Did you know that ChildLight has been around for almost two decades?! Our foundational Yoga & Mindfulness for Children Teacher Training was THE original children’s yoga training developed in 2006. Since then, we’ve created 13 different yoga & mindfulness trainings that focus on various topics including pregnancy, babies & toddlers, trauma-informed teaching, tweens & teens, athletes, diverse abilities, yin and so much more!
Sally Delisle and I purchased ChildLight Yoga on October 1st, 2019. We were both long-time employees of the company and understood that there were plenty of risks associated with buying a business with headquarters 360 miles away from our homes (we both lived in PA and the company is based in NH). At the time, ChildLight supported four employees and ten independent contractors. We weren’t just yoga teachers making ends meet for ourselves anymore. We were now a proud 100% women-owned and operated business with many people relying on us for their livelihood. Since Day One, we had big plans of growing the business and expanding our wellness offerings.
Then, five months later, the world shut down.
Just like so many companies eager to survive the shutdown, we spent the month of March moving all of our trainings to Zoom as live, virtual offerings. Our pivot to virtual learning was a lifesaver. It became clear early on that our highly credentialed, experienced trainers’ had seamlessly transitioned their content & presence to our online platform. We even discovered that some of our training activities work better on Zoom!
In our very first live, virtual prenatal yoga teacher training, a woman from Norway recognized a woman from Singapore because they had attended the same training in Thailand earlier in the year. Those kinds of connections would have never been possible for our community prior to that moment. We felt energized by the possibility of becoming an international company and started offering self-paced online courses to accommodate people living in different time zones or simply enjoyed learning in this format.
Did you know that everyone became a yoga teacher in 2020? Ha! Funny, but it feels true. We had close to 1,000 people attend our live trainings on Zoom during the height of the pandemic. It was a great year for ChildLight! We were even featured in the Concord Monitor as a business that found a solution during the pandemic and we were riding high.
Then, in April of 2021, vaccinations became widely available, and the world slowly started to open back up. What did this mean for ChildLight? We found ourselves having to pivot again. We suspected that constantly reinventing our brand would be part of owning a business, but all this new territory was starting to feel overwhelming. What do people want now? Self-paced online learning? Live virtual learning? In-person learning? Hybrid learning? The choices were starting to feel overwhelming and making sense of the puzzle was all-consuming. So many of our colleagues were closing their doors. Their domains and social accounts were disappearing overnight as if they never existed. 2021 was a scarier time for us than 2020.
These transitions required a commitment to our yoga practice. Yoga as a lifestyle is what helps us move through the good times and bad with grace, gratitude and peace. In 2022, we are focusing on simplifying. “Work smarter, not harder” is the mantra we use often during team meetings. We consistently return to our mission to guide us– Empower people with the tools they need to be healthy, happy and resilient at school, at home and throughout their lives. Sharing wellness practices is why we got into this business and is the driving force behind why we keep working day in and day out to reach more people. We hope our programs will inspire people to share what they learn in their communities and over time we will see a positive shift in the way all beings live and communicate with one another.
We sincerely believe that implementing yoga & mindfulness practices across communities, educational institutions, healthcare settings and corporations alike has the power to change the world, even if it is slow work. When we have the tools needed to cope with life’s challenges, life is much sweeter.
If you’d like to learn more about all that ChildLight has to offer, follow the links below:
- Yoga Teacher Trainings – Learn evidence-based trauma-informed yoga & mindfulness tools for a myriad of ages and settings.
- Mentorship – One-on-one meetings when you need additional support to put what you’ve learned into action.
- Resources – ChildLight Blog, Training Manuals, Certified Instructor Directory, Research & Curriculum.
- Professional Development, Student Assemblies, Enrichment Programs – In-person or virtual to reinforce a sustainable community-wide practice.
- Live Yoga Classes – Join a group or enjoy prerecorded classes for all ages to support individual learning.
We hope you will join the ChildLight community! Please reach out to us if you have any questions.
With gratitude,
& The ChildLight Team (Pictured below: Sally Delisle, Megan Morris, Lisa Stevens, Ann Biese, Colleen Smith, Larissa Noto, Meg Durkin, Rochelle Jewell)
