607. Hungry for Happiness - with Samantha Skelly
13 Oct 2020 · 48 min
Episode of the Earn Your Happy podcast (host Lori Harder) interviewing Samantha Skelly, founder of Hungry for Happiness and Pause Breathwork. The conversation covers Skelly’s personal recovery from an eating disorder, her discovery of breathwork in Bali, how breathwork works (limbic system activation, respiratory alkalosis, sympathetic→parasympathetic shift), practical types and uses (integrative vs. transformational/rebirthing), applications for emotional eating, embodiment and personal development integration, leadership/boundary challenges, and her book (Hungry for Happiness — second edition). Resources mentioned: hungryforhappiness.com/book, pausebreathwork.com, Instagram @samanthaskelly.
Chapters
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So when we can meet the need for certainty by fundamentally knowing that every single time we use our breath, we're able to activate this felt sense of safety and peace in our body that's gonna meet our need for certainty. And then, ah, everything else feels a little bit more manageable.
Welcome to the Earn youn Happy Podcast. I'm Lori Harder, founder of The Bliss Project, 3 Time Fitness World champion, fitness expert and cover model turned self love junkie, lifestyle entrepreneur and author. Each week I'll bring you a guest or a thought that will help you bust through your fears, connect to your soul and get focused and clear so you can elevate your life, business and relationships. We don't wait until we're ready for someone to tell us we're good enough. We take what we want and we anoint ourselves, get ready to earn, own and unapologetically rock your happiness every single day. Are you with me?
Here we go.
I am so excited about this podcast today because Sam Skelly is one of my favorite speakers. Such a great friend. She is a seven figure entrepreneur. She's a sought after international speaker, bestselling author and wellness coaching Expert. She founded both Hungry for Happiness, a movement that helps people experience experience true transformation and happiness through trained certified coaches who utilize emotional and energetic coaching techniques, and Pause Breath Work, which has a mission to unite humanity by helping people breathe, feel and thrive. Samantha has revolutionized the weight loss and self help industries by examining the individual and underlying causes of food, body and self love issues. You guys, I had her on the podcast quite a few years back and it was one of everyone's favorite podcasts. She has a shared mission on an international platform with appearances on global tv, Shaw, NBC, CBC and Elephant Journal, and the Prevail Project. Samantha continues to spread her message and transform the lives of tens of thousands of people through her programs, worldwide, international retreats, motivational speaking engagements, the popular Hungry for Happiness podcast, and her best selling hay house book, Hungry for Happiness. You guys, I'm so excited about her new book coming out. We talk all about that and all about really tapping into using breath work for a form of so many of these underlying issues that people are dealing with. So let's get started.
Sam, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you for coming on the show again. It's been like, how long has it been? A couple years?
Three years? Three or four at least. Yeah.
People loved your episode. I actually feel like I still get people who like tune into your episode. I have no idea if they ever message you, but hopefully I love it.
I love it.
They let me know. It's amazing.
Yay.
Okay, I want to, because last time I talked to you, which we've talked in between this. You guys, this is just for an update. Sam's actually taught at my Bliss Project event. Then you were at Event Love. I've gotten to see you all over on other people's stages. I've gotten to take some of your classes, get to experience some of your magic with your breath work and just your speaking. To be honest, you are magical in breathwork, but you are really a powerful speaker and it is probably because you are really grounded in your practice. So with that said, we are going to be talking a lot about breathwork kind of being the new yoga like you were talking about and how this is truly like an integration of all the personal development work that potentially you've been doing that maybe you don't feel like you're embodying yet.
Yes.
So tell me about that journey because you started out more talking about emotional eating and really helping people through that, which, you know, I know that you're a brilliant teacher with that. But now this has evolved so much. I want to know about that evolution with not only your business, but yourself.
Yeah. So I struggled with a really bad eating disorder from 18 to 24. And primarily because everything I tried to do to help myself was put. Putting a band aid on a bullet wound. It was externalizing an internal problem. Not one time through that journey did anyone say to me, sam, it's because there's ruptures and wounds in your body that we need to support, that we need to help. We need to understand the childhood wounding. We need to understand what stories and identities you're holding onto. And so I spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to help myself through this, and nothing was really working. And so this was about 10 years ago, and I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert's E Pray, Love, and she talked about how she went to Bali, she went to go to a healer, and everything changed. So I told my mom. I was like, mom, none of the stuff that I'm doing is helping me. Like, I'm still struggling with food. Every single day, I wake up counting calories. I'm addicted to exercise. Like Lori, I was, like, in the gym two hours a day, you know, and then did fitness competitions so that I could keep myself structured. It was just every single thought was the calories that I'm eating, how much fat I'm burning, what I'm going to look like. Every single motive in me was coming from this deep place of fear. So my mom's like, go ahead, go do that. That sounds great. So I go to Bali. I research the exact healer that Elizabeth Gilbert went to, and he comes out of his, like, sweet little house in his broken English. He pokes me with a few stick, and he just turns to me and he goes, your brain is broken.
Oh, my God.
He said, you think too much. And I'm like, I know all I can. Like, this was at a time in my life when I felt two things in my body. I felt either complete numbness or anxiety. There wasn't this, like, variability in my emotionality whatsoever. It was just complete numbed out. So I left the healer. I went to this meditation center, and I'm like, you know what? I'm going to try this meditation thing again. I hated meditation because I would sit there and my thoughts would be rampant. It would just be like thought after thought after thought. And you have to think about not thinking. That's crazy. And not just that. My ability to actually feel my emotions was just nonexistent. My body felt like a really scary place to inhibit. Like, it felt really uncomfortable to be in my body. And so I kept myself hyper distracted all the time with all sorts of addictions. Food addiction, work addiction, exercise addiction, everything. And so I was like, maybe meditation will be different in Bali. So I went to go try and do this meditation class and I ended up missing it. I was late or it was canceled or something. And the next class that was on the agenda was a breathwork class. And so I looked at, I looked and I was like, breath work. Like what? What is that? Like, surely that's just breathing. And so I'm like doing breath work right now.
Plenty of it.
Yeah, exactly. At the time, I was doing it for 20 years. I think I'm okay. And so I was like, whatever, I'm here. Anyway, so I go up to this class and there's this guy dressed in white and everyone's lying down with like pillows and blankets. I was like, this looks like an orgy. What's going on? And he comes up to me and he goes, are you ready to go on the ride of life? And I was like, what are you talking? Like, what are you talking about? And he's like, you are going to feel things in your body that you've probably never felt. You're going to feel super high states of joy and bliss. You're going to be able to release sadness. And I was like, dude, you don't know me. I am emotionally constipated and have not felt anything other than anxiety for years. And so anyways, I lied down and he taught this breath pattern. And within a few moments of breathing in this way, I was like, what is going on? My whole body felt alive again. It felt activated. I started bawling my eyes out and just releasing just so much pent up sadness and just suppressed emotion from decades of holding onto it. So I woke up from the class and I was lying there. I placed my hands on my heart and I was like, I cannot believe that my body has the ability to fulfill itself with so much love, so much contentment, so much ease. These were the feelings that I was so desiring to feel. And I thought that I would get through the perfect body, the perfect diet, the perfection that I was striving for. So I left that class and I got on my scooter and I went back to my homestay and I researched everything I could about breath work. And at the time, 10 years ago, barely anyone was talking about it. Even now, like, people are just starting to understand what it is. I went back to the studio the next day. And I was like, Michael, why does the world not know this? What would be possible if every single human on the planet knew that we had the ability to release anxiety, release stress, clear our minds, get into our bodies, feel this deep sense of self love. Like that would be a completely different world. Yeah, completely different.
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So I ended up using breathwork every single day to reconnect into my body to learn the difference. Like, what is the difference between an emotional hunger cue and a physical hunger cue? How can I actually tap into my intuition and not just conceptually realize that I have one, but really feel it? Follow your intuition. I'm like, I think it's broken. Like, I just literally don't. I just don't.
I've been to that place.
I just don't feel it, you know, And. And the reason why breath work is so powerful is because at any given time, there's three things that are communicating to us. We have our mental cognitive mind. We have our emotions, our sensations, our emotionality, and then we have our intuition. Now, when we are trying to listen to our intuition and fight through the mental pillar and our emotions, it's impossible because we're so identified with our anxiety, our stress, and we're so identified with our. With our thoughts. And the nar. The. The agenda of our intuition is so different than our mind. And this is how we create so much unnecessary suffering because we're constantly listening to our thoughts. So I had access, I call it the pocket. Like, I had access to this pocket where I could feel my intuition. I knew the difference between an emotional hunger cue and a physical hunger cue. So I just started helping people in my life with this, the people who struggled with food, because that's the biggest thing with women and men who struggle with emotional eating and anxiety disorders and all sorts of things is an inability to actually be in our body because it feels really unsafe. And so I started teaching breath work to help people end emotional eating and body image issues and restriction and exercise addiction. And that's how Hungry for Happiness came to be nearly 10 years ago. And then two years ago, I got that divine download of like, you need to make breathwork mainstream and you need to teach millions of people all around the world the power of this. And so that's the path now. And my. My vision is for everyone to understand that we are our own drug and disintegrating. The dependency model of thinking that we need something or someone outside of ourselves. And when we create codependence with the world we're not actually seeing and realizing our power. And breathwork gives people that visceral feeling instantly and immediately, so we don't have to convince ourselves of anything. And so that's why I feel like it's going to be just the biggest thing in a few years.
Oh, there's. There's so many powerful things that you said there. And I've. I've had some experiences with breath work, even in, you know, some meditation classes with mixed in breath work and then some crazy ones, which I think. Is there a version called merkaba? Is that just another word for breath work? I know I've done that.
That's like a. That's like a very intense, like, they also call that rebirthing, which.
Well, I felt that way.
Okay.
That would make a lot of sense since I literally. Oh, my God. Crazy story about that one. But that's for another time. That's her office microphone. I'll tell you later. That's just too much right now.
So I have a few things that.
I want to say and also ask about it. So breath work for me. And even just, like, just understanding everything that you just said was the first time that I realized, like, I was sending messages to myself, even just, like, breathing shallow in my everyday life, that it wasn't safe to be me. I didn't even. I didn't associate it to my body. I associated it to, like, it just wasn't safe to be me. And then I realized that I was trying to make my body the strongest and smallest at the same time, to try to, like, somehow feel. Maybe that would make me feel better about being me. So there were so many things just going on that I relate to with what you just said and a question that I have around breathwork, because I think some of the things you were saying, it's like to drop in and be really just, you know, content and in your body. But at the same time, I know that this. That doesn't necessarily mean, like, you won't want for anything anymore. It's actually, you know, I found that different modalities like this have helped me show up even more in my authentic path and in my business and have helped improve whatever it is. Like, some people are like, well, maybe I don't want to be so chill that I'm just like, that's great. I'm going to give up on those desires that I wanted. So can you kind of talk about that for a sec?
What it helps, what breathwork helps us do is it helps us in a very direct way, fulfill ourselves in the feelings and desires that we. That we crave. So contentment, peace, ease, safety, security. Now let's just look at safety for a second. Think about all of the things that we do, all of the distorted ways that we try and get safety. I just look at money, for instance. There's this perception that if we have a ton of money, we're gonna feel safe. And when we don't address that, our system needs to vibrate to the frequency of safety. And we don't give it that first, we are going to be constantly chasing safety. This is. This is. This was the whole thing with me controlling my food. I'm like, well, if I control something, if I control my food, if I control my body, then I'll be in control. Therefore, I'll be safe, which is not the case. And so when we can learn how to be the medicine for our inner children and really give ourselves, be the parents to our inner children that we didn't get growing up, then we can have more discernment on the things that we do. Because we're not doing it to chase a feeling or to fulfill a wound. We're doing it to expand. And our souls have come to this planet to expand, to grow. And so often we inhibit the growth because of fear, because we don't feel safe, because we're doubting ourselves. And so we play small and we put ourselves in boxes. And so what this is practice does is it helps us to heal our bodies. So the actions that we do take are way more potent and powerful, and we can do way less because we're doing it from alignment. Does that make sense?
Oh, totally. Oh, I love that. I think for some people, they might be listening, who've never done breathwork and be like, okay, so breath work. Okay, so if you can first explain what that would even be to some people who maybe have never heard of it. But breathwork does all that. Like, how is it. Are you saying that breath work gives us just more clear access to our intuition so that we get all the answers? Or is there going to be, like, some steps and work that we need to do with the breath work?
This is the beautiful thing. You are the content. The body is the content. So there is literally nothing to learn, but there's a lot of unlearning. So what breathwork does is it shows us, like, oh, you have this identity that's not actually you, this is who you really are. And it keeps pointing and keeps pointing and keeps pointing to who we actually are. And so the purpose of it is. It's a revealing. Like, who we actually are is already within us, but it's under layers of conditioning and programming and fears and stories and identities that are not us, that we've absorbed or taken on because it's how we thought we needed to be. I thought I needed to be a fitness competitor in order to feel, you know, like, I thought I had to be all of these things. I thought I had to. You know, the list, the list goes on. And so there's two types of breath work. There's. There's breath, there's integrative breathwork, and then there's meditative breathwork. So integrative breath work is. Think of it as like, breath work for relaxation. We integrate it into our day while we're working, while we're doing the dishes, whatever. Then there's breath work for transformation, which is a longer journey, by the sounds of it. It's what you went through in that rebirthing experience where we lie down and we breathe for 20 minutes or more, and we go into an altered state of consciousness. And what the body is doing in that period is it's unearthing and releasing a lot of stuck emotion that has been trapped in our bodies forever. So as we go through life, we are constantly being traumatized. If you're human, you're traumatized, right? And so we're. Something will happen. And the system's like, I can't process that. So I'm just going to shove it down. I'm going to shove it down. I'm not going to let myself break down. I'm not going to let myself cry. Maybe you were always the strong one in your family, and you sort of had to hold everything up. And so you never gave yourself permission to actually process and let go and release a lot of that sadness or pain or anger. So breath work allows us to go to those places. The breath is so intelligent. The body is so intelligent. All we have to do is breathe and let the body run the course and let the body do the work. And so there's a deep intelligence in the body and a deep intelligence of breath work where we don't have to think about how to feel better. We just. In order to feel better, we just got to be better feelers. We got to increase our capacity to feel. And that starts really small. You know, people say, tam, I'm afraid of being in my body. Like, all right, we'll do one minute of breathwork a day for a week and just begin to open that window of tolerance. But everything is everything that we need in order to feel the highest states of fulfillment and ease. It already exists. We're just blocking it because we're holding on to so much that's just archaic and not in alignment with who we are.
So.
Good. How does breath work do all that? Like, what is it actually doing in your body?
Yeah, so what it. What's happening is when we breathe in that very specific pattern, we are activating our limbic system, which is the house of all of our memories and emotions. And so when we activate that part of our brain, it gives us access to remember and to process and to let go. So a lot of times people will see visions of their childhood and something that they have not let go yet. And then in the session, they can cry that out, they can release it. They can. They can let it go. What it's doing is, it's. It's adding. It's. We're going into something called respiratory alkalosis, where we're adding just more energy and oxygen into the body. So it's allowing us to see things in a different angle. It's also shifting. We're kind of going into the sympathetic state in order to activate more of the parasympathetic. So when we do that, the mind is not so on guard in fight or flight, which allows us to settle deeper into our parasympathetic, our rest and digest so we can feel more and not think as much. Because the mind is not sort of hijacking the emotional experience, which tends to happen often.
Often, like, majority of the day for most people.
Yeah.
And now we have devices that are. If our brains weren't enough, we have devices that constantly make sure that we're in that fight or flight.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's like really learning what is activating us and putting us in that sympathetic. Because it's, you know, it's aging us. It's creating chronic anxiety, it's creating stress, it's creating inflammation in the body. We gotta just slow down and chill out and. And spend way more time in that parasympathetic state. And breath work allows us to do that.
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Why are people getting frustrated with, you know, all of the personal development work that they're doing and not feeling like.
They'Re really like doing anything yet consumption without integration creates frustration. And so people are doing all the things. They're treating personal development as just like another thing on their to do list. And we're really missing the point with the work at pause and hungry for happiness. My intention is to like really shift the narrative in the personal development industry. And rather than using so much brain power and thinking about all these things, how can we just get into our bodies and start integrating? We gotta feel in order to heal. And there's a lot of barriers to feeling. People are really afraid of being in their bodies. But when we can slowly introduce the body back into that felt sense and we can stop doing all the doingness and really just be in a state of beingness, that's where the work begins. The work begins in the body. Everything I do is the bottom up approach. So rather than trying to do like a whole bunch of like, I need to change my beliefs, I need to do this. And mindsetting our way through, it's like, how do we viscerally shift the system so that our beliefs take care of themselves? Because we've shifted the story in the body and we do that by really clearing out a lot of stagnant energy, really understanding how to feel, really permissioning ourselves to go to the places that we've been at war with for years. And that is the path of not only deep healing, but sustainable healing. I'm sure people listening have gone to, you know, a like something, gone to a seminar or done some sort of deep dive and they're like, okay, this time I'm going to change for good. And then like a year later they're like, oh, Man, Right. It's because we're not integrating the body's wisdom into the transformation. And that's the sustainability piece.
Is this for everyone? Like, will, you know, if you practice it, if you're like, yeah, I don't think this is my fave. Or should you keep going back or.
What do you think? This is a really interesting question. So when you ask, is this for everyone? If you're someone who has had a ton of trauma, you've got to start really slow. Because what we want to avoid at all costs is obviously retraumatizing. And so breath work is a beautiful remedy for people who have trauma, but you've got to start really slow. I really didn't like breathwork at the beginning. It was work for me. I'm like, man, I feel incredible from this practice. But dang, it's a lot of work. And my invitation there is just notice the part of you that's blocking you and, like, what is the story of that? Of that? You know, I call it a protector. What is the story there? And so my protectors were like, man, this is a lot of work. I don't want to do this. I don't want to feel. And so really just like, checking in with your system and checking in with yourself and constantly asking your intuition, not your mind, because your mind may drive you away from it, but your body knows the truth. And so really being intimate with, like, the yes and the no in the body. But yeah, at first, people either are like, this is the greatest thing ever, or like, this is a lot of work. I don't know about this, but just really, really, like, letting your body decide.
Oh, I love that. All right, so tell me why people are choosing this now over yoga.
You know, they're still choosing both.
Yeah, some are starting to choose this over yoga.
There is a. There is an. A very instant, like, return on investment, I guess, where it's interesting. I'll share this in a story. I did a workshop at the end of last year, and it was like 30 people. And this woman came up to me after, and she was like, sam, she's like, I've been in therapy for 25 years working on this one issue. And she said, I feel so clear and open. And she's like, I had. There's no way I could have ever gone there through therapy and through talk therapy and. And I really do believe therapy has a place. And I love it. And I don't think it's one or the other. I think it gets to be both. But the reason why people are. People who try breathwork are like, this is my thing, is because every single session, there is something that comes up. There's a lesson, there's an aha. There's a clarity, there's a lightness, there's every single session that they do, there's different that they get to integrate. And so it. Progress equals happiness. And when we feel like we are progressing in something, we want to keep doing it. Whereas, and especially for people who are like, I've tried, I've tried the whole meditation thing, I just can't do it. It's because it takes a long time for us to practice and practice and practice and practice and sit in silence and think about not thinking and disconnect from our thoughts that most people just kind of give up. They're like, man, I want the results of this thing. But, like, the work to do it is just not worth it. And so when they try breathwork, it's just so immediate. And the beautiful thing is we can do like three minutes of breath work, then go into a meditation after the mind has been released and relaxed, and then it's super powerful. You know what?
I did that for 30 days once and I don't know why I stopped. It did feel like a lot.
That's what everyone says. Yeah.
Oh, I'd gone to a Tony Robbins event and he kind of had us do that like before meditation. And so I just did the method that we had learned and it was amazing. Like, Chris and I both did it to the same song every single day for 30 days. It was frickin amazing. I had so much clarity and then I just stopped. So I need to. Was it a couple years ago? I need to start again because it really was. It calms me. So I just want to share with everybody. Like, that's what it did for me. It just calmed. It took everything I was thinking, chucked it out the window, and I was just like, oh, I'm just here and none of that matters right now.
Yeah.
It made me go like, oh, nothing matters. I feel amazing. It was like, none of that matters right now.
Like, now.
Absolutely hear myself.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Before I do it, I'm like, man, I gotta like send all those emails and I gotta get back to these people and I gotta do all these things. And then after breathwork, I'm like, oh, actually, I don't have to do any of that stuff right now. Yeah. It takes the reactivity out of life and it reminds us what actually matters. Yeah. And in my experience, nothing else has been able to give me that reward. And so even now when I'm at work and I get an email and my whole system's like, oh, man. I just like, I want to get reactive about this. I'm like, all right, let's take 90 seconds and do some breathwork, and then let's respond. And I'm like, oh, that's actually not a big deal whatsoever. It's like when we are in our cognitive mind, operating in our sympathetic, everything seems urgent, important, and like the end of the world. And then when we tap that parasympathetic and we view it from a completely new vantage point, everything seems so manageable. It's like we can. We can hold it all and it's not heavy. Versus when we're in our sympathetic, every little thing feels like a burden.
Yeah, it's like a true superpower tool. Meditation, breath, work, whatever you find, that thing is that kind of, like, immediate, that calms you down. To be able to let go of what feels important, to get clarity on what is important. Like that discernment.
Yes.
And please just bless me with that.
Seriously. And I think right now more than ever, we are craving certainty and safety. It's like 2020, man, just stripping the floor from underneath us. And people are feeling very untethered, and they're looking to the external world to try and meet their need for certainty, and it's not there. And when we don't have that need for certainty met, it's like we gotta figure out how to meet it in another way. And oftentimes when we're trying to meet it from fear, we're going to choose things that are not good for us, you know, so when we can meet the need for certainty by fundamentally knowing that every single time we use our breath, we're able to activate this felt sense of safety and peace in our body that's going to meet our need for certainty. And then, ah, everything else feels a little bit more manageable. It's 2020, my friends, has been a ride and a half. And a half.
If you've ever been to great America and you've seen the ride and a half, don't ride it. It's not going to be good. So I want to know about what you're working through right now. If you're open to sharing that, like, with.
Through.
I know that, you know, you obviously are an advocate for breathwork. So what is coming up in.
And what are you working through?
Like, what's something that you're like, I.
See you I hear that we're doing. Oh, my gosh. Oh, God. I feel like it's something different every single day. What I'm really working through right now is. Is how to be a good leader for my employees. It's just not something that comes natural to me. Yeah. And working with team dynamics is, like, such an edge of, like, how do I intimately care so much yet not take on their emotional experience when someone's having a meltdown? And it's like, it's so hard for me right now, you know? Like, so hard. And I, you know, I have this, like, fantasy that, like, oh, once I have everyone trained and I have all these systems, and boom, everything's gonna be fine, everything's gonna work, and it's just not the case because I'm dealing with people every single day in an industry that's very emotional.
Yes.
So for me, it's really about how can I have energetic boundaries to really be anchored in my true essence, so I am not a sponge for other people's emotionality when they're having a meltdown.
Yeah. It's so interesting because what makes you so good at what you do is what makes what you do so hard.
Dude, dude, seriously, I'm, like, feeling right.
It's being really in touch. It's being really intuitive. It's being so in your body that you can almost see and feel and know when other people what they need. And it's just like, oh, my God. That can be a lot, like, separating, right? That boundary, that energetic boundary of, like. I see that. And that has to be yours.
Yeah. And I'm definitely a recovering people pleaser to the point where if one of my team members is having, like, a day, I will go into overcompensation mode and, like, fix it. And I, like, I'm at the place now where I notice these patterns, and I can take. Take a step back and go, this is not what it's actually about. It's. It's something deeper. But, man, is it ever a journey. And the biggest point of personal development. Holy shiza. The first year of my relationship was that edge for me with Eric, where I was not used to men that are so emotionally available. And because of my abandonment wounds, I was sort of trying to ruin the relationship, you know? And so I actually. It's interesting. I actually. Yeah, you and Chris are just such beautiful examples, you know, And. And I remember going through my last breakup and. And then I went to your house. I think Chris and I were recording or something, and I'm like, boom. That's the vision that I want and who do I get to be in order to welcome that love in. So thank you for that. It's awesome to have that example so.
Happy that could be that.
Yeah. And so with him, it's like, wow, here is someone who is so emotionally available and so here and so present. And it was almost like there was a part of me that was like, I need to ruin this.
No, I totally know I tried that with Chris in the very beginning. Yeah, Long time ago. But I did try.
It's like I need to. I need to sabotage this because this reality does not fit my blueprint. Like, I got to get rid of this guy. He's too good for me. He. He doesn't validate the. The story that I have that. That everyone leaves, you know, so that was like. And so using breath work to, like, really heal those abandonment wounds was like the first. Like, that was last year and now this year. It's like really stepping into this level of leadership and this let discernment with. With my team and my employees. And as things are growing, it's like I just need to build that capacity to hold, you know.
God, relationships of any kind, work, personal, anything. They are just. Yeah, they're always revealing all of these.
Great things to us, you know, and I. And I think the more. The more that I just. It's like my priority is my work, my personal work, my spiritual work, and everything I do is secondary to that. And if that's constantly the priority and I put more value on that than I do the business, everything, then I'm winning, and then I can use everything as a container for growth. And I view it as growth and something that's happening for my growth. Not to me. And so that's been a. That shift has been such a beautiful reframe.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for sharing that. So I want to know this journey of your book, because I know this is going to help a lot of people. So tell me a little bit about the book.
Yeah, so I just finished, and it's about to launch the second edition. Yo, it was like so the first book. So I did Hungry for Happiness, like the first edition. Lori. I wrote it in 90 days, and it was up on Amazon, self published. Bada bing, Bada bomb. So easy, this one. Oh, my God. I think, because I just cared way more. And so I really took myself back to the days and the places of when I was in the struggle, and I really wrote from that area and that emotional contraction. And so this book has been a labor of love. It is just. I poured myself into it and it was emotionally exhausting. The only time I can write is at first four till seven in the morning. So it was like physically exhausting. But I just know as I was getting up at 3:45 to write, I'm like, this is going to help millions of people who struggle with food in their body. And I'm like, I want to make this the go to book for that. And so it's really a mixture of story, a lot of story, but then very tangible, tangible, executable tools that people can embody and really begin to shift and really understand. Like what are we actually hungry for? What is our emotional needs and how can we actually fulfill them? And so the book is really a journey to the self and into the self. And every chapter is really geared on giving people tangible tools to be able to embody and clear through a lot of stuck trauma and wounding from our childhood. So it's. And it's not just for people who struggle with food and body. And so that's the question I'm getting a lot. Like anyone, like, if you struggle with anxiety or perfectionism or whatever, it's like the tools are relatable. Food is just like the socially acceptable drug that people use. But maybe your drug is, I don't know, something else. You know, dating unavailable men. Yeah, exactly.
Totally.
Whatever.
You're probably not loving that you keep going to. That's your drug of choice.
Exactly. Exactly.
A lot of us, it's like a new Netflix series right now.
Yeah.
Just find that balance.
Okay.
So I'm so, so excited about your book. This is like, it's gonna help so many people and I want to know where we can find you, where we can follow you, where we can get the book.
Yeah, definitely. Go get it right now.
Like literally, you guys can go and order it right now.
Yeah. And when you do, you get access to my 21 day meditation series, which is 21 days of food and body meditation. So you can read the book and then you can go through the meditations as you're doing it. So if you just go to hungryforhappiness.com book, it's all there for you. And I'm also super active on Instagram. Amanthaskelly. And then if you are up, all up in that breathwork stuff, pausebreathwork.com has all the breath for goodness there.
Amazing.
We're going to link that all up.
Thank you so much. I always, every single time I talk to you, I'M always like, all right, yes, either that did work or I'm going to try that or whatever that is. So thank you for just reminding me. So I'll shoot you a text when I'm doing some breath work again.
I love it. I love it. Thank you so much.
It's going to be a weird text, it's going to be a voice memo, and it's only going to be me doing breath work.
I feel like she's either having sex or doing some breath work.
Yes, I'm not doing. All right, you guys, as always on the podcast, what we love to do for our guests is to make sure you tag them. Tag myself. And let Samantha know what your biggest takeaway was from this particular podcast. So make sure you let her know what your big takeaway was, your big aha. And of course, if you're getting the book, so you have to take Sam, tag myself. And we want to see who is listening to the pod. So you guys, until next time, time, earn your happy. Bye everyone.
Thank you guys so much for spending this time with me on the Earn your happy podcast. I am so glad that you stopped by. If you could take one second to share this episode with someone you think would love it, that would be absolutely amazing and we would be forever grateful. Also, please leave us a review if you feel so much moved by going to itunes and leaving us an honest thought, an honest comment, tell us what you think, tell us what you want to hear more of. It would really help us out on our journey to helping thousands and thousands of people. Until then, don't forget to earn your happy. Thanks again, guys.
Bye Bye.
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