About Our Guest:
Lauren Chaitoff is the founder and chief visionary of Yogi Beans, a yoga and wellness technology company for children. Already steeped in the modern fitness world as a Pilates instructor, Lauren's perspective shifted when she was taught about yoga’s mind-body-heart connection, catalyzing her pursuit of higher yoga education. After moving back to New York City, Lauren completed her 200–hour yoga certification through YogaWorks and became a registered E–RYT Yoga Instructor and member of the Yoga Alliance. Lauren is also certified to teach Postnatal Yoga through Yoga Mom, Buddha Baby with Jyothi Larson.
In 2007, Lauren designed a novel curriculum that plants the seeds for authenticity and authentic expression in children. With the help of her husband Brian, the yang to her yin, they created a framework for well-being that is the basis for uniquely enriching wellness experiences for children through both content and activity. You can see their values visualized in the
Yogi Beans Manifesto. Lauren is a graduate of Northwestern University, wife to an amazing husband, and mother to her own two beans, Vivienne Bell and Juliette Rose.
About the Episode:
In this episode, Dr. Whitney chats with Lauren Chaitoff, author of
108 Awesome Yoga Poses for Kids and founder of Yogi Beans, a yoga and wellness company for children. They chat about ways to incorporate yoga practices into your daily life with your children as well as ways moms and kids can show up for themselves best.
Episode Takeaways:
- Working moms can often feel like they’re being put in a box. “This is the way it feels to be in a C-Suite.” “This is the way it feels to be successful.” Oftentimes, that doesn’t feel authentic to who they are. But when we show up as our real selves, that’s when we are the most powerful and effective.
- There is such a huge mind-body connection that is often skipped over. We don’t realize that our kids' stomach aches are actually anxiety in the mind. As adults, we can check in with ourselves and realize what’s going on. We can ask ourselves, why am I feeling this way right now? And then dealing with it with self-compassion.
- The goal is to take the yoga off the mat and into your every day life. And it doesn’t have to be a huge, formal lesson. Put a stuffed animal on their stomach at bedtime and have them do deep belly breaths while they’re doing some “I am” statements. You’ve helped them with their breathing and with their self-confidence.
- It all has to start from within and ripples out. If we don’t love ourselves and take care of ourselves, it can’t ripple out to others. If you don’t yourself, you can’t love others. And kids see that and emulate it themselves. The way you show up affects your kids and your family.
Lauren’s new book,
108 Awesome Yoga Poses for Kids, is a great resource to help visually teach kids bite-sized ways for them to start the practice of Yoga. You can find Yogi Beans on
Facebook and
Instagram and on their
website.
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I know first-hand that working mom life is hard, but I also know it doesn’t have to be impossible.
Trust me. The best way to get unstuck isn’t to work harder. It’s to use a framework that gets real results, no matter what area you need to tackle first.