Innerstellar's Origin Story

Hi, I’m Kiki Lovelace, founder and Director of Education and at Innerstellar Pilates & Yoga, which I opened on November 11, 2011, more than 10 years after I started teaching Pilates & yoga full-time.

At Innerstellar, we help exercise-phobes, gym haters and intensity addicts heal from their chronic pain & injuries and calm anxiety so they can feel relaxed, centered and strong and live their lives with more meaning, purpose and clarity.

We all LOVE what we do.

For many of us, it is our #1 passion to help our students better understand their body and nervous system, overcome their shame and perfectionist rackets, and build both physical and emotional strength and resilience.

I’m deeply proud of the small business and community we’ve co-created here in Berkeley, CA.

But let me tell you, it's been a loooong journey to get here...

Here’s how I came to be a healer, and how I started this small business with a HUGE heart.

I grew up in North Jersey, in a suburb about an hour outside of New York City. 

I grew up with a very large amount of privilege (as any white person growing up in relative affluence with two parents who loved each other does).

I went to Catholic school most of my life. My dad was frugal, but we never really wanted for anything. We went on vacation each summer to the beach, and spent the school-year busy with sports and homework and family dinners.

I feel very blessed to have grown up the way I did.

And... it’s also true that I grew up in the shadow of my mom’s battle with clinical depression and suicidal tendencies.

I am a very sensitive and emotional person, empathic to the point where I can often hear other people’s thoughts. 

So you better believe I took on a lot of strange codependent patterning and unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with my confusion and emotional pain.

By my mid-twenties, I was suffering from a binge eating disorder, chronic digestive and low back pain, and a deep feeling of disconnect and loneliness. I didn’t know how to take care of myself, or how to be in relationship with others, and so I found myself in an emotionally and financially abusive relationship which lasted almost two years.

The day I left that man was the day I took my first steps on my healing journey.

I spent the better part of the next five years in therapy (LOTS of therapy) and crying on my yoga mat.

I dove deep into my anatomy studies as a Pilates Instructor, and dreamed of taking a yoga teacher training.

I was blessed to have a wise mentor at that time, Pilates Master Teacher Tom McCook, who saw me and understood me and helped me start to know myself better and make more healing choices. He was the first person who told me I was an empath, and taught me how I could use my ability to feel energy in my private sessions with my clients.

He also turned me onto Forrest Yoga, and the work of one of the spiritual teachers who has had a big influence on my life, Ana Tiger Forrest.

Ana taught me how to be a healer.

She taught me how to touch people in a healing way, how to teach with intelligence and with heart. She taught me how to pray (no small feat for a recovering Catholic girl), and how to have the skills to navigate my own very wild and emotional inner world. 

I am a healer because I was so broken. 

My back pain stopped over a decade ago. My dance with emotional and binge eating is now long gone. I have a soulful and deeply meaningful relationship with my husband of 14 years, and two gorgeous kids whom I adore.

I am a healer, because I learned how to get out of pain, physically and emotionally. Once I got a taste of that, I couldn’t help but dedicate my life to teaching others how to do the same.

I opened Innerstellar in 2011, after I’d been teaching full time for a decade. 

Small business ownership almost took me out (those first 3 years were the hardest ones OF MY LIFE), but true to what I’d learned on my yoga mat, I realized that this was not happening TO ME, it was happening FOR ME.

My business helped me heal my patterns of control and perfectionism. It helped me learn how to set boundaries with others, and not need for everyone to like me or agree with me. It taught me how to get along better with others, and be a team player. It taught me how to be grateful for the many blessings of my life, and how to set goals and then connect to the voice of my Intuition to take the next steps to achieve them.

I now have TWO successful businesses, my studio and my Thriving Studio Owner Program coaching offering, in which I help other wellness business owners find their way to building a meaningful and profitable healing business in 100% integrity with their values and mission.

And as I’ve come out of struggle emotionally, physically and financially, I’ve felt my life guiding me to the even deeper work I’m doing to understand my whiteness and discover how I can do my part to address racial inequity in the world, and especially within the walls of my business and organization.

I meet with my Race and Inclusivity Mentors from allthriveed.org for Executive Coaching Sessions once a quarter, and am deeply committed to educating myself and my staff on issues of race, cultural appropriation and social justice.

I’m doing my part to Mend the Hoop of the People and the Planet every day, and if you’re reading this, it’s a sure sign YOU are here to find out more about how you can do the same, in your own unique way.

We’d love to help you.

And it all starts with a deep breath, and your willingness to feel your body, and deal with what you feel.

Feeling is the path to healing. And we’re so honored to get to walk with you for a time on your healing road.

Welcome to Innerstellar. We’re so glad you’re here.