Author and teacher Onika Mays joins Sharon on episode 291 of the Metta Hour podcast.
For more than a decade, Onika has brought the practice of yoga and mindfulness to people who feel marginalized, criticized, and alone, from correctional facilities to retreat homes, from Columbia Law School to Lincoln Center. She is the author of Sit With Me: A No-BS Journey to Mindful and Meditation, released by HarperOne in March 2026, and co-host of You Good? Podcast by Pamela Stokes Eggleston. This is her first appearance on the Metta Hour podcast.
In this conversation, Onika and Sharon say:
• How Onika’s spiritual journey began
• Training by Dr. Kimberly Brown
• Impact of Metta on Oneika’s existing operations.
• Metta’s challenges for a neutral person.
• Work at Rikers Island Correctional Facility (this background is provided in the introduction)
• Onika’s new book “Sit With Me”
• The importance of forgiveness
• What inspired Onika’s new book?
• Loving someone does not necessarily mean falling in love with them
• Loving kindness towards yourself as a starting point.
• Working with difficult people.
• The gift of grieving what is broken.
• Living life within a toxic system.
• Teach loving kindness in prisons.
• NY Knicks and Collective Effervescence
additional resources
The episode concludes with Onika’s guided loving-kindness meditation with additional visualizations. You can learn more about Oneika’s work here and get her new book “Sit With Me” here.
Related Metta Hour episodes
Episode 212: Interview with Kimberly Brown as part of a mental health series to be released in 2023.
