This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Natanya Ruth

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

We are joined in this episode by Natanya Ruth, a health and wellness specialist, yoga instructor, and author. Check out her work at natanyaruth.com

Check the mic will go live. Stories told their eyes and dive. Topics fresh with every spin. You won't guess what's coming in. Every week a new surprise. Minds away. Never lives. Conversations bold and free.

Tune in now just waiting. Just press play. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Another great guest with me today. if you could introduce yourself, please. Yeah, absolutely. I'm Natanya Ruth, and I'm an empowerment coach, a retreat guide, a facilitator, and a yoga teacher, trainer,

and the founder of Feel Free Institute LLC, where I work with wellness professionals and yoga instructors, and really anyone who's a solid being to support them to create a business and life that they love. All right. Great. So thank you for reaching out to me. I'm always looking for guests. And I have been on a bit of a health and wellness kick lately. So let me take a look at some of the things you just sent me not too long ago.

Happy a chat about recommitment, what means to live a soul-led life, how to embrace the perfectly and perfect journey. of making stuff. I think we'll start with the perfectly imperfect journey portion of that. And as a creative, I've been doing this podcast for

over six years now. Wow, congratulations. Thank you. We're on the 10th season. We're coming close to 200 episodes. And yeah, hardly anything ever goes the way I want.

You know, I've had countless potential gets flake on me and all that. And sometimes the recording doesn't come out as well as I would like. And possibly some other stuff.

And this applies not just to podcasting, but I find applies to filmmaking and very much any creative endeavor to choose. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that I've continued to learn on my life journey is that you just have to let things be as they are.

And sometimes, you know, as creatives, we have this perfectionist quality, right? It's like it can't, it's not done until this, right? Or, oh, it's not good enough. And for me, going from being a classroom teacher to then working for myself, right? So I was a classroom teacher for 15 years. I was able to weave together a lot of creativity in that space, but I always knew that I was an artist. I wanted to do theater.

I wanted to speak publicly. I wanted to write my book, all these things. And I was kind of limiting myself in this role as teacher. And then I finally found my way out into working for myself, which I've been doing now for 10 years. And one of the things I keep learning every year that I'm in business, you know, whether it's running a community wellness space, which I did for 50, five years, or writing and launching my book that came out in summer 2024, or I also launched a limited release podcast, and I'm running retreats every year, so I take people to Costa Rica and

Bali and Thailand, right? And it's like, everything starts with an idea. And then it's like bringing that idea to life takes a lot of faith and trust and commitment and recommitment and also the willingness to just let things be as they are. So you might have this idea of how it's supposed to be and how it's supposed to come out. And sometimes that reality is never going to match that vision you have in your mind and you have to give yourself permission to just produce and keep producing and know that part of this human experience is never getting it done and never getting it done and never getting it right, but being in a practice of producing and saying who I am, what I have to offer,

what I'm creating matters. And every time I put something out there, it's getting more and more refined. It's getting more and more realized, right? It's showing more and more of who I am and what my transmission is now, what my message is now. I was telling this recently to some of my yoga teacher trainees because they were asking me about writing my book. And I was like, you know, it took me three years to write my book. It was one year of getting all the content out. And then it was two years of like editing and refining and reorganizing so that I had like a journey, right? And by the time I was done with my book, there was a part of me that was like, I hate this book. Like I'd like, I want to start over, right? And I was like, no, I have to put it out.

and trust that the message in there is good enough that it's meant to come out to those people who are ready to hear it. Who am I to get in the way of my creative output? And if I really don't like it, I can make a second edition. You know, like, I just have to produce it and let it go and let it be what it is. And I just think that that's such a big part of the creative journey because we can really just perfectionist our way out of producing. you're saying. I agree. I agree at a thousand percent, yeah.

Yeah. So, so yeah, you mentioned yoga. One thing I would love to have on this podcast is yoga instructors. Have it never, full disclosure. I've never taken a yoga class in my life.

Uh-huh. But it is something that kind of interests me. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been practicing yoga pretty much my whole life. I learned yoga from my grandmother who actually taught herself yoga from books because this was like she learned yoga in the 50s. She had cancer. And one of her doctors suggested that she try yoga as a way to self-sews.

and to help her on her healing journey, which she did beat her cancer and lived until she was 97. And when I was little, when she would come visit us in Massachusetts from Canada, she would wake up early in the morning and do yoga, and she would do her prana yama, her breathing practices. In yoga, prana is energy, and yama means control. So one of the cornerstones of yoga is if you know how to control your breath, you know how to control your mood, your focus, your flexibility. So my grandmother would wake up and do her breathing practices, and I would hear her and come down when I was a little girl, and she would show me stuff. You know, she'd show me move.

She'd show me breathing. And it imprinted on me in an early age, you know, these practices. And then later in my life, when I was starting to feel a little bit lost, when I had gotten into my teaching career and was feeling like it wasn't really who I was, I started to get back more into my yoga practice. And one of the amazing things about yoga is that it really truly is for anybody. The word yoga means union, connection. and it's connecting you with your intuition. It's connecting you with your divine knowing. It's connecting your body, your mind, and your breath, right?

And it's creating union with those things. A lot of times people come to, oh, I need to do yoga because I need more flexibility or, you know, my doctor said it would be good for my back or whatever. But you really don't actually need your body to experience yoga union. Yoga actually is more deeply found when you're meditating and you're slowing down and you're in stillness and you're breathing. And so I try to normalize this from the beginning when I run my yoga teacher trainings. We always start with building our meditation practice and being in a practice of being still and taking mindful breaths and giving yourself permission to be in the present moment.

And then the physical yoga practice is just a way to stay in that meditative space. Like it's sort of like if somebody were doing Tai Chi or there's another one, any of those those meditative movements, right? The physical yoga practice is just a way to stay in that meditative flow state. All right. So when you know how to breathe, you actually can create more space in your body and in your mind to increase your physical flexibility, which is pretty cool. So yeah.

Was there something that you wanted to learn about? about yoga in this moment, like a question that you had for yourself around getting into a yoga practice? So this would be for me and for anyone who happens to be listening. Absolutely. How do we go about finding a good instructor for this? And I'm talking about certification and all that good stuff too. Yeah, how do you find a good instructor? That is such a good question.

In my own experience, it's been through going to studios. But now, right, in the virtual space, there's so many more places to find yoga. I offer virtual sessions. I also have like an on-demand library of yoga classes for all levels, as well as a meditation sequence. And actually, I'll share with you and your listeners. I have a free course on how to start your meditation practice that might be useful. But the first thing you want to do is get clear for yourself, you know, do I want to learn yoga or practice yoga to get fit?

And if that's the case, I'm going to be looking more for yoga instructors that are about getting strong, you know, creating stability, activating your core. Or am I looking more for yoga as a way to reduce stress or anxiety or create relief? And in that case, I might be looking more for all levels yoga or meditation or Hatha yoga or maybe Kundalini yoga, which is a more spiritual practice where the movements are more repetitive. And it's a lot more about chanting. mantra actually, which I'll share with that is in a moment and doing very specific breathing practices to open up your energy and open up your intuition, which is in your third eye. So that's the first part is like, what kind of yoga are you looking to experience?

Because if it's more about a fitness space, then maybe you look for virtually or in person in like a core power studio or, you know, there are all these different, like an equinox studio, there are all these different yoga studios that are more about like fitness. Yeah. Or if you're more on the spiritual path and you want to dip your toe in that, then that's the kind of practice that you're going to be looking for in person or virtually. for me I when I started getting into yoga I definitely was more drawn to the spiritual practice of meditation chanting mantra and mantra are Sanskrit right sanskrit is the ancient language of yoga and those sounds are said to create sound healing therapy in your body and they support you like the word mantra is actually mind control it's a it's a it's a supports you to release the mental busyness, the chatter in your mind and start to come into a space of clarity and focus.

And so if that's something that you want, like I want to be in the present moment, I want to let go of my mind running the show, then I would encourage you to go to go look for people who are chanting mantra or singing Kirton. There's, you know, the teacher Ram Dass, he does Kirtan. You can find him chanting and singing yoga chants online on YouTube. I'm happy to send some links about that too. Because really, yoga is such a, there are so many different access points to experiencing yoga. It just depends on the piece that resonates. with you. For me, the spiritual was the thing that drew me in, so I was looking for more spiritual teachers, you know, and I was looking for studios that had spiritual practices like meditation

and chanting, because that's what resonated with me. But if you're somebody who's like, I just need to touch my toes, or, you know, then maybe you look for a yoga studio or a teacher that's focusing on mobility, you know, yoga for flexibility and mobility. So it's very personal, but I definitely, because yoga is over 5,000 years old and it's this wellness science that has so many different qualities like meditation, Ayurveda, which is how you eat and what your daily rituals are, and then lots of practices around how you take care of your body, how you act in the world, et cetera, so many different avenues. For me, once I decided to really commit to yoga as part of it.

of my lifestyle that was in my early 20s. I was living in San Francisco at the time, in the Bay Area in California. And there were so many different yoga studios to go to. And I really honed in on one studio called Laughing Lotus. And because I liked that they chanted mantra, they had a spiritual practice. There was a lot of invitation to challenge

yourself physically but also to be playful and they served really nice tea at the studio um you know and and so that to me had that feeling um of shanti which the word shanty and yoga means peace so that's kind of like another way to indicate if you're in the right space or not like you go into a yoga space does it does it make you feel at peace or does it create stress and anxiety for you and if if it creates stress and anxiety for you, it might not be the right yoga space for you. All right. That's, that's very helpful, yeah. You did mention teaching. May I ask what you were teaching? Yeah. So in my previous life, before I started working for myself as a sole ad entrepreneur, I was a classroom teacher for 15 years. And when I started, I was in my early 20s.

And I started teaching middle school English writing. I was in California. My background, you know, I got my degree in English and writing, and I did a minor in theater. So over time, after I got my teaching certification, et cetera, I started also directing school plays and teaching drama because that was more in alignment with my passion. And then I shifted into teaching elementary grades for a while as well.

So I was teaching second and third grade and kind of teaching all the subjects. And then near to the end of my classroom teaching career, I moved to Europe for a couple of years to study theater. And yeah, that was like a big shift for me. I had gotten out of a long-term relationship and was like, I'm going to go live out last. out and do all the things. And there I started teaching adult English as a second language, adult ESL, you know, as a way to create some revenue while I was studying. Very cool.

Yeah. So I finished my teaching career, like I said, 10 years ago, a little bit more than 10 years ago. And I finished it out with high school English and writing and all that. Nice. Yeah, that's pretty cool because my day job, I teach chess, like after school programs, mostly in middle schools. I think middle school kids are easier to handle than elementary school kids, primarily because they want to pay attention for the most parts, you know. Whereas elementary school, they want to mess around and all that and not pay attention. And, of course, the bulk of my guests to date have been actors and filmmakers in my local area, Kansas City area.

Yeah, because I work with those people, you know. And I've had a bunch of other jobs, too. I've been a security officer. I've worked in a warehouse. And, yeah. Nice. Yeah. you know, it's wonderful being like in an environment with young people who are learning,

you know, and I feel like I'm really grateful I had that experience because it created the capacity to, you know, to teach to do a wide variety of learning styles and age ranges, you know, and it gives you a lot of, you learn more about how to improvise and how to build lesson plans and how to structure things. And all of those skills have definitely served me as I've transitioned into teaching adults and running retreats and organizing events and workshops and all the things, right?

So it's awesome to, you know, be able to weave your passions into supporting young people like you have been doing with your passion for chess. But also, yeah, learn a lot about, you know, yourself and about how to meet different learning styles. Yeah, and that's one of the goals of this podcast. Another thing about it is to learn all that I can about certain issues. Talk to me about what goes into saying up a retreats and what all in the very brief amount of time we have left.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you for asking. That's a really good question. I love running retreats. It's like one of the things that lights me up most about my work. Right now, you know, I offer this sole-led accelerator program or soul-led entrepreneur accelerator program. And in that container, I'm supporting yoga teachers or aspiring yoga teachers, wellness

professionals like therapists, mental health counselors, educators. And then truly anybody who's really wanting to work for themselves or feeling stuck in their life and ready for a breakthrough. And so I offer empowerment coaching, business and marketing coaching, if that's what's needed, accountability. And then I offer a facilitator training to support you to create your own workshop or retreat or event. And then I take you on a retreat immersion this coming year at 2026. I'm hosting my ninth retreat in Costa Rica in April, 26, and I'm doing another retreat in Sedona, Arizona, in November, 26. And the first thing is, of course, the desire to create a transformational experience for other people.

And for me, when I left my classroom teaching job, I was really lucky because I got invited to support retreats at the school where I learned how to be a yoga instructor in Thailand. So I spent about six months in Thailand co-running retreats weekly. And so when I started that, that was in 2015, 2016. I got to learn week after week how to run a retreat, how to work with clients, how to support clients in transformation. I also learned some things about. about what not to do as well. And so I had a really strong template about how to host retreats when I started running

my own wellness business. That was truly a boot camp for me. And so first is finding a venue, right? And what I learned moving forward in my career is that it's also good to ask your clients where they wanna go. It shouldn't just be like, I want to go here, let's do it.

Because you're not going to have as much buy-in if you're not going someplace people want to go, right? Right. And then creating an experience that's usually five to ten days, depending on what you've got going on. And then designing the retreat so that there is structured time and a nice balance of free time as well. It's really critical. I also create at least a couple of Zoom calls with participants before the trip to prepare them for travel and what to expect when we get there. And to give them permission that for the time we're on this trip, the only person they need to take care of is them. you know, and just remind everyone who comes on a retreat that this is something where you get to

fully receive. You don't need to worry about food, transportation, where you're going. Like, what a gift you've invested in for yourself now truly give yourself permission to take advantage of it and get fully into receiver mode. And if the mind feels like it needs to take care of somebody else, remember you're here to fill up first and foremost, right? So I do a lot of preparatory conversations with clients. I also do a lot of events ahead of the retreat to create excitement and inspiration to join the retreat. You know, if you're ready to step out of being busy all the time and being distracted

with media and all the things, this is your opportunity to step out of space and time and fill your cup and connect with who you are now and perhaps get more clear about where you want to go next, right? So there's that piece. And then also my retreats, like I said, I create a balance of meditation in the morning, yoga, some learning, perhaps, you know, study around elements of the yogic lifestyle like self-care, how to eat yogicly, how to speak to yourself kindly, chanting mantra, et cetera. And time where we're just playing.

You know, we're going on excursions in Costa Rica, for example, the sea sloths and monkeys, we're going to waterfalls, we're going to beaches, and free time by the pool, free time to go shopping on your own, free time to go on some other excursion that might not be on our itinerary right so um always being mindful of creating that balance of we're together but then there's also time for you to be relaxed and and integrate um so the like i was kind of speaking to what we're doing in costa rica in in sidenona in november 2026 will be um staying near the red rocks and doing some vortex hikes together and uh pink jeep tours and we'll have like a a plant-based chef who comes in for us every day and all the things.

And there'll be, you know, downtime to step out of the group and have fun in that way. You know, and the other piece is talking, you know, being on podcasts like this, having my, having my best-selling book, feel free, lessons of a solid life. Like, all of these things help to magnetize the clients that are really calling in this kind of experience into it. Cool. Cool. All right.

So, yeah, sounds good. It sounds like going to summer camp for Boy Scouts and stuff. Yeah, it definitely can be. And you get to be around people who are also like-minded, I think, and want to, you know, they're curious. They want to do personal growth. They like travel, they want to be an adventure. They want to eat amazing food.

You know, like everybody gets a massage on the experience as well. You know, so it's like, like you said, it is like summer camp for adults because you really get to like, yeah, step out of things and have a blast and say yes to yourself. Good deal. Good deal. And we'll go on to wrap up. Are there any closing thoughts going, this would be a great time to pitch your websites and all that too? Yeah, absolutely. If you or anyone you know is really longing to deepen yourself care, to birth a business, to write a book, to take a stand for who you are or that thing that's been tapping you on the shoulder in your life that you really haven't been able to get.

of the time and space to. I invite you to join me in the Solid Accelerator, whether you're ready to create workshops and events for other people or simply go on a retreat to fill your cup and to get clearer about who you are and what you want now. Or if you're just looking for accountability and support, I invite you to reach out to me at www.netonia ruth.com. You can find me on Instagram at Natanya Ruth. And yeah, excited to support you to say yes to yourself and feel good in your body and feel free to be the most to you you can be in this lifetime. All right. Sounds good. All right. Well, I want to thank you for being on the podcast. And to everyone listen at home, thank you so much. And we will talk again very soon. Awesome. Sounds good, Mike. Thanks so much for the

opportunity pleasure this podcast is uncalled for is hosted produce and edited by myself mike chernivsky our opening music is the this podcast is uncalled for theme it was created at suno.com s uno no dot com and our outro music for this episode is columba relaxation music by kevin mccloud at incompetac dot com licensed under creative comments I HBFB.0 license. Please support the podcast and purchase our exclusive Uncalled for Merchandise. T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, stickers, and so much more. Go to www.comfacepress.com slash Uncalled for Pod.

Thank you so much for listening. We will see you next time.