Gas! Gas! Gas!: Lindsey Benoit O’Connell, CSCS
The founder of The LAB Wellness on her transformation from magazine maven to mom and meditation teacher.
Lindsey Benoit O’Connell was a powerhouse within the magazine industry, working her magic in PR, marketing, editorial, special projects, and celeb bookings since 2010 for brands like Fashion Rocks, Vogue, Vanity Fair, SELF, Women’s Health (where we met), Redbook, Woman’s Day, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping. She’s produced podcasts for Arianna Huffington and Gabby Bernstein and still does social media on the side for WeightWatchers.
But now, her career looks a lot different: She’s the founder of The LAB Wellness, teaching sound bath, meditation, breathwork, mindfulness, and fitness in group classes and private sessions. Here, Lindsey explains how a long, arduous bout of postpartum depression and a return to her roots inspired her 180-pivot into wellness… and why it’s the best thing that could’ve happened to her.
I just took one of your meditation classes in your Yurt Sanctuary, which is seriously the coolest thing. Where did that idea come from? It's genius!
So I teach classes all over. I'm at Auberge’s Wildflower Farms in Gardner, New York. I'm in Ridgefield, Connecticut at Angel Cooperative. I’m in the town of Carmel teaching classes with Parks and Rec. I’m in Wappingers, all over the place.
My dream is to have my own studio someday, but I'm a realist. And there's a space in my backyard that I love. There's a river in the back, a canopy of trees, and you feel like you're somewhere else. (I was a camp counselor when I was younger and I love being outside. I feel very connected—once I'm in the woods, I can just shed all of my inhibitions and stress.)
I said to [my husband] Brian, “We don't really need a playground down there. I have an idea. I think we need a yurt, like Coachella or Sedona.”
Yes, that's exactly how it feels! I've never been to a festival, but it’s giving festival vibes.
Right. And I was like, “I need people to come in and be outside, but feel really cozy, very bougie. And I want to teach classes here.”
It was almost like, if I build it, will they come? And if this works, then maybe this is what I do: it isn't brick and mortar; it's a retreat, a bed and breakfast. I don't know. The yurt was born from many ideas in my brain, which is always turning.
Also, I’m a mom and I wanted to be home more. If I can pop out to the yurt, teach a class, and feel connected without worrying, “oh, I'm missing so much at home,” that's like a perfect situation for me.
This is just a quick introduction into your career now, which is very different from when I first met you. You were doing PR and marketing at Women’s Health. Walk us through your journey from that point on.
I moved to New York City from Massachusetts when I was 18. I went to Manhattan College and never went back. I've always had this weird hybrid life in editorial and PR.
PR is one of the hardest jobs and one of the most thankless. Now that I look back on it, I was always searching for something. I went down a career path in magazines because I thought, ”You need to have this fancy job and prove to everybody that you're so cool.” But just because you're good at something doesn't mean that's what you're meant to do. And I was really, really good at it. But you can still be good at something and not have your heart totally in it.
[Fast forward to when] I had a baby. That's when my life changed. I was like, “I'm going to be a career mom and I'm going to be bringing Hunter to everything I do…” No, that’s not how it went down.
After having Hunter, I got an opportunity to go work for Arianna Huffington at Thrive. At the time, I was like maybe that's where I should go; it’s something new and magazines aren't doing well. So, I did, and I learned so much, but that's when I started to have really bad postpartum depression and anxiety—like the scary kind, like suicidal thoughts and self-harm. But I didn't know I had it.
This pattern emerged when I started blaming the job. “It must be the job; I'm so unhappy here, I need to leave.” Looking back, that was a perfectly lovely job. It wasn't the problem; I was just very sick.
I would have panic attacks and turn to meditation to get me out of it. I had done that before having Hunter—when they were really bad, I was able to use meditation and breathwork to notice when they were coming and breathe my way out of them—so I was like, well, let me do that again.
“I knew I needed to be doing something different—there was something inside of me that needed to help people.”
From Ariana, I went to Nutritious Life, and then I went to work for Gabby Bernstein. I helped launch and produce her podcast, and I loved it. I fell even more into meditation because, obviously, she’s a guru in that. And then, from there, I got poached to go work for WeightWatchers and run their social media department.
During this whole time, I was sick; postpartum last up to five years and I was four-and-a-half years in. I was diagnosed midway through, and that helped, but I never went on medication. (In hindsight, I probably should have gone on some drugs!)
I knew I needed to be doing something different—there was something inside of me that needed to help people. So, I got certified as a fitness instructor… maybe that's what I need to do to help people get out of their mental mindfuck?
And then, there's this company called Unplug Meditation, and I joined their meditation training. I had to interview and get accepted. During the interview, she said, “You need to be doing this,” and I was accepted that day.
So, that was the beginning of this crazy journey.
Wild.
When I told my boss at WeightWatchers, “I think it's time for me to branch off and do my own thing,” she was like, “Well, why don't you freelance here? So you can still have an income. while you're building your other business.”
It was scary. Brian and I sat down and I said, “I'm about to give up 20 years of a career and salary working my butt off to make a beautiful living and start from nothing. How can we do that?”
And he was like, “You know, what? We'll figure it out. I'd rather you happy than miserable.”
That’s the only response, in my opinion.
Right, and he built his own career and has a pension and he’s worked just as hard so that we can have a life we want. He’s just amazing and still is in supporting me because I have imposter syndrome like every other human.
I was worried what other people were gonna think after having a super successful career in media for 20 years, and then becoming… a meditation teacher.
The pivot of all pivots. It’a 180!
I like to equate it to two halves of a black and white cookie: At the top is the chocolate side, the media jobs, and I'm gonna have to have them on the top right now. The vanilla side is my meditation career and that’s gonna have to wait for a little bit. Eventually, the cookie turns. It’s sideways and you can eat both sides, and then you just need to keep turning the cookie until you have the side that you want.
That's one of the best analogies of all time and now it's making me hungry.
It's really challenging to start from zero. Not everybody has a nest egg or the ability to do that. While my husband is wonderful and I have a great partner, we also have a house, a family, responsibilities, and bills. We are a true partnership, and I wanted to be able to provide as well, so I started off slow.
I kept freelance gigs in media, and then, one day, I realized I was getting too busy. I can't do both; I'm burning out. That was the scary day that I jumped two feet in and now I’m here. Eight months later.
The weird thing is, it’s so natural for me to be doing what I'm doing right now. Like so natural.
And now I feel like business is booming! Or, at least from the outside, it seems like business is very good.
I have some residencies at certain places. For Wildflower Farms, I had to audition and was terrified, but I got the job and that was a very proud moment.
I think the beautiful thing about having a media career and understanding PR, marketing, and editorial is that it helps when you transition to something totally different. It's a blessing and a curse; I am never without an idea but I’ve been that way for my whole career! I was like, “We should launch a store!” “We should do this on the side!” I still find myself doing that a lot with meditation, but the practice itself has helped me.
Meditation is like a bicep curl for the brain. You are going to have thoughts. You're breathing in and out and noticing your breath, then all of a sudden, you're like, “Oh, a cheeseburger sounds good for dinner,” “I really should buy those shoes on Instagram,” “This is the best comeback to Judy in junior high…” You're like, Why am I thinking this?
Don't beat yourself up. Just say, “Oh my gosh, I'm thinking, I don't want to be thinking right now.” Like a bicep curl, bring your focus back to center, which is your breath, the rise and fall of your belly. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Or, you can think of an affirmation like, “I am here.”
You know, I repeated that a million times during your class.
After a while and with consistent meditation, you'll be present more often than your mind will be wandering. It just takes practice, like any other muscle.
I'd rather you meditate five minutes a day every day than 20 minutes once a week. You're gonna get better benefits that way; the gray matter in your brain will start increasing, your focus, memory, and cognition will improve.
In addition to all of your residencies, you also do private sessions. How did those come to be, did you pitch yourself? Or was it word-of-mouth?
It was a combo. My clients are either people who have known me or seen me hustling and trying to build my business. I auditioned for Angel Cooperative, which was very divine because I drove past and was like, “I think I'm supposed to work there.” So, I followed that intuition, went in, and met Christy, the owner, who's a brilliant woman. She was like, “I have this feeling you need to be doing this.” She's so supportive of everything.
For the town of Carmel, I blind emailed and met one of my now-best friends because of it. The privates come from people who have taken my classes and want to work more with me.
How does a private session go? Is it similar to a class or very different?
All sound healers are different. You can come to me and get one experience and go to somebody else and get a completely different one. We play differently; I'm an intuitive healer, so I play energy tied to your chakras; I play the person, not the room.
I'm always looking at the individual and seeing what they need. In a private session, it's very personalized to that person and what's happening in their life. I give an intuitive reading after, things like that.
Having lived almost a year in this career full-time (and working on it for four years), do you think that it's definitely the right choice over media for you?
Here's the truth: I love my life in media, but I think I chose it because I wanted to prove something to everybody else, not for me. When I look back on my life before college, there are some weird synchronicities.
I mentioned I was a camp counselor and it was an overnight camp. I didn't know what meditation was, I was 14-15 years old, but I was teaching the camp kids how to breathe before bed every night. I’d play Enya and do a “breathe in the good, breathe out the bad” session.
I was also the Editor-in-Chief of my school paper, I love to write. Writing meditations is like breathing.
And, I can read people. After the postpartum, I thought, “If I can help one person the way that meditation helped me, then I'm gonna do okay. So many people are suffering from burnout, they just want to connect to something more and slow down.”
For anyone who's thinking about entering a similar career path of meditation teaching or something similar, what advice would you give to them?
Make it your own. It seems crowded—there are a lot of meditation teachers, sound healers, or gurus out there, but I think there are enough people who need healing that you will make a difference in someone's life. So, don't get discouraged.
I’ll be honest, I often get a little competitive. It's hard not to when you’re like, “I should be doing that,” or “They must be better because they have more followers.” You don't know their story or how long they’ve been doing this, so don't compare yourself. Tap into what feels right to you.
Choose a lane to start. (I mean, I have a million lanes, so I'm not the best example of this.) My biggest is mindful productivity. I produced a daily planner to help prevent burnout so you can turn your day into how you need to be versus what you need to do.
Give yourself grace. It could be overwhelming to start something new, but it's worth it.
And finally, take a wacky idea and just do it. There was this huge Instagram phenomenon in Alaska or Europe where this one woman at a resort was teaching meditation in the pool. You laid on a raft, and I was like, I want to do that. I called my friend and she's like we have stand-up paddleboards at the lake, we should lay on them and I was like, let's do this! So now, we’re offering the Surf & Sand Sound Bath program this summer at Sycamore Park on Long Pond in Mahopac, NY. It's this beautiful water, you don't swim or get wet, you just lay on the water while I play and you just feel awesome.
Wow, what a cool concept! And look at that, you just brought it to life and made it your own! I’ve known you for more than a decade and I can say this feels right for you. It's been really inspiring watching you take a chance on yourself.
Well, you’re in the minority. Some people are like, “What are you doing?” But don't listen to the haters. The truth: The people who give you the hardest time are the people who have the most insecurities in themselves. It's about something that they're afraid they're not doing or can’t do themselves. It's their ego talking; It's not about you.
My friend Veronica who had a fashion boutique told me this when I was starting out: “If you are starting a new business and you think all your friends are gonna come and support you and like all your social posts and do all the things, no, they will not. Probably 80% won’t, 20% will. But, you will find new people and make new friends that help you and it will be wonderful.”
Overall, when somebody gives you a hard time, questions you, or doubts you, know it's not about you. It’s a really hard concept though, but actually, meditation can help.
This was really lovely. Lindsey, it's been amazing to watch you make this pivot, and I love seeing you thrive in this new chapter! I've started a couple of small projects on my own over the past couple of years, and I think you actually shared that quote from your friend Veronica back when I was getting the first one off the ground — it was SO helpful for me to see that and I think about it ALL THE TIME, as it's absolutely been true for me as well. I am getting support and encouragement and participation from lots of people, but very few of the people closest to me that I'd *expect* to give me that support are actually doing it. It was really reassuring to see that this isn't anything personal, about me or about them, it's just the way things go. We find our people!
Cheering you on.
🌗🌓😍😍