125. Samantha Skelly on Burning Down a 7-Figure Business to Come Alive

Episode Transcript
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Samantha Skelly (00:00):
I have so much evidence that if you run a

(00:01):
business like a man, you willget results. I have evidence for
that. I built a $2,700,000company doing it that way. Of
course, can do do it that way,but I don't want to, and it's
not sustainable. And I know inmy heart that there's another
way.

Kate Northrup (00:12):
Oh my goodness. Do I have a firecracker for you
today? I got to sit down inCarlsbad, California with my
friend Samantha Skelly, and sheis the founder of Pause
Breathwork. And we talked aboutthe story of why she overnight
closed down a 7 figure businessthat was wildly successful to

(00:36):
start something completely brandnew, essentially because God
told her to. Now, PauseBreathwork has helped thousands
and thousands of people aroundthe world tap into the power of
rewiring themselves and healingthemselves on a deep level
through breathwork.
And also, she has certifiedthousands and thousands of

(00:59):
people to spread thismethodology around the world.
And Samantha is hilarious. Sheis really good at business. We
talk about feminine businessprinciples. We talk about what
was different between her oldbusiness and her new business,
how she runs a business tosupport her life, what her
dreams are next, and so muchmore.

(01:22):
She is absolutely a woman towatch in the wellness, personal
development, and business space,and I am so excited to share our
conversation with you. Welcometo Plenty. I'm your host Kate
Northrup, and together we aregoing on a journey to help you
have an incredible relationshipwith money, time, and energy,

(01:46):
and to have abundance on everypossible level. Every week,
we're gonna dive in with expertsand insights to help you unlock
a life of plenty. Let's go fillour cups.

[voiceover] (02:01):
Please note that the opinions and perspectives of
the guests on the Plenty podcastare not necessarily reflective
of the opinions and perspectivesof Kate Northrup or anyone who
works within the Kate Northrupbrand.

Hello. Hello. Thanks for being here.

Oh my gosh. In your studio?

Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's such a pleasure.
Feels so happy.

Ask you questions in your studio.

Oh my goodness. Anytime. Yeah.

So I just wanna start off with some
appreciation, which is that whenyou and I I mean, you and I were
aware of each other for a longtime because we have the same
publisher

Mhmm.

Or did. Yeah. Yeah. And but we really
connected, I think, in 2021, andI don't exactly remember why or
how. But I do remember atremendous sense of generosity
from you.
Like, I was making this app thatI never made, and I knew you had
an app, and you just were like,I'll totally hop on the phone

(02:58):
with you. And I was like, wow,this woman barely knows me and
has nothing to gain from hoppingon the phone with me, and I was
so touched by that. So I justwant to say thank you for your
generous heart.

Thank you for that acknowledgement.

Yeah, not everyone's like that. You know?
And I think it comes from whenfolks are able to be endless,
and sometimes life is justintense and there's too many
things going on, so I wouldnever hold a grudge against
somebody if they weren't, but atthe same time, I think when I
find that in someone, it comesfrom a real true tap root into

(03:36):
abundance, because there's areal sense of, well, since
there's more than enough, whywould I not share?

I love it. I love seeing people win. You
know? I just love it. I love thegame of business.
I love women who have amazingmissions. I just love epic
people doing cool shit in theworld, and if I can support that
in any way, I'm I'm always herefor that.

Well, thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

And even though I never made the app, I did feel
like I made a new friend.

It was a great idea.

It's still a great idea.

It's so good.

Some day. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, who
knows?

Maybe when we're, like, 80 Maybe we'll do,
we'll, build this app together.I don't know.

I love that. I love that. So I was listening to
you talk about when youovernight closed down your
million dollar business aroundemotional eating. And that was
bold, that was courageous, and Iwould like to hear more details

(04:38):
about What happened? Thebeforehand, we'll go on the
journey, but I know that youwere running this emotional
eating business, you went frombeing a waitress, and then
overnight you started thisbusiness, and it took off fast
in a big way.
Yeah. And how many years did yourun that?

Oh gosh,

Four. Four years? Yeah. Okay. So you built that
business to over a million inrevenue

2.44 When I shut it down, it was doing
2,700,000 at a 43% profitmargin. That's freaking
incredible. And I'm also like,bye. Wow. Yeah.
You like, the biggest questionis like, why didn't you sell it?
And we can talk about thatlater.

Okay. Yeah. Maybe we will. Yeah. Why didn't you?

Here's my this was my reasoning at the time. I
I was like, it's a coachingbusiness. It's a service based
business. I can probably get atwo multiple maybe. I could have
sold it for like $5,000,000$6,000,000 To me, the trade off
of like trying to package it andsell it and find a buyer was too
energetically expensive.
Right. I'm like, I can just pourthis into paused breath work and
make $5,000,000 Oh, superquickly.

Right. Because generally with an acquisition
like that, they get your emaillist, they get your social
media, and then you have tostart again versus like, oh,
surprise. Yeah. Breath, we'redoing breath

work I just like woke up on him like, we're
doing breath work.

We're just like, so my style. It's like, oh, I'm
the money woman. Oh, nope. Nowwe're talking about periods.
Hello.
And my husband's like, oh, okay.

Oh my gosh, but that's power of a personal
brand. Come into my world.That's the power of personal
branding. That's why I just I Ithink personal branding,
especially today, is so valuablebecause you can make those
pivots. And not everybody, but alot of people will follow you.
But, yeah, it was a really wildstory. I was living in
Vancouver. I was working at as awaitress at the keg, and I just

(06:28):
remember people coming in andsitting down and having their
business meetings, and thefeeling inside of me is I should
be on the other side of thetable. I don't wanna be here
serving tables. I wanna be inthese meetings talking about
changing the world and helpingpeople, and I had so much energy
to build a business.
And I remember when therestaurant was quiet, I would go

(06:50):
hide behind the ice machinewhere, like, no one could see
me. There was, like, this crack.It was, like, this big, and I
would, like, scoot my buttbehind, and I would squat down
behind the ice machine so no onecould see me, and I would take
out my server pad, and I wouldjust keep I would write my
business plans. I would write mybusiness plans. I'd write what
it was gonna be, how I was gonnado it, and I just had this
excitement to help women whostruggled with emotional eating

(07:12):
and body image issues, becausethat was my story.
I was a dancer. I was anactress. I worked as a stunt
double on Smallville for fouryears, and my whole life was in
front of a camera. And I justwent through a lot of body image
issues and found breath work.That's what eventually got me
out of it.
But at the time, I I was like, Ijust wanna help women who are
struggling with this becauseit's it was so important to me,

(07:33):
and that was the mission thatwas on my life at the time. So I
ended up hiring a coach andpaying him more than what I made
in like, think I I was making,like, $30,000 a year. I think I
paid him, like, $36,000 a yearor something like I

Where did that come from? Did you just put it
on?

Was a saver. Was like, I worked I worked as a
Sun double on Smallville, madegood money doing that. I worked
as, like, extra like, extrasextras and did background work.
I had, like, little I was on ashow called Aliens in America. I
had, like, a small little parton that.
Any money that I got fromdancing, put it away. Any money
that I got from like, my firstjob was I was 12. I worked at
this place called the MidnightFerry where I would dress up as

(08:10):
a fairy, and I'd run children'sbirthday parties, and I would
just save my money. Did notspend my money on anything.
Parents are really financiallysmart.
We never had a lot, but theywere very smart with what they
had. And they were very smartwith you call it being a steward
of money. They're very amazingstewards of money. There was

(08:31):
never like they weren't crazymillionaires. But they made
enough money to have a beautifullife.
And they were really smart aboutsaving, investing, and tithing.
And so I really learned that.And so I had the money in my
bank account to give to this.And my parents, actually, my mom
was like, oh, we had $10,000that we were going to give to

(08:53):
your college or university. I'mlike, well, fuck that.
I'm not going to that. So can Itake that? And I used that
$10,000 And I hired thatbusiness coach. So they gave me
10,000 and then the other$26,000 came from me. You had
saved.
Yeah. And so it lit a fire inme. I'm like, I have to make
this work. Like, I don't have aplan b. I am I am doing this.

(09:17):
This is my mission. It's calledHungry for Happiness. That name
came to me. I was so proud ofit. I still am proud of that
name.

It's a great name.

Right? I know. And I hired this coach, and I
just started sharing content. Iwould get like, these videos are
still on my personal Facebookpage. Like, you can literally go
back to 2014 or 2015 and seethese videos of me just talking
about emotional eating andsolving problems.

(09:42):
And anytime anyone wouldcomment, I would reach out to
her, and I'd be like, hey, can Ihelp you? Da da da. And that's
just how I did it. That's how Ibuilt my business.

And did this coach tell you to do it that
way? Mhmm. Yeah. So interesting.Yeah.
I mean, that's really obvious,but literally, as you're
describing this, wouldn't haveoccurred to me. I'm loving this
right now.

Yeah. He's like, it's all about
relationships. Right. Businessis all about relationships. So
just So

just reach out.

Just reach out and say, hey. How can I support
you? Do wanna hop on a calltomorrow? That's what I would
say all the time. Hey.
Thank you for so for commentingon my video. I'm super excited
to help you. Are you freetomorrow at three? I would just
go in for the kill. Are you freetomorrow at three?
Yeah. Great. What's your phonenumber? I would call them hey,
Susie. And then I would have mysales script.
What do you envision? What areyou struggling with? How long
have you been struggling withthis for? And I would literally

(10:28):
go through this sales script,and I would close them. Close
them.
Close them.

These were for one on one

One on retainers? I went from I did
that for three months straight,built a one to one practice. And
then I was like, oh, I'm reallybusy doing this. And then I
created a program called TheSociety, which was a six month
group coaching program, whichhundreds of women have gone
through thousands, actually,now. And that was it.
That's all I did. And I wentfrom making $30,000 a year as a

(10:55):
waitress to the very next yeardoing $300,000 a year just from
no ads, no nothing, just megetting on Facebook Live and
just sharing. And built HungryFor Happiness and just kept
running the business and sharingabout emotional eating. And I
there was this there was thislittle boutique across the

(11:16):
street from where I was awaitress. And one day after
work, I just went in there.
I'm like, hey. I'm like, what doyou guys do with the space when
you close the doors? And they'relike, nothing. And I'm like, can
I run events here? And they'relike, what do you mean?
I'm like, well, if we move allthe clothes to the side and we
put some chairs here, we coulddo these events. And it's kinda
like a win win because I'm gonnabring in a bunch of women who

(11:36):
will shop here, and you're gonnagive me the space for free, and
it's gonna be amazing. Andthey're like, okay, fine. So
every single Thursday, I wouldrun this workshop called What
Are You Actually Hungry For?What Are Hungry For?
And I just it was verygrassroots, and it was very just
like just just did the thing,

you know? So cool, and what I love about
this, we're gonna get to youthen overnight shutting down
that wildly successful businessin a minute, but for anyone
listening who has a businessdream, I really want you to hear
that it doesn't have to be thatcomplicated. Mm-mm. You know,
like I started in very similarways other than I would've never

(12:16):
occurred to me to the Facebookthing, and I started before that
was even really I a startedbefore social media was used for
business, but So cool.

So cool. I love that. Anyway,

but similar in terms of grassroots, what does
business require? A human whohas a problem that you know how
to solve.

That's it.

That's it. And I was just talking to Alyssa
Nobrega, and she also startedher business and grew it to 300
k in profit in that first yearwithout an online presence

I know.

Particularly. And it sounds like similar, so I
also just want to say it doesn'thave to require all the, you
know,

I find oftentimes we think it requires
that or we hide behind that.Mhmm. Funnels and this and that.
It's like we createcomplication. We're like, I
don't know how to do it.
I'll tell you how to do it. Goon the freaking street corner.

Put a sign up. Find a human.

Find a human who has the problem that you
solve and tell them you do it.Make a thing, tell someone about
the thing, and then ask them formoney.

It's literally way for them to pay you, which
is very easy.

It's literally that simple. Yeah.

So at what point in this journey did you find
breath work? And how did thathappen?

So I found breath work before I started
Hungry for Happiness. So when Iwas still struggling with an
eating disorder, I was living inVancouver at the time. I had
just gotten back from my worldtravels. I traveled through to,
like, 44 countries on my own.And I because I didn't wanna go

(13:56):
to university, so I was like,I'm gonna create my education
through travel.
So I just began traveling andlearning, and and I was really I
was struggling with body image.I was struggling with disordered
eating, and I I went home for aquick stint, and I was in
Vancouver, and I was reading thebook Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth
Gilbert. Shout out to her. Andshe talks about going to Bali,
and she found this medicine man,and she he changed her life, you

(14:20):
know? And so I'm like, I'm gonnago find that guy.
So I called my mom.

Taking this book Yeah. Really literally.

I'm taking it very literally. I'm gonna go
find the guy, and I did. Icalled my mom, and I'm like,
mom, I'm gonna go to Bali. She'slike, what do mean? I'm like, I
need to go find this guy who Iread a book, my own.
And she's like, okay. So I Ibooked a one way ticket to Bali.
Oh my god. I hopped on ascooter. I meandered through the
streets of Bali with a literalmap trying to find this guy and

(14:48):
got to his house, and he sofunny.
He came out. He He had all thesesticks in his bag, and he was
wearing this big orange coat,and he's like, lie down. And I'm
like, okay. And then he startsdoing the acupuncture thing on
my feet, trying to figure outwhat's wrong with me. And he's
like, get up.
And he just taps my head, hegoes, you think too much, you
need to go meditate. And I'mlike, I hate meditate I hated

(15:11):
meditation at this time becauseI had all of these swirling
thoughts, and so much anxiety,so much body image stuff, so
much crap with food that, like,the thought of just being in my
body was excruciating. And I waslike, oh, okay. So I went to go
to this meditation class at thisschool in Ubud called the Yoga

(15:32):
Barn, for those of you who arefamiliar with that. And there is
no meditation class, but therewas a breath work class.
And this was fifteen years ago.This was breath work is so cool
now. Everyone's doing it. Thiswas not then. I was like, what
is breath work?
And there's, like, that divinefeeling inside of me that's
like, just go do that. So I Idid, and I that's when I found
breath work, and I was justblown away that we had the
ability to heal our traumathrough our breath. Like, why

(15:55):
did they not teach that inschool? Ugh. Why why did we
spend time finding the x andtrying to figure out the fucking
math problem?
I still don't know how to dothat. Like, so

Oh my god. No. For Chad GPT is the only way I
can do math. I anything I needto figure out math wise, I ask
Chad GPT. It's the best.

It's so good.

Anyway, but I Chad GPT cannot help us heal our
trauma. Well, at

least At least not right.

Well, actually that's like a whole other
conversation which we're nothaving today, but okay. So you
go and

So I go, and I I found breath work, and I'm
like, oh my gosh. Like, for thefirst time in my whole life, I
feel like I'm in my body. And II could feel

And like it felt good to be

in your body. Gosh. Yes. I was like reunited
with this intelligence. I wasreunited with this like power.
This feeling of like like trueself love. Mhmm. You know? Like
not I'm gonna take care ofmyself, but like I actually love
myself. Well, it's also myexperience with breath work.
Of course,

I don't know what yours was in that moment, but
there's almost an experiencelike when you led the breath
work, was extraordinary at KathyHeller's Mastermind a couple of
months ago, there is a sense ofdisillusion of the self and
disillusion of the lie ofseparation. So it's self love,
but it also just feels like Ibecome love itself.

A 100%. There's no difference. We realize we are
love, that's all we are. Yeah.We remember that.
Yeah. And it's this deep somaticremembrance of all I am is love
and everything else is just anillusion.

Ugh. So good. So yummy. Okay. So you found that,
and then it and it was part ofyour life then for several
years.
Was the precipitating eventwhere you were like, okay. Gonna
shut down this wildly successfulbusiness and pivot to breath
work. Yeah. Right now.

Great question.

What

happened? So found breath work in Bali,
healed my eating disorder withinthree months because I could
finally tell the differencebetween an emotional hunger cue
and a physical hunger cue. I'mlike, oh, I just need love. Oh,
I just need comfort. Oh, I justneed support.
Oh, I just need and I I I was aboss at meeting my own emotional
needs, I didn't need to turn tofood and overexercising and all

(18:11):
of the things. So food becameirrelevant. I didn't fix my food
problem. I fixed my emotionalproblems. So then I began so
then I emailed every singlebreath work guru at the time,
you know, half of which are deadnow, half of which are still
alive, barely.
And I was like, can you pleasementor me? And they did. Like,

(18:33):
so many people were so kind withtheir with their time, and I was
like, I just wanna learn thisbecause this is I believe this
thing is gonna change the world.So I just became a student of
breath work. I I really had nointention of starting this
business.
I healed myself through it. ThenI slowly and then I started
studying it. So I took everybreath work certification on the

(18:54):
market fifteen years ago. Then Istarted slowly incorporating
incorporating it into Hungry ForHappiness. It wasn't the main
thing, but it was like a thingthat we did at retreats.
That went on for years. Right?So four years later, at this
point, I'm living in San Diego,and this breath work mission is
just taking over my body. It'sit no longer is the little thing

(19:16):
attached to hungry forhappiness. It is coming through
like freaking lightning, and I'mjust my body is just so
activated with this energy of Ineed to do this mission in the
world.
Like, it was undeniable. It wasit's I've never known anything
so true. And so I remember beingat a mastermind up in LA, and we

(19:39):
were all circling around, and wewere doing everyone was doing
shares, and it got to me. And II was just like, I don't know
what to do. I I have this verysuccessful business.
We have amazing clients. We'vedone amazing things in the
world. We've ran retreats allover the world. We've put
thousands of people through ourprogram. It's beautiful.
I have a Hey House book comingout, like it's a whole thing.

(20:01):
And I'm not in love with it. I'mnot in love with it. I don't
wanna talk about emotionaleating anymore. I don't wanna
talk about body stuff anymore.
I don't wanna help you put downthe Doritos anymore. I'm not
that girl anymore. And all Iwanna do is teach breath work to
everyone who will listen to me.And so they were like, well, why

(20:21):
don't you do it? And I'm like,there's such a cost financially,
and then it also felt like acost to letting the people down
who invested in me.
Yeah. You know, it was sort ofboth. So I was driving home that
night and I was back to SanDiego, and I was just in my car

(20:43):
and I was like, God, what is mylike, give me give me a sign.
What's my next thing? And asclear as day, I heard you need
to teach the world to breathe.
And then the very next thing Iheard was it's called pause
breath work. It was like I getgoosebumps every single time I
hear this.

I bet chills.

It was as if someone was in the passenger
seat. It was that clear. I'mlike, I can't deny that. And
then as I'm driving down the 5,every few minutes, there's
fireworks. I'm like, what?
What is going on here? I call myboyfriend at the time. I'm like,
Kip, I'm like, is there anational holiday? Like, is
something going on here? Becausethere's fireworks everywhere.

(21:21):
He's like, I don't think so. He,like, googles it. He's like, no.
There's nothing. I'm like, thatis wild.
And so that for me was like,that's a confirmation. Like, she
got it. She got it. Then it getsweirder. I was woken up at
03:14AM every freaking night,channeling the mission of what
it is.
You're gonna start here. It'sgonna be an app. It's gonna be a

(21:41):
facilitator training. Thenyou're gonna do here, and this
is the greater mission. Thegreater mission is this.
And then you're gonna do this,and you need to let these people
go. You need to was like therewas something taken over my
body, and I was just listeningto it. Wild. And so I'm like, I
need to be obedient to this, andI need to let go of the thing
that is so familiar, and I needto let go of that because if

(22:04):
this is coming through, there'ssomething that's even greater
still. And so I did.
And I went into my Stripe oh, Igot goosebumps all over my body.
I went into my Stripe account,and I just went cancel, cancel,
cancel, cancel to all of thereoccurring revenue that was
coming into my business. And Iwas like, I'm complete with
this. I love you guys so much.And then the next day, I was

(22:26):
like, we're in

breath work. Was there any fallout with team or
clients?

Oh, yeah. And that was the part that was
challenging. So my team waslike, well, we work here because
we want to support this mission.I was like, I get that. And I
love you.
And guess what? You have a jobhere at Paws, like, for sure,
because you're so talented. Andif you can get behind this
mission, then let's go. Yeah.70% stayed, 30% left.

(22:54):
Okay. Right? And then think myclients weren't mad, they were
just confused. Like, so thefallout was just like, well, I'm
confused because you care like,you cared so much about this
Yeah. And now you're doing this,and like, I had to rebuild that
trust.
Yeah. You know? Okay. Yeah. Wow.

(23:16):
And I was like, and for me, it'slike, you know how your doorway
in is money, but so that we canget to the deeper stuff? My
doorway just changed.

Exactly.

You know? It's like I went from emotional
eating to breath work. But atthe end of the day, the core
mission of making emotionalsuffering optional is still the
mission that's on my life.Absolutely. And guess what?
It might evolve later.

A 100%, and full permission to always keep
evolving it. Yeah. For you, assomeone who's deeply devoted to
breath work, what does yourdaily practice look like? Is it
always the same? Do you dobreath work every single day?
Is it several times a day? Whatdo you do?

One of the most consistent things in my life is
my breath work practice, andI've done twenty minutes a day
every single day. If myenvironment is more chaotic and
my nervous system begins toreact, then I'll then I'll up
it, then I'll spend more timedoing it. That's just what feels
really good for me. It's like Itake a shower every single day

(24:21):
from my physical body. I take ashower for my emotional health,
you know?
It's sort of just that thingthat I do every single day.

And it'll always be probably like a different
style based on what you'reneeding, maybe based on

your cycle. Exactly. Whatever. Exactly. The
type of breath work we do atPause Breath Work is very self
consent, body based selfconsent.
So really so I I set my my matup, I lie down, and I really
just start by placing my handson my heart and my belly and
asking myself, like, what do youneed today? Sometimes it's just

(24:53):
breath awareness. Sometimes I'mlying on that mat and I'm not
manipulating my breath at all,I'm just being aware because
that's what my body is callingfor. Other times, there's like,
oh, there's some like energythat like I just need to move,
so I'll do more of like a breathjust to like get the energy
going and circulating andgetting myself just feeling like

(25:15):
clear and light. In the morning,before I get out of bed, I'll
just do a few breaths just toclear away, and then before I
get into bed, just to clear awaythe day, but my typical is
twenty minutes every day.

So beautiful.

Yeah.

And for people listening, just so you know, of
course, we'll talk about it atthe end, but if you're like, oh,
I want a breath work practice,Samantha has this amazing app
called Pause, and she will guideyou in your own practice.

I'll be in your ear.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so from a scientific
perspective, because I am atotal nerd, and I didn't prepare
you for this, so feel free tojust be like, I don't know. But
I am really curious, do you knowany of the physiology and the
evidence we have about whatactually is happening in the

(26:07):
body when we're doing differentbreath work practices in terms
of why it works so well?

So many things, and we'll go through three
different things. So number one,we are stimulating the amygdala.
Right? When we're going, we'restimulating the amygdala. It
mitigates the response of theamygdala, and that's our center
for emotional control.
Right? So when we're suppressingthat, we're not reacting to

(26:34):
life. We're not in our survival.It almost like takes our
survival strategies and turnsthem down. Mhmm.
So when our survival strategiesare turned down, and the
amygdala, the response of theamygdala is mitigated, then what
that does is that it gives thebody another perception. It's
like, oh, I was looking throughthe lens of my inner child or my

(26:57):
survival strategy or my notenoughness or there's not enough
or I'm not whatever whatever ourthing is, it mitigates that
response so it glimpses us. Itgives us a glimpse of an
entirely different perspective.That's the first thing. The
second thing is when we're doingconscious breathing, that's
continual.

(27:17):
What that's also doing is it'sstimulating our vagus nerve,
which is allowing ourselves toreally get into our
parasympathetic nervous system,right, which is our rest and
digest. That's where we createfrom. Right? So often, we are
chronically in our paras or inour sympathetic nervous system

(27:40):
because we're attached to ourphones all day long. We're in
comparison all day long.
What that's doing is it'sputting deep us deeper in our
survival strategies. We're justkicking up this survival energy
of of not enoughness scarcityall day long, and we wonder why
we're not creative. We get allwhatever it is. So it stimulate
our vagus nerve is a reallymassive component of our

(28:02):
parasympathetic system, and sothe breath work allows us to
stimulate that which activatesthe parasympathetic. And then
it's shifting the pH levels ofour blood.
It's making our blood morealkaline. Right? So what happens
why do we drink alkaline water?Right? Inflammation, all the
things.
So that's more of, like, thephysical. Our blood is literally
becoming more alkaline the morebreath work that we do.

And is that because of extra oxygen?

We're releasing everything out of the mouth.
Yeah, and it's almost like we'recleansing our blood and allowing
our The blood to feel more

releasing of more carbon dioxide. Exactly. So
fascinating. Yeah. Okay, so formy meditation junkies who are
listening, what are some of thedifferences?
And I also wanna know, do youmeditate now? What are some of
the differences in thesepractices? Obviously, they're
wildly different.

Well, breath work is actually under the
meditation umbrella.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So breath work is meditation. Just It's
like

a more

active Yeah. When we think of meditation, we
think person sitting in a lotusposition and being very passive.
Breath work is just a dynamicpractice that is still
meditation. It's just an act ofmeditation. And so breath work
is so great for people who can'tmeditate.
Totally. Right? People who haveADHD, who are hyperactive, who

(29:24):
like or maybe you have likemyself, you have an eating
disorder, you have body imageissues, you just can't be in
your body. You're still.

A background of trauma that it doesn't feel safe
to be still in your body, whichis

unbelievably common. Extremely common. And so
breath work is a way where we'regetting to the end result, the
same result, in my opinion, alot quicker, faster, more
efficient. But it allows us to,rather than think about not
thinking, the breath actuallyshuts off the mind for us. Yeah.
We only overthink because weunder breathe.

Yeah.

So when we breathe more, we think less, and
then meditation is so mucheasier. So now I love
meditation, but I'll still nevermeditate without breath work.
Uh-huh. So if my body is callingfor more meditation than breath
work on that particular day,I'll do a couple minutes of
breath work, just like inthrough the nose, out through

(30:15):
the mouth for about threeminutes, then I'll go in to my
static practice of meditation.So for people who struggle with
meditation, breath work is afantastic pathway.

That's great. Yeah. Okay. I love this. And
what about so I was I'm atrained yoga teacher, and we
learned how to facilitatepranayama.
Mhmm. Is pranayama the samething as breath work, or is it
different?

So pranayama is a form of breath work, but the
way that we describe it at pauseis there's breath work for
relaxation, and then there'sbreath work for transformation.
So pranayama falls onto thecategory of breath work for
relaxation because we're notwe're not getting out of our
conscious mind. It's still verymuch like breath to movement.
Right? We're still very muchhere.

(31:03):
We can have a conversation.We're still sort of in this
three d reality. Breathwork fortransformation, after you hit
that eight minute mark, goesinto more of an altered state of
consciousness where, again,those survival strategies are
turned way down. The amygdala isactivated. We don't have so many
parts of us that are like, don'tdo this and don't think like
this.
So the the capacity for healingand letting the body heal itself

(31:27):
goes through the roof because wedon't have so many parts online.
We don't have all of oursurvival strategies online. It's
really that eight minute mark.Yeah. And we've tested this with
our students, and I alwaysforget, EKGs or EEGs?
What is the I actually don'tknow. One of the things that it
says on the brain. Yeah. The onethat goes on the brain.

EKG is the heart.

So it's EEG? I don't know. Something like that.
I don't know.

This is

the Not Quite Science Podcast. The thing that
does your brain okay. So I wentinto a place here in San Diego
called Wave Neuro, and I waslike, can you just look at my
brain as I'm breathing? And itreally is that eight minute mark
where the brain chemistry beginsto change, the neuroplasticity
begins to open up, and that'swhere their survival strategies
begin to slow down a little Soif you're doing breath work

(32:14):
continuously under eightminutes, you're not gonna get
there. So Got it.
And that's one type of breathwork. After eight minutes, we
really begin to go into thosealtered states of consciousness.

And is it cumulative over time? So is it
kind of like compounding eachsession, or is it like more
brushing your teeth where eachsession you're starting fresh?

I would say it's not one or the other.
Uh-huh. And here's why. So everysingle breath work session is so
different, and there's timeswhere your body's just gonna
give you something that you'venever experienced before. So in
that sense, it it's notcompounding.
For instance, you could be doingbreath work for twenty years and

(32:54):
then have a session that remindsyou of a memory that you've
never thought about, and thenboom, you're processing it in
real time. So in that sense, itdoesn't compound, but it does
compound in the sense of yourbody opens up the window of
tolerance. Yeah. Meaning, themore safety we have in our
system, the more we're able toheal. So if we have zero safety

(33:17):
and zero breath, that's ourstarting point, and then we'll
bring a little bit of breath in.
And we do this in a very traumainformed way, especially for
people who have a lot of trauma.And then we increase the safety,
and then we increase the windowof tolerance. And those sort of
things happen at the same time.So in that regard, it does have
a compound effect.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I love that. Yeah.
And are there any people whoshouldn't do breath work?
There's people who shouldn't dobreath work without a
facilitator. Got it.

Breath work has the ability to blow people
outside of their window oftolerance, have people
disassociated, have peoplerelive traumas that they didn't
even know that they had. It's avery intense practice. And so
when I see facilitatorsfacilitating breath work, and
their cues are like, harder, go,breathe, I'm like, that is dumb.

It's really scary.

It's irresponsible, it's scary and
it's dumb. Breathwork is a veryintense practice, and it needs
to be done in a very traumainformed way with the body being
the consent. You know? It'slike, I'm never gonna tell
someone to breathe harder. I'mgonna say listen to your body.
If your if you have the capacitytoday to bring in more energy,
go ahead and do that. Yeah. Ifyour body is really like you're

(34:30):
hitting up your limit, staythere or just stop doing the
breath and just soak it in.Transformation we don't need
intensity for transformation.Mhmm.
So it's not about, oh, theharder I go, the more I'm gonna
transform. It's not that at all.Those two things are not
correlated. In fact, some of themore gentle breath work sessions
are actually the best.Everyone's energy system is very

(34:53):
different as well, and so andeveryone's history of trauma is
very different.
So we really have to be expertsat our own body and really feel
into what is best for us. Donewith a facilitator, if someone
has a high level of trauma, it'sthe best thing that we could do,
but we have to go slow. Mhmm.And we have to be so mindful of

(35:14):
the body's capacity to holdenergy. Amazing.
Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you for that. What about when you're
pregnant?

Yeah. So same thing with your with your when
you're pregnant. Breathwork'sbeautiful, but gentle. Uh-huh.
Different kinds.
It's like you're it's likeyou're in a dyad with your baby
when you're doing breath work,where there needs to be a high
level of awareness on I've neverbeen pregnant, so it's hard for
me to speak to this as I'mteaching it, but I'm imagining.

(35:42):
Yeah. There there needs to be ahigh level of attunement to the
other being that is inside ofyou. Yeah. And not overriding
that and going into ego Mhmm.
But just being with the dyad ofthe baby. So we either teach for
pregnancy just breath awareness,because you can you can go you

(36:03):
can go places with that, or it'dbe like a very gentle, what we
call halo active without theforced exhale, just let the
breath drop out of your mouthMhmm. But still being like very
connected to your baby. Amazing.Yeah.
I'll do more once I'm pregnant,I'll roll out some stuff

for Yeah,

which is

so exciting. Okay. Good. I heard you talk
about this pivot you made whereit was like, okay, we're doing
emotional eating, now we'redoing breath work. That you
really had made a commitment torun that business in a different
way, in a feminine way, in a waythat wasn't giving away your
power, in a way that wasn'tassuming that other people knew

(36:46):
better than you did.
And I'm curious, I wanna hearmore about that. I wanna hear
about that crossroads and maybesome of the decisions you had
made in your past businessiteration that led you to
realizing you needed to dothings in a different way. And
then also what practices youbrought in, what new forms of

(37:09):
leadership, new ways of runningthings you brought in that you
still practice today as you runyour wildly successful company?

This is a great question. Yeah. Because that was
another big, big thing. Not onlywas I not wanting to teach the
material, the way I was runningthe company was I hired all male
mentors. I had, you know, theythere was no attunement to the
feminine body.
There was no attunement tocycles. There was no it was just

(37:38):
basically like, go as hard asyou can, you know? And it was so
uncomfortable. You know, I therewas all these publications of
like, you know, the top 10 listson Forbes and the whatever in
this and the payouts of this andbecause I'm speaking over here
and from the outside, everythinglooked really awesome. And I

(38:00):
felt like the inner experiencewas the exact opposite.
And the company was calledHungry For Happiness and I
wasn't happy, you know? Yeah.And that took a while for me to
really admit that to myself. Andso when pause dropped in, I was
like, I will do this because itfeels so aligned, but

Also the fireworks. Yeah. Yeah.

Was a fireworks.

It was awesome.

But I was like, I will only do it in a way that
feels so good.

Yeah.

And, you know, we talked about on on my podcast
of, women in business, this is anew thing. So we are discovering
it. It's like, we've jumped outof the plane, and now we're
figuring it out as we go. And soI had to have a idea of like, if
I was to run this in a way thatfelt really good, what would
that look like? Yeah.
I couldn't really see it, youknow? It's like anyone I ask,

(38:48):
everyone's answer was SarahBlakely, and I'm like, there
must be someone else. I don'tand I I don't even I don't even
know business. Have no freakingNo freaking idea. Yeah.
Looks like she's having a goodtime, but I

don't 100%.

But I don't know. Yeah. Right? So I I was
like, I I have to create a modelfor this for myself. What do I
want?
What does that look like for me?The spaciousness, the
creativity, the how I wanna runmy team. I didn't like, it would
be our management meeting, like,leadership meeting. It'd be,
09:00 and at 08:55. I'd be like,I I don't wanna go on that

(39:22):
meeting.
Like, that I don't want topretend to be this person that
I'm not anymore. I want to dothis in my way, which is fun,
which is playful, which is lotsof energy, lots of breath work,
lots of, like, fun, lots of,like, I don't want the rigidity.
And so I just began to do itlike that, and it was honestly a
trust fall because I'd neverdone it that way. I have so much
I have so much evidence that ifyou run a business like a man,

(39:44):
you will get results. I haveevidence for that.
I built a $2,700,000 companydoing it that way. Of course, I
can do do it that way, but Idon't want to. And it's not
sustainable, and I know in myheart that there's another way.
Like, God created these femininebodies and they're insanely
intelligent. Of course, we canrun a business, make millions,
and do it in a way that feelsgood.
Of course, we can. Yeah. And soit's it was a practice of

(40:08):
because the habituation wasthere, and the addiction to work
was there, and the evidence wasthere, and so it really took
everything in me to not do itthat way. It was really hard if
I'm honest.

Yeah. And what did you use in terms of tools or
practices to make thattransition? Because it's one
thing to make the decision, andin the coaching world, folks
love to say, well, you just makethe decision and then you go,
and I'm like, well, that's notmy understanding of neural
patterning. Yeah. Can't juststrong-arm your brain and body

(40:42):
into being different overnight.
Yeah. And so what did youactually do?

Had to get really clear with what my
survival strategies were thatwas running that company.

Okay.

And I had to meet their needs in another way
other than work, and validation,and significance, and
profitability. And I had to getso clear with these frozen in
time pieces of me that weretrying to get their needs met.
Yeah. Because I'm like, yo,homies, you're not running this
business. Okay?
We did that. Like, inner childfully ran my less business, for

(41:11):
sure. And of course, there wasparts of my higher self. It's
not

Of course, it's of that.

But but like, primarily, it was that. And so I
had to really identify, okay,there is a part of me that does
not feel safe in this world.What part of me is that? Who is
she? How old is she?
What does she need? What doesshe actually need? I'm like, oh,
she needs my adult self to lether know that it's safe.
Totally. And when I met thatneed, she no longer projected it

(41:40):
onto my business to try and getit from the business.
That's what I did. It was deepsomatic work, and I really
believe that the success ofbusiness is a somatic journey. I
mean, this is your whole work,relax money. It's like, yeah,
you relax your nervous systemand you open up and things begin
to flow, and I wish more womenreally knew that because it's

(42:04):
everything. It is everything,

and I'm so glad that you and I are adjacently on
the same path in different wayswith essentially the same
message.

For sure.

So when you're doing that somatic work, when
you are meeting those past partsof yourselves, when you are
finding those things doing thatwork, I'm curious, do you
combine it with breath work justtactically speaking in any way,
and if so, how?

That's a good question. It's not like a
conscious, I'm gonna put breathwork in here now. It's like a
what I'm doing is I'm justresponding to the need of the
part moment by moment, andsometimes it calls for breath
work, sometimes it calls forshaking, sometimes it calls for
being really fucking ugly andmessy and just balling my eyes
out and punching shit, sometimesit calls for just like softness

(42:53):
and dance. It really I'm I'mfollowing the nuances of this
part, and I'm trying tounderstand what this part of me
is actually needing in theworld, and I'm doing my best to
meet it in real time.

Great.

Yeah. And so, yeah, most of the time that is
breath, because energy movesthrough breath, it moves through
movement, and it moves throughsound. So if we can do the triad
of those three things as we'recoming home to these parts of
us, the energies are gonna openup even more, and it's going to
be more energetically availablefor us. Great. Yeah.

(43:27):
Yeah. So good. Like I'm notsaying that breath work's the
answer to everything, but I'malso not not saying that. 100%,
100%. You got a flat tire?
Breath work. Seriously. So Iknow that, you know,

I'm actually not sure when this is going live,
but I know that last year youhad a tricky year in some ways.
And now we're a long time fromthat in time and space, because
time is made up anyway, but I amcurious what lessons you have
carried forward from a year thatreally kicked your ass in

(44:05):
business. It

was an ass kicker. I was being built. I got
built last year, and it wasreally interesting, because I
also got married last year. So Ihad this pocket of thirty days
of just bliss and joy, and now Iwas back in the arena. It was
just wild.
I was getting my ass kicked. Itwas a okay. The lessons.

Okay.

You know, the lesson is I made some
interesting decisions, and I Iblindly trusted some people to
lead some things in my businessthat didn't know what they were
doing, you know.

I have so been there.

Yeah. I was just like, here's the case. Take
them for a ride.

Totally. Yeah. And Or like, here's my newborn.
Just go raise them.

Go raise this newborn child that I've been
pouring everything in. It's justlike, what?

Maybe not newborn, but Yeah. You know,
preschooler.

Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm naturally I it's a
blessing and a curse. One of mygifts is I just assume the best
in everybody. Mhmm.
And I look at you, I'm like, Idon't see anything wrong with
you guys. The only thing is Ilove that about myself. I really
do. But in business, there needsto be more discernment, and I
learned that in 2024. The giftof discernment.

(45:21):
It's like, I love you, and I'mgonna assume the best, and I'm
gonna make sure you're doingyour shit. Yeah. And I'm gonna
make sure that you're not doingsome sneaky things on my
business behind the scenes.Because that sucks. It really
does.
And you know, I heard that thishappened in business, but I
never experienced it firsthand.And so my coach was like, okay.

(45:41):
Cool. Yeah. This is just alesson.
This this is you can't getthrough this without this
happening, so just learn it andfigure out what you're gonna do.
So I would say, don't blindlytrust. Keep assuming the best.
Like, I I still do wanna wear myrosy colored glasses because I
love living my life in that way,and it works really well for me.
But it's rosy colored glassesand a magnifying glass.

(46:04):
Right? Of like, I'm gonna assumepositive intent. I'm gonna
assume you're amazing, and I'malso going to check and ask
questions. And I had thisfeeling of I don't like
micromanaging my people. Lovegiving them a lot of space, I
was so unmanaging them that letand letting them run free that
they took advantage.

Yeah. That's really

A couple people. That sucked. So that was
a big lesson. Another big lessonwas just keep your eye. Make
them keep the main thing themain thing.
Mhmm. You know? Like we talkedabout, it's like my seven energy
and my creative spirit, and I'mgonna create all the things. And
I'm like, my audience would lovethis. And they did, but I took
my eye off the ball, tookresources away from our main

(46:46):
thing, confused my team,stressed them out.
It was just costly. It was avery costly

Yeah.

Amateur, if I'm being honest with myself,
mistake. So I feel like I reallygot pro in business this year
because I I I see the greatercontext. We're pause breath
work. We're breath work. I'm notgonna teach you to be a highly
paid speaker anymore, Kate.
Alright? I'm not gonna do thatanymore. It was fun.

Because that's not my path. I mean, I am a
highly paid speaker, but like, Ionly wanna do like one gig a
year.

Yeah. And that was today, guys.

In case anyone's liking, I'm available one time

a year. On my terms, okay? Yeah. So it's like
it's like breath work is thething that I care so much about,
and I had all this creativeenergy, and I'm like, where do I
put it? Oh, let's create moreproducts.
That was a silly amateurmistake. I'm not doing that this
year again. I'm keeping the mainthing the main thing. The thing
that we are the best in theworld at is training people to

(47:42):
become highly qualified, skilledbreath work facilitators. That's
it.
That's all I'm available forthis year.

So good. Yeah. So freaking good.

It's And so when you

do that, you achieve a level of mastery that
is actually deeply satisfying.And as a fellow seven, as we
talked about on your podcast,our life lesson is sobriety. And
the wisdom that comes fromsitting in the discomfort of

(48:13):
staying even when you wanna do35 different things, but if you
can just get more comfortablebeing uncomfortable with not
creating every new idea thatcomes along, and actually
bringing that presence andmastery, what your students are

(48:33):
getting, is so phenomenalbecause of the depth. Yes.

I just got full body goosebumps. 100%. And I got
my shit together, and made acommitment to myself of October,
and we're now in

Whenever. Whenever

this is. Yeah. And the difference is wild.

I can only like, okay. So we're recording this in
January, but I can only imagineby the time it goes live

Oh my gosh.

Like, is going to be the case Yeah. By that time.

Yes.

And I'm I've been checking on you.

Yes. I'm so Check-in on you

and find out because if it's already made a
seismic difference.

Oh my gosh.

And the reclaimed energy is so huge, and then the
profitability rises sotremendously because as quote
unquote boring as that rinse andrepeat can feel, it allows us to
go and expand in other areas,and it's so gentle Yes. On

(49:35):
everyone's nervous system Oh mygosh. In your company.

Oh my gosh.

Yes. They know what to expect. Yes. There's a
cadence. There's apredictability.
Like, I mean, that is a reallyIt's

a gift.

Feminine business model.

It's a gift to them. It's a gift to me. Yeah.
The interesting thing, I wannamake another correlation with
that staying power and being inthe discomfort. And when we can
get through that, magic happens.
Here's an example. My historywas with men and relationships
was always chasing theunavailable, shiny, charismatic,

(50:08):
I will no. No. No. Like, I willwhine you and dine you, and this
is it.
And I've got money, and I gotlike, that was my pattern. And I
kept getting burned. You chasefireworks, you're gonna get
burned. Right? I kept gettingburned.
And my soul is like, you needsomething different. Like, call
forth something different. Thisis not for you. Like, stop

(50:28):
chasing these men that areunavailable and just chaotic.
And so I I met Eric, and it wasnot fireworks right away.
It was home. It was like ourfirst date, I'm like, my whole
nervous system relaxed. There isthis flow and this safety and

(50:53):
this togetherness, and I neverwondered if he was gonna text me
back. I never none of that. Butwhat did these parts of me do?
This is boring. I don't wantthis. This is not fun. I need
excitement. I need Right?
And but my soul kept being like,no. This is your guy. And all of
my friends and everyone in myworld was like, this is your

(51:15):
person. Don't do not run awayfrom this. Staying power.
It took everything in me tostay. Everything. And overcome
the part of me that was addictedto the shiny balls. And now The
shiny balls? Yes.
I didn't even mean to say that,but that's so funny. I was just
dating all these shiny balls.Yeah. Now our relationship has

(51:38):
that passion, that excitement,but it was built from a healthy
place. I experienced whathealthy love was, and my ego
couldn't handle it.
But my soul's like, you gottastay. Well

right, and the nervous system wants what it has
experienced before. And whenhealthy love is not the existing
imprint, it will register it asa threat. And so being able to
stay and repattern and say, thisis actually safe Mhmm. Is a
really beautiful thing.

Wild. Yeah. There's like it's so fascinating
that at times doing the thingthat's best for us is the
hardest thing. Why are we wiredthis way, Kate?

I don't know, because otherwise, like what
else would we be doing with ourlives?

We need to waste our time doing something.
We should heal ourselves. Shouldjust

be reading a lot more novels and

But like when we get it, when we understand
that it works that way, it's sogood. Wait, then it

actually is kind of a game. Totally.

Yeah. 100%.

So good. Thank you so much for being
conversation. Love learning moreabout your story and more about
breath work and just whereyou've been, where you're going.
I'm so excited for what is nextfor you in all the areas of your
life. So if people wannaconnect, where should they find

(52:57):
you?
Where can they learn more?

The best place is my Instagram, samanthaskelly.
Come say hi over there, let meknow that you found me from this
podcast, and if you desire to bea Breathwork facilitator, come
let me know. I can give you youraffiliate link. Amazing.
Actually, let's just put youraffiliate Well,

I'm gonna get let's put our our my well, let's
just say what it is right now.Go to katenorthrup.com/breath.

There we go. Amazing. You are handled. So if
you wanna become a breath workfacilitator, go to that link.
Yeah.
Pause breath work on an app ifyou want breath work on demand
all day long, and yeah, come outand say hi on Instagram. Thank
you. Thanks for having me. Thishas been so great.

This episode is brought to you by Glossy, which
is skin care you can drink. Ihave been using and loving
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Enjoy.

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