Katie Beane: Teacher Spotlight March 2022

by Nicole Chaison, SCY Board Member

Sea Change Yoga teacher Katie Beane has been training, teaching, and sharing her energy and enthusiasm for yogic philosophies, social justice, and body positivity for years. She has wanted to bring her passion for this practice to people experiencing incarceration for a very long time–a desire that is rooted in her memories of her first job after graduating from college, serving as a classroom support in a juvenile detention center for 13 to 19-year-old girls in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Katie remembers wishing she could do so much more to help the girls behind those locked doors. So, when she decided to pursue a certification in yoga, she knew where she most wanted to share the gifts of the practice.

Now, through Sea Change, Katie works with the women at the Southern Maine Women’s Reentry Center in Windham for an hour on Monday nights. They’ve had to practice online since she began meeting with them last fall, but starting this week, her classes will be in person again–and Katie’s excited.

Katie’s practice—what she hopes to share with her students–is deeply rooted in maitri, a sanskrit word that can be translated as “loving kindness towards oneself as well as others.” Katie explains that she sees maitri as an “unconditional friendliness toward the self that radiates out to all others,” inspired by the teachings of Pema Chodron.

Her own experiences—losing her mom to cancer, living with an eating disorder—led her to throw herself into radical compassion for others. “In maitri,” she says, “we hold ourselves the way we would hold a beloved friend. If we can do that, then we are able to plant seeds that grow and spread. Maitri ripples out in waves of fierce tenderness.”

At the Women’s Re-Entry Center, Katie invites participants to simply make the next best choice, one choice at a time. She begins by checking in with each member of the group, before getting grounded by focusing on a sensation, or on their breath. Together, they move through mindful breath and motion, and she often shares a passage from a favorite book or poem to close their time together.

While in practice, Katie learns right along with her students. She reflects, “I have said so many times to the folks that I teach: I'm a fellow practitioner–just think of me as your slightly awkward tour guide, sharing some things I’ve studied, learning and practicing right along with you.”

Over the past several years, Katie has had the opportunity to teach in three different units at Maine Correctional Center, and during that time she has learned a lot from her students. “Teaching incarcerated folks has given me tremendous perspective. They have been some of my most precious and powerful teachers. How do you walk through life, stay kind, and choose growth when things have not been easy? Resilience, strength, grit, and grace—you wouldn’t show up at a yoga class when you’re navigating the incredibly challenging experience of being incarcerated if you weren’t a total warrior. Folks experiencing incarceration are doing more yoga than anyone else I know. It’s big yoga,” says Katie.

Katie, as a life-long learner and social justice activist, is committed to constantly learning—not only alongside the folks she teaches, but also through the many courses she takes. She has studied trauma-informed and accessible teaching techniques rooted in equity with many teachers that she deeply respects. Among these are the faculty who led the Social Justice Leadership Immersion through Off the Mat, Into the World that she attended in 2018. She credits them with opening her eyes and inspiring her to see yoga as service and activism. Katie is currently working on completing the Prison Yoga Project training and is enrolled in the Breathing Deeply Yoga Therapy Certification Program.

Another principle related to maitri that is core to Katie’s practice is the understanding that yoga is not a function of physical beauty. She is passionate about creating spaces where ALL bodies are invited to find ease and freedom, without having to look, or move, or be any certain way. The very first class she taught was “Yoga for Bigger Bodies” through Portland Adult Education. This was before she was aware of any training program for teaching diverse bodies, so she took out a giant pile of books from the library and threw herself into creating a class where anybody would feel welcome.

“I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing, but I knew what kind of class I always wished I could go to and feel comfortable, so I figured, ‘if you build it, they will come’” she says. And they did, filling the room they practiced in for the three years she offered “Yoga for Bigger Bodies”.

Katie’s training in trauma-informed teaching has not only helped with her work at the Re-Entry Center, but has also impacted her activism.

“We all need to be trauma informed,” she says. “One of the hardest things as an activist is having challenging conversations with people who don't share our ideas. But, if we can stay there with them, in the discomfort, and remember that we each bring our own lived experiences and history to every interaction, then it makes it possible to share more about ourselves and be present. When we remember that we all share a common humanity, that’s when change can happen.”

When Katie isn’t teaching for Sea Change, she is the Director of Program Implementation for the Implicit Bias Project at the Mindbridge Center. Mindbridge is a nonprofit that combines psychology and neuroscience in their efforts to eliminate racism, discrimination, and othering. In her role, she supports organizations by offering implicit bias training and creating equity implementation plans, work that she describes as, “holding space for people to do their own work–a practice of productive discomfort; kind of like working through the discomfort of a challenging yoga pose.”

Katie believes her yoga extends off her mat and into all that she does.

“The greatest gift yoga gives us,” she says, “is the ability to regulate our nervous systems more effectively, so that we can be both warriors and peacemakers. Our practice makes us better able to be present in challenging situations–whether that looks like experiencing incarceration, mourning the death of a loved one, working on personal recovery, or engaging in conversations around anti-racism. If we are truly embodying this practice, then I believe we are boots on the ground–the voices of compassion and justice that the world needs so much right now. That is the work the teachings of yoga call us to.”