International Women's Day 2021 - Q&A with Rebecca Harris
Ahead of International Women's Day we are spending 10 minutes with an inspiring woman in fitness. I met this woman at the gym, she was my client, then she became my yoga teacher, and then she started teaching on our retreats! There are many sides to this bright and gentle woman and I hope you’ll read on to discover a few.
Here she comes!
Who are you and what do you do?
R: I’m Rebecca. I'm an investment funds lawyer, but I'm also a yoga teacher. I teach yoga part-time on the MLA Retreats and in studios around London.
S: What do you love about teaching?
R: It's the energy you get back from students mainly and then it's what you can give them. So it's like an exchange. It's what you can give and what you can get back, which I love.
S: I think you're gifted as yoga teacher. You can explain it to people who don't have a clue, which is the main thing right? When people come in fresh and not knowing what to expect, you can just calm them down.
I know you've done a lot of traveling and a lot of adventuring, but what is one thing you are proud of? Of all the things you have done.
R: I was thinking about this earlier. I don't think that it's a specific “thing” that I'm proud of because I'm like, how do I pick one? So I would say the general thing that I'm most proud of is probably my determination. If I want something, I will get it. As in, I will make it happen. It's sometimes a little bit like dog-ear determination - I just won't give up, but I think that's what’s got me where I am. So if I want to do something, I will, whatever I need to do, I'll make sure that I get it.
When I wanted to become a lawyer I was like, okay, this is what I'm going to do, I’ll write a plan and make it happen. When I told Stella I wanted to become a yoga teacher and that she was going to have a business and I was going to teach on her retreat she was like, what are you talking about? Let’s just see... and I was like no, it's gonna happen, I'll be your yoga teacher. Then a year later we ended up somehow doing it. It's just something I've always had. I think it's the reason that I get to where I am because I just can't give up, I can't take no for an answer.
Is there one thing that didn't quite go to plan that you learned a lot from?
R: There are so many things that didn’t go to plan! When I finished uni I had this plan in my head of how I was going to become a lawyer, how quickly I was going to do it, that I was going to be fully qualified by the time I was like 25 or 24 - all these huge ideas that just never actually ended up happening. So I would say that I failed a lot.
To be a lawyer, you have to apply for this thing called a training contract and at the time when I was coming out of uni, it was just after the recession, maybe only like 1 in 4000 people would get them. So it was really tough. They were like gold dust and I was obviously like, I have to get one. I kept putting in applications, application after application, I think I ended up doing around 70 to 80 applications and I just never got it and it took me a long time. I got there eventually, but it did take me a long time.
I would say that that's probably a time when I felt like I was failing because I was behind my friends and I was behind everyone else doing it. And now I just think actually, the way I did it was perfect for me and the timing with which I did it was perfect for me. It really taught me to be a bit more patient. It also made me realise that when you're like “oh I’m nearly 30” or “I'm nearly 25” - we're going to do that at every single stage. I was so like “I have to qualify by the time I’m 23”, which is absurd. You don’t have to do anything by any age! So that probably taught me the most because it felt like a huge failure that I hadn't done it when everyone else did.
S: I remember you asking me when you were going to get your pull-ups. “Ideally yesterday Stella. Why don't I have them?”
R: I still don't have pull ups and I still can't skip! I stop seeing it as a failure now. I'm taking it as “I can't do this, but I'm gonna teach myself to do it. Eventually I will get there”.
S: Of course. There's no cutoff point in life. We're always working on things and so what if you don't achieve it by 25 or 30, if you're working on it, you will get there.
R: In five years time you're still going to be five years older. It's just what you do in those five years, right? It's like having all these plans like “By this age I want to do this, by this age I want to do this”. It's kind of useless. It doesn't make a difference.
S: I actually see the opposite side of you. I see the yogi side of you like, everything's chill, everything's fine, let's talk about the moon and I don't see the intense bit. It makes so much sense, but I think also training as a yoga teacher has probably also given you that other side - the balance to life. If your job is stressful then yoga allows you to not only calm yourself down, but also pass that on to other people, so there was a real plan in that as well!
R: It actually worked out a lot better than I thought. People always say to me that it’s such a weird mix, to have two careers that are so different. They just say it's a bit odd, but actually I think that they come together so much better than people think because I wouldn't be half as good a lawyer as I am if I wasn't also a yoga teacher. I don't think I'd be as articulate and be able to explain yoga as well as I do if I wasn't a lawyer. I do think they really help each other.
If you were to give advice to a younger version of yourself, what would it be?
R: Stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and what everyone else is thinking. I think nowadays definitely, everyone cares what everyone else is doing. Everyone cares what everyone else thinks. It's just not important. Someone else's success is not your failure and I always used to think that but it's just not.
Also, what other people think of you is none of your bloody business! It’s their opinion, leave them to it. I just think we all need to be less. We need to compare less and we need to judge less and I wish I had compared less and that I had been less judgmental because it doesn't help you. So I'd say those two things; compare less, judge less.
S: Amazing. I know you have a lot more in you but we are going to do this again! If anyone is listening to us or reading this blog post and fancies yoga, Beckie is teaching again this Wednesday at 7 PM UK time.
R: Come join us! It's wonderful, you will not regret it.
S: Thank you so much Beckie, speak soon!
If you’d like to take part in Rebecca’s yin yoga class, come join us on Zoom every Wednesday at 7pm UK time (£5 per class and first class is free).
You can also follow Rebecca on Instagram.