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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
I have so much evidence that if you run a business like a man, you will get results. I have evidence for that. I built a $2,700,000 company 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 in my heart that there's another way.
Kate Northrup:Oh my goodness. Do I have a firecracker for you today? I got to sit down in Carlsbad, California with my friend Samantha Skelly, and she is the founder of Pause Breathwork. And we talked about the story of why she overnight closed down a 7 figure business that was wildly successful to start something completely brand new, essentially because God told her to. Now, Pause Breathwork has helped thousands and thousands of people around the world tap into the power of rewiring themselves and healing themselves on a deep level through breathwork.
Kate Northrup:And also, she has certified thousands and thousands of people to spread this methodology around the world. And Samantha is hilarious. She is really good at business. We talk about feminine business principles. We talk about what was different between her old business and her new business, how she runs a business to support her life, what her dreams are next, and so much more.
Kate Northrup:She is absolutely a woman to watch in the wellness, personal development, and business space, and I am so excited to share our conversation with you. Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host Kate Northrup, and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups.
[voiceover]:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand.
Samantha Skelly:Hello. Hello. Thanks for being here.
Kate Northrup:Oh my gosh. In your studio?
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's such a pleasure. Feels so happy.
Kate Northrup:Ask you questions in your studio.
Samantha Skelly:Oh my goodness. Anytime. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:So I just wanna start off with some appreciation, which is that when you and I I mean, you and I were aware of each other for a long time because we have the same publisher
Samantha Skelly:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:Or did. Yeah. Yeah. And but we really connected, I think, in 2021, and I don't exactly remember why or how. But I do remember a tremendous sense of generosity from you.
Kate Northrup:Like, I was making this app that I never made, and I knew you had an app, and you just were like, I'll totally hop on the phone with you. And I was like, wow, this woman barely knows me and has nothing to gain from hopping on the phone with me, and I was so touched by that. So I just want to say thank you for your generous heart.
Samantha Skelly:Thank you for that acknowledgement.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, not everyone's like that. You know? And I think it comes from when folks are able to be endless, and sometimes life is just intense and there's too many things going on, so I would never hold a grudge against somebody if they weren't, but at the same time, I think when I find that in someone, it comes from a real true tap root into abundance, because there's a real sense of, well, since there's more than enough, why would I not share?
Samantha Skelly:I love it. I love seeing people win. You know? I just love it. I love the game of business.
Samantha Skelly:I love women who have amazing missions. I just love epic people doing cool shit in the world, and if I can support that in any way, I'm I'm always here for that.
Kate Northrup:Well, thank you.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. Thank you.
Kate Northrup:And even though I never made the app, I did feel like I made a new friend.
Samantha Skelly:It was a great idea.
Kate Northrup:It's still a great idea.
Samantha Skelly:It's so good.
Kate Northrup:Some day. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, who knows?
Samantha Skelly:Maybe when we're, like, 80 Maybe we'll do, we'll, build this app together. I don't know.
Kate Northrup:I love that. I love that. So I was listening to you talk about when you overnight closed down your million dollar business around emotional eating. And that was bold, that was courageous, and I would like to hear more details about What happened? The beforehand, we'll go on the journey, but I know that you were running this emotional eating business, you went from being a waitress, and then overnight you started this business, and it took off fast in a big way.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And how many years did you run that?
Samantha Skelly:Oh gosh,
Kate Northrup:Four. Four years? Yeah. Okay. So you built that business to over a million in revenue
Samantha Skelly:2.44 When I shut it down, it was doing 2,700,000 at a 43% profit margin. That's freaking incredible. And I'm also like, bye. Wow. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:You like, the biggest question is like, why didn't you sell it? And we can talk about that later.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Yeah. Maybe we will. Yeah. Why didn't you?
Samantha Skelly:Here's my this was my reasoning at the time. I I was like, it's a coaching business. It's a service based business. I can probably get a two 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 and sell it and find a buyer was too energetically expensive.
Samantha Skelly:Right. I'm like, I can just pour this into paused breath work and make $5,000,000 Oh, super quickly.
Kate Northrup:Right. Because generally with an acquisition like that, they get your email list, they get your social media, and then you have to start again versus like, oh, surprise. Yeah. Breath, we're doing breath
Samantha Skelly:work I just like woke up on him like, we're doing breath work.
Kate Northrup:We're just like, so my style. It's like, oh, I'm the money woman. Oh, nope. Now we're talking about periods. Hello.
Kate Northrup:And my husband's like, oh, okay.
Samantha Skelly: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 I think personal branding, especially today, is so valuable because you can make those pivots. And not everybody, but a lot of people will follow you.
Samantha Skelly:But, yeah, it was a really wild story. I was living in Vancouver. I was working at as a waitress at the keg, and I just remember people coming in and sitting down and having their business meetings, and the feeling inside of me is I should be on the other side of the table. I don't wanna be here serving tables. I wanna be in these meetings talking about changing the world and helping people, and I had so much energy to build a business.
Samantha Skelly:And I remember when the restaurant was quiet, I would go hide behind the ice machine where, like, no one could see me. There was, like, this crack. It was, like, this big, and I would, like, scoot my butt behind, and I would squat down behind the ice machine so no one could see me, and I would take out my server pad, and I would just keep I would write my business plans. I would write my business plans. I'd write what it was gonna be, how I was gonna do it, and I just had this excitement to help women who struggled with emotional eating and body image issues, because that was my story.
Samantha Skelly:I was a dancer. I was an actress. I worked as a stunt double on Smallville for four years, and my whole life was in front of a camera. And I just went through a lot of body image issues and found breath work. That's what eventually got me out of it.
Samantha Skelly:But at the time, I I was like, I just wanna help women who are struggling with this because it's it was so important to me, and that was the mission that was on my life at the time. So I ended up hiring a coach and paying 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 year or something like I
Kate Northrup:Where did that come from? Did you just put it on?
Samantha Skelly:Was a saver. Was like, I worked I worked as a Sun double on Smallville, made good money doing that. I worked as, like, extra like, extras extras and did background work. I had, like, little I was on a show called Aliens in America. I had, like, a small little part on that.
Samantha Skelly:Any money that I got from dancing, put it away. Any money that I got from like, my first job was I was 12. I worked at this place called the Midnight Ferry where I would dress up as a fairy, and I'd run children's birthday parties, and I would just save my money. Did not spend my money on anything. Parents are really financially smart.
Samantha Skelly:We never had a lot, but they were very smart with what they had. And they were very smart with you call it being a steward of money. They're very amazing stewards of money. There was never like they weren't crazy millionaires. But they made enough money to have a beautiful life.
Samantha Skelly:And they were really smart about saving, 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 $10,000 that we were going to give to your college or university. I'm like, well, fuck that.
Samantha Skelly:I'm not going to that. So can I take that? And I used that $10,000 And I hired that business coach. So they gave me 10,000 and then the other $26,000 came from me. You had saved.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. And so it lit a fire in me. I'm like, I have to make this work. Like, I don't have a plan b. I am I am doing this.
Samantha Skelly:This is my mission. It's called Hungry for Happiness. That name came to me. I was so proud of it. I still am proud of that name.
Kate Northrup:It's a great name.
Samantha Skelly:Right? I know. And I hired this coach, and I just started sharing content. I would get like, these videos are still on my personal Facebook page. Like, you can literally go back to 2014 or 2015 and see these videos of me just talking about emotional eating and solving problems.
Samantha Skelly:And anytime anyone would comment, I would reach out to her, and I'd be like, hey, can I help you? Da da da. And that's just how I did it. That's how I built my business.
Kate Northrup:And did this coach tell you to do it that way? Mhmm. Yeah. So interesting. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I mean, that's really obvious, but literally, as you're describing this, wouldn't have occurred to me. I'm loving this right now.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. He's like, it's all about relationships. Right. Business is all about relationships. So just So
Kate Northrup:just reach out.
Samantha Skelly:Just reach out and say, hey. How can I support you? Do wanna hop on a call tomorrow? That's what I would say all the time. Hey.
Samantha Skelly:Thank you for so for commenting on my video. I'm super excited to help you. Are you free tomorrow at three? I would just go in for the kill. Are you free tomorrow at three?
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. Great. What's your phone number? I would call them hey, Susie. And then I would have my sales script.
Samantha Skelly:What do you envision? What are you struggling with? How long have you been struggling with this for? And I would literally go through this sales script, and I would close them. Close them.
Samantha Skelly:Close them.
Kate Northrup:These were for one on one
Samantha Skelly: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 really busy doing this. And then I created a program called The Society, which was a six month group coaching program, which hundreds of women have gone through thousands, actually, now. And that was it.
Samantha Skelly:That's all I did. And I went from making $30,000 a year as a waitress to the very next year doing $300,000 a year just from no ads, no nothing, just me getting on Facebook Live and just sharing. And built Hungry For Happiness and just kept running the business and sharing about emotional eating. And I there was this there was this little boutique across the street from where I was a waitress. And one day after work, I just went in there.
Samantha Skelly:I'm like, hey. I'm like, what do you guys do with the space when you close the doors? And they're like, nothing. And I'm like, can I run events here? And they're like, what do you mean?
Samantha Skelly:I'm like, well, if we move all the clothes to the side and we put some chairs here, we could do these events. And it's kinda like a win win because I'm gonna bring in a bunch of women who will shop here, and you're gonna give me the space for free, and it's gonna be amazing. And they're like, okay, fine. So every single Thursday, I would run this workshop called What Are You Actually Hungry For? What Are Hungry For?
Samantha Skelly:And I just it was very grassroots, and it was very just like just just did the thing,
Kate Northrup:you know? So cool, and what I love about this, we're gonna get to you then overnight shutting down that wildly successful business in a minute, but for anyone listening who has a business dream, I really want you to hear that it doesn't have to be that complicated. Mm-mm. You know, like I started in very similar ways other than I would've never occurred to me to the Facebook thing, and I started before that was even really I a started before social media was used for business, but So cool.
Samantha Skelly:So cool. I love that. Anyway,
Kate Northrup:but similar in terms of grassroots, what does business require? A human who has a problem that you know how to solve.
Samantha Skelly:That's it.
Kate Northrup:That's it. And I was just talking to Alyssa Nobrega, and she also started her business and grew it to 300 k in profit in that first year without an online presence
Samantha Skelly:I know.
Kate Northrup:Particularly. And it sounds like similar, so I also just want to say it doesn't have to require all the, you know,
Samantha Skelly:I find oftentimes we think it requires that or we hide behind that. Mhmm. Funnels and this and that. It's like we create complication. We're like, I don't know how to do it.
Samantha Skelly:I'll tell you how to do it. Go on the freaking street corner.
Kate Northrup:Put a sign up. Find a human.
Samantha Skelly: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 for money.
Kate Northrup:It's literally way for them to pay you, which is very easy.
Samantha Skelly:It's literally that simple. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:So at what point in this journey did you find breath work? And how did that happen?
Samantha Skelly:So I found breath work before I started Hungry for Happiness. So when I was still struggling with an eating disorder, I was living in Vancouver at the time. I had just gotten back from my world travels. I traveled through to, like, 44 countries on my own. And I because I didn't wanna go to university, so I was like, I'm gonna create my education through travel.
Samantha Skelly:So I just began traveling and learning, and and I was really I was struggling with body image. I was struggling with disordered eating, and I I went home for a quick stint, and I was in Vancouver, and I was reading the book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Shout out to her. And she talks about going to Bali, and she found this medicine man, and she he changed her life, you know? And so I'm like, I'm gonna go find that guy.
Samantha Skelly:So I called my mom.
Kate Northrup:Taking this book Yeah. Really literally.
Samantha Skelly:I'm taking it very literally. I'm gonna go find the guy, and I did. I called my mom, and I'm like, mom, I'm gonna go to Bali. She's like, what do mean? I'm like, I need to go find this guy who I read a book, my own.
Samantha Skelly:And she's like, okay. So I I booked a one way ticket to Bali. Oh my god. I hopped on a scooter. I meandered through the streets of Bali with a literal map trying to find this guy and got to his house, and he so funny.
Samantha Skelly:He came out. He He had all these sticks 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 starts doing the acupuncture thing on my feet, trying to figure out what's wrong with me. And he's like, get up.
Samantha Skelly:And he just taps my head, he goes, you think too much, you need to go meditate. And I'm like, I hate meditate I hated meditation at this time because I 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 was like, oh, okay. So I went to go to this meditation class at this school in Ubud called the Yoga Barn, for those of you who are familiar with that. And there is no meditation class, but there was a breath work class.
Samantha Skelly:And this was fifteen years ago. This was breath work is so cool now. Everyone's doing it. This was not then. I was like, what is breath work?
Samantha Skelly:And there's, like, that divine feeling inside of me that's like, just go do that. So I I did, and I that's when I found breath work, and I was just blown away that we had the ability to heal our trauma through our breath. Like, why did they not teach that in school? Ugh. Why why did we spend time finding the x and trying to figure out the fucking math problem?
Samantha Skelly:I still don't know how to do that. Like, so
Kate Northrup:Oh my god. No. For Chad GPT is the only way I can do math. I anything I need to figure out math wise, I ask Chad GPT. It's the best.
Samantha Skelly:It's so good.
Kate Northrup:Anyway, but I Chad GPT cannot help us heal our trauma. Well, at
Samantha Skelly:least At least not right.
Kate Northrup:Well, actually that's like a whole other conversation which we're not having today, but okay. So you go and
Samantha Skelly:So I go, and I I found breath work, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, for the first time in my whole life, I feel like I'm in my body. And I I could feel
Kate Northrup:And like it felt good to be
Samantha Skelly:in your body. Gosh. Yes. I was like reunited with this intelligence. I was reunited with this like power.
Samantha Skelly:This feeling of like like true self love. Mhmm. You know? Like not I'm gonna take care of myself, but like I actually love myself. Well, it's also my experience with breath work.
Samantha Skelly:Of course,
Kate Northrup:I don't know what yours was in that moment, but there's almost an experience like when you led the breath work, was extraordinary at Kathy Heller's Mastermind a couple of months ago, there is a sense of disillusion of the self and disillusion of the lie of separation. So it's self love, but it also just feels like I become love itself.
Samantha Skelly:A 100%. There's no difference. We realize we are love, that's all we are. Yeah. We remember that.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. And it's this deep somatic remembrance of all I am is love and everything else is just an illusion.
Kate Northrup:Ugh. So good. So yummy. Okay. So you found that, and then it and it was part of your life then for several years.
Kate Northrup:Was the precipitating event where you were like, okay. Gonna shut down this wildly successful business and pivot to breath work. Yeah. Right now.
Samantha Skelly:Great question.
Kate Northrup:What
Samantha Skelly:happened? So found breath work in Bali, healed my eating disorder within three months because I could finally tell the difference between an emotional hunger cue and a physical hunger cue. I'm like, oh, I just need love. Oh, I just need comfort. Oh, I just need support.
Samantha Skelly:Oh, I just need and I I I was a boss at meeting my own emotional needs, I didn't need to turn to food and overexercising and all of the things. So food became irrelevant. I didn't fix my food problem. I fixed my emotional problems. So then I began so then I emailed every single breath work guru at the time, you know, half of which are dead now, half of which are still alive, barely.
Samantha Skelly:And I was like, can you please mentor me? And they did. Like, so many people were so kind with their with their time, and I was like, I just wanna learn this because this is I believe this thing is gonna change the world. So I just became a student of breath work. I I really had no intention of starting this business.
Samantha Skelly:I healed myself through it. Then I slowly and then I started studying it. So I took every breath work certification on the market fifteen years ago. Then I started slowly incorporating incorporating it into Hungry For Happiness. It wasn't the main thing, but it was like a thing that we did at retreats.
Samantha Skelly: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's it no longer is the little thing attached to hungry for happiness. It is coming through like freaking lightning, and I'm just my body is just so activated with this energy of I need to do this mission in the world.
Samantha Skelly:Like, it was undeniable. It was it's I've never known anything so true. And so I remember being at a mastermind up in LA, and we were all circling around, and we were doing everyone was doing shares, and it got to me. And I I was just like, I don't know what to do. I I have this very successful business.
Samantha Skelly:We have amazing clients. We've done amazing things in the world. We've ran retreats all over the world. We've put thousands of people through our program. It's beautiful.
Samantha Skelly:I have a Hey House book coming out, like it's a whole thing. And I'm not in love with it. I'm not in love with it. I don't wanna talk about emotional eating anymore. I don't wanna talk about body stuff anymore.
Samantha Skelly:I don't wanna help you put down the Doritos anymore. I'm not that girl anymore. And all I wanna do is teach breath work to everyone who will listen to me. And so they were like, well, why don't you do it? And I'm like, there's such a cost financially, and then it also felt like a cost to letting the people down who invested in me.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. You know, it was sort of both. So I was driving home that night and I was back to San Diego, and I was just in my car and I was like, God, what is my like, give me give me a sign. What's my next thing? And as clear as day, I heard you need to teach the world to breathe.
Samantha Skelly:And then the very next thing I heard was it's called pause breath work. It was like I get goosebumps every single time I hear this.
Kate Northrup:I bet chills.
Samantha Skelly:It was as if someone was in the passenger seat. It was that clear. I'm like, I can't deny that. And then as I'm driving down the 5, every few minutes, there's fireworks. I'm like, what?
Samantha Skelly:What is going on here? I call my boyfriend at the time. I'm like, Kip, I'm like, is there a national holiday? Like, is something going on here? Because there's fireworks everywhere.
Samantha Skelly:He's like, I don't think so. He, like, googles it. He's like, no. There's nothing. I'm like, that is wild.
Samantha Skelly:And so that for me was like, that's a confirmation. Like, she got it. She got it. Then it gets weirder. I was woken up at 03:14AM every freaking night, channeling the mission of what it is.
Samantha Skelly:You're gonna start here. It's gonna be an app. It's gonna be a facilitator training. Then you're gonna do here, and this is the greater mission. The greater mission is this.
Samantha Skelly:And then you're gonna do this, and you need to let these people go. You need to was like there was something taken over my body, and I was just listening to it. Wild. And so I'm like, I need to be obedient to this, and I need to let go of the thing that is so familiar, and I need to let go of that because if this is coming through, there's something that's even greater still. And so I did.
Samantha Skelly:And I went into my Stripe oh, I got goosebumps all over my body. I went into my Stripe account, and I just went cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel to all of the reoccurring revenue that was coming into my business. And I was like, I'm complete with this. I love you guys so much. And then the next day, I was like, we're in
Kate Northrup:breath work. Was there any fallout with team or clients?
Samantha Skelly:Oh, yeah. And that was the part that was challenging. So my team was like, well, we work here because we want to support this mission. I was like, I get that. And I love you.
Samantha Skelly:And guess what? You have a job here at Paws, like, for sure, because you're so talented. And if you can get behind this mission, then let's go. Yeah. 70% stayed, 30% left.
Samantha Skelly:Okay. Right? And then think my clients weren't mad, they were just confused. Like, so the fallout 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.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. You know? Okay. Yeah. Wow.
Samantha Skelly:And I was like, and for me, it's like, you know how your doorway in is money, but so that we can get to the deeper stuff? My doorway just changed.
Kate Northrup:Exactly.
Samantha Skelly:You know? It's like I went from emotional eating to breath work. But at the end of the day, the core mission of making emotional suffering optional is still the mission that's on my life. Absolutely. And guess what?
Samantha Skelly:It might evolve later.
Kate Northrup:A 100%, and full permission to always keep evolving it. Yeah. For you, as someone who's deeply devoted to breath work, what does your daily practice look like? Is it always the same? Do you do breath work every single day?
Kate Northrup:Is it several times a day? What do you do?
Samantha Skelly:One of the most consistent things in my life is my breath work practice, and I've done twenty minutes a day every single day. If my environment is more chaotic and my nervous system begins to react, then I'll then I'll up it, then I'll spend more time doing it. That's just what feels really good for me. It's like I take a shower every single day from my physical body. I take a shower for my emotional health, you know?
Samantha Skelly:It's sort of just that thing that I do every single day.
Kate Northrup:And it'll always be probably like a different style based on what you're needing, maybe based on
Samantha Skelly:your cycle. Exactly. Whatever. Exactly. The type of breath work we do at Pause Breath Work is very self consent, body based self consent.
Samantha Skelly:So really so I I set my my mat up, I lie down, and I really just start by placing my hands on my heart and my belly and asking myself, like, what do you need today? Sometimes it's just breath awareness. Sometimes I'm lying on that mat and I'm not manipulating my breath at all, I'm just being aware because that's what my body is calling for. Other times, there's like, oh, there's some like energy that like I just need to move, so I'll do more of like a breath just to like get the energy going and circulating and getting myself just feeling like clear and light. In the morning, before I get out of bed, I'll just do a few breaths just to clear away, and then before I get into bed, just to clear away the day, but my typical is twenty minutes every day.
Kate Northrup:So beautiful.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:And for people listening, just so you know, of course, we'll talk about it at the end, but if you're like, oh, I want a breath work practice, Samantha has this amazing app called Pause, and she will guide you in your own practice.
Samantha Skelly:I'll be in your ear.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so from a scientific perspective, because I am a total nerd, and I didn't prepare you for this, so feel free to just be like, I don't know. But I am really curious, do you know any of the physiology and the evidence we have about what actually is happening in the body when we're doing different breath work practices in terms of why it works so well?
Samantha Skelly: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're stimulating the amygdala. It mitigates the response of the amygdala, and that's our center for emotional control.
Samantha Skelly:Right? So when we're suppressing that, we're not reacting to life. We're not in our survival. It almost like takes our survival strategies and turns them down. Mhmm.
Samantha Skelly:So when our survival strategies are turned down, and the amygdala, the response of the amygdala is mitigated, then what that does is that it gives the body another perception. It's like, oh, I was looking through the lens of my inner child or my survival strategy or my not enoughness or there's not enough or I'm not whatever whatever our thing is, it mitigates that response so it glimpses us. It gives us a glimpse of an entirely different perspective. That's the first thing. The second thing is when we're doing conscious breathing, that's continual.
Samantha Skelly:What that's also doing is it's stimulating our vagus nerve, which is allowing ourselves to really get into our parasympathetic nervous system, right, which is our rest and digest. That's where we create from. Right? So often, we are chronically in our paras or in our sympathetic nervous system because we're attached to our phones all day long. We're in comparison all day long.
Samantha Skelly:What that's doing is it's putting deep us deeper in our survival strategies. We're just kicking up this survival energy of of not enoughness scarcity all day long, and we wonder why we're not creative. We get all whatever it is. So it stimulate our vagus nerve is a really massive component of our parasympathetic system, and so the breath work allows us to stimulate that which activates the parasympathetic. And then it's shifting the pH levels of our blood.
Samantha Skelly:It's making our blood more alkaline. Right? So what happens why do we drink alkaline water? Right? Inflammation, all the things.
Samantha Skelly:So that's more of, like, the physical. Our blood is literally becoming more alkaline the more breath work that we do.
Kate Northrup:And is that because of extra oxygen?
Samantha Skelly:We're releasing everything out of the mouth. Yeah, and it's almost like we're cleansing our blood and allowing our The blood to feel more
Kate Northrup:releasing of more carbon dioxide. Exactly. So fascinating. Yeah. Okay, so for my meditation junkies who are listening, what are some of the differences?
Kate Northrup:And I also wanna know, do you meditate now? What are some of the differences in these practices? Obviously, they're wildly different.
Samantha Skelly:Well, breath work is actually under the meditation umbrella.
Kate Northrup:Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Okay.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. So breath work is meditation. Just It's like
Kate Northrup:a more
Samantha Skelly:active Yeah. When we think of meditation, we think person sitting in a lotus position and being very passive. Breath work is just a dynamic practice that is still meditation. It's just an act of meditation. And so breath work is so great for people who can't meditate.
Samantha Skelly:Totally. Right? People who have ADHD, who are hyperactive, who like or maybe you have like myself, you have an eating disorder, you have body image issues, you just can't be in your body. You're still.
Kate Northrup:A background of trauma that it doesn't feel safe to be still in your body, which is
Samantha Skelly:unbelievably common. Extremely common. And so breath work is a way where we're getting to the end result, the same result, in my opinion, a lot quicker, faster, more efficient. But it allows us to, rather than think about not thinking, the breath actually shuts off the mind for us. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:We only overthink because we under breathe.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:So when we breathe more, we think less, and then meditation is so much easier. So now I love meditation, but I'll still never meditate without breath work. Uh-huh. So if my body is calling for more meditation than breath work on that particular day, I'll do a couple minutes of breath work, just like in through the nose, out through the mouth for about three minutes, then I'll go in to my static practice of meditation. So for people who struggle with meditation, breath work is a fantastic pathway.
Kate Northrup:That's great. Yeah. Okay. I love this. And what about so I was I'm a trained yoga teacher, and we learned how to facilitate pranayama.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm. Is pranayama the same thing as breath work, or is it different?
Samantha Skelly:So pranayama is a form of breath work, but the way that we describe it at pause is there's breath work for relaxation, and then there's breath work for transformation. So pranayama falls onto the category of breath work for relaxation because we're not we're not getting out of our conscious mind. It's still very much like breath to movement. Right? We're still very much here.
Samantha Skelly:We can have a conversation. We're still sort of in this three d reality. Breathwork for transformation, after you hit that eight minute mark, goes into more of an altered state of consciousness where, again, those survival strategies are turned way down. The amygdala is activated. We don't have so many parts of us that are like, don't do this and don't think like this.
Samantha Skelly:So the the capacity for healing and letting the body heal itself goes through the roof because we don't have so many parts online. We don't have all of our survival strategies online. It's really that eight minute mark. Yeah. And we've tested this with our students, and I always forget, EKGs or EEGs?
Samantha Skelly:What is the I actually don't know. One of the things that it says on the brain. Yeah. The one that goes on the brain.
Kate Northrup:EKG is the heart.
Samantha Skelly:So it's EEG? I don't know. Something like that. I don't know.
Kate Northrup:This is
Samantha Skelly:the Not Quite Science Podcast. The thing that does your brain okay. So I went into a place here in San Diego called Wave Neuro, and I was like, can you just look at my brain as I'm breathing? And it really is that eight minute mark where the brain chemistry begins to change, the neuroplasticity begins to open up, and that's where their survival strategies begin to slow down a little So if you're doing breath work continuously under eight minutes, you're not gonna get there. So Got it.
Samantha Skelly:And that's one type of breath work. After eight minutes, we really begin to go into those altered states of consciousness.
Kate Northrup:And is it cumulative over time? So is it kind of like compounding each session, or is it like more brushing your teeth where each session you're starting fresh?
Samantha Skelly:I would say it's not one or the other. Uh-huh. And here's why. So every single breath work session is so different, and there's times where your body's just gonna give you something that you've never experienced before. So in that sense, it it's not compounding.
Samantha Skelly:For instance, you could be doing breath work for twenty years and then have a session that reminds you of a memory that you've never thought about, and then boom, you're processing it in real time. So in that sense, it doesn't compound, but it does compound in the sense of your body opens up the window of tolerance. Yeah. Meaning, the more safety we have in our system, the more we're able to heal. So if we have zero safety and zero breath, that's our starting point, and then we'll bring a little bit of breath in.
Samantha Skelly:And we do this in a very trauma informed way, especially for people who have a lot of trauma. And then we increase the safety, and then we increase the window of tolerance. And those sort of things happen at the same time. So in that regard, it does have a compound effect.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I love that. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:And are there any people who shouldn't do breath work? There's people who shouldn't do breath work without a facilitator. Got it.
Samantha Skelly:Breath work has the ability to blow people outside of their window of tolerance, have people disassociated, have people relive traumas that they didn't even know that they had. It's a very intense practice. And so when I see facilitators facilitating breath work, and their cues are like, harder, go, breathe, I'm like, that is dumb.
Kate Northrup:It's really scary.
Samantha Skelly:It's irresponsible, it's scary and it's dumb. Breathwork is a very intense practice, and it needs to be done in a very trauma informed way with the body being the consent. You know? It's like, I'm never gonna tell someone to breathe harder. I'm gonna say listen to your body.
Samantha Skelly:If your if you have the capacity today to bring in more energy, go ahead and do that. Yeah. If your body is really like you're hitting up your limit, stay there or just stop doing the breath and just soak it in. Transformation we don't need intensity for transformation. Mhmm.
Samantha Skelly:So it's not about, oh, the harder I go, the more I'm gonna transform. It's not that at all. Those two things are not correlated. In fact, some of the more gentle breath work sessions are actually the best. Everyone's energy system is very different as well, and so and everyone's history of trauma is very different.
Samantha Skelly:So we really have to be experts at our own body and really feel into what is best for us. Done with a facilitator, if someone has a high level of trauma, it's the best thing that we could do, but we have to go slow. Mhmm. And we have to be so mindful of the body's capacity to hold energy. Amazing.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Thank you for that. What about when you're pregnant?
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. So same thing with your with your when you're pregnant. Breathwork's beautiful, but gentle. Uh-huh. Different kinds.
Samantha Skelly:It's like you're it's like you'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 never been pregnant, so it's hard for me to speak to this as I'm teaching it, but I'm imagining. Yeah. There there needs to be a high level of attunement to the other being that is inside of you. Yeah. And not overriding that and going into ego Mhmm.
Samantha Skelly:But just being with the dyad of the baby. So we either teach for pregnancy just breath awareness, because you can you can go you can go places with that, or it'd be like a very gentle, what we call halo active without the forced exhale, just let the breath drop out of your mouth Mhmm. But still being like very connected to your baby. Amazing. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:I'll do more once I'm pregnant, I'll roll out some stuff
Kate Northrup:for Yeah,
Samantha Skelly:which is
Kate Northrup:so exciting. Okay. Good. I heard you talk about this pivot you made where it was like, okay, we're doing emotional eating, now we're doing breath work. That you really had made a commitment to run that business in a different way, in a feminine way, in a way that wasn't giving away your power, in a way that wasn't assuming that other people knew better than you did.
Kate Northrup:And I'm curious, I wanna hear more about that. I wanna hear about that crossroads and maybe some of the decisions you had made in your past business iteration that led you to realizing you needed to do things in a different way. And then also what practices you brought in, what new forms of leadership, new ways of running things you brought in that you still practice today as you run your wildly successful company?
Samantha Skelly:This is a great question. Yeah. Because that was another big, big thing. Not only was I not wanting to teach the material, the way I was running the company was I hired all male mentors. I had, you know, they there was no attunement to the feminine body.
Samantha Skelly:There was no attunement to cycles. There was no it was just basically like, go as hard as you can, you know? And it was so uncomfortable. You know, I there was all these publications of like, you know, the top 10 lists on Forbes and the whatever in this and the payouts of this and because I'm speaking over here and from the outside, everything looked really awesome. And I felt like the inner experience was the exact opposite.
Samantha Skelly:And the company was called Hungry For Happiness and I wasn't happy, you know? Yeah. And that took a while for me to really admit that to myself. And so when pause dropped in, I was like, I will do this because it feels so aligned, but
Kate Northrup:Also the fireworks. Yeah. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:Was a fireworks.
Kate Northrup:It was awesome.
Samantha Skelly:But I was like, I will only do it in a way that feels so good.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:And, you know, we talked about on on my podcast of, women in business, this is a new thing. So we are discovering it. It's like, we've jumped out of the plane, and now we're figuring it out as we go. And so I had to have a idea of like, if I was to run this in a way that felt really good, what would that look like? Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:I couldn't really see it, you know? It's like anyone I ask, everyone's answer was Sarah Blakely, and I'm like, there must be someone else. I don't and I I don't even I don't even know business. Have no freaking No freaking idea. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:Looks like she's having a good time, but I
Kate Northrup:don't 100%.
Samantha Skelly:But I don't know. Yeah. Right? So I I was like, I I have to create a model for this for myself. What do I want?
Samantha Skelly:What does that look like for me? The spaciousness, the creativity, the how I wanna run my 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 meeting.
Samantha Skelly:Like, that I don't want to pretend to be this person that I'm not anymore. I want to do this in my way, which is fun, which is playful, which is lots of 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 it like that, and it was honestly a trust fall because I'd never done it that way. I have so much I have so much evidence that if you run a business like a man, you will get results. I have evidence for that.
Samantha Skelly:I built a $2,700,000 company doing it that way. Of course, I can do do it that way, but I don't want to. And it's not sustainable, and I know in my heart that there's another way. Like, God created these feminine bodies and they're insanely intelligent. Of course, we can run a business, make millions, and do it in a way that feels good.
Samantha Skelly:Of course, we can. Yeah. And so it's it was a practice of because the habituation was there, and the addiction to work was there, and the evidence was there, and so it really took everything in me to not do it that way. It was really hard if I'm honest.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And what did you use in terms of tools or practices to make that transition? Because it's one thing to make the decision, and in the coaching world, folks love to say, well, you just make the decision and then you go, and I'm like, well, that's not my understanding of neural patterning. Yeah. Can't just strong-arm your brain and body into being different overnight.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And so what did you actually do?
Samantha Skelly:Had to get really clear with what my survival strategies were that was running that company.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Samantha Skelly:And I had to meet their needs in another way other than work, and validation, and significance, and profitability. And I had to get so clear with these frozen in time pieces of me that were trying to get their needs met. Yeah. Because I'm like, yo, homies, you're not running this business. Okay?
Samantha Skelly:We did that. Like, inner child fully ran my less business, for sure. And of course, there was parts of my higher self. It's not
Kate Northrup:Of course, it's of that.
Samantha Skelly: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?
Samantha Skelly:What does she need? What does she actually need? I'm like, oh, she needs my adult self to let her know that it's safe. Totally. And when I met that need, she no longer projected it onto my business to try and get it from the business.
Samantha Skelly:That's what I did. It was deep somatic work, and I really believe that the success of business is a somatic journey. I mean, this is your whole work, relax money. It's like, yeah, you relax your nervous system and you open up and things begin to flow, and I wish more women really knew that because it's everything. It is everything,
Kate Northrup:and I'm so glad that you and I are adjacently on the same path in different ways with essentially the same message.
Samantha Skelly:For sure.
Kate Northrup:So when you're doing that somatic work, when you are meeting those past parts of yourselves, when you are finding those things doing that work, I'm curious, do you combine it with breath work just tactically speaking in any way, and if so, how?
Samantha Skelly:That's a good question. It's not like a conscious, I'm gonna put breath work in here now. It's like a what I'm doing is I'm just responding to the need of the part moment by moment, and sometimes it calls for breath work, sometimes it calls for shaking, sometimes it calls for being really fucking ugly and messy and just balling my eyes out and punching shit, sometimes it calls for just like softness and dance. It really I'm I'm following the nuances of this part, and I'm trying to understand what this part of me is actually needing in the world, and I'm doing my best to meet it in real time.
Kate Northrup:Great.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. And so, yeah, most of the time that is breath, because energy moves through breath, it moves through movement, and it moves through sound. So if we can do the triad of those three things as we're coming home to these parts of us, the energies are gonna open up even more, and it's going to be more energetically available for us. Great. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. So good. Like I'm not saying that breath work's the answer to everything, but I'm also not not saying that. 100%, 100%. You got a flat tire?
Samantha Skelly:Breath work. Seriously. So I know that, you know,
Kate Northrup:I'm actually not sure when this is going live, but I know that last year you had a tricky year in some ways. And now we're a long time from that in time and space, because time is made up anyway, but I am curious what lessons you have carried forward from a year that really kicked your ass in business. It
Samantha Skelly:was an ass kicker. I was being built. I got built last year, and it was really interesting, because I also got married last year. So I had this pocket of thirty days of just bliss and joy, and now I was back in the arena. It was just wild.
Samantha Skelly:I was getting my ass kicked. It was a okay. The lessons.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Samantha Skelly:You know, the lesson is I made some interesting decisions, and I I blindly trusted some people to lead some things in my business that didn't know what they were doing, you know.
Kate Northrup:I have so been there.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. I was just like, here's the case. Take them for a ride.
Kate Northrup:Totally. Yeah. And Or like, here's my newborn. Just go raise them.
Samantha Skelly:Go raise this newborn child that I've been pouring everything in. It's just like, what?
Kate Northrup:Maybe not newborn, but Yeah. You know, preschooler.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm naturally I it's a blessing and a curse. One of my gifts is I just assume the best in everybody. Mhmm.
Samantha Skelly:And I look at you, I'm like, I don't see anything wrong with you guys. The only thing is I love that about myself. I really do. But in business, there needs to be more discernment, and I learned that in 2024. The gift of discernment.
Samantha Skelly:It's like, I love you, and I'm gonna assume the best, and I'm gonna make sure you're doing your shit. Yeah. And I'm gonna make sure that you're not doing some sneaky things on my business behind the scenes. Because that sucks. It really does.
Samantha Skelly:And you know, I heard that this happened in business, but I never experienced it firsthand. And so my coach was like, okay. Cool. Yeah. This is just a lesson.
Samantha Skelly:This this is you can't get through this without this happening, so just learn it and figure out what you're gonna do. So I would say, don't blindly trust. Keep assuming the best. Like, I I still do wanna wear my rosy colored glasses because I love living my life in that way, and it works really well for me. But it's rosy colored glasses and a magnifying glass.
Samantha Skelly:Right? Of like, I'm gonna assume positive intent. I'm gonna assume you're amazing, and I'm also going to check and ask questions. And I had this feeling of I don't like micromanaging my people. Love giving them a lot of space, I was so unmanaging them that let and letting them run free that they took advantage.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. That's really
Samantha Skelly:A couple people. That sucked. So that was a big lesson. Another big lesson was just keep your eye. Make them keep the main thing the main thing.
Samantha Skelly:Mhmm. You know? Like we talked about, it's like my seven energy and my creative spirit, and I'm gonna create all the things. And I'm like, my audience would love this. And they did, but I took my eye off the ball, took resources away from our main thing, confused my team, stressed them out.
Samantha Skelly:It was just costly. It was a very costly
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:Amateur, if I'm being honest with myself, mistake. So I feel like I really got pro in business this year because I I I see the greater context. We're pause breath work. We're breath work. I'm not gonna teach you to be a highly paid speaker anymore, Kate.
Samantha Skelly:Alright? I'm not gonna do that anymore. It was fun.
Kate Northrup:Because that's not my path. I mean, I am a highly paid speaker, but like, I only wanna do like one gig a year.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. And that was today, guys.
Kate Northrup:In case anyone's liking, I'm available one time
Samantha Skelly:a year. On my terms, okay? Yeah. So it's like it's like breath work is the thing that I care so much about, and I had all this creative energy, and I'm like, where do I put it? Oh, let's create more products.
Samantha Skelly:That was a silly amateur mistake. I'm not doing that this year again. I'm keeping the main thing the main thing. The thing that we are the best in the world at is training people to become highly qualified, skilled breath work facilitators. That's it.
Samantha Skelly:That's all I'm available for this year.
Kate Northrup:So good. Yeah. So freaking good.
Samantha Skelly:It's And so when you
Kate Northrup: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 from sitting in the discomfort of staying even when you wanna do 35 different things, but if you can just get more comfortable being uncomfortable with not creating every new idea that comes along, and actually bringing that presence and mastery, what your students are getting, is so phenomenal because of the depth. Yes.
Samantha Skelly:I just got full body goosebumps. 100%. And I got my shit together, and made a commitment to myself of October, and we're now in
Kate Northrup:Whenever. Whenever
Samantha Skelly:this is. Yeah. And the difference is wild.
Kate Northrup:I can only like, okay. So we're recording this in January, but I can only imagine by the time it goes live
Samantha Skelly:Oh my gosh.
Kate Northrup:Like, is going to be the case Yeah. By that time.
Samantha Skelly:Yes.
Kate Northrup:And I'm I've been checking on you.
Samantha Skelly:Yes. I'm so Check-in on you
Kate Northrup:and find out because if it's already made a seismic difference.
Samantha Skelly:Oh my gosh.
Kate Northrup:And the reclaimed energy is so huge, and then the profitability rises so tremendously because as quote unquote boring as that rinse and repeat can feel, it allows us to go and expand in other areas, and it's so gentle Yes. On everyone's nervous system Oh my gosh. In your company.
Samantha Skelly:Oh my gosh.
Kate Northrup:Yes. They know what to expect. Yes. There's a cadence. There's a predictability.
Kate Northrup:Like, I mean, that is a really It's
Samantha Skelly:a gift.
Kate Northrup:Feminine business model.
Samantha Skelly:It's a gift to them. It's a gift to me. Yeah. The interesting thing, I wanna make another correlation with that staying power and being in the discomfort. And when we can get through that, magic happens.
Samantha Skelly:Here's an example. My history was with men and relationships was always chasing the unavailable, shiny, charismatic, I will no. No. No. Like, I will whine you and dine you, and this is it.
Samantha Skelly:And I've got money, and I got like, that was my pattern. And I kept getting burned. You chase fireworks, you're gonna get burned. Right? I kept getting burned.
Samantha Skelly:And my soul is like, you need something different. Like, call forth something different. This is not for you. Like, stop chasing these men that are unavailable and just chaotic. And so I I met Eric, and it was not fireworks right away.
Samantha Skelly:It was home. It was like our first date, I'm like, my whole nervous system relaxed. There is this flow and this safety and this togetherness, and I never wondered if he was gonna text me back. I never none of that. But what did these parts of me do?
Samantha Skelly:This is boring. I don't want this. This is not fun. I need excitement. I need Right?
Samantha Skelly:And but my soul kept being like, no. This is your guy. And all of my friends and everyone in my world was like, this is your person. Don't do not run away from this. Staying power.
Samantha Skelly:It took everything in me to stay. Everything. And overcome the part of me that was addicted to the shiny balls. And now The shiny balls? Yes.
Samantha Skelly: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 that passion, that excitement, but it was built from a healthy place. I experienced what healthy love was, and my ego couldn't handle it.
Samantha Skelly:But my soul's like, you gotta stay. Well
Kate Northrup:right, and the nervous system wants what it has experienced before. And when healthy love is not the existing imprint, it will register it as a threat. And so being able to stay and repattern and say, this is actually safe Mhmm. Is a really beautiful thing.
Samantha Skelly:Wild. Yeah. There's like it's so fascinating that at times doing the thing that's best for us is the hardest thing. Why are we wired this way, Kate?
Kate Northrup:I don't know, because otherwise, like what else would we be doing with our lives?
Samantha Skelly:We need to waste our time doing something. We should heal ourselves. Should just
Kate Northrup:be reading a lot more novels and
Samantha Skelly:But like when we get it, when we understand that it works that way, it's so good. Wait, then it
Kate Northrup:actually is kind of a game. Totally.
Samantha Skelly:Yeah. 100%.
Kate Northrup:So good. Thank you so much for being conversation. Love learning more about your story and more about breath work and just where you've been, where you're going. I'm so excited for what is next for you in all the areas of your life. So if people wanna connect, where should they find you?
Kate Northrup:Where can they learn more?
Samantha Skelly:The best place is my Instagram, samanthaskelly. Come say hi over there, let me know that you found me from this podcast, and if you desire to be a Breathwork facilitator, come let me know. I can give you your affiliate link. Amazing. Actually, let's just put your affiliate Well,
Kate Northrup: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.
Samantha Skelly:There we go. Amazing. You are handled. So if you wanna become a breath work facilitator, go to that link. Yeah.
Samantha Skelly:Pause breath work on an app if you want breath work on demand all day long, and yeah, come out and say hi on Instagram. Thank you. Thanks for having me. This has been so great.
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Kate Northrup:Enjoy.