Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Heather Carey. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Heather, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Growing up I played all sorts of sports; softball, basketball, soccer, skiing, dance… I loved team sports in particular. I had community, built trust with my coaches and teammates- I had a true sense of belonging and made great friends that I still am in touch with today even though I have moved 2000 miles from where I grew up. I was in eight grade when my coaches recommended I try out for the Varsity soccer team, they arranged for special transportation from my middle school to the high school for me and a few of my friends to play up after we made the team. I thought, I could really have potential to get a scholarship if I continued to play well, which would allow me to go to college! My parents encouraged me to excel with sports because they did not have means to pay for college.
My junior year, I got injured during a soccer game and tore my ACL, meniscus and immediately signed up for reconstructive surgery because my knee was unable to bend or straighten- I also had hopes of being able to make it back for the next season. Fast forward… after reinjuring the same knee two more times, having a total of 3 ACL replacements and a meniscus repair before the last season of soccer in high school, my goal of getting a scholarship for college was no longer realistic.
This was shift in my lifestyle, I struggled with depression and I had a very tough senior year of high school. The sense of belonging I once felt was now a very distant feeling. My coaches encouraged me to sit on the sidelines and be a part of the team but without being able to play I felt like I should use my time better, so I got a job after school and on the weekends. I struggled with depression and trying to pick up other activities – swimming, skiing, hiking, camping… I played soccer, softball recreationally but I just didn’t enjoy it quite as much and was concerned that I would injure myself yet again.
I moved to Colorado from New York and rerooted myself – focusing on enjoying the mountains, being outside, hiking, climbing and fell in love with mountain biking too! I loved my new life in Colorado and felt that I was going to feel a sense of community with these new activities… every time I would do a long hike or ride though my knee would swell up and I would find I needed to rest for 1-2 weeks each time, waiting for the inflammation to go down before I could get out again. The alignment in my leg was askew and I was unable to manage this with any consistency in my routine with the activities I was doing.
My knee instability began to cause back pain, one day at work one of my colleagues mentioned she did Pilates and it really helped her recover from a back injury and that she had not had any issues since she started doing it. I began to look into it, signed up for a few private lessons and every teacher I had addressed this knee as the “bad” part of me, needing to address my feet and my knee alignment… I thought to myself, this leg works really hard for me and has been through a lot – why is it the “bad” one? I started feeling stronger, I was able to go and do the activities I enjoyed without having to take 1-2 weeks off, maybe just a few days instead. My body was moving more efficiently and I was in less pain.
After doing Pilates for a number of years I decided to leave my job, which I had opportunity for growth in and pursue a career to become a Pilates teacher. After 18 months, I completed my first certification and then began mentoring at a studio, learning how to run the business and learning everything I could about functional movement during my second Pilates certification. I began working with clients during the day while I worked in the evenings at a restaurant as a event coordinator. It was worth every second as well as the pay cut to feel a deeper sense of purpose and see how I could help people become more balanced in their bodies and get back to doing activities they loved, just as I did.
I learned how to see the body in a different way. After 7 yrs. of mentorship and running a studio I started my own business, The Pilates Lab. My colleague Kortney Brewer and I began to build the business by networking with local physical therapists, pelvic floor specialist, herbalists and local doctors. I became more curious about the nervous system based on symptoms our clients were having so we both took a movement based cranial sacral/myofascial release program called Dynamic Body Balancing and quickly began integrating this into our Pilates work. The results were amazing – my purpose, of helping my clients gain more balance in their bodies deepened and I saw them be able to do the activities that they enjoyed expand – my clients had more range of motion, had more energy and began feeling confident to pick up new hobbies they had never tried before. We are able to help them by releasing old patterns in their tissue with the DBB work and then having them do Pilates exercises to integrate a new, more balanced pattern that they were able to find.
My injuries in my youth have helped me find my purpose and I am grateful for all of the scars that have helped me find this path – I talk with my clients about how these injuries just help us find a different path, not good or bad but just different and often it makes us stronger and brings more self awareness, teaches us more about our body and allows us to have a deeper level of empathy for others that go through difficult challenges that all injuries bring us.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
The Pilates Lab, my business is focused on teaching functional movement, releasing old patterns that no longer serve us from cranial work and integrating new healthier, more balanced patterns through Pilates exercises.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1.Pilates Teacher
2.Dynamic Body Balancing -Cranial Sacral/Myofascial Release
3.Pilates Teacher
4.Functional Movement Educator
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
Erik Franklin, The Franklin Method – He using imagery in his teaching to help people better understand functional movement in the body. Any of his books are great and teach you a lot about how the body moves to help create new movement patterns rather than just moving the way your body chooses to move, especially after an injury.
We use bones to show clients what happens in their bodies and allows them to better understand how it moves by seeing how the joints work and where the joints are in three dimension as we all have mostly learned by reading books which does not allow this depth of seeing how or where the joints are and how they work since it is only two dimenisonal.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.thepilateslab.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.pilates.lab/
Image Credits
Kortney Brewer/Heather Carey
