After a life-changing experience with mindfulness and meditation, Natalie von Teichman turned her newfound passion into a mission to support children’s emotional well-being. Enter Miindfully and mediTATE—a groundbreaking combination of cuddly toys and expertly crafted audio content designed to teach kids resilience, emotional regulation, and mindfulness. In this Q&A, Natalie shares her inspiring journey, the challenges of building a purpose-driven brand, and what’s next for her innovative mental health tools for children. —Noa Nichol
What inspired you to start your brand/initiative, and what sets it apart from others in the industry?
In February 2020, following a ski trip to Vail, Colorado with friends, I was the 29th person in Canada to be diagnosed with COVID-19. Now it seems like no big deal, but back then, it was terrifying and turned my life upside down for a period. I was locked in my room for 11 days while my husband and our boys remained on the other side of my bedroom door. I didn’t see them (except for facetime calls) as I was terrified to open my door even a crack! We were like a test tube family as I contracted the virus weeks before the world shut down in early March 2020. It was a difficult time for us, and I felt the full brunt of it because it has been me who brought COVID-19 into our home.
My anxiety around my sickness was overwhelming and as I struggled to find my footing, I isolated myself from friends and lived with an internal fear that I was not going to make it through my experience with COVID-19. At this time, I had a wonderful group of friends who started a daily meditation group on WhatsApp. Not knowing how to feel calm inside of myself & struggling to recover from my physical symptoms of COVID-19, I started meditating like it was my job! It was life changing because I found my ability to be in the present moment and start to step away from the “what if’s” that had plagued me.
This story is poignant in my journey to where I am now because when I saw how meditation helped me get my life back, I knew I had to teach these skills to my four young boys. Life gives us challenges daily – some more difficult than others – but I knew that the skills I had learned around mindfulness, meditation and breathwork were essential for my recovery.
In my search to find a toy or tool to help teach my boys how to meditate and build their “mental muscles,” I came up with nothing. At this moment, I decided that I needed to create it myself!
I wanted to build something that could transform how kids develop the skills of emotional regulation, resilience, breathwork and feeling calm. It was designed to be an all-in-one toy for meditation and mindfulness – something that engaged the visual, tactile, olfactory, and auditory senses. My goal was to create a fully immersive play experience that blended expert-created content (that you would find on a meditation app or story-telling platform) with a physical object that kids could cuddle. This way, I could share valuable and skill-building audio content with children, without having a screen anywhere in-sight! This is when miindfully (the online audio library with hundreds of minutes of audio stories and activities) and mediTATE (the cuddly, cute puppy with a child-friendly Bluetooth speaker inside of its belly), were born.
What challenges have you faced along the way, and how have they shaped your approach or vision?
One of the most poignant challenges that we faced early on was after receiving a purchase order from a customer who needed the TATE puppies right away. The request was large so we immediately called our manufacturer to let them know that we would need to place another order. We heard back with the unfortunate news that there was not enough of the original fur material to fulfill the order! They sent us 15 different other fur options, all varying colours, and textures. I was stuck – what should we do? Then it came to me: we would launch a multi-coloured TATE campaign that gave customers the option to purchase four different TATE puppy colours: Original, Tan, Dark Brown, and White. We had been receiving requests from customers to sell different coloured puppy collars so that families with more than one TATE could differentiate the puppies. Now we had an even better option that was reflective of our society – TATE puppies of all colours!
Sometimes when you are placed with a challenge, it forces you to think out of the box! I’ve learned it’s about shifting your mindset to view obstacles as opportunities and being curious about problems when they arise. A successful business isn’t one that hits every goal with no difficulty (this is virtually impossible), it is one that recovers quickly and remains consistent. I like to think that I am “bouncing forward” after every setback versus “bouncing back.” This is my philosophy as a business owner.
What’s a piece of advice or a philosophy you live by that has guided your journey?
I love the quote: “slow down to speed up.” Have you ever been in a huge rush to pay for something in the grocery store and as you type in your four-digit credit card pin, you mess it up, or press cancel by mistake and then must start all over again? It ends up taking longer than if you had just taken a deep breath and intentionally slowed down! Or maybe you have been injured and you are finding it hard to sit still and not get back into your regular, everyday programming. However, pushing an injury too fast or too early can often result in a larger set back which ultimately pushes your recovery time back even further than it had originally been!
Sometimes all we must do is just slow down and this helps us speed up in the end! It is something I often remind myself of when I feel like the wheels are spinning too fast. This quote, along with some intentional, deep breaths, can feel like a warm blanket when you are feeling buzzy.
Can you share a defining moment or milestone that made you feel particularly proud of your work?
TATE is the very first M.E.S.H (Mental, Emotional and Social Health) accredited meditation & mindfulness toy in the world! I still can’t believe it! We have received national awards and have multiple global certifications such as the Good Play Guide, National Parenting Product award and the Mom’s Choice award.
There are many online meditation apps/audio libraries and there are many cuddly plush toys, but nothing exists that combines both concepts together in meditation! This is what we get with mediTATE by miindfully, and I’m really proud of this.
What exciting projects, collaborations, or innovations can we expect from you in the near future?
I’m so excited to share we just launched our new bilingual TATE puppy! The launch of our new French category will allow children to listen to meditation stories through TATE in another language!
Our goal is to continue to translate our entire site and become accessible to all groups. Our long-term plan is to add in more voices (male and child) as well as more plush toys with different names! Each toy will have the signature “breathing paws” that teach kids about box, star, infinity-8 and triangle breathing as well as the little essential oil heart found on TATE’s chest.
As we build our little family of meditation and breathwork plush toys under the umbrella of the miindfully audio content, we will do so with our core foundations of authenticity and kindness in every facet of our brand.
Win! 1 of 2 MediTATE Pups From Miindfully!
Two lucky Canadian winners will each receive a MediTATE Pup from Miindfully! To enter, head over to Instagram, follow @miindfullymeditate and @vitadailymedia and make sure to fulfil all the entry rules in the caption of the corresponding contest post. Contest opens December 21, 2024 and closes December 28, 2025. Complete contest rules and regulations here. Please note: if you are the winner, you will receive a DM (direct message) in Instagram directly from @vitadailymedia. Please be wary of fake accounts, which often use similar handles with an extra or missing letter, number or symbol. We will never ask for a payment or for your credit card number, and we will never ask you to click through a link. If you are unsure whether you have been contacted, via Instagram, by us or a fake account, email us before responding.
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