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Meet Tom Barber, a fascinating yoga teacher whose journey as a queer man has become an inspiration for many to embark on their own path of healing. Tom followed his inner calling to teach other  Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer Men how to redirect their lives toward love, compassion, and authenticity. As a Berlin-based Forrest Yoga teacher, Tom is the founder of a thriving yoga community offering weekly classes and adventurous retreats around Europe. His commitment to fostering a supportive space for men to connect, grow, and heal together is evident in every aspect of his work.

With several yoga certifications under his belt, including a 200-hour Hot Power Yoga Teacher Training and advanced training in Forrest Yoga, Tom has built a unique approach that blends physical practice with emotional healing. His dedication to creating a safe and nurturing environment for queer men to explore their inner worlds has attracted a loyal following, with many students practicing with him for nearly a decade.

We are thrilled that Tom has taken time from his busy schedule—managing his vibrant yoga community in Berlin and leading retreats across the world—to share his life story with us. His journey is a testament to the power of listening to one’s inner voice and embracing the lifelong process of learning, growth, and self-discovery. Tom believes that when men come together to support one another, powerful healing and transformation can occur.

In this interview, we delve into Tom’s inspiring journey, his vision for a compassionate world, and the wisdom he has gained through years of practice and teaching. We hope his story will inspire you to take the first step on your own healing journey and discover the profound impact of yoga and community. Welcome, Tom!

Can you describe a significant experience from your childhood that you believe planted the seeds for your journey into wellness and healing?

 

“The experience of growing up gay in the closet and coming to terms with my sexuality has been the single most challenging and transformative experience of my life, and set me on the path to becoming the teacher and community builder I am today.

All of us go through challenges growing up, whether you’re gay, straight, trans, rich, or poor. We all have our own unique path in life; we’re all trying to make sense of the world, and we all want our lives to matter and to feel like we’re living authentically. But there is a unique challenge in growing up queer, and it’s this challenge that binds the global queer community together. This shared experience means we have this deep empathy and compassion for millions of people around the world that we’ve never met. Because we know what it feels like to grow up in a world that doesn’t welcome us or support us.

This challenge can be our greatest strength, teacher, and power. Or it can be our destruction. Some of us don’t make it. The pain is too great to bear; it’s still a daily tragedy that queer lives are lost to suicide, violence, addiction, and imprisonment.

Yoga saved my life. On my first teacher training aged 31, we were asked to describe why we wanted to teach yoga. I said that when I practice yoga I want to live, I want to grow, I want to succeed in life. Without yoga, my life could have gone in a very different, dark direction.

Before my first yoga class, a hot, sweaty, intense class on a weekend trip to Amsterdam in my early twenties, my life was a mess. After I left school at 18 and started coming out to friends and family, I was out of control. The pain and pressure of surviving life in the closet as a teenager meant that when I finally had to venture out into the world, I had no sense of self, no self-confidence, and I coped with this by partying a lot. It was a wild and intense time with some incredible highs but also some desperate lows.

Keeping my sexuality secret and hidden from my friends at school and my family was an experience that still shapes my life and personality today. Always being hyper-vigilant to my surroundings, to protect myself from being outed and exposed. Developing strategies to blend into any social situation just to survive and not get caught out. These were amazing survival skills that enabled me to do well at school, and in many ways, I had a great time at school. I had wonderful friends, a family that loved and supported me. But because of this secret I carried, and the overwhelming burden of shame from a homophobic society, this meant I never felt safe or that I could simply be myself.

Even in the moments where I felt the most despair, the most hopeless, the most pain, I could feel the flickering of my spirit deep in my being, whispering that I would find my place in the world, that I was going to do something significant with my life, and that I would grow into the person I knew I could be. Discovering yoga was the start of this adventure!

My first few years of yoga were such a ride. My yoga mat is where I learned how to feel my emotions, to awaken my senses, to move and strengthen my body. The physical practice challenged me on every level. I didn’t understand what or how it was working but I didn’t care. I just knew deep down that I had to keep coming back. Even on really dark days, I would say to myself, ‘just get to yoga tonight, follow the instructions, and everything will feel easier after class’.

I cried many times at the back of class. Laying in savasana with puddles of tears in my eyes as I started to connect with the pain and tension of all the years of surviving the closet. I started to feel more confident, more focused, more energized, and more hopeful for the future. I’m deeply grateful for this practice arriving in my life at this time, and for all the friends, partners, and teachers who supported me along the way.”

Was there a particular moment when you felt everything ‘clicked’ and you fully embraced your calling? What triggered that realization?

 

“I’d just turned 30 and I wasn’t happy with the direction my life was going in. I was working in media, in a long-term relationship, and living in London. I didn’t feel like I was on my path. I didn’t feel like I was living life the way I wanted to live it. I was offered a staff contract at the BBC with career development and a secure future. I turned it down and made a promise that for the next year every decision I made would take me towards my dream life rather than avoid it. Within 10 months I was a trained yoga teacher, moving to Berlin, founding a gay men’s yoga community, and a sober rave in Berlin. This year was incredibly significant and changed the path of my life dramatically.”

How do you balance the need for personal growth with the responsibility of guiding others on their healing journeys?

 

“I’ve been teaching for 10 years now. I’m not the same teacher or person I was 10 years ago! I’m noticing how my own journey through life is changing and evolving as I get older. It’s important that I prioritize my healing and spiritual journey and not place all of my focus on my students. It feels like we learn from each other. My students teach me so much.

I love to teach from personal experience. All of the practices and structures I bring to my retreats are things that have transformed my own life. My favorite and most significant teachers and mentors teach from a deeply personal place, using the challenges, hardships, joys, and triumphs from their paths as inspiration for their students.

Yoga saved my life. I know depression. I know panic attacks. I know addiction and compulsive behavior. But I also know the pathway to healing and peace. And I still use these practices as a structure to give me the confidence and freedom to live my life the way I want to. I believe the strength and wisdom that comes from personal growth is such a beautiful place to teach from. I feel a deep compassion for my students. It’s also why most of my work focuses on the queer community.

My philosophy has always been that if these practices worked for me, then they can work for others, and I want to share that! Whether it’s using yoga and meditation to ease anxiety, depression, cope with addiction, or using singing and dancing sober to embrace being heard and seen and feeling powerful and authentic, these are all journeys that I have been through myself.

After 9 years of hosting retreats, I’m a passionate believer in bringing people together to feel human connections and embrace community. We sit in circles. We sing together. We spend time in nature. We share from the heart. We play games. We perform cabarets together. We enjoy healthy food; we’re silent together. These are simple ancient technologies that bring humans together in safe, trusting communities. We live in an overstimulated, hyper-connected world, and now more than ever, I feel it’s vitally important to remember the simple pleasures of community life. And it’s all so simple!

I often tell my students on retreat, I’m not here to teach you anything new, I’m here to help your bodies remember what it feels like to be human and connected to the world around us. We’re wired for connection; it’s one of our deepest, most primal instincts. It blows my mind how just after a couple of days on retreat, people come alive again, their eyes start to sparkle, the facial muscles soften, the laughter and joy get louder, and life starts to flow.”

What sets your approach apart from others in the field? What unique elements do you bring to your practice?

 

“I draw inspiration from so many different parts of my life in the way I teach. I love being queer; I love queer history and culture and art, and I love to bring that queer spirit to my work. There is a freedom, an originality, a courageousness, and a vulnerability to queer spirit that makes it such a powerful force in the world.

My retreats are fun. We have a great time. We do the hard work, but what’s the point in doing all the hard work if you don’t prioritize pleasure and joy? We laugh a lot. We play stupid games. We have ridiculous and heartwarming cabaret shows. But we also do a lot of yoga!

I love nature. I’ve been on many expeditions and adventures around the world, climbing mountains, filming sled dog racing in Alaska, and I walked the Camino de Santiago during the pandemic for 1600 km. I’m a free spirit with a very adventurous streak. So on retreat, I love to encourage participants to embrace epic nature. We go on big hikes along the coast, swim in the Baltic Sea, jump through big Atlantic Rollers, sit out under the full moon, spend hours sweating out in the sauna.

My retreats are designed to take participants out of their comfort zone. That could be singing or dancing in a group for the first time since school, it might be offering a performance for the cabaret show. It could be spending time in nature they are not familiar with. The yoga practice is the foundation. It’s the practice that brings us together in a trusting and supportive way. It’s the base from which we feel supported in being ourselves, opening up to each other, and most of all being present.

Because when humans feel present and safe with each other, that’s when life starts to flow; we laugh, we joke, we cry, we play, we feel. We remember who we are, we fortify our gratitude and appreciation for life, we wake up and come alive.”

In what ways have you seen your work ripple out into your community or beyond?

 

“10 years ago I rented a room in Berlin for my first gay men’s yoga class. 27 guys showed up, and many of them still practice with me today. I had no idea where this first class would lead to, and in the following years, hundreds of men and a few wonderful women from around the world have practiced with us in Berlin. Friendships and relationships have been made, and a community was born.

For me, yoga is about community. When you join a yoga class, you join a community. It is the greatest joy and privilege of my life to do this work and see the impact that this practice has on their lives. People who are feeling lonely, depressed, and disconnected from life and from Berlin suddenly find themselves surrounded by warm, friendly, and supportive students. Friendships and connections are made, and whole new avenues of life open up in the city—events, communities, experiences!

I nervously started with 2 weekend retreats in Brandenburg. These went well, and the following year I took a group of 30 guys to Tuscany for my first week-long retreat. Since then, each year we’ve been to places in Portugal, France, and a glorious private island near Stockholm.

I’ve brought over 200 guys to a stunning rural Alentejo to the Lua Nua guesthouse, where we’ve discovered the most beautiful and epic beaches and landscapes. We’ve had 3 retreats on a tiny private island in the Archipelago near Stockholm. On each retreat, old friendships are deepened, and new connections are made, and the web of this community gets bigger.

This is what I’m most proud of. All of my work is made up of the people who show up to class and join me on retreat. I’m filled with awe and admiration for the trust and courage of my students for joining me on this journey. I love watching the community grow, I love welcoming new students, I love bumping into yoga students in strange places around Europe. And I love how these students take their experience of yoga out into the world.

My journey, and my life’s work, is about healing and integrating the past, so instead of it becoming this immense burden that we drag through life, our past experiences become our greatest teacher, the source of our power, so we deepen our love and passion for life. We embrace joy and pleasure and community, and we inspire others to do the same.”

What advice would you give to someone who is just beginning their own journey of healing and wellness?

 

“Take it one step at a time, one breath at a time, one day at a time.

Get excited and curious about the journey! Trust in the total unknown and the perfection of whatever will unfold along the way.

Listen to your heart and trust your intuition, let them guide you to people, places, and experiences that will support you on your way.

Do the hard work on your yoga mat and meditation cushion; it’s going to be painful and challenging and bumpy along the way, but also prioritize joy and pleasure and simplicity. Some of the greatest lessons I’ve learned have been through embracing joy.

What makes you smile? What makes you laugh? What makes you feel free and powerful and authentic? What excites you? What turns you on? What challenges you? Go towards all of that!

Please—never trust a spiritual teacher without a sense of humor, or who doesn’t know how to laugh and play. Otherwise, what’s the point? Find teachers and communities that make you smile and laugh and play and that celebrate life.”

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