A teddy bear's journey

You may have come across Meddy Teddy before. If not here in OM magazine, then perhaps on his world travels, or on his very own Instagram account (@meddyteddy).

He’s a fun, interactive, soft and cuddly way to experience yoga, meditation and mindfulness on your own, with your kids or in the classroom. He’s developed quite a following on social media with over 51k followers and is a big hit with all children.

Meddy Teddy is the creation of Tom Jordan who came up with the idea while meditating on a yoga retreat. But the bear has proved mega popular since and others have embraced the idea too.

That includes Nicole Hasler, a keen yogini who attended her first class about 10 years ago. She’s been taking her own Meddy Teddy on her travels to promote the yoga message. She now posts her own images of Meddy Teddy on her Instagram account (@teddysyogajourney). She explains how it all get started: “I saw this picture of a teddy posing together with a famous yogi somewhere on the internet and I knew I had to get one of these bears! When I actually heard the story of Meddy Teddy I was even more convinced that it would be the perfect ‘partner’ for me to combine my passion of yoga and photography and create something wonderful. So I started to post my teddy pictures to share information about yoga to my family and friends and also to bring a smile to their faces.”

Hasler creates what she calls ‘mixed media’ pictures and really lets her imagination run wild. “I also get support from my family,” she adds. “My mum is sewing new clothes and my dad is sawing wooden items like benches and surfboards for teddy.”

It didn’t take long for people to start following her own social media feed of teddy’s journey. “But the number of followers is really not so important for me. It’s more important to have real followers who sometimes also give me positive and inspiring feedback which is just great.”