Meet Lauren Moon of Yogiful in Denver and Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Moon.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Lauren. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born in Georgia, but have traveled the world searching for mindful communities and am currently living and working in Denver, Colorado building Yogiful, a kid-centered platform, and event-based business focused on sharing, learning and teaching mindfulness and yoga to families. At an early age, I was having an extremely difficult time reading and was diagnosed with ADD. I spent 10+ years on ADHD medication. I got fantastic grades, my reading scores skyrocketed, and throughout college, I was on the Dean’s list.

I was what I call a ‘school robot’. This medicine helped me stay in the school box when all I wanted to do was stand on top of boxes screaming out loud. I wasn’t able to fully develop my sense of self because I didn’t know concepts like passion, expression, full of life. I was flatlining through life. Even though I focused on good grades and playing sports, I never had the desire (thanks pills) to learn or explore.

After graduating from college, I needed to wean myself off of the chemical. A chemical that is technically one methyl group away from methamphetamine, but that is a whole other conversation. I moved to California, started a great job working for the MLB all while getting off my ADHD medication.

This was when I had to figure out how to train my monkey brain. I have been told more times than I care to count that I need to focus, but no one ever taught me how. For the first time, I was finding ways to teach myself how to focus, how to train my brain, and how to be patient with myself. Meditation and yoga kept coming up in my research. I was skeptical at first but the results not only reduced my skepticism, I became obsessed. Morning meditation became my cup of coffee, yoga became my box to scream on, and a healthy diet became my medicine.

I soon realized that I wasn’t living my purpose and decided to leave my great job, move to Taiwan, and dedicate myself to studying my newfound love for yoga and meditation. During this journey, I looked to my friends and they all had passions, purpose, and a sense of self. I felt confused and not sure what it was that I wanted to spend my life dedicated to.

My first niece was born. When I looked into her eyes, I asked myself, ‘How can I make a difference in this little child’s life?’. Then it hit me! If I can get her excited and passionate about yoga and meditation, hopefully, she will develop the ability to train her brain while it is still developing. So I did and continue to foster this love with my now four beautiful nieces.

Once I saw the social emotional management skills my niece developed at a young age, I realized that this is what I am here to do. Since then, I became an English teacher in Taiwan where I taught yoga/meditation daily, taught kids yoga summer camps, taught acro yoga, moved back to America, and created my ‘mind child’ Yogiful.

Yogiful is a community of yoga and mindfulness teachers who offer various events in the Denver/Boulder area. Our goal is to foster a new wave of mindful leaders, starting with our youth.

Has it been a smooth road?
Has it been smooth? Not even close. Has it been fulfilling? Yes. Every event I am a part of is a chance for me to learn something new or see something from a child’s perspective which always seems to blow my mind. But staying mindful while creating a mindfulness business can be challenging. We are still a growing business and are currently looking at ways to increase revenue to support me as the first full-time employee of Yogiful. We hope to expand our established beyond babysitting curriculum to more studios in the Denver area and are considering hosting events in yoga studios in Costa Rica. I believe in our mission and I know this is my purpose here on earth.

Tell us more about your organization.
Yogiful is a community of yoga and mindfulness teachers who offer various events in the Denver/Boulder area. Our goal is to foster a new wave of mindful leaders, starting with our youth.

Yogiful offers kids yoga parties, after or during school programs, family mindfulness events, and a variety of other events focused on fostering the love and excitement for yoga and mindfulness. Our favorite and most popular offering is Beyond Babysitting. This ‘Mindful Meetup for Minis’ is a three hour date night for parents and mindfulness programs for the children. Each event has a theme that is used to create a custom lesson plan all about this topic. The lesson plans include learning through play, dance, mindful eating, dramatic play, musical instruments, crafts, STEM experiments, open discussions, and free play.

What sets us apart from others is our authentic ability to allow children the freedom to learn in a safe environment while also presenting questions that provoke thought, awareness, and self-love. We don’t water down yoga and meditation but instead invite children to join in activities that are easily relatable and fun. We don’t have our yoga studio, instead, we go to existing studios and form conscious kids communities everywhere we go!

We provide equality of services and care to everyone, regardless of people’s age, disability, gender, gender identity, race, religion or belief or sexual orientation.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I expect the mindfulness industry for education to continue growing as scientific research studies continue to prove the benefits of teaching these vital social emotional management skills. A great source for upcoming research is the AMRA or the America Mindfulness Research Association. Mindfulness can lead to changes in behavior and preliminary studies of yoga for youth and young adults are starting to connect these concepts. Yoga and meditation can help youth manage stress and mood and behave more positively. There are even benefits of school-based yoga programs improving and encouraging physical fitness in adolescents as well as improved health, respiratory function and reduced obesity risk factors.

How can we expect children to focus if we don’t teach them HOW to do this? How do we expect children to learn empathy, compassion, and understanding for others if we don’t explain these feelings in great detail? We can’t expect children to learn if we don’t first foster the love for learning and teach the basic skills needed to learn. I know that our educational system now has funding to invest in these programs and I hope that we will see great strides in our system changing to benefit the whole student: mind, body, and soul as well as connect them to something more than just being the ‘school robot’.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.yogiful.net
• Phone: 3216969500
• Email: info@yogiful.net

Image Credit:
www.jodiellen.com
Jodi Ellen Photographer & the other are by Yogiful

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