Samantha Skelly | How To Bust Through Illusions That Keep You Stuck | Wellness Force #Podcast

So when I bring myself into my heart and I view my trigger from my heart, I'm viewing it and I'm beside it. I'm fully feeling the trigger, but I'm viewing it from the lens of the heart. So I'm not in it. I have awareness of it, therefore I'm not in it. And so when we hold that spaciousness and we know that I'm not going to identify with it, I'm going to observe it, I'm not going to identify with it, I'm going to observe it, then we have the wisdom and the intelligence to know what it actually means.

It. I'm grateful to have this podcast where I can share messages with somebody like you. So that's what I'm most grateful for.

I am grateful for the duality of being able to really experience myself as a human and a spiritual being at the same time. It makes things really fun. I'm grateful for my beating heart and I'm grateful for incredible conversations that allow me to think and get curious and provide value.

Sam Scaly, welcome to the podcast.

So good to be here.

Guess you guys, what we just did before we came on. We did some breath work, which Sam is known for across the world now. And it's this beautiful gift, Samantha, that I see you giving people all over the Internet and it's this, like, freedom to be in your body. Like, literally a permission slip that you, like, digitally write for men and women to live in their body and feel free and not feel contraction. This conversation today, I'm so excited for, like, it's been, like, probably six to nine months coming, but what I was feeling in my system before we even jumped on was expansion, because that's the work that you teach. But, like, that was not always the case for you. There was a unique journey that I'm excited for you to share that you had contraction a lot in life. People know you as hungry for happiness and the pause, breathwork, creator and facilitator training. But like, if you pulled the E brake and you went way back to the beginning, looking now as a woman, as a creator, as a CEO, as an entrepreneur, like, just as a powerful force of wellness yourself, if you were to look back, was there one or two moments in your trajectory, whether it was acting or dancing or performance, or maybe even finding breathwork yourself, that you think we can plug into this conversation of feeling free in your body, like, what was the contrast you received early on?

I remember waking up one morning, I was living in London, England. I fell in love with a British Boy as you do, and flew to England. And I was like, I'm going to start my life here because I'm in love with this person. So I was there living, and I could feel bit by bit, I was going farther and farther away from who I was, making sacrifices that weren't in alignment for myself. And I remember waking up one morning and the first thought in my mind was, I cannot wait to go to bed tonight. And not because I wanted to die or I was suicidal or any of that, but because the experience of living was so overwhelming for me. The thoughts in my mind, the hatred I had for my body, the peaks of anxiety that I would experience were so debilitating to the point where I had to immediately distract myself from them. And I used food as a drug. I used over exercising, overworking, just overdoing everything, over performing everything. And I ran my life like that for years. I called it my diet depression years, where I was on over 50 diets in less than four years and just living every moment completely disconnected from my body, completely disconnected from my soul's curriculum, my purpose, my passion. I lacked passion. I lacked direction, clarity, excitement, expansion. And it was interesting because I had it originally, which made it almost worse because I knew where I could be and I wasn't. I grew up in a family that was very geared and anchored in personal development. I remember going on long road trips with my dad and he would be playing Tony Robbins tape. And so I was sort of immersed and marinated in that culture from a very young age.

Like while you're in the car, he'd be playing it over the speakers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a great dad. And so I knew it was possible, but I was in such a battle. It's like I knew better, but my. My emotional blueprint was telling a completely different story. So there was this internal fight, this internal chaos where I knew I was off track, but I had no idea how to get myself back on track. And I did all of the things that I should do. I read all the books, I went to all the events, I absorbed all of this information, hoping that maybe it would help me heal my eating disorder and my battle with food and my off the charts anxiety. But nothing was working. And I was just consuming content without the integration of actually embodying the content, which has kept me stuck and frustrated and overwhelmed. And so I remember around that time, that morning that I woke up, it was around that time. I remember just praying at the time, and prayer for me in that phase of my life was just I just never did it. I grew up in a very Christian home and went to church every single Sunday, prayed before meals. We did, like, little Bible studies before school. Like, it was. We did the thing, you know. And when I was going through this diet depression, I basically turned the door on anything that I couldn't see in the physical world. I'm like, if I can't see it, it doesn't exist. And so I turned my back on God. Spirituality, universe, universal energy, life force, anything.

Were you angry at God at that time?

I was. I don't know. I wasn't angry at God, but I just was the. I was, like, stuck in the enduring pattern of, like, I'm going to do everything on my own, like, fuck everyone else. So maybe there's a little bit of anger towards God, but I. I don't remember that being, like, a theme. But what I do remember is the shame had because of the religion, which is like a whole other thing that we can get into is like, I had sex before marriage. Cue shame. You know, there was just like, a bunch of things that I was doing in my early 20s that wasn't congruent with what I was taught I should do according to the Christian church. And nothing against it. I feel like I'm. I feel grateful I was brought up in that way. I feel like I absorbed a lot of really great ways of being that I hold dearly now. But there's a lot that was. Was not congruent and was actually more harmful. So I remember praying this one, this one evening, and it was a time where I was just like, I didn't pray. So it was like an interesting thing. And I was like, God, I'm like, please, like, I don't know how to get out of this. Please help me get out of this. And a week later, I received a letter in the mail that I was getting deported from England, which was the answer to my prayer, obviously. And the reason why I was the answer to my prayer is because I needed. I needed to get back home. I needed to sort of reset. So my partner at the time, Luke, and I broke up, I flew back to Vancouver, my hometown, and I just was so committed to getting healthy, trying all of these different modalities. I started to venture into energy healing and Reiki and life coaching, all these sorts of different things, and really got out of, like, the mindset of trying to heal, and really got into, like, the somatics, the energetics, the embodiment side of it. And through that journey is where I discovered breathwork. Which was for me personally, the number one most powerful healing modality in my life. I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert's E Pray Love, and she was talking about how she went to Bali and she found that energy healer. And so I booked a one way ticket to Bali. I found this energy healer, worked with him. He basically said, you brain is broken and you need to meditate. He literally said that in his broken English. Your brain's broken. So when he said meditation, I was like, oh God, everyone's telling me to do that shit. And I hate it. Because I would sit there for 20 minutes and because I felt so unsafe in my body, I couldn't, I didn't want to feel, I couldn't feel. I would sit there, I would feel emotionality, and I would shut it down right away and then I would just get up in my head and be distracted. The whole 20 minutes. I was supposed to be feeling relaxed. So I he, when he said meditate, I was like, ugh, okay, maybe it's different in Bali. I'm giving it a shot. So I went to go to a meditation class. I ended up being late for the meditation class and then found breathwork. And my life was literally changed in that three hour class. I felt a high level of visceral intelligence, one that I had never experienced before. I could tell the difference between an emotional hunger cue and a physical hunger cue. In the weeks after, I could actually feel what self love felt like. It was this. Well, this infinite well of just joy and contentment. And it was this, this felt sense of like, I don't need anything outside of myself. Anything outside of myself. Like, I feel so content. And it was, it was a completely interesting experience because it was so immediate. My body had the felt sense, my body had the experience of transformation. And so my mind couldn't hijack the narrative. And so that was when it started. And so I used breath work to help heal my eating disorder, which birthed hungry for happiness.

Wow, there's so much there. Like you just unpacked probably 16 suitcases. Which is amazing because I'm thinking about the people that are listening and watching with us. You know, like we're in this kind of, I guess you could say discovery container. And I love the way you explain these concepts. Like you mentioned embodiment and you were intellectualizing your healing, but to actually have it be in your body, it's a somatic experience. So I love the way you explain this because there's so many people that get these terms misconstrued, right? Like so many People right now are trying to intellectualize their healing and I've fallen prey to it. Like, I went to the conferences, I listened to the podcast. I mean, shoot, I'm sure that there's a part of you and I that share a really common thread and a common love for breath work. Because it's written on my arm, right? If I can take a breath, then I can choose. If I can breathe, I can choose. So what was it though about when you said I was literally feeling so free, freaked out in my body that you're like, okay, I'm gonna go to Bali, I'm gonna buy a one way ticket? Like there was something inside of you that was contracting you so much that so many people deal with in their own way. But what was it inside of you that was contracting you that now you can look back on and be like, oh, I see, I see what that was.

It wasn't so much the contraction that drove the behavior, it was the pull that I knew I was meant for more. So I had that inner fire, I had that relentless part of me and I still have it to this day, this relentless part of me that is always communicating to me that I'm designed for more. Even though the contraction feels like overbearing and taking up 98% of my experience at the time there was like that 2% that was like, no, no, no, this isn't it, this isn't it, you're off it. Let's dig deeper, let's do some self inquiry. And so that decision was driven by that 2% when everything else in my system wanted to give in and become malleable to the contraction. Soul, higher self, life force chose differently in that moment. And that's available to every single person always. But the question is, are we listening? And in that moment, there was a moment of courage to go, I'm going to trust this 2%, even though I have zero evidence, None. Zero evidence. Yeah, I was a hot mess express at the time. You know, like, like high states of anxiety, overeating over exercising. I was a extreme fitness competitor trying to mask my eating disorder. But then there was that 2% that was like, you are made for more and it's possible. And all I had at that time was just belief. That's it, belief. And so when I was pulled to Bali, it was terrifying as I was like, what if I go here and I, and I prove myself wrong, that there isn't actually that 2%? But I just kept believing and I just kept taking the next best step and I just Kept putting it out in the universe. Like I know there's a different narrative, there's a different script. I know I meant for more. Let me, let me, let me go find it. And it keeps presenting itself.

There's a big piece that I saw on your website and it was, you had this narrative that said, you'll never get through this. You'll be stuck in like the diet and binge cycle for life. There's something unique about your Soul, maybe your 2% that you mentioned that made you choose because we hear this phrase, I'm sure forever in personal development and in wellness, the power of choice is yours. And I think we know that from like a neck up place. But there was something about you, your soul, your contract, your 2%. I don't know, whatever you feel it was that made you look at that narrative of like, okay, I'm going to be in this cycle forever. And men and women get stuck in these cycles for decades, decades. They just get stuck. But there was obviously something about you. I'm so curious as to what that was like. That's really your unique story, right? Your unique soul essence. What is it about you that, that made you reframe that or transmute that phrase that you had cycling in your mind?

I think it's something I'm still curious about and I don't actually know, to be completely honest with you. I feel this frequency in my system that sometimes wakes me up at night when I'm sleeping and I'm not so hooked and associated with reality. I feel this frequency like flow through my body that is none other than power and love in equal parts. Like that's the only way I can explain it. And it's like it's my soul, but my sis, like it gives my nervous system such a message of there's more, there's more here, there's more to discover, there's more to unfold. And because I am such a student of life and I'm, I've got so much curiosity, I keep tuning in and leaning into that thing, but I still don't really know what it is. I feel like I'm still discovering it every day, you know, And I discover it through my creations. I discover it through my relationship. I discover it through like 2020 from a leadership perspective and a team building perspective was really challenging for me, like super challenging. You know, dealt with betrayal, dealt with all of this kind of stuff. And I think if I didn't have this connection to this isness, this beingness, I don't know if I would have continued to go through it, you know. And so it's so valuable for me to have this connection to this part of me, this frequency, beingness, life force, God, universe, energy, whatever this energy is that is existing in my system because that is what I lean on when things are really challenging. I don't lean on my talent, I don't lean on my business structure or my systems. I lean on this universal energy that for some reason, some way, somehow always pulls me through. No matter how hard it is, no matter how much betrayal I've gone through, no matter how much, you know, I get shit on and I got shat on last year, you know, so like.

Business or business and personal, I guess they're both. For some entrepreneurs it was business.

Personally. Personally, my life was so easy actually, you know, like my relationships, my friends, my family, everything business wise. And we, we grew revenue. But it was the complexity of the dynamics of the relationships of my team that were just like, like blowing up. And it was just like wild, a wild ride. And, you know, people who I thought would be on the train forever just turned out to be not the people that I thought they were. And that's okay. That's okay. And I needed to release my expectation to what I thought would be the way forward.

You know, I loved earlier you said your mess. What did you say? I was a trained master.

You had a cool hot mess express.

You're a hot mess express. Like whatever our message is, whatever our mission is, expect the universe to bring us unique challenges when we're in the spotlight, when we're doing our thing, like when you're shining and you're getting women and men like reconnected to their bodies. Dealing with interpersonal relationships, I mean the realm that you play in is emotional and somatic intelligence, right? Physical intelligence. These are the two things we explore in the show. Which is why I was so looking forward to talking to you. Because there's like 23,000 or more people that have gone through your trainings. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm feeling in myself, all right, if there's that many people that are getting something from the lane that you're walking, like the place that you're leading them from, what is that something? You already said there was a mystery about what your 2% is, so we're just gonna honor the mystery on that one. But what is it about the path that you're leading, the path that you're walking now, both with food and with breath, that people are really resonating with.

I think it's the philosophy I operate under, which is you are your own drug. And my intention of disintegrating the dependency model when it comes to personal development and spiritual development and giving the power back to the people for them to know that we are the medicine to our nervous systems. We can remedy our ruptures that have been created through our childhood. And I'm a huge fan of coaching, obviously. I have two coaching businesses and I have five coaches myself. But there's this element missing which is the discernment, the sovereignty, the knowingness that it's actually us that are doing the work, not our coach, you know, giving.

People the actual permission to learn how to do it. Like Jesus did when he taught people how to fish.

So the scripture says Jesus is a gangster, you know what I'm saying? Like if we can, if we can teach like Jesus truly, like if we take Jesus the dude and take away the religion. That guy was incredible. And what he was, yeah, what he was pointing to and naming and showing through his beingness was the potentiality of humanity. That's it, you know, and so that's. I'm just trying to be like Jesus over here. I'm just kidding. But I love, like, what I love is helping people see like, yo, it's not me, it's you. You are doing the work. You are the medicine. You have this incredible innate power to heal your. Empower yourself so that you can empower others. I'm not empowering you. I'm not God, I'm not Jesus. You are doing the work yourself. And that's just a beautiful thing that I think anyone can get amongst. We are all wanting freedom, right? We've seen it this year more than anything. We want freedom. Move to Texas, there's more freedom. We all want freedom. You know what I'm saying? And so what if we could create in internal climate of freedom. So we don't think that we need to fight for our freedom. It's just available for us. And so that let that land.

That was so good. I'm sorry to interrupt you right there. Like, everyone just take a breath with Samantha and I. What you just said is basically sums up the past 16 months of freedom being assaulted. Amygdalas being under control. Default mode Network volume blasting at 100 decibel decibels. Like that's a big one. And, and right now, you mentioned rupture earlier. Right now I think there's a lot of people being ruptured. So how do the tools that you teach go in there and Help them with the rupture. You talked about childhood rupture, but there's people experiencing a rupture right now because of what you just discussed.

Oh, of course, of course. There's activation in the system as we're having these conversations. And I think one of the most important things is to know that we are not the rupture, we are the space holder, the loving awareness that the rupture is existing within. And when we can tap into our spacious awareness and view the rupture through our loving hearts, it transcends it, it shifts it, it helps it amalgamate and move the timeline from this rupture that's three years old, that's angry at the world into this, oh, 31 year old, who knows better. And when we, when we turn away from those ruptures and we, when we turn away from them or we get thrown into them, we don't have perspective, we can't see things for what they are, we see them as they are. So we're viewing the world through the lens of an immature part of us that is wounded and sad. And so when we can turn towards these ruptures, a three year old rupture, a four year old rupture, and actually get with what it needs, what is the medicine, what is the remedy, what is the energetic blueprint that this particular rupture needs? We can begin to really alkalize that rupture and soften it and smooth it out so that we have more flow, more energetic flow in the system. If we are holding in our systems all of these ruptures that have all different types of maturity levels that all get triggered all from so many different things, we are going to be walking around triggered at everything. Fuck that person, fuck the system, fuck Trump, fuck Biden, fuck dip it. Like we're going to constantly do that. But when we give those parts of us what they need, which is just our loving presence, our awareness, when we re parent those parts of us because they didn't get the parenting that they so needed when they were younger, then we can begin to smooth out the edges and then life becomes a little less chaotic. We are not so gripped on reality and projecting our needs onto other people and other things.

You know, there's a big place that you're talking about between there's the danger of spiritually bypassing or actually being your trigger. There's a space in the middle, so there's like spiritual bypassing and you actually identifying with your trigger. What is that space for you at least.

So the Space there for me is being beside the wound, not in the wound, fully feeling it and also feeling it from awareness. I'm going to break this down for people because this is more of, like, an experience than it is a teaching. So when I get triggered, I'm like, oh, I feel it in my gut, right? Like, right in my solar plexus. I'm like, I feel like I've been punched. Like, oh, it's right there. My ego, my mind is like, let's distract that. Let's get. Let's get into work. Let's overperform. Let's go for a run. Oh, is there some brownies in the. Let's get rid of this, right?

Let me clean my carpet.

Let me clean my carpet.

Organize my closet. Like, anything at all but the thing.

Surely there's a toilet around here that needs to be cleaned, right? So when I bring myself into my heart and I view my trigger from my heart, I'm viewing it and I'm beside it. I'm fully feeling the trigger, but I'm viewing it from the lens of the heart. So I'm not in it. I have awareness of it, therefore, I'm not in it. And so when we hold that spaciousness and we know that I'm not going to identify with it, I'm going to observe it, I'm not going to identify with it, I'm going to observe it, then we have the wisdom and the intelligence to know what it actually needs. Okay, well, what was it about that thing that happened that activated me so much? Because every trigger is a deepening moment. I can go, all right, well, this person did this, and it activated me. What did I make that mean? I made it mean that I don't belong. I made it mean that I'm not worthy. I made it mean that I'm falling behind. I made it mean that I'm not good enough, whatever it is. Okay, well, is that true? No. What do you really need? How can I really support you? And we get in dialogue with these parts of us, because if we don't get in dialogue with these parts of us and we don't have the knowing that we can soothe these parts of us, we're going to project them out onto someone else. Therefore, we give our power away to someone else. And that person needs to do something very specific in accordance to our expectations in order to soothe this ruptured part.

A big piece of this is childhood, because whether you look at Gabor Mate's work or Bessel van der Clerk's work, Or Bruce Lipton's work. I mean, fill in the blank, even some of what Mel Robbins teaches, right? Every single person, whether contemporary or ancient, from a mastery standpoint, don't you feel like they're all saying essentially the same thing? And that is how you are parented and what you go through, by the way, in utero, and also the first seven years literally shapes the dendrites, the axons, the things in your brain. So essentially, to unpack what you said, and I'd love your vantage on this, we are running fucking programs on everyone. I'm running a program on the public. I'm running a program on news media. I'm running a program, and I'm shooting my program out there. That's the projection. But if I am in harmony with my program and I can, like, love my program and maybe laugh at my program sometimes, then like you said, I'm. I'm beside the wound. I'd love for you to expand on what you think these programs are, and where exactly do they even come from? Are they generational? Are they 5D? Like, whoa? I mean, it's a big question.

I think there's many different ways that we are programmed. And I love how you're speaking of, you know, in the embryo, right? Our mother's conditioning, our mother's beliefs, our mother's way of seeing the world is we are baking in that for the first nine months of our lives, and then we come into a world and we're trying to find our way in the world, and we are going to embody what is reflected back to us, whatever that looks like. And I don't think every person on the planet is a stable parent, you know, like, why is there no IQ test for this shit? Like, it's a big deal to raise a kid.

Yes, it is.

You know, and when. When it's a miss, when our needs are not met, we then develop ruptures and protectors. So if we reach and we are not received, we will develop a protector that says, my needs don't matter. I'm going to take care of myself. Right? And then. And then we. We just keep perpetuating that the entire. Our entire life. And if that's our story, that's our narrative, that's what we're used to. We're going to keep creating scenarios that validate and give that condition, that program evidence, because we just want to be right. We're more concerned about being right than we are about being happy. And that's the frigging truth. Unless you decide differently so we're going to keep validating and validating and validating these experiences and these programs that we have that were created when we were three years old. So we're fighting for things that we don't even want. And I find myself getting caught up in these patterns too. Still now I have to be very aware of it. Why am I fighting for this? Why does this matter so much? Oh, this matters to the part of me that's four years old. Four years old. All right, Sammy, whammy. Let's pull up our socks and make this decision from a 31 year old integrated person, not a 4 year old. But that's wisdom, and that takes a long time to get with because my ego doesn't want. My ego wants to believe that this is the truth, even though it's the agenda of my four year old. And so it really is looking at it from a bird's eye view to say, okay, there's conditioning that came from my mom being in, you know, growing in her belly. There's conditioning from a very young age of my caretakers, whether that was mom, dad, or grandparents or whoever. And then there is the systemic way of the way the world does things that is constantly being reflected back to us. And we're constantly being pushed into like these, these timelines and these narratives and the things that we should do. And then we keep following that and we get farther and farther and farther and farther and farther away from our soul's curriculum, what we came here to do, and our gifts that we just conformed what we should do based on all of these programs that are already in the world.

This is big. This is big because the conformity you speak, it's what makes people abandon themselves. Essentially. You want to conform to your parents, and what's the payoff? What's the reward? We get loved. We get loved and we conform. But what's the price we pay to get that love? How do we lie about what we really love, ourselves or what we're really into? So there's something that connects this. Yes, it's the breath, but it's also doing our inner work. There's a blend of, like doing the breathwork, applying the breath work. But there's a big difference between wanting and embodying. Like, that gap is massive. And I'm sure you figured out a formula that works in your pause facilitator training. But also, like, I'm sure there's probably a lot of crossover with hunger for Happiness. You know, you've been doing these programs for quite Some time. So what is that crossover between the two of them? Because they're essentially. They're all seeking love from an authentic place, not a conformist place.

Yeah, it's really about, like, high level of both of them is really about dismantling and unbinding the configurations that have been placed on us that aren't true. Right. And that's done through energetic and somatic coaching and done through breathwork. And they're a perfect match because breath work in and of itself opens up the portal, and then the coaching and embotic and somatic training places it back together with more alignment. I always tell my clients, like a snow globe, like, you shake it up, and then it all settles down with more alignment. And that process is. Dang. That's hard, man.

Yeah.

You know, like, I commend everyone who goes through our stuff because it is not easy. It's not mindset work. It's embodiment work. It's trauma work. It's deep somatic shifting. You know, it's. It's healing. Your lineage is generational healing. I remember I was. And an ayahuasca ceremony two years ago, and the first. The first and only one I've ever did. And I remember, like, ayahuasca was like, it's your responsibility to heal your lineage and heal the feminine suppression so that it's not passed on. And I was. At the time, I was like, dang, that's a tall order. But I understand it now. I get it. I get it. It's like the women in my bloodline didn't have. Didn't have, you know, the education, the tools that I do. Even my mom, you know, my mom kind of sort of like, she's like, so what do you do? She kind of gets up like her mom. No clue, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's like, oh, wow, this is the time. This is the generation. This is. This is it. The future is so bright. The future is so bright. And even these babies that are coming into the world now are. Their consciousness level on day zero is way, way better than ours because of the way that things are evolving and growing. And yes, we are in the breakdown and the destruction right now. So it may look like things are not great and the future is not bright, but it is. We are going somewhere. We are going. We are evolving. And the more humans that we can get with that narrative consciously creating a new world, that's how we're going to do it. And so we just need more and more and more leaders to step up and do their work, the work that we're all here to do, get back onto our soul's path. If we have been living a life of shoulds, I should go to university, I should get a degree. I should get this. I should get this, I should get this. And now it's you're working 9 to 5 at State Farm Insurance, hating your life. Well, ask yourself the question, what am I here to do? Because your soul decided to come here for a reason, all of ours did. So what's that reason? And how can we step deeper into that now?

It's one thing to hear it, it's another thing to feel it and to be inspired to do it. This is where courage is built. It takes massive spiritual, emotional courage to be able to do what you're talking about. And I feel like if your heart is the fire, then breath is the thing that adds the air. Like breath is what actually feeds the heart if you think about it, right, like we develop courage from the heart. There's mirror neurons in our heart and our brain, they feed each other. The body can't live without the mind, vice versa. So if we're breathing properly, I'd love to get into this with you. If we're breathing properly, like, like lovingly, purposefully, then we can feed the fire in our heart. It's not just spiritual, it's not like a spiritual meme that we're seeing on social media. Like legitimately, if you're breathing properly, you are going to have more courage in life. It is going to feed the fire in your heart. So what do you define as that? I mean, like, what is breath work to you at a soul level?

I just got like full body chills when you said that. And I think the part that excites me so much about that is the fact that I don't have to convince anyone of this. When they go through the exercises, their body tells them, not me. And that for me is the coolest part. Because I spent so much of my life listening to people coaching me, telling me, motivating me. And there was that part of me that was like, ah, this is all crap. But when I did breath work and I gave myself that, that felt experience, that embodied, lived experience, my body, my cells began to communicate to me a different narrative, a different story. And it wasn't anyone else, it. So that is the potentiality that we have to re pattern all of this in our system and every single person. If you have a beating heart, you have the ability to dramatically increase the quality of your life. Through increasing the quality of your breath. It's just so simple. I laugh that I have two businesses that teach people how to eat and how to breathe the most basic shit that we should. You know what I'm saying? We have come so far away from our nature, you know, like, it's crazy. And so when we can act, when we can get with the knowingness of. Wait a second. I can shift my breath. I can. Even if I just don't shift, even if I'm just aware of it, the body will begin to move into a more sympathetic state. Rest and digest state, so that we can make better decisions, we can be better leaders, we can tap into our heart more. And then when we add a little bit of intentionality onto that breath and deepen it, we can have some pretty incredible experiences.

And I know that, you know, you meant parasympathetic, like the restful part of us, not. Not the sympathetic, because.

Did I say sympathetic?

You said sympathetic. But these terms, parasympathetic, well, it's big because, I mean, I know you know it. I'm not. I'm not like, oh, I'm gonna call Sam, Sam out of the book. It's not like that. It's more like we hear these terms so much. Science has become a God, right? So whether it's Covid or mask wearing or anything at all, breath work. Why do we even need a PubMed study to tell us that breathing properly is probably good for you? Like, are you fucking kidding me? But I want to respect and honor the people that are driven by the analytical mind, because it's the analytical mind that is plaguing us right now. And that's the thing that's turning up the volume on our default mode network, turning down the volume on our somatic experiencing. And there's something unique about your process. I mean, look, it took me three, four years to launch our program, the Breathe, Breath and wellness program. It took you an incredible amount of time and going through the trenches and actually doing the work, doing the breath. Who did you learn from? Like, what was the. What was the gathering process for you to be able to pull it in? Like, it started in Bali, but there was other teachers and people you met along the way. Right, so how did that come to pass?

Yeah, so when I first found out about breathwork, this was 10 years ago in Bali, and I was like, I am taking every certification on the market. That was 10 years ago. It's evolved a lot in 10 years. So at the time you had your holotropic breathwork rebirthing, gosh. Alchemy of breath. There was about four or five big ones at the time. I now do a lot of work with Dan Brulee. And just like, I love Wim Hof and different style, different intention. I love what they're doing. My way of breath work is a lot to do with ascension and emotional development versus, like, the physicality. And there's a really cool edge there that Whim's doing. I just gathered every. From every certification that I took, I gathered the best parts of everything, and I added in what I thought was missing, and that was the birth of pause. And it's so interesting. I wrote a post about this the other day. I was woken up at 3:04am every single night with content flowing through me. And it was that energy that I was talking about, that, like, love and power energy. And I went to my energy healer here in San Diego, Andrew. I don't know if you know him.

But, yeah, I've sat with Andrew a lot.

Yeah. So I went to Andrew.

He's been on the show. Shout out to Andrew Diggorio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I went to his office and I was like, dude, what is going on? I am being woken up by these guides with this energy and this content flowing through me.

Did he start smiling? Did he start smiling?

He's like, you know, you can tell them not to wake you up. I'm like, yeah, but the content coming through is so amazing. And so the whole Pause curriculum is an amalgamation of what I learned through all of the certifications that I. That I have taken. And then this. This new body of work that just came through me. And I'll read the pause manual, the curriculum, and I'm like, I don't remember writing that. Like, it's. It's. It's crazy. It's. It just flowed through.

I love it because you actually do it. And some people say, I'm getting a galactic download. I'm like, go ahead and put on your white cape and climb up to Kell's mountain. Like, what I'm really. What I'm really talking about is like, you actually did have a quote download. This is like spiritual language that we hear all the time. I'm getting a download, a cosmic download. And I'm not, like, hating on those people. I'm just poking fun. Like, it's just. We're just having fun. But I think it's kind of silly because you actually do it. And there's a bridge that we've been talking about. Like, for you, it's the pause. For many of us, it's like the stillness, however you want to describe it. Like, is there a secret or is it not so secret? And that's what keeps pause a secret.

Ooh, Gosh, that's such an interesting question. I'm so sorry. I'll share how I view it, and this might answer the question. I view pause as this entity above me that is constantly communicating to me what it needs to have an impact in the world. So I'll sit in meditation, and it'll just be like, all of these things come through. Oh, like, expand on module 4. Go a little bit deeper into here. Let's do this. Now, what about Breathfest? Here's the app. Oh, there's this audio for the app. Like, this stuff just flows through. And so I just sit there, like, writing it all down. And it just. It's nonstop. It's constant. And so when people have gone through our trainings who have done other trainings, they're like, how is this so deep? And I'm like, it's not me. Like, it's. It's crazy. And again, that's where that curiosity comes in. Right? You asked me earlier that 2%.

Yeah.

I'm like, who are you? Where is this coming from? And it was interesting because I went to Andrew and I was like, okay, if these are guides that are communicating to me what needs to happen in the world that needs to come through the vehicle we're calling Pause, like, can you explain them to me? Can you explain who they are and what they're doing? And Andrew explains them. Okay, there's this guy, and this is what he does. And then there's this little one, and this is what it does. And then there's this older woman, and this is what she does. And Andrew sort of explained. And this is getting weird, but Andrew explained this sort of, like, team of guides. And I was like, oh, this is bullshit. I'm like, he's making this up. So I went to another energy healer here in San Diego, David Valdez, who is also incredible, super, super talented. And I asked him, what's going on? There's. There's guides. Can you explain them? David explained the guides to a T what Andrew did, and I was like, okay, okay, all right. Yeah, Yeah. I was like, all right. So then I began to really believe it and really call these guides in and be in communication with them and talk to them, and it's just been, like, a really beautiful, opening experience. But three years ago, I would have been like, this is. Is A load of crap. Like, there's no way.

It's the part I love about you, like you can operate in this spiritual, but like you bring people to the practical. Because so many. And I'm not dissing anyone. Like, a lot of people, they, they say one thing, yet they do another. There's a lack of integrity there. And I, and I've seen you on Social and I think a lot of people, and when they look at the show notes today, when they're watching and listening, like they're going to see a lot of your content. You have fun with what you do. Like, there's a certain lightness and joyness and it's not, it doesn't feel like it's hardcore work. It's like our conversation. It's not work. It's. It's expression and dancing and organic kind of discovery. What is it about the pause that gives us that, that, like, expansion, that curiosity? There's so much that's birthed in the pause. Even Viktor Frankl was like the space between stimulus and response. We all hear it from different teachers, but in your teaching, like, what is that magic of the pause?

I have this very playful, silly side of me that just wants to fuck around and have fun. And I have this excitement of activating other people's inner children to just do fun stuff all the time. And the more that I do the work and live in the pause and heal the ruptures and be with myself, the more capacity I have to live in that essence. And that, true, is my natural essence. Like, that's who I am. That's just who I am. I don't know. I don't know where I came from, but that's just who I am. It's like very playful, very silly, very jokey. And the more that I can live in the duality of my human self and my spiritual self, the more I can settle into the present moment, that knowing that I am supported, I am safe. I got this. It's all good. It's all taken care of. And when I really embody that and believe that and have full certainty on that, then my system can relax and I can go into my natural essence, which is. Is play fun, mess about.

I loved how you just took a big rich inhale through your nose. Because one of the things that I've been loving doing in my practice has been doing like a kapalabhakti, like the fire breathing. Or I'll also just do straight up warrior breathing that I learned from Mark Devine and it's circular it's not box, but I'll challenge myself. And we talk about this in our program too. Like can you challenge yourself to hold your breath in an extended breath hold? So you can use that hold to be at more peace with your stress. To be. Because what's the first thing that happens, Sam, when we're angry or pissed off or we're in our trigger, we go, we like hold our breath. But there is a loving, healthy time to do breath holds. Like how do you see breath holds in your work? How do you use those?

Yeah, depending on if you want to bring the energy up and out of the body more of like an ascension or more of a ground. So using a top hold at the back end of a really activating pattern. So the tri active breath, which the three part breath and then bringing a breath hold at the end of like an even 90 seconds of a three part breath with a top hold will bring the energy, cultivate the energy up into the body and out through the top of the head. So if we're feeling particularly lethargic or people who run depressed, top holds are really good. People who run anxious, bottom holds are really good. So bottom holds are doing more of a gentle breath pattern than holding the breath at the bottom which grounds the energy into the earth so it activates more of that earth energy. Top holds activate more of the realm energy. So depending on the outcome, depending on what we want to accomplish, asking yourself, what would be the best one for you? My system runs anxious more. So bottom holds are really good for me. And then when I'm feeling super chill, I love doing top holds because they're very energizing.

I love that. And so in your program, tell people about the program, like where they can get involved.

So the facilitator training that we have is a six month program that trains you to become a masterful breathwork facilitator. And so much of the program is your own personal transformation. Because I believe what makes a masterful coach is embodiment and really speaking from experience and really speaking and teaching through transmission versus logic. And so the whole program is designed and set up to optimize for your own embodiment and impact through transmission. And so some people do the program and don't even have an intent to teach breathwork. They just want to deepen their relationship to their breath so that they can change their life. So for those of you who are interested in that, it's@pausebreathwork.com facilitator and that's.

For people to go out in the world and actually embody is the big part. Embody all these lessons that we're learning because I'll share. Like, you know, the biggest part that hit me in this conversation so deep is when you were talking about generational trauma. And as you were talking, maybe it's my playful little dude, my 2%, he was like seeing a volcano at the bottom of the ocean. You know that Disney movie where it's like, I love you. You know, the little lava thing? Well, this is what happens with generational trauma. And generational healing is like Hawaii started at the bottom of the ocean, thousands of feet down. And that volcano took time for it to like, eventually come to the surface and come to life. Our generational trauma is the same damn thing all the hundreds and hundreds of years. If you trace it back. For me, it was Italy and my great great grandparents coming over on the boats. For you, it was something else. For all of us, we have this stored trauma. And so essentially our emotional intelligence is a metaphor of the volcano at the bottom of the ocean. Eventually, over time, with the right fuel source, like the breath, our volcano of healing will pierce the ocean surface. We will transcend all of these things, but we must be patient. And so how do you walk this line between patience of generational healing using the breath, and also that fun part of you that's like, let's just play, you know, because you could choose either one at any moment. And so how do you balance those?

Mary Morrissey has a really great quote that says, hold the vision, not the circumstance. And so I have a very clear vision for. Well, on just like a personal level, a clear vision for my relationship, my business, my finances, my family, philanthropy, all that kind of stuff. But then I have this greater vision of what's possible for the world. And it's so clear and it's so refined and it's. It just makes sense to me. And so when I cast my awareness onto this vision of what's possible, I can. It helps me to be patient with myself, with humanity, with all beings of this time for what we're moving through. And so it's really being able to hold the duality of the destruction while knowing that creation is coming and something better is coming and we are co creating it if we choose. And I do believe that as we progress, there will be a greater and greater chasm between the people who get it and the people who are evolving and the people who choose not to. And that's okay. Not everyone is designed to evolve. But the new world there's going to be a balance of more light leaders, more people stepping into their gifts, and more people doing the work in the world that is aligned to their soul.

I feel like you, like, tugged on my heartstring when you're talking there. Because my boy's middle name is Morrow and it's my grandfather's first name. Because I'm committed to this healing, right? So I'm giving him a life that is free from my projections, from my programs, from the things that I learned from my father and the things that he learned from his father. Alan Watts calls it all wretch and no vomit. So I'm here to vomit it out. You know, I'm like you. It's like the generational trauma stops with me and like, I will be the one through my son. And I'm cool talking about it here because I have nothing to hide. I will be the one like you. So, Sam, we covered so much ground. Thank you for your presence, for the way that you've answered so honestly. I love your honesty. But when we look at the honest lens of wellness and how you actually see yourself living life well, with all you've been through, like, the struggles to let go of, like what you said, the things that were making you eat the food, or the things that were making you not breathe, breathe, and all of that to arrive in your relationship with your business. It's been a long road. It's been a long road for you to get here, just. Just like it has for all of us today. How do you see wellness? Like, what's your definition of wellness? How do you see yourself living life well? And how would you define wellness?

Prioritizing my mental state and emotionality over literally everything else. That for me is huge, huge, huge, huge. Am I going to take that walk or am I going to push through getting this inbox done? Am I going to take a five minute break and hydrate my body, or am I going to obsess over this spreadsheet? Am I going to give myself the grace to wake up a little earlier and nourish myself, nourish my soul, listen to my soul, be with my raptures, or am I going to jump right into work? It's the micro decisions that we choose to make every single day that either bring us closer to wellness or farther away. And we know this stuff. It's a choice. So it's making the choice every single day. You know, one of my friends says, I work hard to make my life easy. And I really, really, really, truly believe that there's no way that I could do what I do if I did not prioritize my wellness and put it above everything else, everything else in my life. And it allows me to have the resource, the energy, the vitality, the patience to funnel into what I'm here to do.

Mic drop with a big breath. Sam, thank you for coming on the show. People can follow you on Instagram and look, just type her name in Google. You'll find everything you need. Sam, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for your gift of this breath and this awareness, which is essentially the core of what you're teaching. So until Sam and I see you again and we're both wishing you love and wellness, we'll talk to you soon.