As we celebrate International Women’s Day, The Clare Echo would like to take this opportunity to celebrate local businesswomen who inspire others by pursuing their passions and making a difference in the business world. One such woman is Louise Lynch, an entrepreneur who has built a thriving business around mindfulness and positive psychology.
Her journey into entrepreneurship began with a deep personal transformation and has grown into Mindful Moments, a business dedicated to helping others embrace understand mindfulness and see how it can lead calmer, more present lives. Louise’ personal journey with mindfulness started in 2012 while she was pregnant with her second child. After having a difficult pregnancy and birth with her first child, Louise began looking into alternative routes to help mentally prepare herself for labour.
After practicing gentle birthing and yoga during her second pregnancy, Louise continued to dip in and out of various mindfulness practices using them to help subdue periods of high stress and anxiety. Louise was made redundant in 2019 after working 20 years in the corporate world she decided to take some time out with her 3 young children, during that time she still found that although she was no longer working full time and trying to juggle life as a busy mother she was still felt highly stressed and anxious a lot of the time and decided to take this opportunity to enroll in an 8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course in the hope it would help with life’s daily stresses, which Louise says changed her life.
“It completely changed the way I look at things,” she reflects. “It helped me understand how I was living, how much anxiety I was carrying around, how I was always ruminating about the past or worrying about the future, both of which I had no control of and how I was never really living in the present moment”
Mindfulness became her anchor, a way to reconnect with herself through her mind and body. As she reaped the benefits, she noticed her stress and anxiety began to lessen. But it wasn’t just about her own healing—Louise wanted to share mindfulness with others who might be struggling with the same daily challenges she had faced.
Louise went on to study mindfulness and positive psychology for 15 months, where she truly began to grasp their transformative power. She realised that mindfulness is more than just meditation—it’s about bringing awareness to our thoughts, recognising negative patterns, and understanding how the mind works. By doing so, we can build a healthier relationship with our thoughts and cultivate a more positive outlook.
Inspired by this knowledge, Louise decided to leave the corporate world behind and founded Mindful Moments. She launched her first beginners’ mindfulness course, modelled after the MBSR programme. Now, three years later, Mindful Moments offers two courses in mindfulness and positive psychology: a beginners’ course and a follow-on course titled Deepen. This advanced course is designed for those who have completed the beginners’ programme or a similar form of training, guiding them on a deeper journey of healing and self-discovery
Louise plans to launch her courses on-line to make them more accessible to a wider range of clients. She will also be launching a lunchtime beginners’ course very soon. In addition to these courses, Louise provides one-to-one coaching sessions for both adults and teenagers tailored to suit each individual needs.
Alongside her group and individual coaching Louise runs a monthly women's circle. This is a space where like-minded women come together and celebrate women through topic discussions and rituals such as full-moon ceremonies.
In addition to her diploma, Louise is a qualified breathwork coach and is currently deepening her expertise in children’s mindfulness. She is training with Creative Mindfulness for Kids, a programme that supports children from preschool age through to adolescence. At the core of Mindful Moments is the belief that mindfulness is about implementing simple
and easy daily practices into every aspect of life. Louise wants to break the myths around mindfulness and ensure it feels like a natural practice, not just another task on a to-do list. Louise explains that there are a variety of ways to bring mindfulness practices into your life, whether it’s through formal or informal practices. Formal practices involve setting aside specific time each day for meditation, while informal practices encourage mindfulness in everyday activities, such as drinking a cup of coffee or brushing your teeth. These small mindful moments can provide a sense of calm and help reduce the stress of living in the past or worrying about the future.
“You can have a mindful experience brushing your teeth or driving your car to work/School run using those few minutes in the morning to get out of autopilot, regulate your nervous system and be present in your life rather than being stuck in the days to do list.”
Running a business, of course, is not without its challenges. Like many women in business, Louise had to navigate the complexities of self-doubt and uncertainty, particularly when it came to launching her business and putting herself out there on social media. However, it was the very mindfulness tools that Louise was hoping to share with others that helped her breakthrough those barriers of imposter syndrome and self-doubt.
“I’ll never forget my first course, the day I was setting up I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach from the fear that I was feeling. And I thought, ‘what am I doing? Are you crazy? Go
back to the office, go back to the day job.’
I had all those thoughts, but I had to keep on reminding myself that these are just thoughts, just because I think them, it doesn’t mean it’s true, and I had to keep reminding myself what mindfulness has done for me and how it’s changed my life. Mindfulness is all about catching those fearful thoughts and bringing yourself back to the present moment.”
Throughout the past three years Louise has learned plenty of valuable lessons about running a business, the main lesson being to ask for help when you need it. Louise credits much of her early success to her willingness to ask for help. Joining local women’s networking groups and collaborating and connecting with other female entrepreneurs allowed her to grow her business in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Mindfulness has not only transformed Louise’ personal life but has also played a significant role in the success of her business.
“The reason I teach mindfulness is, first, because of how much it has impacted me – it has completely changed me as a person. And second I want to show others a different way of living and that is it possible to give yourself a break and step off the hamster wheel”.
Mindfulness has helped her manage anxiety and stress, improve her relationships, and become more present in her work and family life.
