Host Dr Russell Thackeray interviews Jersey City-based meditation teacher, yoga teacher, and licensed massage therapist Oneika Mays, discussing her love of reading and music, the value of stories, and how technology, social media, and AI affect attention and thinking.
Mays describes being introduced to meditation over 15 years ago and teaching for about 10, explaining that an injury and over-reliance on yoga classes led her to deeper meditation and mindfulness, which helped her feel okay even when she didn’t feel okay.
She emphasises practicing with compassion, distinguishing Buddhist “kindness” as ease and spaciousness from “tenderness” as self-love, and notes how her experiences as a Black queer woman inform her teaching around feeling “othered.”
She recommends Jon Kabat-Zinn and Sharon Salzberg, and explains her book, “Sit With Me: A Non-BS Journey to Mindfulness and Meditation,” combining memoir, metta practice, and her work launching a wellness program at Rikers Island’s women’s jail.
00:00 Welcome and Introductions
00:19 Life in Jersey City
01:23 Oneika Beyond Work
02:37 Love of Reading
04:55 Teachers and Names
06:47 Books Versus Screens
08:33 Meditation Origin Story
10:18 Kindness and Tenderness
13:02 Othering and Belonging
15:56 Nuance in a Divided World
19:57 AI and Attention Spans
21:13 Books for Meditation
22:15 Why She Wrote Sit With Me
24:41 Rikers and the Program
26:15 Metta Loving Kindness
28:05 Final Takeaway
You can contact us at [email protected]
Resources can be found online or link to our website https://resilienceunravelled.com
