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What if the secret to overcoming stress, healing trauma, and unlocking your full potential was all contained in one powerful, natural tool: your breath?

In this groundbreaking episode, we’re joined by trailblazing breathwork practitioner, Samantha Skelly. 

Samantha’s journey into the world of breathwork is nothing short of remarkable. Since her first experience of breathwork’s transformative power, she’s been on a mission to help people unlock the infinite potential that lives inside them through the power of their breath.

In this fascinating conversation, we dive into: how breathwork can help regulate the nervous system, using breathwork to elevate your romantic relationship, how to release trauma stored in your tissues, and how to teach your kids breathing practices that can set them up to thrive.

Samantha also opens up about how breathwork has revolutionized her approach to business, goal-setting, and even parenting PLUS she walks us through a luscious, rejuvenating breathwork exercise that you can start using today. (Seriously, I felt like I was floating afterwards.)

Put simply, if you’re looking to elevate your life, health, performance, parenting and relationships; or you want to know how to heal your nervous system, soothe your spirit or release lingering trauma, then press play now… this incredible episode is for you.

About Samantha Skelly

Samantha Skelly is the founder and Ceo of the multi-million dollar Breathwork and Wellness company, Pause Beathwork. She’s a highly sought-after international speaker, best-selling author, and coaching expert with a heart-centered approach to life and business. A leading authority on trauma healing and stress release, Samantha has made it her life’s mission to rid the world of anxiety so people can thrive using the power of their breath. She’s been featured on Global TV, Shaw, NBC, CBC, The Doctors Show, the BBC, and in publications like Forbes, The Huffington Post, The Elephant Journal, and The Prevail Project.

In this episode we chat about:

• The pivotal experience that sparked her passion for breathwork (4:31)
• How breathwork can revolutionize your health, relationships, mindset and more (8:17)
• Experience the magic of breathwork for yourself in this guided, immersive exercise (10:41)
• The difference between breathwork and other modalities (like meditation, yoga and relaxation techniques) (16:46)
• How breathwork can be the key to unlocking your full potential (20:44)
• What are the things breathwork *can’t* help us with? (25:35)
• How regulating your nervous system can change your life (30:25)
• Simple ways to help your partner regulate their nervous system during times of stress (37:17)
• How to release trauma that’s stored in your tissues (41:06)
• The direct correlation between breathwork and how we perform in our work and business. (If you’re not a believer yet, this part will blow your mind!) (44:55)
• Why you’ll never think about your goals the same way again (47:21)
• Simple but powerful technique to help your child become aware of and care for their nervous system (49:36)

Episode resources:

• Pause Breathwork 21 Day Embodied Facilitator Journey Course (60% off) 
• Pause Breathwork App (1 month free trial)
• Pause Breathwork Teacher Training (learn)
• Conversations With God : An Uncommon Dialogue  by Neale Donald Walsch (book)
• Conversations With God And Neale Donald Walsch (podcast)
• Samantha Skelly (Instagram)
• SheLaunch (join here)
• Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Open Wide by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Comparisonitis by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Time Magic by Melissa Ambrosini and Nick Broadhurst (book)

Prefer To Read?

The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy.

[00:00:00] 

Melissa: In episode 557 with Samantha Skelly, we are talking about breathwork. We are going into how it works, how to do it. We actually do a live session together, which you are going to love. And we talk about how this can transform every area of your life. Plus so much more. Welcome to the Melissa Ambrosini show.

I’m your host, Melissa, best selling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, Open Wide, Comparisonitis. And I’m here to remind you that love is sexy, healthy is liberating and wealthy isn’t a dirty word. Each week, I’ll be getting up close and personal with thought leaders from around the world, as well as your weekly dose of motivation so that you can create epic change in your own life and become the best version of yourself possible.

Are you ready, beautiful? Hey, beautiful, and welcome back to the show. I [00:01:00] am so excited about this. Episode because I have known Sam for a very long time and she is such a wealth of knowledge and I’m so excited for you guys to experience the power of breathwork. Now for those of you that have never heard of Sam, she is the founder and CEO.

CEO of the multi million dollar breathwork and wellness company called Paws Breathwork. She’s also a speaker, best selling author, podcast host, and coaching expert with a heart centered approach to life and business. This is why I love her. Now she is a leading authority on trauma healing and stress release, and she has made it her life’s mission to rid the world of anxiety.

So people can thrive using the power of their breath now through Paws signature trauma informed somatic coaching program, breathwork facilitator training, and live events, she provides uniquely accessible somatic and emotional healing resources. While also equipping clients with the tools and strategies to create and scale their own six figure wellness [00:02:00] business.

Now she has trained and certified thousands of facilitators in over 27 countries in the power of breathwork and thousands more using the pause breathwork app worldwide. Which, I have been using this app and I love it. There are three minute sessions, five minute sessions, and I kind of alternate between the three minute and the five minute ones and I absolutely love them.

I do this just before my meditation and it allows me to drop deeper into my meditation. So check out the Pause Breathwork app, you’re going to love it. Now, when she’s not challenging the wellness and self help industry or positively informing lives, you can usually find her surfing, dancing, or supporting anti trafficking efforts through her philanthropic initiatives.

Another reason why I love Sam so much. She is such a big hearted and beautiful soul, and you guys are going to get so much out of this conversation. Now, for everything that we mentioned in today’s episode, you can check out in the show notes and that’s over at MelissaRambrosini. com forward slash 557.[00:03:00] 

Now let’s breathe and let’s bring on Samantha Skelly.

Beautiful Sam. Welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here, but before we dive in, can you tell us what you had for breakfast this morning? Oh, 

Samantha: dang. I love that question. Okay. So I have the same breakfast every single morning, which is. Half a cup of cottage cheese, then you smush organic raspberries into the cottage cheese.

Then you put cinnamon over top and it’s like this beautiful protein rich little treat. And then I have turkey sausages, like really high quality, beautiful turkey sausage. So very protein forward over here. 

Melissa: I love how everyone is so different. And I just think that’s so beautiful. For everyone’s intuitively eating and tuning into their body.

Which brings me to how I first met you, [00:04:00] gosh, I’m not even sure how many years ago now, you might remember, but you were doing Hungry for Happiness. And you’ve completely pivoted, but do you remember what year we first met? 

Samantha: I want to say it was like 2015 or something. It’s going on 10 years, babe. It’s going on 10 

Melissa: years.

Oh my gosh. Well, what a gift to know you and to have you in my life and you out there doing all this incredible work that you now do. So Take us back to the beginning. How did you first get involved in now what you do, which is pause breathwork, which I want to dive into. Was there a particular experience which made you say, Whoa, like this stuff is powerful.

How did you make this pivot and why are you so passionate about breathwork now? So I 

Samantha: grew up as. a child actress and a dancer and I was a stunt [00:05:00] double on Smallville for four years of my life. So my entire life was very much in the entertainment industry. That’s where I thought my career was going to go.

I wanted to act and dance and be a performer and I lost my passion for it around 18 years old, and at 18, I then began developing disordered eating and body image issues, which was ultimately the birth of Hungry for Happiness, my last company. But I remember as I was going through that journey of disordered eating and body image issues and just chronically feeling anxious, I was either chronically anxious or numb.

I oscillated between those two states. And I was doing all of the external things, talk therapy, all sorts of behavioral cognitive chain things to be able to, you know, manage my behaviors and nothing was really working. I still felt in a fight with food and in a fight with my body. And so I remember reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat, Pray, Love, and she talks about going to [00:06:00] Bali and finding this medicine man.

And so I remember being in Vancouver, Canada at the time and I called my mom and I was like, you know, mom, I’m going to go to Bali and find this medicine man. And I have a feeling that. There’s something there for me. I just, I had that intuitive hit. And so I ended up going to Bali, finding this guy, he did his treatment on me.

And then he just looks at me and he goes, your brain is too busy. Like you need to go meditate. And at the time being someone who felt either anxious and not meditation was a very uncomfortable experience. I was like, I don’t want to sit here and feel my feelings, it’s not 

Melissa: comfortable. 

Samantha: But I ended up going to a meditation studio and the only class on the board was a breathwork class.

And I remember thinking like, what is breathwork? This was 15 years ago. It’s so cool now and people know what it is now, but 15 years ago people had, it wasn’t really talked about as much as it is today. And I remember doing this class and within the [00:07:00] first few moments of this experience, My whole body felt alive for the first time in so long.

I was shedding and crying tears and just pain that I was holding onto. And after that one breathwork experience. Three months after that, I healed my eating disorder and I just felt completely different. And so for eight years, I had no intention of teaching it. I have no, I had no intention of starting this company.

I was just such a devoted student to Brathwaite because I was so obsessed with it and it changed my life so much. And then 2018 was when the call came in. I was like, it’s time to Bring this into the world, into a bigger way. And that was ultimately the birth of what is now past breathwork. Wow, babe. 

Melissa: Wow.

So we’ve had Wim Hof on the show. So my audience is familiar with breathwork. I did a lot of breathwork all during my pregnancy. I had a [00:08:00] weekly session with a coach. And I loved it so much and I’ve done different sorts of experiences and sessions with people. It’s not something that I practice regularly, but I do like alternate nostril breathing.

I love that. Yeah, I do box breathing, things like that. So talk to us about the benefits of breathwork physically and mentally, and then can you take us through a little 

Samantha: session? Of course. Yes. Absolutely. Thanks. So one of the things that Breathwork does for me and like this is like my favorite thing about it, it has many benefits, but I’m going to talk about like my absolute favorite thing is it helps me feel so alive and I really feel like part of our So mission here on earth is really activating our aliveness and doing it through our unique way.

We are all so different and there’s so many pathways to activate our aliveness. But for me, breathwork [00:09:00] is like that one thing where I’m like, I know within three minutes I can activate my aliveness. Once my body is feeling that electricity and power, then I’m like on purpose on mission that I have so much energy to pour into my relationships, my work, my creativity, myself, my spirituality.

So it really allows me to activate aliveness in such a deep way. Now, going back to when I first discovered breathwork, one of the biggest things was I just want to stop feeling anxious. I feel anxious so often. I wake up feeling anxious. I’m anxious around my body. I’m anxious around food. I have extreme body image issues.

I don’t like this body that like, that I’m in. I had such anxiety around food and my body. And so it was such a remedy. To really mitigate a lot of that and so a lot of the students that I teach like that’s kind of like their pain point is feeling anxious, feeling disconnected and what breath work does and how it helps with [00:10:00] anxiety is when we are breathing in that continual conscious way, what we’re doing is we’re actually quieting down our survival strategies, the part of us that is hyper vigilant and always checking and making sure and are we okay and are we gonna die and all of these things that part of us quiets down.

When that part of us quiets down we can drop our minds then into our hearts and we open up this vastness inside of us, this resource inside of us, this life force that is so powerful and so potent and we all have access to it. And one of the things I love most about this work is it’s so efficient, you know, like three minutes can change our state in such a dramatic way.

So do you want to do that now? Yes, babe. 

Melissa: Let’s do it. Give it to me. This mama needs a breath work session right now. Let’s go, girl. So the breath 

Samantha: pattern I’m going to teach you is called the triactive breath. So this breath pattern is two breaths [00:11:00] in, one breath out. So it’s two in through the mouth and one out.

So the reason why we use the mouth is because it increases the capacity for how much energy we can pull into our body. And the more energy we can pull into our body, the more we’re getting deeper and releasing all of the stuckness and the stagnant energy. Now for 98 percent of your day, you do want to be breathing in and out through the nose, right?

Especially at night, you guys have probably heard of mouth taping and really practicing that. But when we do breath work for the 2 percent of our day or however long we do it, it’s really powerful to use the mouth just so we can really open up that capacity. So, one into the belly, up into the chest, out through the mouth.

So we’re going to go for about three minutes, and then what I’m going to do is invite you to take a deep breath in through the nose. On that inhale, think of the energy coming from the root of your body and shooting all the way up [00:12:00] through the top of your head, like really imagine the energy going up and out through the body, and hold and squeeze for as long as you can, and then we’re going to release.

Are you ready? Let’s do it, babe. All right, let’s go. So closing down your eyes, relaxing your shoulders, allowing your body to sink into the space, the chair underneath you, and just allowing all of you to be here right now, becoming present in the here and now, in this moment. And just noticing that there’s a stream of energy that comes in through the top of the head and flows through the body all the way down the spine, rooting down through the body, and just feeling that and resting into yourself here in this moment.

That’s it. [00:13:00] So again, we’re going to bring the breath into the belly, up into the chest. Out through the mouth. When you’re ready, let’s begin. Keeping that breath moving in and out of the body, really letting the breath do the work and honoring your own pacing of the breath today. Maybe you want to slow that breath down from the pacing that I was going at, or maybe you want to speed that breath up, just really following the pacing of your own body and allowing the breath and the body to do the work as we turn density back into divinity, allowing ourselves to clear out all of the stagnation, all of the energy.

Everything that we’ve taken on, that simply is not ours to hold.[00:14:00] 

And letting that exhale be a representation of everything that you are letting go of. Any doubt, any stress, any fear, any disconnection. Just lovingly releasing that energy back into the earth knowing that it was never yours. That’s it. And on that inhale, inhaling all that you are calling forth into your body now.

Deeper connection, deeper love, deeper power, aliveness. Beautiful.

And now, when you’re ready, taking a deep breath in through the nose,[00:15:00] 

holding the breath at the top, squeezing, locking the energy down, letting it all shoot through the body, expanding the energy out, letting your energy touch miles and miles away from you, feeling the bigness. of your essence in the here and now, and when you are ready, release the breath,

coming back into the body, placing your hands on your heart for a moment.

and feeling how your heart is radiating, how your mind is a little more clear. And all of a sudden there’s now space in our body

for all to be less of who we thought we were and [00:16:00] more of who we actually truly are. And just let yourself marinate and rest in this essence, in this truth,

your essence. It’s a gift to the world, and the more we breathe, the more we can feel it, find it, and share it. So when you’re ready, opening up your eyes, coming back to the space. Mmm.

Melissa: That was beautiful. Thank you, babe. Oh, I feel like I just want to lay down now. Oh yeah, I’ve got to do an interview. That’s right. I’m here. I’m here. 

Samantha: So good. 

Melissa: So good. Babe, talk to me about where breathwork fits in with meditation, yoga, and other relaxation techniques. Is it another one? You know, I’d love to [00:17:00] hear where that 

Samantha: fits in.

Breathwork is under the meditation umbrella. Breathwork is a form of meditation. Now the reason why breathwork has really taken off in particularly the last five years is because There’s a large part of our population that really struggles to be here and to be still. You know, we live in a very hyperactive, hyper speedy, go, go, go, go, go, zero white space type of world that the practice, the art of stillness and just being here in the here and now in the nothingness, which is.

so valuable and so rare, it can be a challenge for many people. So I found breathwork is a door in for the busy mind to lead us into a more still place. And so I never do meditation these days, like, like true still [00:18:00] meditation without doing breathwork first. What breathwork does is it allows me to really relax those survival strategies, really bring me to this.

inner place, this inner activation where I am really truly in my body. And then once I unhook from the outside world, I unhook those survival strategies. I drop my energy all the way down into my body. I am in my body. My heart is open. Then we kind of reach this place of just nothingness. And in that nothingness, we can be there for so long, right?

Like in that place, it’s just like, I could stay here for hours and hours and hours. But breathwork is this perfect catalyst to allow ourselves to get into those places. So breathwork is a form of meditation. Yoga gets to be a form of meditation as well. It’s a moving meditation, right? I really believe that in our world we can turn [00:19:00] anything into a meditation, right?

Washing the dishes, being with your child, right? Having a convert, even having a courageous conversation with someone that you love as a form of meditation, right? It’s like, how can we bring all of ourselves to that moment, all of our presence and really be there with that individual and allowed to just notice like what’s going on in my breath when this happens, what’s coming up in my body, like what’s becoming alive or activated in my body.

And it’s the practice, the conscious practice of awareness. I am aware of this. I’m aware of my thoughts. I’m aware of my emotionality. I’m aware of these energies. I’m aware of the thoughts knowing that they’re not mine. And that is meditation, which can be anything. Absolutely. 

Melissa: I literally try and do that throughout my day.

I make my day a moving meditation because I don’t always get in my meditation. You know, I’m a mom and [00:20:00] before having my daughter, I was 20 minutes twice a day, every day, never missed a meditation, never. But it doesn’t always happen now. And that’s okay. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that. I’m flexible. I let it go.

But if there’s days where I don’t get to do it, I bring it into playing with her. How present can I really be? Oh, I’ve just gone off. Come back. You know, oh, there I go again, come back, be here, playing with these toys or whatever. I notice myself go and then come back and then go and then come back. And so I bring it to everything.

I love that your mission is to unlock the infinite potential of humanity through the power of breathwork. So how does breathwork allow us to unlock our full potential? Because we all want to be the best versions of ourselves, the fullest version of ourselves. So how does breathwork help 

Samantha: facilitate that?

Yeah. I, I see it in two different verticals. [00:21:00] So there’s healing and then there’s awakening and breathwork serves both. So the healing work is really about like being with the small parts of us that didn’t get their needs met when we were younger, right? So from when we were in the womb to seven years old, those very malleable years, those formative years, we.

If we didn’t get a need met and attuned just so, we can kind of create this contraction inside of us, which is like a frozen in time piece. And as we grow and as we develop, we have all of these different frozen in time pieces that need to get their needs met. Well, breathwork allows us to not just conceptually think about that concept, but actually really go into the body.

To get with those parts and then really satiate the true need that was missed when they were three, four, five, whatever it is. And the more we come back to ourselves to re parent [00:22:00] ourselves and give ourselves exactly what we need moment by moment, those parts of us don’t take up so much space. They don’t have such big a voice.

They don’t have these protectors that are trying to keep them safe. And then little by little, moment by moment, we become more of who we’ve always been and less of who we thought we were. And so that’s sort of the healing path. And breathwork is a catalyst. for that because we, in order to feel better, we can’t think about feeling better.

We have to actually feel in order to feel better. So breathwork allows that connection mind and body, head and heart to really be that catalyst for healing and it’s sustainable healing as well. It’s beautiful in the sense of You know, parts work, which is IFS, is allows us to dissolve those pieces so we’re not constantly running these unconscious patterns, but we’re healing them bit by bit, moment by moment.

And the world is this beautiful. It’s set up perfectly. There’s so much intelligence, it’s set up [00:23:00] perfectly to trigger certain parts of us. So that we know and can be with the unhealed parts of us. And that’s the beauty of this human experience is like, you know, our relationships have the ability to do that.

Our businesses have the ability to do that. I’m not a mom yet, but I’m sure our children have the ability to do that. Right. Just like poking on little pieces that are like, all right, love this part more. I love this part more. There’s this over here. So that’s sort of like the healing path of breathwork.

And then we have the awakening. And the awakening is those. Beautiful out of body experiences where we are beyond the mind, beyond all of the parts and the triggers and the human. And we’re really tapping into that essence of who we are, right? That spiritual essence where spiritual beings having a human experience.

And so breathwork takes us to those altered states of consciousness. Where [00:24:00] we can really pull on the divine intelligence and we can really feel into like, oh, this is who I am before I had all of this trauma and all of the, these stories and all of these identities that aren’t true and all of these fears like, oh, this is who I am.

And when we glimpse that access and we have that connection to that intelligence that is always here, it’s just muted because we don’t always feel it because we get all busy and in our minds. Then that opens up the awareness to go, look at your potential. Look at why you’re here. Look at these spiritual gifts that you have in abundance waiting to be brought forth into the world.

And it opens up our ability to play a bigger game, speak our truth, bring those missions into the world, take aligned action. You know, share our truth, like really do the thing. And so this oscillation between healing and awakening is ever [00:25:00] present. You know, the more we come home to these parts and we feel them, we love them.

We do the work on them to reparent them and really understand what is the true emotional need that was missed there. As a four year old, and how can I satiate that now so that I can feel more awake, feel more alive, feel more in my body. So beautiful. 

Melissa: And breathwork helps with so many things, stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, poor sleep, low energy.

It helps with pretty much everything. So is there anything that it doesn’t 

Samantha: help with? So there’s different types of breathwork, right? So two different types of breathwork. We have meditative breathwork and we have integrative breathwork. Meditative breathwork is Really going on a deep journey when you’re out of your mind.

You guys have probably seen videos on the internet of people just like in a different space [00:26:00] where we’ve, they’ve lost kind of like touch with reality. And that’s when you’re really doing some deep work. But for someone who has a history of a lot of trauma. We got to titrate that we can’t like, go do those like three hours, super intense sessions right away.

There has to be a little bit of a titration. So that’s meditative breathwork. And then we have integrated breathwork, which is breathwork for relaxation. Very similar to what we did here on the show today, right? Three and a half minutes. Once we pass that eight minute threshold, then it kind of goes into the territory of meditative breathwork where we begin to feel different physical sensations and we’re kind of in another world.

So for someone who has had a lot of trauma in their life, breathwork is so healing, but we got to be in consent with our body as we’re doing it. So not pushing back past the limits of what we can tolerate, really being with our body as we’re doing it and just knowing our limits essentially. The very first breathwork session that I ever [00:27:00] did was three hours long and it was so intense.

It was so intense. It was like the tribal beats and like the music was super loud and everyone is screaming and it’s like so primal and I did alright. It was amazing. It was amazing. But. I’ve also seen that happen where someone isn’t ready for that, their system’s too sensitive for that, and it, it’s not a great thing.

So it’s really about being mindful about your capacity and how much energy that you can bring into the body. 

Melissa: 100%. I often feel like I’m going to faint. Is that 

Samantha: normal? Yeah, especially for the first three to four minutes. For the first three to four minutes in breathwork, it’s like, whoa, the dizziness.

You’re like, what is going on? We’re changing the pH levels in the blood, so we’re feeling like that feeling of I’m gonna faint. After that, the efforting releases and the body just begins to breathe itself, and then it smooths out, but there’s definitely that experience. I’ve actually, in the [00:28:00] ten years, I’ve never, no one’s ever fainted, but people definitely have the experience of feeling dizzy.

Yes. Yeah, 

Melissa: I get hot, like my whole body gets hot. A little bit tingly. And then I feel like I’m going to faint. And then I notice I go into panic a little bit like, Oh, okay. I’m not going to fall off the chair and like smack my head. Like I go there. If I just back off a tiny bit, like listen to my body back off a tiny bit, I can kind of re regulate and then I can keep going, but it’s just.

Like you said, like, knowing your body and knowing to push or not to push, like, you have to listen to yourself. 

Samantha: Absolutely. And it’s like anything in life, right? You are your highest authority. You are your highest authority. And breathwork is a beautiful practice because it amplifies the energies. So we can really feel our limits and we can really feel the edges of like our yes and our no.

And I really think that’s one of the greatest gifts that we could give ourselves is really knowing our yes and [00:29:00] really knowing our no. Because when we practice it in breathwork, because the energies are amplified, that intuitive yes and that intuitive no is so much stronger and it’s right there. And so we can feel it out and we’re like, Oh, that’s a no in my body or that’s a yes in my body.

And then we can use that when we’re not in breath, right? When we’re in business or with our relationships or whatever it is, it’s like, is this actually a yes for me? And I know what a yes is because I’m familiar because I was doing it with breath. And so really knowing that intuitive yes, that intuitive no, and then also the difference between.

An intuitive no and a fear no, that is also a really important map for us to really get with. I think oftentimes people will say, Oh, my intuition is saying no, but really that’s just fear. And fear, like a fear no, always comes with like a story and a lot of energy and a lot of emotional charge and a lot of chaos.

An intuitive no is just. [00:30:00] No, that’s it. Full stop. Yeah, exactly. There’s no story. There’s no charge. There’s no obligation or guilt or any of that. It’s just this. It’s like, I’m a no dog, right? It’s like, no. 

Melissa: Yeah, no guilt, no judgment, just no, like, no, it doesn’t mean I don’t like you. It’s just no. It’s just no.

Exactly. It’s just like, no is a full sentence. I don’t know. Yeah, exactly. Let’s talk about the nervous system and how breath work can help regulate our nervous system. So many of us have fried nervous systems. We are just walking around with fried nervous systems, fried adrenal glands. How can breathwork help calm and regulate our nervous systems?

Yeah, 

Samantha: great question. The quality of our life is directly related to the quality of our nervous system. The nervous system is so important and I’m so glad that there’s more and more [00:31:00] conversations happening about it. Because typically people are walking around with a highly dysregulated nervous system, totally jacked up, but then wearing.

a face, like everything’s fine, right? Like everything’s awesome. Especially, you know, people who have the tendency to be people pleasers. It’s like, I don’t want my emotionality to be your emergency or your inconvenience, so I’m just going to pretend that everything’s okay. And so we’re self abandoning every single day by not being honest about where we’re actually at and how we truly feel.

And so to start off with, I just love doing nervous system inventory of like, where am I at today? And the thing with our nervous system is it is constantly changing moment by moment, depending on what is arising in our world. And so just doing a little bit of a check and just from the lens of complete, not nonjudgment, all right, I feel.

You know, like I feel activated today. There’s this activation that’s happening in my [00:32:00] system. Now, when our nervous system is activated, it’s really important for us to do more grounding breathwork versus activating breathwork. So an example of that is an activating breathwork is similar to the one that we did on the show, like That really kicks up the energy in the body, and it’s beautiful if we’re not already in an anxious state, but if we’re in an anxious state and our nervous system is jacked, which the collective nervous system of the world right now is a little bit crunchy, right?

There’s a little bit of a like a contraction. And so if we’re feeling that, then what we want to do is we want to use the breath to get into a place of just regulation. So in through the nose, Out through the mouth with sound, uh, uh, uh, and just taking 10 deep breaths to kind of down regulate us into this place of just calm, right?

This just sense of just like calm, [00:33:00] like we’re not, we’re not waiting for the other shoe to drop. There isn’t that anticipation or the hyper vigilance or the kind of like hurry or rush. There’s no rush. It’s just the pacing is just here and now. And so once we use that more regulating breath, then we can begin to use some of the more energizing ones if we want to add more energy into the body.

But for someone who runs highly anxious, the grounding slower, like think depth over speed. Right, even if you do want to do the breath that I taught you earlier, just take it way down like and like really be mindful because the breath is dictating our nervous system because if we’re breathing shallow and like heavy, then that’s setting off signals to our body.

Like we’re in danger. Something bad is about to happen. Like you better brace yourself. You better be, you know, you better be aware. But if we’re giving ourselves the signal that we’re all good. It’s that like [00:34:00] vacation breath, right? Where you like get on vacation, you’re like, ah, and like everything falls away.

Like we can activate that energy. We can feel that regulation. We can allow our system to downregulate and really stabilize. And the more we do that, the more the system gets used to feeling safety. Cause the reason why our nervous system is jacked up and we’re feeling tense and waiting for the other shoe to drop and the hypervigilance is cause there’s not a foundational bedrock of safety.

that we feel in our body. The body feels on edge. It feels like it’s protecting itself from something, right? Whether that’s in, you know, your relationship or with your business or, you know, the state of the world, maybe that’s bringing it up or whatever it is. And so it’s really using the breath to downregulate the body and let the body know like you’re safe.

And so whenever I have that activation in my body, I, I go to those 10 deep breaths, use the sound on, on the out, but [00:35:00] then the mantra I have is, you’re safe. Everything’s okay. And I’m like really speaking to these small parts of me that feel highly unsafe for whatever reason in that moment. Like it’s safe.

I got you. Everything’s okay. Like I’m right here. Cause it’s, again, those little child parts are like, Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Am I going to be okay? And so taking that moment and just being with those parts helps the nervous down regulate. And then the more time we spend with a regulated nervous system, introducing safety bit by bit, ounce by ounce, then we begin to shift our set point of where our nervous system just hangs out regularly.

And then there’s going to be small variances in our nervous system, but it’s not going to be in that. sympathetic state, that fight or flight state constantly. And that’s where a lot of the world lives, is the sympathetic fight or flight, like anxious, when really we should be hanging out in the parasympathetic, the like rest and digest, and [00:36:00] only use the sympathetic like when we need to, when we need to exert energy, we need to You know, well, maybe we’re at the gym and we need to do like a heavy set at the gym or, you know, going on stage and like giving, given her on stage, whatever it is.

But the body is the healthiest and creates the most coherence within our system when we are in our parasympathetic state. So using breath work to activate the parasympathetic nervous system so that we can be in the rest and digest and only pop up to the sympathetic when we need it. Not chronically riding at 24 7 mm-Hmm, 

Melissa: a hundred percent.

I notice when my breath is calm, when my nervous system is calm, it actually dictates everyone around me and how they show up. So as a mother, this is really important. So every night when I am putting Bambi to bed, she lays down and I lay down and we do three deep breaths together and she’s so cute. Like it is so cute when she does it.

And sometimes she’ll just like say to me, mama, [00:37:00] three deep breaths, like just out and about. And the other day we were somewhere, I think we’re at gymnastics and she was getting really worked up. And I said, breathe baby. And she just stopped and took the biggest deep breath and sighed it out. And it was so cute.

How can we help our partner or our children regulate their nervous system? Is it a matter of just simply breathing with them? 

Samantha: I think you nailed it in the sense of your nervous system. is like they will calibrate to your nervous system, right? First, I think there’s such a beauty in teaching children breathwork.

And there’s so many fun ways that you can do that, like putting a stuffy on their belly and like watching the stuffy go up and down and like really teaching them the mechanics of breathwork. If children know how to regulate their own nervous systems, it’s like such a powerful tool. Like, oh my goodness.[00:38:00] 

So that’s the first thing of like, your own nervous system. It’s interesting you say that, I was at my friend’s house last night, and her husband is, he hurt his leg, so he can’t do much around the house. I went over to like, just be with their, her and their baby, and I was just holding him and reading him a book before he went to bed, and my friend Amy is like, I’ve never seen him that calm.

But what I was doing is I was regulating my nervous system so much, and I could literally feel his system like cohering and creating coherence with my system. And so the greatest gift that we could give people is a regulated nervous system. You know, the most powerful person in the room is always the calmest person in the room, always.

And that is what I’m very mindful of in my business with my team. Right? We have 27 employees all around the world. We’re doing some big things. We have big projects going on and you know, balls get dropped all the time. I have a million reasons a day [00:39:00] to have a dysregulated nervous system. If I let myself, the best thing that I could do in those situations is if a ball does get dropped, just show up and just get so curious and through my calmness and my regulation, people feel safe in that.

And so when people feel safe, they’re actually better problem solvers. They’re like, oh, she’s not going to get mad at me. Like, she’s just chill. And I’m like interested. I’m like, guys, that was so interesting. Like, we totally messed that up. Like what happened? Like, let’s think, let’s talk about it. And not from a place of like, what happened?

It’s like, yo, that was weird. Like that never happened. Yeah. Real time example, yesterday I had like a really crazy calendar mess up with my calendar and that never happens. My assistant is so on it. And so we just had our meeting. I’m like, great. That was so interesting. How did you and I both miss that?

That was wild. Like, okay, is there anything that we can learn from this? And it was like such a [00:40:00] one off, but you know, it’s like, I didn’t come with reactivity. I came with like a really regulated nervous system. Even though it was like a big inconvenience, it was, I came with a really regulated nervous system and you know, there’s enough natural pressure in our world.

We don’t need to add additional pressure. You know, we don’t need to manufacture pressure in order for us to grow. There’s enough of that with the intelligence of the planet. And so in any relationship, the greatest gift that we can give to the other person is a regulated nervous system, whether that’s a parent and a child.

Or a CEO and an assistant or partners, you know, I can even feel with my fiance when he is working and he’s stressed out and whatever’s happening, it’s like me coming to him with like a real regulated nervous system and just being a space for him to land. That’s one of the greatest gifts that we can give people.

And so doing the work to regulate our nervous system is not only a gift for us because we get to live in a body that feels. really [00:41:00] safe and powerful simultaneously. But it’s also the greatest gift that we can give our loved ones. Absolutely. 

Melissa: I know you’re a big advocate for somatic work. Now, first of all, can you explain what is somatic work and then can you tell us the role that somatic work has in releasing trauma that’s stored in our tissues?

How do we actually get it out and can you fully get it 

Samantha: out? So somatic, the word somatic. Soma means body in Greek, so somatic work is basically body based work versus mindset work. And I really, my body of work is a very 80 20 split between body based healing. And mindset work. I think mindset work is a powerful door in.

It gives us the map of like, okay, I’m here and I want to go here. These are all the things that I want to release. These are all the things that I want to become. It gives us context. It’s like a beautiful indicator of context. There’s a lot of [00:42:00] intelligence there, but the beliefs live in the body. So if we do the mindset work without the body based work, we’re going to know all the things.

But we’re not actually going to have sustainable change at a deep level because we’re not actually getting in there and doing the somatic work in order to process, heal, awaken, release, shed. We’re one gigantic science experiment if we let ourselves, like every moment we can take density that’s in our body and turn it back into divinity and feel more and more of who we are.

And so breathwork is a type of somatic work as well. So it’s, breathwork is a very Physical body based modality that helps us release that trauma that is stuck in our body. And so the intelligence of the breath is so amazing. It truly knows how to get into our bodies, release, break down, shed, let go of all of the [00:43:00] memory, the stagnation, the old identities, the fear, the doubt, and it just lets it go.

And we just have to let it go. Not wonder. Why am I crying about this? Or what about this? And if we stay open to the process and just trust the breath and trust that the body knows exactly how to heal itself, because it does, we have this beautiful. cohesive relationship where we breathe, the body does its job and we move on, right?

If we cut ourselves, we’re not like, oh my gosh, how is this going to heal? How is this possibly going to heal? Physically, we get it. We know, right? Or when we get pregnant, it’s not like, okay, now we got to think about, you know, growing arms. It just does it. Our body just does it. And for some reason, emotionally, we haven’t yet trusted it to do it.

And so, That’s why we stay stuck in our head and overthink and overanalyze. And so if we just use the breath and the intelligence of the breath to move into the places that need to be healed and felt and awakened. And we just let the [00:44:00] body go on that process and we just shake it out. We cry it out. We scream it out.

We do whatever we need to do to somatically release that. We’ll end up feeling lighter and lighter and lighter. Every single session that we have, whether it’s a three minute breathwork session or a 45 minute breathwork session, it doesn’t matter. Every single one pushes the needle forward a little bit and.

Intensity of breathwork doesn’t equal transformation. And so we don’t have to go so hard, so fast, push it so hard in order to have these. awakenings, these moments of bliss. In fact, some of my softest, most gentle breathwork practices are the ones that are just so mind blowing and so heart opening and bring in so much awareness.

So we don’t always have to go to the fifth dimension and see aliens and past lives. Although we can, that is possible, but we don’t always have to do that. Absolutely. 

Melissa: So let’s talk about business and breath work and how you structure your work day so that [00:45:00] your nervous system can really thrive. We’ve spoken before about how our regulated nervous system is the greatest gift we can give people.

But talk to me about how you structure your day so that your nervous system can really 

Samantha: thrive. Yeah. So when I wake up in the morning, the first thing that I do is I blast my body with dopamine through the breath. If your dopamine is activated through your phone. It’s going to want that all day long, right?

So if you roll over and you’re on your phone, it’s going to activate the dopamine and then all day long, you’re going to be like, phone. So if you do that with breathwork in the morning, get out of bed, sit in your, on your meditation pillow or your chair, whatever, or even just in your bed and just start breathing.

Your body’s going to start activating this beautiful energy. It’s going to wake you up. It’s going to clear out. all of your dreamland energy that was, you know, caught and just clean the slate and then like setting a really powerful intention the moment you wake up. Like today I desire to feel, what was mine today?

Mine was [00:46:00] intentional. Today I desire. To feel and be intentional and letting every conversation be intentional, letting everything I create have deep intentionality, letting my words be intentional. And so I created that in the morning. I felt it. And then I imagined myself going through my day manifesting that intention.

Like what would I do today if I was fully intentional? So that’s the, that’s my little morning thing. And then I own a breathwork company and we do meetings a lot. So every single meeting, no matter what we’re talking about, whether it’s a finance meeting or whatever it is, we always do five minutes of breathwork before we start every single meeting.

And that just coheres the group. It gets people connected. It gets people feeling amazing. And then on my break after I do calls until about two o’clock, two o’clock, I then do my 20 minute lie down, closing my eyes, putting my headphones on and kind of going into like a deeper. meditative journey. And then at [00:47:00] night, before I go to bed, I do another like little five minute, clear the energy, take the energy off of my body.

And then I love using my dreams to solve problems or like just bring me in visions or inspiration. So then putting like a request in for my dreams to bring me something of insight. I 

Melissa: love that babe. Has getting into Breathwork changed the way you go after your 

Samantha: goals? It has in the sense of I’m so clear on the difference between an ego goal and a soul goal.

And those two things have such a different vibration. I used to set very, like, ego goals, like, Oh, we want to double this year. And then I’m like, do I though? Like, why, why? And I just noticed goals that are arbitrary have no energy and they’re so flat and they’re not fun to achieve. And when you do achieve them, they don’t even feel good.

But goals of the soul are so energy rich and so exciting that [00:48:00] it just feels the journey of achieving that feels amazing. So for instance, one of my soul goals at pause is. training and certifying 10, 000 people to become breathwork facilitators. That’s my north star in that company. And that’s what the whole team is aligned to.

So we all get so excited when someone graduates our program, when they finish their practicum, they graduate, they get their certification and there’s this like celebration. We announce it in our Slack channels and like the whole team is celebrating like one more person on the path to 10, 000 people. And when 10, 000 people are all around the world teaching breathwork.

That means that through our efforts, that’s like 50 million people based on how many people that they help. So that feels so exciting versus let’s do 20 million this year. That’s like, it doesn’t feel as rich. It doesn’t feel as like exciting. And so really aligning your heart with the goals of your soul [00:49:00] that feel so energy rich and just letting energy richness.

ultimately be your guide in everything that you’re doing, right? It’s like, does it, do you think that you need to do that or is it actually the thing that your heart and soul is calling for? Absolutely. 

Melissa: Your certification, is it a year long certification to become a qualified breathwork 

Samantha: facilitator? It’s six months.

So our level one is a six month online training and then our level two is a five day in person in San Diego, which we run twice a year. 

Melissa: Amazing. And we’ll link to all of that in the show notes, if anyone is interested. Now, just going back to parents. So, like with my daughter, my nervous system dictates her nervous system, but how can we teach our children to be aware of their nervous systems and to start caring for them?

Like what are some practical things we can do with them? Is it as simple as, you know, doing that little exercise where you put a toy on their belly and you watch it go up and down? Is there anything else that we could be teaching them? [00:50:00] 

Samantha: Having visuals for children when it comes to nervous system regulation is really important.

So we can even do like a zero to 10, right? Where like on zero to 10, 10 is I’m freaking out and zero is like, I feel really good. Like, where are you? What does that feel like in your body? And really getting, there’s a magical. It’s magical when children can actually articulate in words the emotional experience they’re having in their body.

And that’s quite a, that’s quite an advanced skill. And there’s not many adults that are very good at doing that. But if we can really invite the conversation of like, what’s going on in your body right now? What’s your heart feel like? Where else? Like, what is your mind saying? What is your, and we’re really speaking to our children and asking because they know, they know it, it’s there.

And so when we invite in that language and we invite them to tell us and we give them space to be like, oh, my brain is saying this, my heart feels like this, my tummy feels like this, then they’re in inquiry of their own emotional experience. [00:51:00] moment by moment. So then when they have those big emotions as parents, you can hold those big emotions and say, okay, where are we at now?

We had a four. Okay. What would your body need in order to come down to a one? Like, Oh, I need a cuddle or I need this or whatever it is. And so it’s just about having that dialogue and that conversation with your child for them to self reference to go, what is it that I, how do I feel? Right. And that helps build their individuality and.

What tends to happen sometimes is children will have an experience and then there’ll be like an intrusion like a cutoff from a parent like you don’t feel like that or you can’t do and so it like It clogs the energy in their little system and then it’s hard for them to actually know themselves and express themselves.

And so then as adults, that plays out to the denial of their needs, the denial of their emotional experience. And so if we can really nurture that and teach that at a young age, so beautiful. Absolutely. What a 

Melissa: gift. [00:52:00] What a gift. Let’s teach them how to regulate their nervous system. Another one that I’ve seen a lot of my friends do, and I’ve taught Bambi, is you breathe in and smell the flower.

So you breathe in, you go smell the flower, and then you breathe out and blow the candle. So yeah, breathe in and smell the flower, and you just like hold your finger up, like pretending you’re smelling a flower and then you breathing out and blowing the candle and they just love it because for them they’re so visual and you can even get a flower and then you could get a candle and do it.

I just think what a gift to give our children, to teach them how to regulate their own nervous systems. 99 percent of adults can’t even do this themselves. If we teach them from a young age, like what a gift. So I love that. It’s just so powerful and the work that you’re doing is so amazing, but I would love to hear now if you had a magic wand, babe, and you could put.

One [00:53:00] book in the school curriculum of every high school around the world. What book would you choose? And it doesn’t have to be on breathwork. It could be on any topic, but what’s the first book that comes to mind? 

Samantha: Conversations with God. 

Melissa: Babe, I’ve had him on the show. Did you know that? No, I didn’t know. Oh my gosh.

You have to go back and listen to it. Neil Donnell Walsh, Conversations with God. It’s one of the most pivotal books for me. It’s in like my top five life changing books. 

Samantha: It’s so good. I just have the Audible, like the 30 hour Audible, which is like the three books in one, just playing all the time, going to the gym, coming back, like anywhere.

I just pop it in my day and there’s, it’s such a transmission. I’m like, man, this is true. So it just, it feels so good on my system to just get a little bit of that every single day. So yeah, I’d put that in every school. For sure. Oh 

Melissa: my gosh. Yeah, for sure. So good. Now, you shared a little bit about your day.

I love [00:54:00] hearing about people’s days, their routines, their rituals. You shared a little bit about what you do in the morning, but can you talk us through a quote unquote typical day in your life? 

Samantha: So, we wake up very early. I think you and Nick wake up really early too, right? Early rise, so we’re early to bed, and we’re early in the morning, so about four, about five in the morning, we wake up, and I just love doing my breathwork meditation, journaling.

I recently stopped drinking coffee, so I’m not doing that in the morning, but I’m having some beautiful elixirs and things that don’t spike my body in the morning. And then slow movement, whether that’s yoga or going for a walk on the beach or Just moving in my room, my, my home. And then I love doing my creative work in the morning.

So after I kind of regulate myself and get into my body, then I love doing my creative work. So whether I am scripting my solo episodes or. Writing my next book [00:55:00] or doing captions for Instagram or creating a new program or offer or optimize an existing one. That’s when my creative juices are just so online.

I don’t start my meetings until 11th. So I have space in the morning to do that. And then 11 to two. Is when I do meetings and my kind of being with my team and supporting them and coaching them and guiding them and being there for people moving blocks out of the way so that they could be successful.

And then the afternoons is typically when I do like delivery stuff and I’m marketing webinars, delivery, things like that. And then. Fridays, I don’t do anything, it’s just like, we call it free wild Friday, it’s just like a day to just be and experience and then try and finish all work by 5. 30. Beautiful, I love that.

Thank you for sharing. I have 

Melissa: three rapid fire questions for you now, are you ready? I’m ready. [00:56:00] Okay, what is one thing that we can do today for our health? Ah, cold plunge. Cold plunge? I was waiting for you to say breathe, breath work. That one’s obvious, I’m gonna give him something else. Yeah, yeah, okay, true, true.

Okay, I love that cold plunge. What is one thing that we can do for our wealth today? So more abundance in all areas 

Samantha: of our life. Really truly vibrating to the frequency of abundance and choosing that every single day. Abundance is the vibration of love and when we are in that and when we are breathing that in and when we are just knowing that, the universe hooks it up.

Like it is wild. Yeah, absolutely. It 

Melissa: is. It is. All right, babe. Last one. What is one thing we can do for more love in our life? 

Samantha: Give it. Just give it. You know, it’s like, there’s such a beauty in just being so intentional [00:57:00] about truly giving love to the people that you love and really being present in that and really contributing from this place of just Power and knowing and it just like fills the body up.

It’s such a beautiful feeling. Absolutely. 

Melissa: I love that. Is there anything else that you want to share? Any last parting words of wisdom? We will link to everything in the show notes, all of your amazingness, but anything else that you want to 

Samantha: drop before we leave? One thing that I’ve been so excited about is the pursuit of aliveness and being so curious in your own life about what makes you feel alive and ruthlessly.

Chasing that with all that you have. And it could be baking. It could be surfing. It could be writing poetry. It could be drinking tea under a hammock, reading a novel. It could be snowboarding. It could be travel. It [00:58:00] could be breathwork. It could be. Whatever it is, it’s like, how can you fill your days with things that make you feel so alive?

Because when we’re in that state of aliveness, our energy is such a gift to the world. 100%. 

Melissa: I know what makes me feel alive. I know. Like, Being with my friends, that definitely makes me feel alive, like being in nature, swimming in the ocean, anything in nature, at the beach, like that makes me feel alive, dancing makes me feel alive.

I know all these things that make me feel alive, yet there are times where I just don’t do them. I just don’t do them. It’s like crazy. 

Samantha: Yeah, so it’s just like the practice of like, my practice of self love is doing one thing that makes me feel alive today, whatever that is. 

Melissa: Yeah, a hundred percent. We moved away from the beach.

We lived on the beach and we’re renting 20 minutes away from the beach now. And I cannot tell you how different this has been for my nervous [00:59:00] system. It’s definitely made me realize that I am 100 percent a beach person and never not living near the beach. We’re building our dream home at the moment. But I cannot tell you, babe, I went from going to the beach three times a day to going twice a week.

And I cannot tell you the difference that it has made to my nervous system, to my state of mind. Like I really feel it. Like I truly feel it. But we’re going to be back there this year, and I’m so excited. Anyway, the overall takeaway from this point is write down what brings you joy, what lights up your soul, what makes you feel alive and do one of those things.

At least one of those things every single day. If you want to become a magnet for more abundance, for more joy, for more love in your life. You have to [01:00:00] fill yourself up and raise your vibration. So thank you for the reminder, honey. I’m going to go outside straight after this. 

Samantha: Oh my goodness. This has been so great.

I’m so, so, so happy we got to drop in, babe. It’s been amazing. 

Melissa: Me too, honey. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all the incredible work you’re doing in the world. How can I and the listeners give back and serve you today? 

Samantha: Ugh, just feel into the depths of your soul and bring out that version of you that the world so needs right now.

That’s it. You know, like just that unapologetic, truthful, this is who I am, like share that medicine with the world because that is so contagious. So contagious. 

Melissa: Yes, babe, I love it. Thank you for being here, beautiful. And I’m going to go and do some more breath work later. And thank you for everything that you offer to the world.

You are wonderful. Oh, 

Samantha: thanks, babe. Thank you so much for having me. Lots of love.[01:01:00] 

Melissa: Mm. Wasn’t that amazing in that breath work session? Mm, mm, mm. Breathwork is one of those things that I don’t do every day, but when I do it, I go, why do I not do this every day? It feels so good. And it’s just a habit. And if we want to incorporate this into our everyday life, we just have to get into the habit of doing it.

This is why I love the pause app because they’re three minute sessions and it’s so easy to do. So check it out. I’ll link to it in the show notes. And I hope you got a lot out of today’s conversation. And if you did, please subscribe to the show and leave me a review wherever you listen to your podcasts, because that means that we can inspire and educate even more people together.

And it also means that all of my episodes will just pop up in your feed so that you never have to go searching for a new episode. Now, come and tell me on Instagram at Melissa Rambrosini, what you got from this episode. I absolutely love hearing from you and connecting with you. You [01:02:00] guys are my people. I love and adore connecting with you.

So jump on over to Instagram. And before I go, I just wanted to say thank you so much for being here, for wanting to be the best, the healthiest, and the happiest version of yourself, and for showing up today for you. You rock. Now, if there’s someone in your life that you can think of that would really benefit from this episode, please share it with them right now.

You can take a screenshot, share it on your social media, email it to them, text it to them, do whatever you’ve got to do to get this in their ears. And until next time, don’t forget that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word.

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