Story and video by Jedarrian Jones. Photos provided by The KMIR Experience.
Seneca Alma is a fitness/yoga/meditation instructor and entrepreneur in Dallas. His story is one of redemption. He spent 12 years in prison through his early 20s and 30s for white-collar crimes. He says that his time in prison changed his life because it is where he began a regular practice of meditating in his cell.
Now, Seneca is the founder of The KMIR Experience, which stands for “Keep Me in Remembrance.” Seneca says that it is a strategy that he developed to remember becoming a better human being. Seneca shares his curriculum to empower others and help them work through highly stressful situations. He works with everyone from corporate teams and nonprofits to youth in juvenile detention. He also leads youth fitness camps. We sat down with Seneca to discuss his journey, how he has become the person he is today and his plans for the future.
KMIR is an acronym that means “Keep Me In Remembrance.” I’ve spent a good portion of my life incarcerated. At the age of 19, I went to federal prison, then I went to prison again at the age of about 25, for a total of 12 years. In the course of all of that, I came up with the concept, which is basically just a standard remembrance of who you are, a standard remembrance of your past mistakes, so you can recycle that and redefine that to do something bigger and greater. So, I have a mindfulness company. I have a health and nutrition bar that’s in a few grocery stores. I do fitness camps for the youth and adults and just try to make the world a better place.
Yeah, so that’s actually a good question, man. So mindfulness really saved my life. When I was incarcerated, I really didn’t have a strong identity that was healthy. So, going back to mindfulness and meditation is something I’ve always been interested in. I started to do that when I was incarcerated, and it became my escape. It also became a place that grounded me as well. So I read a lot, did a lot of meditation, did a lot of yoga, did a lot of fitness, and started to teach it when I was incarcerated as well. When I came home, I just continued that journey. I began teaching mindfulness meditation and workshop programs. The meditation that I have created is called resistance meditation therapy, or “RMT” for short, where we teach people how to work through triggers and traumas in an effective way.
I tell people my hero is Willy Wonka and my favorite thing in the world is a blank piece of paper. I wanted to come out with a product that was actually healthy for people but also tasted good. So, just like Willy Wonka, I came out with the bar. Each bar has a full serving of broccoli microgreens, which is the most nutrient-dense microgreen there is. Then, we also have a lion’s mane for cognitive health. Right now, our bar is in about three grocery store locations here in DFW, they sell out every time we put them out. Our motto is a “healthy bar that doesn’t taste healthy.” Even though you’re used to nutritional bars tasting like cardboard with sugar on it, I’m telling you, these are live, so give them a try. We’re at Ann’s Market, Bonton Farms, and Profound Kitchen.
Right now, we’re primarily getting the meditation off the ground. I’ve done some workshops with the Dallas Police Department and some student-athletes as well. I was actually down at The Star in Frisco and did a workshop with some former Dallas Cowboys players. People are very interested in the meditation we offer, essentially anyone who’s dealing with high stress, anxiety, or things of that nature, and how to get them to a baseline state coming out of that high-stress level. So, we’re teaching that as a modality and a new way to experience meditation, not to replace the old, traditional way of meditation, but just another tool that people can use to bring down from a baseline when they’re dealing with highly stressful situations.
My greatest passion is to move forward with this vision. To gain ground in a business sense, is also in a service sense, to inspire anyone who has gone through a prison situation themselves. Now, we know that a prison situation can be both literal, as in physical incarceration, or it can be a mentally emotional situation. The main thing I want to tell people with this vision is that you can recycle that pain right into some form of purpose. If there’s anything that I want to leave people with, it’s that they know what The KMIR Experience is, what it means to me, and the impact I want it to make on society.
For me, it was physical incarceration. You can use that particular situation and recycle that pain to help somebody else. Because I guarantee, in the midst of that prison situation that you went through, there’s a recipe, and there’s a formula in there that you can recycle to be an inspiration for other people, and use that story to inspire people just like you. So, I go back inside the prison to speak. I go to youth detention centers and speak as well to let them know that I sat exactly where they sat. I wrote down notes and dreams and ambitions exactly like they are doing right now, and I’ve manifested that into a reality. Anyone can do that no matter what they’re going through, we can persevere through our own situations in the midst of the storm.
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