Pilates Insight with Ruby
Instagram: @rubybarkerr
Q: What inspired you to make it a priority in your life?
Health and Wellness has always been a priority to me as I started as a dancer. So naturally, fitness, anything body related, health, healthy eating, nutrition, all that is filtered in through my journey, and that's where I began. More of recent I've got into pilates and understood more the posture and alignment side of things, but also the community. The the benefits after COVID, for me, it was obvious, the benefits of getting out the house and going to an exercise class and meeting people and talking. So it's not just about doing the exercise, but the people you speak to before and after, the connections you make, having that sense of support within a class. Then also my journey through after dancing through yoga and aerial yoga, which really helped me to go more internal and look at my own reflections and the cycles in which I was repeating that I wanted to break, and where my limiting beliefs held and how I needed to nurture myself more to be able to progress in all areas of my life. Wellness to me, is all areas of my life, whether that's business, whether that's relationships, love, money, you know, community, fitness, nutrition. I feel for me, wellness and composite all as all of it. What I have learned along my journey is that you have to do the work inside first to be able to project that throughout all the pillars of your life.
Q: How did you then go from dancing to then be an instructor of yoga and reformer pilates?
The dance industry can be a little bit toxic. For choice of a better word, can be quite influential on your thought patterns. Let's say rather than toxic, because it's got some great sides to it. It led me to have an eating disorder and body dysmorphia, because of all the body imagery pressures that it puts on dancers to look a certain way. As I lost weight, I received more jobs and more gratification. So as much as people were praising me for saying ‘oh, you look amazing’ which I thought was, oh, great. That was actually affirming to me, that my value was based on how slim I was. Now a lot of the work that I do is all about self compassion, being strong, not skinny, and also eating what's the right amount for you and your body, knowing that comparison is the thief of joy, not to compare yourself to somebody else, because everybody's different. Literally, everybody's body is different. It is hard because of social media, but I really feel that it's important to listen to your body rather than to take advice of all these conflicting people on social media.
Q: What is your favourite workout or form of exercise at the moment?
It's becoming like a bit of a cult, like it really is something so addictive about it. And for me, the way I like to teach is that I always like to throw in something a little bit challenging for people, I wanted to keep it fun, and I wanted it to be so serious. And by adding that little extra challenge of something that somebody thought they might not be able to do the way that person's confidences raises by the end of the class, because they've come in, they've tried something that can look terrifying. You go into a room of 10 reformers, and you're like, ah, actually, how that can aid you and support you. And then you discover exercises that you never even knew you were able to do. Then you can take that into your day to day life, like, with a little bit more confidence to be like “Oh, well, I can do that… so what else can I achieve?”
Q: How do you stay consistent with your health and fitness routine, even on busy days?
It's a lot about screen time. I know that if I'm connected to my computer or phone in the morning or in the evening, I'm too wired up, I'm too focused on work, and I'm not giving myself the time that I need to just enjoy. So generally, I won't go on my phone for an hour, an hour and a half in the morning, and then of an evening, I like to try and have like screen off by 8pm but some days, like all of us, some days, it's harder to manage than others, when you've got a lot on so I really like to make sure that I have the beginning and the end of the day for me. Often, in the morning, I'll get out for a walk, I'll make sure I get, my morning sunlight, and then I have, a nice protein dense breakfast, and I spend time with my dog or my boyfriend. I like to get up early and have that little window of this being our time. Then, the chaos starts.
Q: How do you stay motivated to move your body, especially on days when you don’t feel like it?
I always find if I'm in that headset where I'm feeling a little bit like “oh, I don't have the energy for this”. Instead of focusing on what I have to sacrifice or what I have to push myself to do, I focus on the gain of what I'm about to do. So how grateful I am that I get to teach people reformer and that I can inspire all these people and I can reach all these people, or how grateful I am that I get to be self employed and choose my hours. So for me, it's a mindset shift, and often, if I'm feeling a bit bogged down, I just have to check myself and say, Okay, now, “what am I grateful for today?” And you know, what are the things that are going to make me want to get out of bed, because I just feel the more you focus on the negative, the more you get the negative, and the more you focus on the positive, the more you'll attract the positive. But also, as well, knowing when to rest, like that was a big one for me. I was a massive over productive, overachiever, like, had to be doing, doing, doing, and just listening to your body and knowing when to slow down. And if I do fancy a day off, and I've got the time and space to have some time off, and I'm really tired and I'm not feeling 100%, I won't try and force myself to do work unless, obviously, I have to go to a shift. But if it's personal stuff as I'm self employed, I have a retreat business, and I have another business that I'm slowly starting to open, I'll just be like, I'm not in the right headspace, and listen to that and take time for me. I'm big believer in that you can't pour from an empty cup. You have to fill your own cup to be able to share that with other people. Otherwise, what you're producing isn't going to be your best work anyway.
Q: How do you prioritise mental health alongside physical wellness?
I think one, one thing that a great friend of mine taught me, that I used to live with out in Costa Rica, he said any situation that arises, good or bad, it can be the worst situation ever. Just ask yourself - “how does this serve me?” And that will help you to find the positive in any situation, and you really have to dig deep, because it's often the worst situation ever and I think either you're winning or you're growing. If something's not good, you might deem it as bad, but actually, it's just a lesson, and being able to identify how what that lesson is trying to teach you and how it's serving you is, for me, been the strongest piece of advice or question or thought provoking piece of information that somebody's ever given me. People often get in this victim mentality of like, why is this happening to me? Just think - “how is this serving me?” And I think that's helped me stay super strong, because it's being able to really dig deep and find the positives in awful situations.
Q: What advice would you give to someone struggling with balance?
To listen more, listen to your body more, and listen to your mind more. And actually, what helped me was designating time for yourself. So just as you designate time for doing work or designate time for business or running around, doing the shopping, all those things. Designate at least an hour a day to you, to have a walk, to have a bath, to read your book, because they say that that one hour of time is when the most inspiration hits you anyway. That's that time that you're really giving back to yourself. If you're somebody that loves a schedule and loves over productivity. Actually scheduling in! It's almost like you're tricking your own mind, scheduling in that wellness time. If you're not somebody that's as intuitive that can just be like “Oh, I feel like I need some time out”. If you schedule that in, like, and you're someone that likes to stick to schedules, you'll do it.
Q: Where do you see yourself in the future in terms of your health and wellness, while focusing on your company Revive Yoga?
Ideally, they all come to a pinnacle and join at the top to create an umbrella brand under revive yoga. We currently run retreats, revive retreats. The purpose of the retreats is to allow people to have a safe space where they can reconnect to themselves, meet like minded people, chance to travel if they've not got anyone to travel with, so they can travel solo and also like to give people an opportunity to give back to themselves and maybe holiday a little bit differently. We're really trying to create that safe space for people that maybe feel a little bit stuck. They've might of just had a breakup, they're wanting the confidence to change careers, but they're not sure the first step they need to take to do that, or they don't have enough expansive people around them to prove to them that they can do that. I think with the retreats, for me, it's showing people that there are supportive people out there, and there are people rooting for them. And there is another way they can do things. You know, they can go self employed, if they want to go self employed. They can be single if they want to be single and have fun for a bit, they will find a partner if they want to. They can move abroad if they want to. It's just to help break people's limiting beliefs and show them what they are capable of. The short term goal would be hosting like five or six or seven retreats a year, and just build up that momentum for the retreats to allow more people to have access to what we do. Then future, future goals would be to have our own retreat centre whereby we can continually host retreats with reformer access, with yoga access, with mental fitness or well being, coaching, a wellness hub. That we can post from on a regular basis, meaning that it's available to us throughout the year, so therefore it's available to the wider public. That would be the big goal, and I'd love it to be a community of like minded people living and working there, very old school, living from the land and farm to table. I'm all into organic food produce and just creating a community there of individual people supporting each other and working together in harmony to create something really cool and really special to give back. It would be a matter of buying land and starting from scratch and building it ourselves. I quite like the journey and the process of doing something yourself, I just feel it gives you so much more satisfaction and sense of worth and more pride in what you're producing when you've when the foundations are there, it's in the integrity is there. It's you through and through.
Q: Are there any wellness trends you’re loving right now? Which ones do you think are overrated?
I’ve done a lot of research into nervous system regulation, and for me, something that I think is not well enough known that I personally really enjoy, are somatic practices regarding nervous system regulation. Stimulating the vagus nerve. Really simple little things you can do, for example, not moving your head but looking towards the right to stretch the vagus nerve and towards the left, and then a little massage in the inside of your ears, humming, stretching through the neck. These things really help me when I'm feeling anxious or over stimulated. I've had a sudden bereavement in the family, and it's meant that my nervous system has been out of whack, so I've been stuck in fight or flight a lot more than I am in rest and digest. This causes so many issues with digestion, sleep patterns, menstrual cycles, energy levels, brain fog. I think it's really, it’s not the forefront of health and wellness, its more that sort of bridging gap between Science and like health and wellness. What I like about it is the scientific facts that prove what some people would say were ‘woo woo’ techniques such as like yoga and mindfulness and stuff like that. They're actually the scientific proof behind why you're feeling anxious and why you breathe work helps to stimulate, helps to calm you, because it stimulates your vagus nerve. I like to know the why. Why I'm doing things. Just 10 minutes on YouTube Vagus Nerve Stimulation or yoga for this dis-regulated nervous system that can really help me to find calm in the chaos of every day, especially if I'm feeling a little bit anxious, or I've had a bad dream, or something's triggered me. I just need, just need 10/ 15, minutes to me to just stop these thoughts going crazy.
Are there any wellness trends that you think are overated?
There's a lot of information out there on what you should and what you shouldn't eat. I think there's a lot of information that conflicting information out there about what's good for you and what isn't good for you in terms of what you should and shouldn't eat. After years of going around on restrictive diets, no sugar, no gluten, no dairy, candida diet, low FODMAP diet, keto, vegan, I think what I've come to terms with is just like a healthy, balanced diet. It's what we all were originally taught, meat and two veg, like it's old school. It's just basics, 101, what you were taught in school. For me, I'm not a fan of, like, protein shakes and like sort of different products, like protein bars and keto this, use this for this, use that for that. “A whole drink will be completely nutritionally beneficial” - I'm like, okay, maybe scientifically it is but like, you're not going through the process of cooking that food yourself, putting the love in that food, like getting the fibre from the food, which slows down the glucose spikes. It's just so far away from what we are originally. If I'm unsure whether I want to eat something, I think if my great grandparents wouldn't recognise it. You probably shouldn't eat it. Yeah. You know.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone just starting their health and wellness journey, what would it be?
Get outside. I don't know why for me, sunlight, not that we get loads of it in the UK. But it is a game changer in terms of mood, in terms of energy, in terms of calming your nervous system with nature. Just get outdoors! And take it back to basics. You know, simple living, clean food, meat and veg, get outdoors, whether its hiking or walking.