May 26, 2022 • 28 mins
CEO + Founder of Pause Breathwork, Samantha Skelly, is Amy's '4 Things' guest today and she's here to enlighten us on what it would look like to incorporate breathwork into our daily routines. After a life-changing trip to Bali, where she was introduced to breathwork, she made it her life's mission to teach the world to breathe...and she says that breathwork will be bigger than meditation & yoga!
She even leads us through some breathwork during the episode. We hope you enjoy this and add breathwork to your tool box of things you can bust out if you're feeling anxious &/or stressed.
"Sometimes a deep breath and a loud scream is the perfect remedy." - Samantha Skelly
FOR MORE ON SAMANTHA:
SamanthaSkelly.com
PauseBreatheWork.com
Instagram: @SamanthaSkelly
TEXAS FOREVER FUND:
100% proceeds from each item in Texas Forever® Fund currently supports the victim's families and survivors of the recent shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX where at least 19 children and 2 adults were murdered. Our hearts are breaking for everyone affected and we are thankful for your support.
https://www.theshopforward.com/collections/texas-forever
Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, casa little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty,
(00:20):
it's pretty beautiful. Thank you. Laugh a little moth kicking
with four Happy Thursday. Welcome to four Things, Amy here,
and my guest today is Samantha Skelly, and she is
a breathwork expert, and you might be asking yourself what
(00:42):
is breathwork? Well, Samantha says that it's going to be
bigger than meditation and yoga. And I know that there
was a time in my life where I was asking
what is yoga and what in the world is meditation?
But those two things are definitely more mainstream now and
apparently that's where breath work is headed. And I'm thankful
that Samantha is our guest today because I think we
(01:07):
need to be doing a little extra breathing this week.
We need any extra tools we can have to help
with stress and anxiety and keeping our our mind, body, spirit,
connection healthy because it's been a heavy week. I feel it,
particularly as a Texan, but I think no matter where
you live, you're affected when shooting like this happens. It
(01:30):
is absolutely tragic, and I just know I have a
lot of listeners from Texas. I have a lot of
listeners that are in Austin. I saw an article specifically
calling Austinites to donate blood if you can. I'm sure
other cities in Texas are doing the same thing. I
know if you just go to we are blood dot
org and find more info. But that's a way you
(01:50):
can help out and it doesn't cost you anything but
your time and your blood. Again, we are blood dot
org and there's other organizations I know you can donate
directly too, if that's what you would like to do.
But I also just want to quickly mention the Texas
Forever Fund through the Shop Forward and can't see apparel
with a hundred percent of the proceeds from each Texas
(02:11):
Forever item going to support the victims, families and survivors.
And I can speak to the items saying that they
are really well made and there are items that you're
going to have forever. If Texas means something to you,
then this could be a special item that you can
have for a long time and whenever you wear it,
you can say a prayer. It's a reminder of these
families and all the loved ones that were impacted by
(02:35):
the shooting there this week. Just as a way to
remember them, and it can be a special gift, and
it's where you're you're shopping with a purpose. And then
there's a way to even donate at the end as well,
Like if you're checking out, you can add an additional donation,
so a hundred percent of the proceeds and then a
percent of that donation will go to these victims, families
and the survivors. So the shop forward dot com Slash
(02:58):
Texas is where you can see the items. But again
that's just one of many ways that you can try
to help out. Now, I am sitting across from Samantha
Skelly at least on Zoom. That is, Samantha is coming
to us from San Diego and she's a self made
entrepreneur and she has an entire wellness company based on breathwork.
(03:22):
It's called Pause. And I'm just so excited to have
you on, Samantha, because I breathe here and there and
I know that it's important, but I actually am very
curious as to how you even got into breathwork and
what is that? And I know you're even going to
guide us through some breathwork during this episode, So how
did you get into it? And why is it important? Yeah,
(03:44):
I grew up as a dancer and a child actress,
so my whole life was either on camera or on
the stage or you know, practicing in the studio with
all the mirrors, and so I had a lot of
body image issues my whole life. Like I I can
remember being like young, young, like eight years old and
being in the bathtub and just being like I hate
(04:05):
my body. Like it just it did, like all of
that kind of stuff came up, and so I really
struggled with how do I get how do I get
out of this? And I did all the things that
I was, you know, supposed to do, all of the
mindset things, and you know me, I tried meditating. I
couldn't meditate because I didn't want to be in my
body and my mind was going a little the place.
I tried journaling all of these things. And this one
(04:27):
year I was I was reading Elizabeth gil Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love,
and she talked about how she went to Bali and
I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that and
maybe I can help my eating disorder, my body image
issues through going to Bally and like seeing what's over
there because nothing, nothing in Canada is working. I was
living in Canada at the time. I'm Canadian, and so
I was at this meditation studio and one of the
(04:48):
classes on on the board was breathwork, and I kind
of read that. I'm like, breathwork, like, isn't that just breathing?
Like I'm so confused what that is, but it was
the only class that was available at the time I
was there. So anyway, I walked up into this room
and I opened the door and everyone's lying down with
pillows and blankets, and there's this guy who kind of
looks like Jesus dressed and all white, and I'm like,
(05:08):
what is about to happen? Like it was just like
the weirdest scene. I'm like, what did I just walk into?
And he came up to me, this Jesus looking dude,
and he was like, are you ready to go on
the ride of your life? That's what he said. And
I thought to myself, that's an odd thing to say,
and I was like, what do you mean? And he's like,
you were going to feel the whole spectrum of human emotion.
And this was at a time in my life where
(05:31):
I really toggled between numbness and anxiety, Like those were
like my two resting positions. I would feel numb, so
I would over exercise and overeat, and then I would
feel like super anxious, and I just I never felt
my intuition. I never felt this place of a clear minded,
an open heart that many people talk about. So I'm like,
all right, I'll give it a shot. And he was
teaching us this breath technique, and within three minutes of
(05:55):
breathing continuously in this way, I felt, for the first
time in my whole life, my heart like really truly open.
I felt comfortable in my body for the first time
in forever. I my mind was super clear, like having
having disordered eating. It's like your your brain is streaming
thoughts constantly. And so I felt for a moment, I'm like, gosh,
(06:18):
my mind is clear, like I'm so present to what
is around me at the moment, like this is absolutely amazing.
And so it was a three hour breathwork glass. Like
we were breathing for three hours, it really felt like
fifteen minutes like time just flew by, and I really
did feel the entire spectrum of emotionality. I felt the
(06:38):
most joyous and um just loving that I had ever felt.
And then I remember myself just like crying and shedding
and releasing all of this like trauma or this like
this stignation in my body. And I didn't really know
what I was crying about, but my body was just
releasing all of this emotion that had been trapped in
there for so long. And I woke up from that
(07:00):
varience and I was like, this is wild, Like if
every human in the world knew that we were this
powerful and that we are our own drug, and we
can bring ourselves to the states of liberation and freedom
using just our breath, Like why is no one talking
about that? Right? So that was that happened years ago.
So I found that when I was twenty and I
(07:22):
healed myself through my eating disorder because I knew how
to connect back into my body. And when I was
back in my body, I can discern the difference between
what is an emotional hunger cue what is a physical
hunger cue. And I could honor my body in a
way that I had never done before, you know, like
my body was like this punching bag for so long.
And so as the years went on, I came back
(07:45):
to my breath like every day in every way to
help heal my anxiety, help heal stress, get out of
like the monkey mind, and back into truth. And you know,
even today as an entrepreneur, as you know, there's like
many things I go wrong all the time, and so
coming back to my breath to be like nothing's actually wrong,
it's all good, and using my breath to really feel
(08:06):
into my intuition has been such an incredible gift. And
so I started pause breathwork about four years ago now
and it's just been it's been a true gift bringing
people back into their body through breath. So, Samantha, I'm
big on the four seven eight method where you breathe
in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, and
I just kind of do that five times, and you know,
and then I move on. So what can we do
(08:27):
to introduce breath work into our daily lives? So there's
two types of breath work. There's breath work for relaxation,
which is very much of what you talked about, like
in for four hold whatever it is where we're still
in our conscious mind. So we call that integrative breath work.
This is the type of breath work that you can
do while you're washing the dishes while you're vacuuming, while
(08:48):
your bolden laundry. It's the type of breath work that
keeps you in the conscious mind. Now there's also called
breath work for transformation. So this is where we are breathing,
and what's happening is we're releasing the cognitive mind and
we're dropping deeper into our body. We're changing the pH
levels in our in our blood so that we're looking
(09:08):
at life through a new lens. Were not as identified
with our survival strategy, right, because if we're not connected
to our body, the view that we have of the
world is through our survival strategies, right through the lens
of what's going to kill me, that feeling of like
always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so
because of that, we're chronically driving our sympathetic nervous system,
(09:30):
which is our fight and fight and flight. We're not
going to get eaten by a tiger, but we fear
life in that way, right, and it can for some
people it's really intense anxiety. For other people it's low
grade anxiety. But with the breath helps us do as
it helps us release that survival strategy, drop deeper into
our heart to create more coherence between the energy of
our heart and the energy of our brain. Does that
(09:52):
make sense. So there's two types. So for for people.
The the session that I did in Bali was breathwork
for transformation. So I again, it was three hours. I
thought it was fifteen minutes. Like, my my brain was
not on I was so in my body. And because
I was so in my body, I wasn't caught up
in my survival strategies, which allowed me to be present,
which allowed me to open my heart. Like if we
(10:14):
are in our survival strategies, it's actually it feels so
dangerous to open our heart. But when we open our hearts,
that's when we get to see life in a new way.
That's when we get to really acknowledge that we are
actually safe, we were everything is going to be okay,
We're good. And so when we breathe in this way
and we get into the body, it really helps us
(10:34):
create that coherence between the heart and the brain. So
if you've never heard of breathwork before and you're like,
I want to just experience with what Sam is talking about,
the best way to do it is in the morning
and honestly, just start with three minutes. If you wake
up in the morning and sit in your chair or
even do this in bed um, whatever feels better to you,
(10:55):
and just do it for three minutes. What you're gonna
do is you're gonna begin to open up your window
of tolerance for how much you can feel. So for
most people, they're very disconnected from their body. They don't
really want to feel much, right, And so when we
don't allow ourselves to feel the pain of the human experience,
we also cut off our ability to experience joy. And
(11:17):
so what the breath helps us do is just really
get used to feeling deeper into our body. And so
the breath work pattern is called the try act of breath.
And so when you wake up in the morning, come
into like a comfortable position, and we want to do
a three part breath. So it's two breaths in through
the mouth and one breath out, So we're breathing the
(11:40):
energy into the belly first, up into the chest, and
out through the mouth. So the pacing is a little
bit like this. Then what we want to do after
three minutes, take a deep breath in through the knows
(12:02):
hold at the top for as long as you can
and release the breath. And what that's going to do
is it's going to clear out a lot of the
energy that you've kicked up in your body from dreaming.
Because when we're dreaming, we're thinking about all of these
different things. That's why sometimes you can wake up and
already feel anxious because your brain, in your mind was
in so many other realities and things that aren't real.
(12:24):
And so coming back to the breath in the morning
reminds the system like, we are safe, we are here,
we are grounded. It's a new day, and let's start
off on this energy rather than bringing forth energy from
our dreams. So for someone who is brand new and
you don't order to start start with that, the only
(12:53):
time you don't want to do it is when you're driving.
So don't do that when you're driving for those new Yeah, okay,
just because it can create a little bit of dizziness
in the system. So if you're listening to the show,
just don't do it while you're driving. But any other
time perfect, when you're washing the dishes, when you're going
for a walk, whatever it is. Yeah, it really doesn't matter.
And then the more that you get used to that
(13:14):
energy being in your body. Then you can do five
minutes and then eventually lying down and doing it for
like ten fifteen minutes. I mean the first one doing
it for three hours. That was so crazy, Like I
definitely don't recommend doing that, But a twenty minute, continual
connected breath work session, you're going to feel really amazing.
So for some people, their publarity wondering how in the
(13:36):
world am I gonna I can barely find the time
to do all this other stuff that I'm trying to
do in a day and fit in whether I'm doing
yoga or my workout or going on a walk or
I feel like oftentimes we prioritize and you coming from
you know, a body image, eating, disordered, disordered past, right,
like you can understand my thinking of For me, it
(13:57):
was like if I don't get to the gym and
I don't do this specific work out for this long
and then like I haven't done my workout for the day,
and I'm just using that as an example. For someone
else listening, it might be something else that is their priority.
But what I love about being in recovery is I
learned that taking care of myself can look a lot
of different ways. It doesn't mean an hour long gym
(14:18):
session or an hour and a half long yoga class.
It means just making space for whatever I need that day.
And so I would say that if what you need
for the day is thirty minutes of breathing, once you
got to that point, then that could be what you
did to try to take care of yourself that day.
But I could just see where it's like daunting for
(14:40):
people to try to add breathwork to their schedule for sure. Yeah,
and this is where the integrative breathwork is really powerful
because we can do two things at once, like what
are you doing anyways that you can bring breath to
to make the moment more beautiful? Uh right, Okay, yes,
And you know I think this is this is a
really really good point. It's like sometimes I think personal
(15:00):
development can turn into this like never ending checklist that
we have to do all the things, and if we
don't do all the things, and we, you know, we
like feel bad for ourselves. And to your point, like
self care can look like staring at the wall for
five minutes just because that's what feels good in that moment,
Like it looks it doesn't have to look like anything
as long as how we're feeling when we're doing it
(15:22):
feels like liberation and feels like we're taking a pause, right,
And so the structure around how it needs to look
needs to go out the window and just come to
each present moment and really asking ourselves, what do I
need right now? Maybe it's three breaths, and then it's
carrying on with your day. Maybe it's breathing as you're
unpacking the groceries, or you're changing a diaper, or you're
doing whatever. As long as we're bringing presents to what
(15:45):
we're doing, that's not actually creating any extra time, but
it's impacting the moment and our nervous system in such
a beautiful way because when we bring presents and we
get into our heart, it just kind of all relaxes.
And this is how we can bring mindfulness into everything
that we're doing without creating extra time. Because I can
feel really daunting, especially for busy moms with lots of
(16:07):
jobs and all that kind of stuff. And I saw
in your Instagram stories. I was scrolling through your Instagram
today and you had posted sometimes a deep breath and
a loud scream is the perfect remedy. Times that's it,
you know, like we don't have to over complicate these things.
You know, if we can really look at children and
how fluid they are with their emotionality. You know, one
(16:28):
minute they're screaming, the next minute they're so joyful if
they're responding to what the body needs in that moment.
And sometimes I'm like, dang, i just need to scream
my head off, and so I'll jump in my car
and I'll just go down the one on one highway
and I'll just put on a loud song and just
scream my head off because i just need to release
the energy that's in my system. I come back and
I'm like, I'm feeling great now, you know. It's like
(16:49):
it's just like being more almost like primal about how
we self care is so much more important than doing
it right or having like the long list of things.
And yeah, sometimes scream breathing is a good thing, you know. Yeah.
I mean I have done my fair share of screaming,
for sure, but in a healthy way. And I've even
(17:10):
given that permission to my kids at times too. I'm like, hey,
do we need to go in the backyard and like,
you know, throw some ice cubes at the concrete, or
we have those like arballs. They're on Amazon, but they're
really squashy and you can just slam them on the
ground and just that act of like something about the
sensation and sensory and helping reset everything, because I think
(17:33):
if you're a parent, when you're raising any type of child,
that's when you know something like fight flight freeze. If
you're paying attention, you'll notice your children doing you may
not know. You'll notice it in kids before you notice
it yourself. And if I'm in fight flight freeze or
I'm not in my rational brain, but yet I'm the
(17:54):
one that's supposed to be making the rational, smart decisions,
you know. And so I think it's this certain level
of accountability to make sure what are the tools that
you have in your toolbox or what are you keeping
in your back pocket for those days that you are disregulated,
So that way you can like bust out a breathing
(18:14):
exercise and then help regulate yourself maybe before you have
to go into a meeting or before you have to
make some big decision, or before you have to have
a tough conversation. All this to say, like I think
it's just pretty fascinating that's you know, we can breathe
ourselves through certain things now to an extent. I'm not
saying this is a cure all for everything, but it
is a tool absolutely, And I think any amount of
(18:37):
time that we steal our awareness back from the like
attention economy where everyone is trying to steal our attention
all the time, like even one minute of Okay, I'm
gonna pause, I'm going to come back to me, Like,
the ripple effect of that is extraordinary. It's absolutely, it's
absolutely amazing. And you know, we were created with with
this incredible tool, the breath, to regulate our nervous system,
(18:59):
to take us from that sympathetic to the parasympathetic and
somewhere along the line of development, and we've just forgotten
how powerful we are, Like we have the ability to
feel exactly how we desire to feel, fulfilled, connected, loved
through our breath. And we're living in a world now
where we're we're searching for that in places that are empty,
(19:21):
in places that are not giving us the return on investment,
if you will, And so it's just so beautiful to
bring people back into the breath to realize that you
are your your your own drug, and we can rest,
We can allow fulfillment and happiness to be our arresting
position rather than anxiety and stress. But again, we live
in a world where we are so easily put into
(19:42):
that position. We feel like we're falling behind, or the
world crumbling or things are moving too fast, and they are,
and so it's up to us to have the self
awareness to go, Okay, I'm going to disconnect from the matrix.
I'm going to come back into my heart. I'm going
to allow myself to feel as good as possible right now,
because that's the gift that I give to the world.
You know, I tell my is all the time. Your
vibration is your contribution for people who are like, what's
(20:04):
my purpose? What do I do? It's like, if you
feeling the best you possibly can, that's your contribution to
the world. When you can show up as your best self,
when you can show up with a clear mind and
open heart, feeling so connected and present, that's the greatest
gift you can possibly give to the world. Well, I
was thankful a minute ago when you kind of took
us through what it sounds like, and I want you
(20:25):
to do it one more time. So people don't have
to rewind, like we can hear it now. And then
people the rest of this episode, they can maybe breathe
while they're listening, as long as they're not driving. But
I want you to lead us through the proper way again. Okay,
let's do it all right, everyone, closing your eyes, dropping
your shoulders, and just taking a moment and scanning your
(20:48):
body from head to toe and just noticing what feels
tight and what feels open, just observing the body. That's it,
and just allowing yourself to choose to claim what you
(21:12):
desire to feel. Maybe it's more love, maybe it's more connection.
And now, when you're ready, let's start the breath together.
M m m m. Keeping that breath moving in and
(21:48):
out of the body, into the belly, up into the chest,
out through the mouth. M yea, letting the breath do
the work. You're safe to feel, you're safe to release,
(22:13):
focusing on breathing in what you desire to feel and
exhaling what no longer serves m that's it. And now
(22:41):
when you're ready, taking a deep breath in through the nose,
holding at the top and as you're holding your breath,
just feeling the energy reorganized, noticing the clarity in your mind,
(23:05):
the openness in your heart, dropping down, releasing that breath
when you're ready, now taking a moment and just scanning
the body, noticing the lightness you feel, the clarity in
(23:26):
the mind, and now when you're ready, opening up your eyes,
coming back into the space. Are we gonna So obviously
if we're doing other things, we can still do that breathing,
but with our eyes open totally. And there's other breathwork
(23:48):
patterns that we have as well. That's just one of them.
That one is more of an energizing one, Okay, it's
more activating, and then there's ones that are more grounding.
So for instances literally in through the nose, out through
the mo of, letting that exhale be longer than the inhale.
Something as simple as that is beautiful if you're walking
doing like the bliss breath, which is just in and
(24:10):
out through the mouth, snapping the belly in. So depending
on what you desire to feel, whether it's more of
a grounding if you have a lot of anxiety like
bringing yourself back into the body, or if you want
to feel more alive and more energized doing one of
the energizing ones. There's five different breath patterns that we use, okay,
so that would be on the pause app where people
(24:31):
could find that's right, the five different ones. Okay, So yes,
depending on what you're doing, might depend on which exercise
you choose to do. And then what about music, Like
is it okay to listen to things while you're breathing
or is it better to just try to be in silence?
I love music, and music when we're in that really
open place really has an impact on our energy. Yeah,
(24:54):
when we're when our energy fields open and there's like
beautiful music playing, the music actually has an impact on
the energy that we feel. That's why sound Healing is
really popular and beautiful. And so the music that we
choose on the app goes with the outcome that people want.
So you you can pick what you desire to do
on the app versus like in time, so whether you
have three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, twenty five minutes,
(25:16):
or forty five minutes, and then you can also pick
whether you want grounding or energizing, and choose from like
hundreds of different tracks depending on what you desire to feel.
But yeah, music is such an important piece of it
for sure. So I watched Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
and it's part of my I don't even have to
make this excuse, because you don't need an excuse. My
friend Lisa like walked through this whole thing on Instagram
(25:39):
and I we later talked about it on the podcast
about how she gets so irritated by the word guilty
pleasure because like, why should we feel guilty for doing
exactly if it feels good? Right? And so, But I mean,
I always, for some reason I have to justify I
love me some Real Housewives. My therapist is even like
prescribed it to me as like part of my unwind.
Don't think about anything and watch it. And they went
(26:01):
to a sound bath and Cathy Hilton just straight up
fell asleep and it was it looked blissful, Like I
was actually very jealous of her the way she was
just able to just right there in the middle of
everything drift off to sleep. You mentioned sound bath, Is
that what you mean what they definitely? Yeah, sound healing
is really powerful, Like you know those big crystal bowls.
(26:22):
I've got one down there. But it's just like when
when when you're in that deep meditative space, and then
you incorporate sound. The sound waves actually have an impact
on our on our energy field because everything's energy, the
sound energy and body energy, and so the music that
we we use when we breathe and remeditate, it's just
really really impactful. Yeah, I just think of how we're
constantly evolving, and I think of me, gosh, maybe ten
(26:47):
years ago, I just wouldn't have been open to this.
And I know it because I went to a yoga
class once that had sounds happening, and I remember thinking
it was so bizarre. I mean, there was like a
gall and then afterwards they served to drink and I
was like, I'm not drinking that. I don't know what's
in it, but to me, it felt like just so bizarre.
(27:09):
And then now I'm like, I'd give anything to go
to that class. Like, wait, I see your well, I
don't know, you don't have to share this, but you're
just some things on your screen saver. So I gotta
know what's that saying says I am creating reality with
my energy in this very moment. That's when you look
at your phone, that's what you see. So your your
current phone mantra totally yeah, just reminding me of like
(27:32):
my energy is constantly creating my whole world, you know.
So if I can take those three minutes and I
can come back to my breath and I can shift
my energy, it changes my world. Like it's that impactful.
Nothing that I do is going to change my world.
But when I am in the being nout, that's everything
because we're we're sending out an energetic blueprint to reality,
(27:52):
and it's we're creating our our reality with our energy.
We are that powerful, and so it's a reminder of
that every single day. Well, I have loved sitting down
with you, Samantha, so thank you for taking the time
and just a little heads up. Samantha is actually going
to be on my Outweigh podcast, which is my podcast
(28:13):
that's dedicated to disordered eating and body image. The tagline
is a life without disordered eating, outweighs Everything. So Samantha
will be on in a couple of weeks sharing a
little bit about her story and what recovery looked like
for her. So make sure to stay tuned for that.
But yeah, in the meantime, you can find Samantha online
(28:33):
at Samantha Skelly on Instagram. And Samantha, thank you so
much for leading us through the breath work and talking
through the importance of breathing my pleasure
Okay, casa little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty,
(00:20):
it's pretty beautiful. Thank you. Laugh a little moth kicking
with four Happy Thursday. Welcome to four Things, Amy here,
and my guest today is Samantha Skelly, and she is
a breathwork expert, and you might be asking yourself what
(00:42):
is breathwork? Well, Samantha says that it's going to be
bigger than meditation and yoga. And I know that there
was a time in my life where I was asking
what is yoga and what in the world is meditation?
But those two things are definitely more mainstream now and
apparently that's where breath work is headed. And I'm thankful
that Samantha is our guest today because I think we
(01:07):
need to be doing a little extra breathing this week.
We need any extra tools we can have to help
with stress and anxiety and keeping our our mind, body, spirit,
connection healthy because it's been a heavy week. I feel it,
particularly as a Texan, but I think no matter where
you live, you're affected when shooting like this happens. It
(01:30):
is absolutely tragic, and I just know I have a
lot of listeners from Texas. I have a lot of
listeners that are in Austin. I saw an article specifically
calling Austinites to donate blood if you can. I'm sure
other cities in Texas are doing the same thing. I
know if you just go to we are blood dot
org and find more info. But that's a way you
(01:50):
can help out and it doesn't cost you anything but
your time and your blood. Again, we are blood dot
org and there's other organizations I know you can donate
directly too, if that's what you would like to do.
But I also just want to quickly mention the Texas
Forever Fund through the Shop Forward and can't see apparel
with a hundred percent of the proceeds from each Texas
(02:11):
Forever item going to support the victims, families and survivors.
And I can speak to the items saying that they
are really well made and there are items that you're
going to have forever. If Texas means something to you,
then this could be a special item that you can
have for a long time and whenever you wear it,
you can say a prayer. It's a reminder of these
families and all the loved ones that were impacted by
(02:35):
the shooting there this week. Just as a way to
remember them, and it can be a special gift, and
it's where you're you're shopping with a purpose. And then
there's a way to even donate at the end as well,
Like if you're checking out, you can add an additional donation,
so a hundred percent of the proceeds and then a
percent of that donation will go to these victims, families
and the survivors. So the shop forward dot com Slash
(02:58):
Texas is where you can see the items. But again
that's just one of many ways that you can try
to help out. Now, I am sitting across from Samantha
Skelly at least on Zoom. That is, Samantha is coming
to us from San Diego and she's a self made
entrepreneur and she has an entire wellness company based on breathwork.
(03:22):
It's called Pause. And I'm just so excited to have
you on, Samantha, because I breathe here and there and
I know that it's important, but I actually am very
curious as to how you even got into breathwork and
what is that? And I know you're even going to
guide us through some breathwork during this episode, So how
did you get into it? And why is it important? Yeah,
(03:44):
I grew up as a dancer and a child actress,
so my whole life was either on camera or on
the stage or you know, practicing in the studio with
all the mirrors, and so I had a lot of
body image issues my whole life. Like I I can
remember being like young, young, like eight years old and
being in the bathtub and just being like I hate
(04:05):
my body. Like it just it did, like all of
that kind of stuff came up, and so I really
struggled with how do I get how do I get
out of this? And I did all the things that
I was, you know, supposed to do, all of the
mindset things, and you know me, I tried meditating. I
couldn't meditate because I didn't want to be in my
body and my mind was going a little the place.
I tried journaling all of these things. And this one
(04:27):
year I was I was reading Elizabeth gil Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love,
and she talked about how she went to Bali and
I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna do that and
maybe I can help my eating disorder, my body image
issues through going to Bally and like seeing what's over
there because nothing, nothing in Canada is working. I was
living in Canada at the time. I'm Canadian, and so
I was at this meditation studio and one of the
(04:48):
classes on on the board was breathwork, and I kind
of read that. I'm like, breathwork, like, isn't that just breathing?
Like I'm so confused what that is, but it was
the only class that was available at the time I
was there. So anyway, I walked up into this room
and I opened the door and everyone's lying down with
pillows and blankets, and there's this guy who kind of
looks like Jesus dressed and all white, and I'm like,
(05:08):
what is about to happen? Like it was just like
the weirdest scene. I'm like, what did I just walk into?
And he came up to me, this Jesus looking dude,
and he was like, are you ready to go on
the ride of your life? That's what he said. And
I thought to myself, that's an odd thing to say,
and I was like, what do you mean? And he's like,
you were going to feel the whole spectrum of human emotion.
And this was at a time in my life where
(05:31):
I really toggled between numbness and anxiety, Like those were
like my two resting positions. I would feel numb, so
I would over exercise and overeat, and then I would
feel like super anxious, and I just I never felt
my intuition. I never felt this place of a clear minded,
an open heart that many people talk about. So I'm like,
all right, I'll give it a shot. And he was
teaching us this breath technique, and within three minutes of
(05:55):
breathing continuously in this way, I felt, for the first
time in my whole life, my heart like really truly open.
I felt comfortable in my body for the first time
in forever. I my mind was super clear, like having
having disordered eating. It's like your your brain is streaming
thoughts constantly. And so I felt for a moment, I'm like, gosh,
(06:18):
my mind is clear, like I'm so present to what
is around me at the moment, like this is absolutely amazing.
And so it was a three hour breathwork glass. Like
we were breathing for three hours, it really felt like
fifteen minutes like time just flew by, and I really
did feel the entire spectrum of emotionality. I felt the
(06:38):
most joyous and um just loving that I had ever felt.
And then I remember myself just like crying and shedding
and releasing all of this like trauma or this like
this stignation in my body. And I didn't really know
what I was crying about, but my body was just
releasing all of this emotion that had been trapped in
there for so long. And I woke up from that
(07:00):
varience and I was like, this is wild, Like if
every human in the world knew that we were this
powerful and that we are our own drug, and we
can bring ourselves to the states of liberation and freedom
using just our breath, Like why is no one talking
about that? Right? So that was that happened years ago.
So I found that when I was twenty and I
(07:22):
healed myself through my eating disorder because I knew how
to connect back into my body. And when I was
back in my body, I can discern the difference between
what is an emotional hunger cue what is a physical
hunger cue. And I could honor my body in a
way that I had never done before, you know, like
my body was like this punching bag for so long.
And so as the years went on, I came back
(07:45):
to my breath like every day in every way to
help heal my anxiety, help heal stress, get out of
like the monkey mind, and back into truth. And you know,
even today as an entrepreneur, as you know, there's like
many things I go wrong all the time, and so
coming back to my breath to be like nothing's actually wrong,
it's all good, and using my breath to really feel
(08:06):
into my intuition has been such an incredible gift. And
so I started pause breathwork about four years ago now
and it's just been it's been a true gift bringing
people back into their body through breath. So, Samantha, I'm
big on the four seven eight method where you breathe
in for four, hold for seven, out for eight, and
I just kind of do that five times, and you know,
and then I move on. So what can we do
(08:27):
to introduce breath work into our daily lives? So there's
two types of breath work. There's breath work for relaxation,
which is very much of what you talked about, like
in for four hold whatever it is where we're still
in our conscious mind. So we call that integrative breath work.
This is the type of breath work that you can
do while you're washing the dishes while you're vacuuming, while
(08:48):
your bolden laundry. It's the type of breath work that
keeps you in the conscious mind. Now there's also called
breath work for transformation. So this is where we are breathing,
and what's happening is we're releasing the cognitive mind and
we're dropping deeper into our body. We're changing the pH
levels in our in our blood so that we're looking
(09:08):
at life through a new lens. Were not as identified
with our survival strategy, right, because if we're not connected
to our body, the view that we have of the
world is through our survival strategies, right through the lens
of what's going to kill me, that feeling of like
always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so
because of that, we're chronically driving our sympathetic nervous system,
(09:30):
which is our fight and fight and flight. We're not
going to get eaten by a tiger, but we fear
life in that way, right, and it can for some
people it's really intense anxiety. For other people it's low
grade anxiety. But with the breath helps us do as
it helps us release that survival strategy, drop deeper into
our heart to create more coherence between the energy of
our heart and the energy of our brain. Does that
(09:52):
make sense. So there's two types. So for for people.
The the session that I did in Bali was breathwork
for transformation. So I again, it was three hours. I
thought it was fifteen minutes. Like, my my brain was
not on I was so in my body. And because
I was so in my body, I wasn't caught up
in my survival strategies, which allowed me to be present,
which allowed me to open my heart. Like if we
(10:14):
are in our survival strategies, it's actually it feels so
dangerous to open our heart. But when we open our hearts,
that's when we get to see life in a new way.
That's when we get to really acknowledge that we are
actually safe, we were everything is going to be okay,
We're good. And so when we breathe in this way
and we get into the body, it really helps us
(10:34):
create that coherence between the heart and the brain. So
if you've never heard of breathwork before and you're like,
I want to just experience with what Sam is talking about,
the best way to do it is in the morning
and honestly, just start with three minutes. If you wake
up in the morning and sit in your chair or
even do this in bed um, whatever feels better to you,
(10:55):
and just do it for three minutes. What you're gonna
do is you're gonna begin to open up your window
of tolerance for how much you can feel. So for
most people, they're very disconnected from their body. They don't
really want to feel much, right, And so when we
don't allow ourselves to feel the pain of the human experience,
we also cut off our ability to experience joy. And
(11:17):
so what the breath helps us do is just really
get used to feeling deeper into our body. And so
the breath work pattern is called the try act of breath.
And so when you wake up in the morning, come
into like a comfortable position, and we want to do
a three part breath. So it's two breaths in through
the mouth and one breath out, So we're breathing the
(11:40):
energy into the belly first, up into the chest, and
out through the mouth. So the pacing is a little
bit like this. Then what we want to do after
three minutes, take a deep breath in through the knows
(12:02):
hold at the top for as long as you can
and release the breath. And what that's going to do
is it's going to clear out a lot of the
energy that you've kicked up in your body from dreaming.
Because when we're dreaming, we're thinking about all of these
different things. That's why sometimes you can wake up and
already feel anxious because your brain, in your mind was
in so many other realities and things that aren't real.
(12:24):
And so coming back to the breath in the morning
reminds the system like, we are safe, we are here,
we are grounded. It's a new day, and let's start
off on this energy rather than bringing forth energy from
our dreams. So for someone who is brand new and
you don't order to start start with that, the only
(12:53):
time you don't want to do it is when you're driving.
So don't do that when you're driving for those new Yeah, okay,
just because it can create a little bit of dizziness
in the system. So if you're listening to the show,
just don't do it while you're driving. But any other
time perfect, when you're washing the dishes, when you're going
for a walk, whatever it is. Yeah, it really doesn't matter.
And then the more that you get used to that
(13:14):
energy being in your body. Then you can do five
minutes and then eventually lying down and doing it for
like ten fifteen minutes. I mean the first one doing
it for three hours. That was so crazy, Like I
definitely don't recommend doing that, But a twenty minute, continual
connected breath work session, you're going to feel really amazing.
So for some people, their publarity wondering how in the
(13:36):
world am I gonna I can barely find the time
to do all this other stuff that I'm trying to
do in a day and fit in whether I'm doing
yoga or my workout or going on a walk or
I feel like oftentimes we prioritize and you coming from
you know, a body image, eating, disordered, disordered past, right,
like you can understand my thinking of For me, it
(13:57):
was like if I don't get to the gym and
I don't do this specific work out for this long
and then like I haven't done my workout for the day,
and I'm just using that as an example. For someone
else listening, it might be something else that is their priority.
But what I love about being in recovery is I
learned that taking care of myself can look a lot
of different ways. It doesn't mean an hour long gym
(14:18):
session or an hour and a half long yoga class.
It means just making space for whatever I need that day.
And so I would say that if what you need
for the day is thirty minutes of breathing, once you
got to that point, then that could be what you
did to try to take care of yourself that day.
But I could just see where it's like daunting for
(14:40):
people to try to add breathwork to their schedule for sure. Yeah,
and this is where the integrative breathwork is really powerful
because we can do two things at once, like what
are you doing anyways that you can bring breath to
to make the moment more beautiful? Uh right, Okay, yes,
And you know I think this is this is a
really really good point. It's like sometimes I think personal
(15:00):
development can turn into this like never ending checklist that
we have to do all the things, and if we
don't do all the things, and we, you know, we
like feel bad for ourselves. And to your point, like
self care can look like staring at the wall for
five minutes just because that's what feels good in that moment,
Like it looks it doesn't have to look like anything
as long as how we're feeling when we're doing it
(15:22):
feels like liberation and feels like we're taking a pause, right,
And so the structure around how it needs to look
needs to go out the window and just come to
each present moment and really asking ourselves, what do I
need right now? Maybe it's three breaths, and then it's
carrying on with your day. Maybe it's breathing as you're
unpacking the groceries, or you're changing a diaper, or you're
doing whatever. As long as we're bringing presents to what
(15:45):
we're doing, that's not actually creating any extra time, but
it's impacting the moment and our nervous system in such
a beautiful way because when we bring presents and we
get into our heart, it just kind of all relaxes.
And this is how we can bring mindfulness into everything
that we're doing without creating extra time. Because I can
feel really daunting, especially for busy moms with lots of
(16:07):
jobs and all that kind of stuff. And I saw
in your Instagram stories. I was scrolling through your Instagram
today and you had posted sometimes a deep breath and
a loud scream is the perfect remedy. Times that's it,
you know, like we don't have to over complicate these things.
You know, if we can really look at children and
how fluid they are with their emotionality. You know, one
(16:28):
minute they're screaming, the next minute they're so joyful if
they're responding to what the body needs in that moment.
And sometimes I'm like, dang, i just need to scream
my head off, and so I'll jump in my car
and I'll just go down the one on one highway
and I'll just put on a loud song and just
scream my head off because i just need to release
the energy that's in my system. I come back and
I'm like, I'm feeling great now, you know. It's like
(16:49):
it's just like being more almost like primal about how
we self care is so much more important than doing
it right or having like the long list of things.
And yeah, sometimes scream breathing is a good thing, you know. Yeah.
I mean I have done my fair share of screaming,
for sure, but in a healthy way. And I've even
(17:10):
given that permission to my kids at times too. I'm like, hey,
do we need to go in the backyard and like,
you know, throw some ice cubes at the concrete, or
we have those like arballs. They're on Amazon, but they're
really squashy and you can just slam them on the
ground and just that act of like something about the
sensation and sensory and helping reset everything, because I think
(17:33):
if you're a parent, when you're raising any type of child,
that's when you know something like fight flight freeze. If
you're paying attention, you'll notice your children doing you may
not know. You'll notice it in kids before you notice
it yourself. And if I'm in fight flight freeze or
I'm not in my rational brain, but yet I'm the
(17:54):
one that's supposed to be making the rational, smart decisions,
you know. And so I think it's this certain level
of accountability to make sure what are the tools that
you have in your toolbox or what are you keeping
in your back pocket for those days that you are disregulated,
So that way you can like bust out a breathing
(18:14):
exercise and then help regulate yourself maybe before you have
to go into a meeting or before you have to
make some big decision, or before you have to have
a tough conversation. All this to say, like I think
it's just pretty fascinating that's you know, we can breathe
ourselves through certain things now to an extent. I'm not
saying this is a cure all for everything, but it
is a tool absolutely, And I think any amount of
(18:37):
time that we steal our awareness back from the like
attention economy where everyone is trying to steal our attention
all the time, like even one minute of Okay, I'm
gonna pause, I'm going to come back to me, Like,
the ripple effect of that is extraordinary. It's absolutely, it's
absolutely amazing. And you know, we were created with with
this incredible tool, the breath, to regulate our nervous system,
(18:59):
to take us from that sympathetic to the parasympathetic and
somewhere along the line of development, and we've just forgotten
how powerful we are, Like we have the ability to
feel exactly how we desire to feel, fulfilled, connected, loved
through our breath. And we're living in a world now
where we're we're searching for that in places that are empty,
(19:21):
in places that are not giving us the return on investment,
if you will, And so it's just so beautiful to
bring people back into the breath to realize that you
are your your your own drug, and we can rest,
We can allow fulfillment and happiness to be our arresting
position rather than anxiety and stress. But again, we live
in a world where we are so easily put into
(19:42):
that position. We feel like we're falling behind, or the
world crumbling or things are moving too fast, and they are,
and so it's up to us to have the self
awareness to go, Okay, I'm going to disconnect from the matrix.
I'm going to come back into my heart. I'm going
to allow myself to feel as good as possible right now,
because that's the gift that I give to the world.
You know, I tell my is all the time. Your
vibration is your contribution for people who are like, what's
(20:04):
my purpose? What do I do? It's like, if you
feeling the best you possibly can, that's your contribution to
the world. When you can show up as your best self,
when you can show up with a clear mind and
open heart, feeling so connected and present, that's the greatest
gift you can possibly give to the world. Well, I
was thankful a minute ago when you kind of took
us through what it sounds like, and I want you
(20:25):
to do it one more time. So people don't have
to rewind, like we can hear it now. And then
people the rest of this episode, they can maybe breathe
while they're listening, as long as they're not driving. But
I want you to lead us through the proper way again. Okay,
let's do it all right, everyone, closing your eyes, dropping
your shoulders, and just taking a moment and scanning your
(20:48):
body from head to toe and just noticing what feels
tight and what feels open, just observing the body. That's it,
and just allowing yourself to choose to claim what you
(21:12):
desire to feel. Maybe it's more love, maybe it's more connection.
And now, when you're ready, let's start the breath together.
M m m m. Keeping that breath moving in and
(21:48):
out of the body, into the belly, up into the chest,
out through the mouth. M yea, letting the breath do
the work. You're safe to feel, you're safe to release,
(22:13):
focusing on breathing in what you desire to feel and
exhaling what no longer serves m that's it. And now
(22:41):
when you're ready, taking a deep breath in through the nose,
holding at the top and as you're holding your breath,
just feeling the energy reorganized, noticing the clarity in your mind,
(23:05):
the openness in your heart, dropping down, releasing that breath
when you're ready, now taking a moment and just scanning
the body, noticing the lightness you feel, the clarity in
(23:26):
the mind, and now when you're ready, opening up your eyes,
coming back into the space. Are we gonna So obviously
if we're doing other things, we can still do that breathing,
but with our eyes open totally. And there's other breathwork
(23:48):
patterns that we have as well. That's just one of them.
That one is more of an energizing one, Okay, it's
more activating, and then there's ones that are more grounding.
So for instances literally in through the nose, out through
the mo of, letting that exhale be longer than the inhale.
Something as simple as that is beautiful if you're walking
doing like the bliss breath, which is just in and
(24:10):
out through the mouth, snapping the belly in. So depending
on what you desire to feel, whether it's more of
a grounding if you have a lot of anxiety like
bringing yourself back into the body, or if you want
to feel more alive and more energized doing one of
the energizing ones. There's five different breath patterns that we use, okay,
so that would be on the pause app where people
(24:31):
could find that's right, the five different ones. Okay, So yes,
depending on what you're doing, might depend on which exercise
you choose to do. And then what about music, Like
is it okay to listen to things while you're breathing
or is it better to just try to be in silence?
I love music, and music when we're in that really
open place really has an impact on our energy. Yeah,
(24:54):
when we're when our energy fields open and there's like
beautiful music playing, the music actually has an impact on
the energy that we feel. That's why sound Healing is
really popular and beautiful. And so the music that we
choose on the app goes with the outcome that people want.
So you you can pick what you desire to do
on the app versus like in time, so whether you
have three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, twenty five minutes,
(25:16):
or forty five minutes, and then you can also pick
whether you want grounding or energizing, and choose from like
hundreds of different tracks depending on what you desire to feel.
But yeah, music is such an important piece of it
for sure. So I watched Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
and it's part of my I don't even have to
make this excuse, because you don't need an excuse. My
friend Lisa like walked through this whole thing on Instagram
(25:39):
and I we later talked about it on the podcast
about how she gets so irritated by the word guilty
pleasure because like, why should we feel guilty for doing
exactly if it feels good? Right? And so, But I mean,
I always, for some reason I have to justify I
love me some Real Housewives. My therapist is even like
prescribed it to me as like part of my unwind.
Don't think about anything and watch it. And they went
(26:01):
to a sound bath and Cathy Hilton just straight up
fell asleep and it was it looked blissful, Like I
was actually very jealous of her the way she was
just able to just right there in the middle of
everything drift off to sleep. You mentioned sound bath, Is
that what you mean what they definitely? Yeah, sound healing
is really powerful, Like you know those big crystal bowls.
(26:22):
I've got one down there. But it's just like when
when when you're in that deep meditative space, and then
you incorporate sound. The sound waves actually have an impact
on our on our energy field because everything's energy, the
sound energy and body energy, and so the music that
we we use when we breathe and remeditate, it's just
really really impactful. Yeah, I just think of how we're
constantly evolving, and I think of me, gosh, maybe ten
(26:47):
years ago, I just wouldn't have been open to this.
And I know it because I went to a yoga
class once that had sounds happening, and I remember thinking
it was so bizarre. I mean, there was like a
gall and then afterwards they served to drink and I
was like, I'm not drinking that. I don't know what's
in it, but to me, it felt like just so bizarre.
(27:09):
And then now I'm like, I'd give anything to go
to that class. Like, wait, I see your well, I
don't know, you don't have to share this, but you're
just some things on your screen saver. So I gotta
know what's that saying says I am creating reality with
my energy in this very moment. That's when you look
at your phone, that's what you see. So your your
current phone mantra totally yeah, just reminding me of like
(27:32):
my energy is constantly creating my whole world, you know.
So if I can take those three minutes and I
can come back to my breath and I can shift
my energy, it changes my world. Like it's that impactful.
Nothing that I do is going to change my world.
But when I am in the being nout, that's everything
because we're we're sending out an energetic blueprint to reality,
(27:52):
and it's we're creating our our reality with our energy.
We are that powerful, and so it's a reminder of
that every single day. Well, I have loved sitting down
with you, Samantha, so thank you for taking the time
and just a little heads up. Samantha is actually going
to be on my Outweigh podcast, which is my podcast
(28:13):
that's dedicated to disordered eating and body image. The tagline
is a life without disordered eating, outweighs Everything. So Samantha
will be on in a couple of weeks sharing a
little bit about her story and what recovery looked like
for her. So make sure to stay tuned for that.
But yeah, in the meantime, you can find Samantha online
(28:33):
at Samantha Skelly on Instagram. And Samantha, thank you so
much for leading us through the breath work and talking
through the importance of breathing my pleasure
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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