At The Reasons Why Foundation, we support people who are rebuilding their lives during and after prison. Many of the individuals we work with have lived through layers of trauma, long before incarceration began, during their time inside, and in the uncertain journey of release. The emotional toll of surviving life-altering events, navigating high-risk environments, and coping with stigma after release cannot be underestimated.

What many need isn’t more punishment, more instructions, or more checklists. What they need, and what they deserve, is time and space to reconnect with themselves. They need the chance to feel safe, seen, and whole again. And one of the most powerful tools we use to support this healing is mindfulness.

Mindfulness practice offers a pathway back to the self. Not through judgement or performance, but through awareness, presence, and self-compassion. This blog post explores how mindfulness can support emotional healing for ex-offenders and how we, as a trauma-informed mentoring service, apply it gently, accessibly, and meaningfully.

Why Mindfulness Matters for People Leaving Prison

For many individuals leaving custody, their nervous system is still in survival mode. Years or even decades of hypervigilance, institutional control, social disconnection, and internalised shame do not disappear the day the prison gates open. Freedom may come all at once, but healing does not.

Mindfulness offers something rare in the lives of people who’ve experienced prison: stillness, without threat. It provides tools to notice thoughts and feelings as they arise, without needing to act on them immediately. And it invites people to explore their internal world, often for the first time.

From a trauma-informed perspective, mindfulness is not about sitting cross-legged in silence or forcing calm. It’s about creating safe, embodied awareness. It’s about helping individuals who’ve learned to disconnect from their emotions or numb their sensations find ways to feel again, gradually and safely.

Understanding the Impact of Trauma on Awareness

To understand how mindfulness helps, we must understand how trauma works. When a person experiences trauma, especially in childhood or over a long period, the brain and body adapt to protect them. This might include:

• Hypervigilance (constantly scanning for danger)
• Emotional shutdown or numbing
• Avoidance of internal experience
• Difficulty trusting others or oneself
• Overwhelming shame or self-blame

These are not flaws. They are adaptive survival strategies. But over time, they block emotional growth and meaningful contact with others. Mindfulness, when approached gently and consistently, helps disrupt these patterns. It offers the chance to feel, to pause, and eventually, to choose differently.

How We Use Mindfulness in Mentoring

A trauma-informed mentoring model integrates mindfulness practice as part of a wider relational approach. Here’s how to use it with those being supported:

1. Start Where They Are

Don’t prescribe mindfulness as a cure or insist on stillness. Instead, ask: What helps you feel safe in your body? What helps you come back when you feel overwhelmed? For some, it's breathing. For others, it’s walking, drawing, or just noticing what they see out of the window.

2. Co-regulation Before Self-regulation

Traumatised people often need the presence of a calm, grounded ‘other’ to help them settle. Mentors can model mindfulness in their relationship with their mentees. A moment of shared breathing, grounded presence, or non-judgemental listening can be a powerful form of co-regulation.

3. Focus on Awareness, Not Control

Mindfulness isn’t about emptying the mind or controlling emotions. It’s about becoming aware of what’s present, thoughts, sensations, urges, and noticing them with curiosity. Helping clients develop this skill slowly, will help to start building tolerance for their internal experience.

Practical Mindfulness Techniques To Use

Practitioners can adapt mindfulness techniques to suit each individual’s comfort level, background, and learning style. Here are some of the simple practices we offer in mentoring sessions or recommend for self-use:

1. The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique

This sensory practice is helpful during anxiety or flashbacks:

• Name 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can feel
• 3 things you can hear
• 2 things you can smell
• 1 thing you can taste

It brings attention back to the present moment and helps regulate the nervous system.

2. Noticing the Breath

Rather than instructing people to "breathe deeply," which can be triggering, ask them to notice their breath just as it is, shallow or deep, smooth or tight. This starts the process of reconnecting with the body without pressure.

3. Anchoring with a Safe Object

Some clients carry a stone, bracelet, or token that they can hold when stressed. Bringing mindful awareness to the object, its texture, weight, temperature, helps them feel grounded.

4. The “Name It to Tame It” Technique

When an intense emotion arises, simply labelling it, “I’m feeling angry” or “I’m noticing fear”, can reduce its grip. Helping clients to become more comfortable with naming emotions as passing experiences, not fixed identities.

5. Mindful Movement

Mindfulness doesn’t have to happen sitting still. Walking, stretching, or even cleaning can be done mindfully, by noticing the movement, sensations, and breath as they happen.

The Role of Compassion in Mindfulness

Many of the people we support carry deep shame for what they’ve done, what’s been done to them, and how they’ve had to survive. Traditional cognitive approaches can sometimes bypass this emotional depth. Mindfulness, when infused with compassion, allows people to meet themselves with kindness instead of judgement.

We introduce gentle self-compassion phrases like:

• “This is a tough moment, and I’m doing the best I can.”
• “I’m allowed to feel this way.”
• “May I be kind to myself today.”

Over time, these practices shift inner dialogue from harshness to healing, and from self-punishment to self-respect.

What Clients Have Said

Here are some anonymised reflections from the people we’ve supported:

“At first, I thought mindfulness was a bit airy-fairy. But then I noticed, when I actually slowed down and breathed, I didn’t feel like I had to smash something. That was new for me.”

“I carry a photo of my daughter. When I look at it and take a few breaths, it reminds me who I want to be. That’s mindfulness for me.”

“It’s not like I sit and meditate every day. But I’ve learned to notice when I’m getting wound up. I step outside, take a minute. That’s enough sometimes.”

These moments matter. They show that mindfulness isn’t about perfection, it’s about permission to slow down, feel, and respond with choice rather than reaction.

Challenges and Considerations

We approach mindfulness carefully. For some trauma survivors, silence or inward focus can feel unsafe. That’s why we:

• Always obtain consent before using mindfulness
• Offer choices (e.g., eyes open or closed, sitting or moving)
• Normalise difficulty or restlessness
• Avoid pushing through distress, if someone feels overwhelmed, we stop

Mindfulness must never be imposed. It is an invitation, one that must be grounded in safety, consent, and trust.

The Wider Impact of Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness doesn’t just help with emotional regulation. Over time, it supports:

• Impulse control (especially important in managing triggers)
• Improved sleep (which affects mood and focus)
• Better communication (by slowing down reactivity)
• Stronger relationships (through greater self-awareness)
• A sense of dignity and self-worth

It reconnects people not only with their own humanity but with the possibility of living a meaningful life, beyond survival, beyond the past, and beyond the label of "offender."

Conclusion: A Tool for Every Step of the Journey

Mindfulness is not a magic fix. But it is a powerful companion on the journey from trauma to healing, from incarceration to integration, from shame to self-respect. At The Reasons Why Foundation, we’ve seen mindfulness help people come home to themselves, one breath, one step, one moment at a time.

It offers something essential for anyone leaving prison: a way to feel, without being overwhelmed. A way to be present, without fear. A way to live, instead of just react.

We believe everyone deserves access to that.