence at Calipatria State Prison. To me, this was significant because I got to teach Yoga & Meditation in the same chapel he prayed on his hands and knees in. Till this day, I still don’t have a relationship with my father, and he is not aware of the community services that I provide.
After leaving Calipatria State Prison, I became interested in offering Yoga & Prenatal/Doula services to women and young girls who are pregnant behind bars. I am currently determining which organization I would like to represent, but right now I am volunteering at California Women’s Prison (CIW) offering a Building Healthy Relationships class. My ultimate goal is to create a non-profit organization that continues to offer skills and services to mothers, fathers, and youth who are incarcerated and/or at risk of mass incarceration.
Has it been a smooth road?
So far, the road has been smooth. Before entering Calipatria State Prison, I was told by certain Yoga Teachers that I might not have been ready to teach inside a prison, or to any inmates, due to my very little experience. But I know myself very well, and I knew that I would kick ass at it regardless of what anyone said. The only personal struggle was having to consistently explain to certain family members who don’t have the same interests as me, why this work is important for me to do. I have a clear intention of the services that I provide, and my heart is devoted to helping others who are in need.
As far as actually being in the prisons, I love it. I love the exhilaration, adrenaline, and uniqueness that I experience when I walk into a prison to volunteer. I have never had any issues with any of the female and male inmates while being of service. Because I don’t have a relationship with my father, I was often left feeling hateful, resentful and depressed about his prison life when I was a young girl. I thought, in order for me to heal fully as a woman, I must take the time to fully understand him and his lifestyle of choice.
I toured the prison and their cells at Calipatria, I saw a lot of my father in a few of my students, and I felt a great sense of content & closure each time I left the prison. I now see what my father faced for over 20 years of our lives, and it opened me up to a little more compassion and forgiveness for him as a person.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Supreme Being Yoga story. Tell us more about the business.
As of now, I have created Supreme Being Yoga: Bringing Correction to Correctional Facilities. I offer the tools and services of Yoga that will allow one to minimize the comparison of others while maximizing the best version of themselves. My goal is to provide my students with space & opportunity to dive deeper into their undiscovered selves: revealing true inner strength, at their highest potential to reach their most supreme being.
I have been in-between about legitimizing ‘Supreme Being Yoga’ as a non-profit organization, but I am still figuring out exactly how to go about the establishment process. I don’t know if I want to only offer Yoga & Meditation to the prisons or offer services beyond Yoga. At the moment, I am gravitated toward offering a variety of different types of services to those incarcerated.
I have a new business plan in the making that I cannot disclose, but it is something that no organization has ever done before. My goal is to create space and opportunity for anyone incarcerated to have access to the tools that will encourage them to serve productive time and/or preparation to reenter society effectively.
As of now, I am a yoga teacher who specializes in trauma-informed Yoga with an emphasis on prenatal care! Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s call it that!
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Right now, there are some pretty badass organizations that are exposing the importance of Prison Reform and each day, more and more people become a little more educated about the tremendous issue of mass incarceration. What I am personally seeing in my family and in the community is that the youth who were once directly affected by someone who served time, they are either repeating the cycle themselves or ending it entirely.
A lot of my peers, along with myself, have been so deeply affected by parents and family members who were incarcerated that instead of crippling us some more, we have chosen to allow ‘our story’ to work for us- not against us. I think that as the year’s progress, we will start seeing some serious adjustments in our justice system, prisons, jails, and juvenile halls.
I believe that our system will need to be seriously reevaluated and there are a lot of activist and organizations out there who are striving to make a difference in this particular matter. There will be more studies conducted on the criminal mind, prison institutions, and human development, and they will expose in-depth the outcome and serious effect of mass incarceration. After all, with education, comes liberation.
Contact Info:
- Website: supremebeingyoga.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @SupremeBeingYoga
- Facebook: Supreme Being Yoga
Image Credit:
Photos by: Kalev Pallares
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