Women In Wellness: Lori Bregman of Seedlyfe On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Establish a good self-care practice before you have children because once your baby comes, your time often gets diluted. You have to put that oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others. Children ride off your energy so by taking care of you, you will better take care of them. Not to mention the best way children learn is by watching your example. When they see you taking care of yourself, you will be a living example of self-love.
As a part of my series about women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lori Bregman.
Celebrity doula Lori Bregman brings her unique blend of healing, spirituality, nutrition and wellness as Co-Founder of Seedlyfe, a, delicious superfood smoothie blends & powdered vitamins brand, where she empowers women to find their voice in pregnancy and create a solid, healthy foundation. The author of The Mindful Mom to Be, The Doula Deck and Mamaste, Lori works with women throughout all stages of their personal transformation from fertility through pregnancy, into motherhood and beyond.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I am many things in my life. I am a doula, life/wellness coach, author of The Mindful Mom to Be, Mamaste, and The Doula Deck, and the co-founder of Seedlyfe superfood smoothie blends and powdered vitamins. I am the creator of the Mindful Mom-to-Be virtual group coaching program, Doula to Doula 12-month mentorship program, and The Mama Portal, an online community for mindful and conscious moms and moms-to-be.
There is that famous Steve Jobs quote that says, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward — you can only connect them looking backward.” This really rang true for me and it helped me to see how everything in my life has set me up to get to me where I am today to be living my soul calling. Ever since I can remember I have been drawn to working with pregnant women and children. Over the years I have studied all kinds of healing modalities such as nutrition, spiritual coaching, bodywork, yoga, and more, and in the back of my mind, I was always thinking about how I could bring this to my pregnant clients. When I was learning massage and energy work, my teacher told us about doula training and I immediately enrolled.
Around this time, I was doing a ton of deep, deep healing on myself, and during a hypnotherapy session, I uncovered some harmful revelations. I had thoughts come up that I was a burden, unlovable, and didn’t deserve to exist. I was completely shocked by this sudden rush of emotion and I had no idea where this first originated. Wanting to know more, I went back the next day for another session with the intention of finding the root cause of the wounding. My hypnotherapist guided me back and I kept going until I found myself in the womb. It felt awful in there and I actually started to have a panic attack. My therapist asked me what happened to me when my mother was pregnant with me and I had no idea how to answer. She suggested I ask my mother about it. When I did, my mom started to cry and told me that I survived a very tumultuous pregnancy and because I did, it means my soul was meant to be here. There were things she tried to do to get rid of me during her pregnancy, and afterward went into a deep depression and tried to put me up for adoption. During my birth, she was all alone, very scared, and crying out for my dad and her mother. The doctors put her to sleep and I was pulled out with forceps ( a common thing back then), and because I was so little I was in an incubator for days without being held.
In the following months, postpartum depression set in and she couldn’t properly care for me. Through all my years of education, and deep healing work I have built an incredible career in helping women and families thrive during pre-conception, the pre and postnatal period, birth, and beyond, and it truly comes full circle for me. I can look back now and see how if I didn’t come into the world the way I did, I wouldn’t be doing the work I am doing in the world today. My greatest wound has become my greatest gift.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
Oh my gosh, there are so many amazing stories, each with its own uniqueness and magic! Over the years I have supported over 1,000 births and taken thousands of couples through the journey into parenthood. There isn’t one that stands out the most, but I can say this: no two women, couple, families, babies, pregnancies, paths to conception, postpartum journey and birth have ever been the same — they are all so unique and one of a kind. What works for one family might not work for another. So my takeaway and lessons in this are to really get to know each person as an individual and understand the way they operate. I support them with compassion for their uniqueness and choices without judgment or projecting my own views onto them. It helps to deepen our connection and strengthens the journey.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about a mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Something that I work on a lot with my doula mentors is self-care, boundaries, pacing yourself, and knowing your limits. This is something that I didn’t do and my health and well-being suffered greatly. It took me years to find this balance. I was doing 9 births a month, writing books and co-creating my Seedlyfe product line, and more. I am the kind of person who thrives on having my hands in a lot of different modalities and I am very mission-driven to support women and couples during the pre and postnatal period. It took blowing out my adrenals, my hormones crashing, and a bout of depression and drinking way too much to wake me up and find a new pace. My self-care and well-being are at the top of my priority list now and I have all the new doulas do the same so they don’t go down the path I have traveled.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
During pregnancy you are your child’s environment — what’s done to the mother is done to the baby. From the way you feel to the foods and supplements you take to the products you choose to use and the people and environments you surround yourself with, they all go into the foundation your baby will grow from. My Seedlyfe smoothie blends and cutting-edge prenatal vitamin powder are making a huge impact by supporting a woman’s body before, during, and after pregnancy. My doula and coaching practice, educational classes, and online community all help empower women and couples to be more mindful and conscious of this sacred period. They learn that with the choices they make, they are building the roots from which their children will grow. I remember a download I got a year ago when I did Ayahuasca: “That I was here to help the children through the mothers. That the storms these children will be facing in their lifetime will be like nothing we have ever seen. That they need to come in deeply rooted to better weather these storms.”
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing?
Take a high-quality prenatal such as Seedlyfe’s Prenatal Vitamins + Electrolyte Powder. The average woman does not get all the vitamins and minerals they need to support a healthy pregnancy. We spent years working with scientists and dietitians to perfect the ultimate prenatal with the right kind and amount of choline, Vitamin D, methylated folate and so much more to keep mama and baby healthy and thriving.
Education is key as knowledge is power. Take a non-hospital birthing class and know your options or you will not have any. Pick your support team wisely and hire a doula. Your birth will stay with you for the rest of your life and have an imprint on your child. We need to do better than healthy mom and baby, we need to add non-traumatized mom and baby too.
Patch things up. If you have unhealed wounds from childhood without knowing it, you could unconsciously try and fix your wounds through your children. Your wounds are not for your children to carry. Also if there are deep problems in your relationship work on them before you have kids. If there are problems in the relationship, having children is like adding salt to a wound. Get on the same page with each other about philosophies, transitions, and ways of parenting and raising your child.
Establish a good self-care practice before you have children because once your baby comes, your time often gets diluted. You have to put that oxygen mask on yourself before assisting others. Children ride off your energy so by taking care of you, you will better take care of them. Not to mention the best way children learn is by watching your example. When they see you taking care of yourself, you will be a living example of self-love.
Follow what works for you and your family. As I said above, no two people, babies, couples, and families are the same. What might work for another might not be what’s right for you.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I’m already doing it! My Seedlyfe products help nourish and support women through all phases of womanhood. My Mama Portal membership site helps to educate and bring women and families together in community to empower, support, and educate them all.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
1. You will live a life on-call and that can be really hard for making plans.
2. You will see the most beautiful and magical things and also see things that break your heart. I am talking about the way in which many women are disempowered, their choices disrespected and taken away by so much fear-mongering, which has all escalated since and after the Covid pandemic.
3. That doula work is not a career; it’s a calling and it’s addictive AF!
4. Self-care is crucial for longevity in this field.
5. Having a strong support network is a necessity to help process and get support during and after births.
Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.
Women In Wellness: Lori Bregman of Seedlyfe On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.