Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

Practical Yoga Tools for Making Life (and Work) a Joyful Ride – for Kids, Families, and You

By Gopala Amir Yaffa

We’ve already felt the goodness of yoga flowing through our bodies — stretching out in yoga poses, calming the breath, melting into deep relaxation, and nourishing ourselves with healthy food. These are powerful practices that don’t just change how we feel physically — they shift the way we think, relate, and live.

And when shared with children and families, these practices become even more powerful. Why? Because they plant the seeds of peace, joy, and emotional intelligence early — helping grow more balanced, resilient humans who can co-create a better world.

Now, we’re ready to explore the next level of yoga practice — the part that works directly with the mind.

Yoga Isn’t Just for the Body — It’s for the Mind Too

Yoga means union. And when we teach yoga to kids and families, we’re not just teaching poses — we’re teaching connection. To breath. To emotion. To each other.

When we move our bodies through yoga, we naturally shift our mental and emotional state. If you’re slouched and closed off, your mind tends to follow — feeling dull or disconnected. But stand tall, breathe deeply, and open your chest… suddenly everything feels brighter. That’s yoga.

To create a lasting impact — especially for the little ones in our lives — we must also learn to work with the mind directly. This is where yoga becomes more than fun… it becomes transformative.

The Mind Shapes Our Reality (and Our Kids’ Futures)

The mind is the lens through which we see the world — and it’s especially impressionable in children. Teaching young people to notice and direct their thoughts helps shape a more compassionate, empowered generation.

We don’t need perfect conditions to feel joy. We need a perspective that sees light in the cracks, connection in the chaos, and kindness even in challenge.

And yes — the mind can be trained, like a puppy or a muscle. This is yoga for the mind.

 

Step One: Be Here Now

The Practice of Presence

The foundation of all mindfulness, meditation, and yoga — especially in kids — is presence.

Being fully here. In the moment. With your breath. With your body. With each other.

🧘 1. Breathe

Sit quietly and listen to your breath.

Inhale… exhale…

When thoughts come (they always do!), return gently to the breath.

This simple breath awareness is magic for children — helping them self-regulate, calm big emotions, and feel safe in their bodies.

☀️ 2. Pick a “Mindful Hour”

Choose one hour a day to practise full attention. For example: the hour after waking.

Open your eyes slowly. Notice the water on your skin in the shower. Taste your food with curiosity. Hear the morning sounds.

For families, this can become a shared ritual — a moment of slowness and gratitude before the rush.

🐾 3. Choose a “Mindful Activity”

Pick a regular activity — like walking the dog — and turn it into a mindfulness adventure.

Notice textures, sounds, smells, sights. Feel your steps. Feel your breath.

This playful habit rewires the brain to stay more grounded, joyful, and connected.

 

The Ripple Effect: Share Your Happiness

Happiness isn’t selfish — it’s service.

When we’re grumpy, our family feels it. When we’re joyful, that joy is contagious.

Imagine if children grew up knowing that their mood affects their community. Imagine if parents and teachers modelled calm, clarity, and care.

This is how yoga creates a better world — one breath, one moment, one smile at a time.

Try This Loving-Kindness Meditation

A beautiful one to teach kids too!

  1. Sit or lie down. Breathe into your heart space.

  2. Visualise yourself happy, healthy, fulfilled.

  3. Silently repeat:

     “May I enjoy happiness and the source of happiness.”

Now extend the circle:

  • A loved one

  • A friend

  • A stranger

  • Someone you find difficult

  • All beings

“May [name] enjoy happiness and the source of happiness.”

This softens the heart, builds compassion, and connects us beyond our differences. It’s powerful for children learning empathy and emotional balance.

 

What Is Meditation, Really?

Meditation is freedom — especially for children who feel overwhelmed or reactive.

Not freedom from life… but freedom within life. The ability to stay calm and centred no matter what’s happening.

Most of us are only happy when life goes “our way.” But what if we could teach our kids to stay joyful even when it doesn’t?

That’s what yoga and meditation give us. Inner resilience. Real power.

 

Why Fun & Play Bring Us to the Present

Joy is mindfulness in disguise.

When kids laugh, play, dance, or build a pillow fort — they are completely present. They’re not worrying about tomorrow or regretting yesterday.

This is why kids naturally love yoga when it’s fun, interactive, and social — because presence = joy.

 

Yoga Meditation Tools for the Whole Family

🧠 1. Thought Hunter

A fun and challenging game:

  • Sit quietly and count from 1 to 10.

  • If a thought appears, go back to 1.

  • Can you make it to 10 without a single thought?

It’s harder (and funnier!) than it sounds. Great for focus, patience, and awareness.

 

🔇 2. Yoni Mudra – Turn Off the Senses

A magical sensory “shut down” to bring the attention inward:

  • Sit tall.

  • Gently block your ears (thumbs), eyes (index), nose (middle), lips (ring & pinky).

  • Breathe deeply and loudly — then quieter and quieter — until you hear only silence inside.

  • Tune into the quiet. Listen deeper than sound.

Children love this one! It feels like a superpower.

 

☁️ 3. Blue Sky Mind Visualisation

  • Picture your inner peace as a vast, blue sky.

  • Thoughts = clouds. They come and go.

  • But the sky (your true nature) is always there.

This metaphor is easy for children to grasp and beautiful to return to during stress or overwhelm.

 

Why This All Matters

These aren’t just feel-good exercises. They’re tools for life.

For kids:

🧠 Emotional intelligence

💞 Empathy

🧘 Focus

💪 Resilience

For families:

🤝 Stronger relationships

😌 More harmony at home

🌍 A shared sense of purpose

Yoga and mindfulness ripple outward. They raise kind humans. They build communities. They heal the world.

 

What’s Next?

In the next part of our journey, we’ll explore how to apply these tools to your work habits, your relationships, and the bigger systems we’re part of — bringing yoga into the real world where it matters most.

But for now…

Breathe.

Smile.

And remember: joy is already inside you. All you have to do is notice it.

 

Want to learn how to share yoga and mindfulness with your children at home or with your students at school?

Join one of our Rainbow Kids Yoga Teacher Trainings today! Click here to sign up!

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MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE WITH YOGA AND MINDFULNESS

Rainbow Yoga trained more than 30,000 Kids Yoga Teachers since 2007. We make yoga fun for children and young people of all age groups and for the whole family too! Our yoga consists of many poses and stretches that have different physical benefits for our health and well-being, breathing, relaxation, meditation and mindfulness exercises for our minds, and social interaction, playfulness, meaning, deep life lessons and fun for our spirit.

Thinking about the impact of all those amazing certified yoga teachers, educators, parents and therapists we have trained to teach yoga to children and yoga for teens; we are making a huge difference for the next generation bringing peace, love, kindness and resilience into their lives. Education departments, schools, health programs and individuals in many countries have adopted yoga as a form of exercise and a method to decrees stress and increase wellbeing. We are the biggest and most-loved kid’s yoga teacher training in the world and we are here tp provide you with everything you will need to teach successful, exciting, meaningful, engaging and fun yoga to children, teenagers and families.

THE BEST ONLINE YOGA TEACHER TRAINING – LEARN TOOLS TO HELP KIDS AND FAMILIES FIND CONNECTION, RELEASE STRESS, INCREASE RESILIENCE AND BRING ON A SENSE OF WELL BEING AND MENTAL BALANCE

Rainbow Kids Yoga offers the most comprehensive, practical, and engaging children yoga teacher training certification in the world! Our course will enable you to deliver children yoga classes that will connects your students to themselves, each other, and the environment. Through unique and engaging practices of mindfulness and yoga your students and community will be able to find connections, enhance well-being and thrive as grounded, integrated and well balanced individuals.

At our training, all while having fun, you will become a children yoga instructor through a lot of experiential practice, insightful theory, yoga poses and sequences, mindfulness practices and relaxation. You will learn how to build fun, engaging, and fitness-level-appropriate children yoga classes for all ages, from toddlers to teenagers. At our kid’s yoga teacher training you will find over 300 videos presenting how to make yoga poses accessible and fun! Believe it or not, yoga can be extremely boring for children and for adults too… In Rainbow Yoga, we make yoga in a fun so that children learn easily and want to do more of it. Yoga is so good for you, but for children to want to want to do yoga you will need to learn to spice it all up and this is what our kid’s yoga online teacher training is for!

This is the perfect resource for yoga teachers, parents, educators and therapists to find and discover hundreds of yoga poses, yoga games and mindfulness practices for children in a way that makes it is easy to learn and easy to enjoy.

Yoga poses for kids: Yoga encourages a positive and healthy lifestyle for the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of children as it helps in the development of strength, stamina, and endurance, high levels of positive energy, resilience, focus, self-awareness, and awareness of our environment.

Yoga for children empowers them with increased concentration, calm, peace, and contentment at a mental level leading to inner and outer peace and harmony. The Rainbow Kids Yoga Teacher Training includes a digital manual (a hard copy that can be purchased) as part of the course. This is specialized online yoga teacher training. Here we will focus on how to teach yoga to children and teens, and how to help them release stress, relax, stretch, energize – All in creative and fun ways while taking into consideration their unique needs, whether they are physical, social, mental, or emotional. 

You will learn to teach the youngest yogis and those with emotional and mental challenges techniques to assist them with impulse control and self-regulation. Our courses provide a platform and a foundation to promote the healthy development of the hearts, bodies, and minds of young individuals.

The Rainbow Kids Yoga Training is the largest and most well-regarded Kids Yoga Teacher Training in the world. Our graduates teach everywhere using our diploma including schools, kindergartens, daycare centers, early learning centers, Yoga studios, gyms, fitness centers, birthday parties, private and group classes and more.

 

AFFORDABLE LEARNING AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Join our Yoga Revolution and become a kids’ yoga teacher today through our online yoga teacher training or in-person yoga certification courses. You will be left with a smile on your face, a wealth of knowledge and an ignited spirit to spread the love and joy of yoga.

For our online training, you can allow 24 hours to receive your access and for physical products such as the Rainbow Kids Yoga Book, you can allow 2-4 weeks to receive it by mail. The books are printed on demand before being shipped, but it is worth the wait 😊

HISTORY OF RAINBOW YOGA

Rainbow Yoga is a fun and constantly evolving family mission and lovingly born in 2007, to give people the tools to teach fun, engaging, and creative in=person and online yoga classes for kids, teens, families, partners, and communities. Rainbow Yoga is interactive and social and all about connection; we touch, hug, move, breathe and co-create together our yoga magically and playfully.

Rainbow Yoga offers a variety of unique and comprehensive teacher training certification courses all over the world offering a well-rounded, in-depth learning experience through a combination of play, practical theory, and fun.The Rainbow Yoga Teacher training is renowned for being captivating, dynamic, loving, and life changing. It is condensed with a lifetime of knowledge and hands-on experience from the Founders of Rainbow Yoga, Gopala, and Angel Yaffa. Delivered by world-class faculty around the world.