Let Your Light Shine

Ali Smith is co-founder and Executive Director of The Holistic Life Foundation. Ali was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, he is a graduate of the Friends School of Baltimore and the University of Maryland, College Park, where he received a BS in Environmental Science and Policy. He is a pioneer in the fields of yoga and mindfulness in education, as well as trauma informed yoga and mindfulness. Ali has taught in seven countries on three continents. Co-Founder of HLF Atman Smith is a native of Baltimore. Atman attended the University of Maryland, College Park where he graduated with a B.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Co-founder of HLF Andres Gonzalez is a certified Health Coach through the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, maintains a B.S. in Marketing from University of Maryland, College Park and an MBA from the University of Maryland, University College, and has over 20 years of experience providing yoga and mindfulness to populations all over the world

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is a psychiatrist, researcher, and educator whose work focuses on how children and adults adapt to traumatic experiences. He founded the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts, and is a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. His research has examined post-traumatic stress, trauma’s effects on brain function and development, dissociation, and self-injury.

Van der Kolk is the author of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, a 2014 New York Times bestseller, and contributed the foreword to Let Your Light Shine: How Mindfulness Can Empower Children and Rebuild Communities.