Shiva Ruby

Welcome to The HATC Club where we will be getting to know a few of our favourite (creatives/industry insiders/tastemakers) and their mental health journeys a little bit better.

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I sit with Shivaruby at Storm Models, an energetic outgoing young model, capturing the eyes of the industry. Pre-interview I’d had the pleasure to learn of Shiva’s determined fearless nature, which shone through from the moment I met her, proving all you need is self-confidence and dedication.

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HATC: How have you been following the pandemic?

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Shiva: It’s been up and down. I feel like everyone else has just found a way to cope. As this generation of humans, we never experienced anything like that. For me, I’m the sort of person who when things are stressful I try to find my way out. It’s finding your way to cope. My way of coping was to keep going so when the pandemic hit I was going to school still. I then moved down to Warrington and I got a job at Amazon. It’s not a lie, honestly truth it helped me cope. It was something to look forward to, and even though you might not enjoy the job I was making money. So that’s what I did for like six months before I came back to London.

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HATC: How have you found balancing the roles you’ve been working on the past few years with your education?

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Shiva: “The good thing is we didn’t do exams now. Unfortunately, we got given an algorithm instead, but you know, it’s fine. I came out on the good end of it. I’m hoping I will do American Studies and History at some point but I’m enjoying modeling so much at the moment.”

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HATC: How did you find yourself modeling?

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Shiva: “Coming into the industry, I was scouted by someone who works in the agency. But then I ended up going to school down the road from Storm. They then called me up and they were like, ‘we love your look, we want to see you come in for some test photos’. I was young at the time and there were some tensions with my loved ones so I couldn’t do it yet. So I left it for a bit until I was 18 and I thought I’ll come back. I then decided to like moving home. I was drawn to engineering

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Moving was the best decision I’ve made in my life. I’m not that old, but when I say my life, I mean it because so much has changed for me over the last two years. I’ve never been through so much change in my life. I think it’s a good decision that I made to move. I believe everything happens for a reason, and when I came into Storm I wasn’t in the right headspace. They helped me, and they assisted me, it was nice to just have people there for me. I had six months before I was 18 and they supported me so I didn’t have to go to care. They helped me get through school.”

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HATC: What difficulties have you found when it comes to growing up recently?

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Shiva: “Young people aren’t young anymore. It’s really weird to say that but social media has made a stupidly high standard to live at that we don’t get to the full experience of being young anymore.”

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HATC: What advice would you give your younger self if you could?

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Shiva: “I don’t think I would tell myself anything but rather I would ask myself is a question. Do I want to be loved? Who do I want to be? As I don’t have any advice. Even though I’ve been through so much, I’m still trying to find who I want to be., I don’t know who I want to be called. I’m still 19, every day, something that changes, and even by 30, I don’t know if I’ll know who I want to be. I feel like back in the day, I was, so scared of showing my qualities. I was very introverted, very shy. So if I went back I would tell myself that I’d know myself a little bit more.”

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HATC: With your experiences with mental health, do you feel in a good position to manage what might come your way in the future?

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Shiva: “Yes, I have no fears. No. I have no fears about life. I have no fears about where I’m going or like, if my modeling career will work out, I have no fears about it, I feel I can always start over again.”

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HATC: How do you feel that you know your experience with mental health?

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Shiva: “I feel like I’ve been through the motions of being scared of being afraid of where I’m going to be. I’m in a good place now. I feel like I’ve been through all those emotions, I can’t go through them again. Once you experience something, you will never want to go back to that stage again. So when I do see something that’s approaching me, I like to think I know how to handle it. I don’t think my mental health for me is stood still, it’s ever-changing. Life is ever-changing. That’s my outlook on everything. I feel like, every time something is hard for me to do, I’m in my Pinnacle. I’m always in survival mode. Like how do I get out of this? And then I worry about everything after. Feelings are not permanent. They’re not meant to me, and that’s something we need to accept. Like, if you feel really sad don’t let that take over because the sadness will go. There’s something that’s going to come into life and make you happy. Life’s ever-changing and nothing in life should be permanent. Once you accept that and things will just come and go, it makes things easier.”

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HATC: How do you cope with the stresses of day-to-day life?

Shiva: “For me I put my music on, open my window, and take a breath. Or I’ll watch like my favorite TV series.”

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Something I can’t get away from speaking with Shiva, is that although she may be young, she has had the weight world of the world on shoulders, and although many would loose their tenacity and love for life, her experiences have only fueled her to excel and succeed, with Happiness and stability being the real goal. I have no doubt we will be seeing big things.

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Words: Alice Gee