Samantha Skelly: Founder & CEO of Pause Breathwork

Episode 564

In this captivating episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we're joined by Samantha Skelly, the visionary Founder and CEO of Pause Breathwork, as she takes us on a profound journey of healing and transformation through the power of breathwork.

Samantha eloquently shares how breathwork serves as a potent tool for healing trauma, enhancing intuition, and expanding consciousness. She delves into the intricate mechanics of breathwork, highlighting the various factors that shape the experience, including duration, breath pattern, speed, depth, music, and mantra.

Samantha advocates for the importance of embracing feminine leadership and harnessing feminine energy in the realm of business—a perspective that brings a refreshing and insightful approach to entrepreneurship.

Through her pioneering work, Samantha not only touches the lives of countless individuals but also empowers and certifies breathwork facilitators, exponentially multiplying the reach and impact of this transformative practice.

If you're curious about building a company that can truly make a difference in the lives of many, don't miss out on this conversation with Samantha Skelly. Tune in now to The Kara Goldin Show!

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone. And welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Super, super thrilled to have our next guest here we have Samantha Skelly, who is the founder and CEO of Pause Breathwork. And if you are not familiar with paws breath, work, Boyer, you’re going to be excited to learn all about it. So, so cool. So her company is really a transformative company reshaping the landscape of wellness through breathwork, and trauma, healing, and all of the things that I think even if we don’t think that we’ve had trauma in our life, we definitely need to listen in and think about how we might be able to just get better. And I think that that is what they’re doing it Pause Breathwork so much great stuff, including 1000s have been trained as facilitators across 27 countries. Just her mission overall. And unlocking the healing potential is just so so inspiring and cool. For anyone who is interested in helping people as I am, I think it’s, it’s really super, super inspiring. So anyway, I will stop talking. And without further ado, welcome, Samantha, nice to have you here.

Samantha Skelly 2:03
Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited for this conversation. Yeah, super

Kara Goldin 2:07
excited. So we were just chatting before I hit record. So Samantha’s down just outside of San Diego, one of my favorite places. So very, very cool to have you here with us today. But so talk to me a little bit about what inspired you to do what you’re doing today. And was there one moment that you said, I need to start this or I’m, I feel like there’s this piece missing out there in the world. Talk to us a little bit about that. Yeah,

Samantha Skelly 2:40
well, I’m gonna take you way back to give you context for what is paused breathwork today, so I grew up as a dancer, and a child actress, I was a stunt double on a show called Smallville for four years. And so my entire life was on a camera on a stage and I never developed disordered eating. I always had like body image issues when I was younger. But then when I was like 8090, and I developed disordered eating, I was on over 50 diets in less than four years, I was feeling very disconnected from my body, very disconnected from myself i i was either like numb or anxious, like those were like the two things that I really felt in my body. And I didn’t feel this like overwhelming like joy or you know, intuition or like all these things that people talk about. And I it was interesting, because I remember, I used to like I used to feel this like bubbling joy and this effervescence and this like excitement but this period, this particular period in my life where I called my diet depression, when I was just in a fight with food and in a fight with my body. I just felt so disconnected. And so I kind of went on a search to discover what is it? What it what is it going to take for me to feel alive again, what is it going to take for me to not be in a fight with my body and food again, what is it going to take for me to feel just this like rest in this piece that I know is possible. And I remember reading the book, Eat Pray Love once and she talks about going to Bali and finding this medicine man. And I like my intuition in that moment was like, That’s it. I’m like, I’m gonna go to Bali. I’m gonna find this medicine man. I’m gonna figure out what’s going on with me because I knew better but my body was still stuck and not changing. You know, I was doing all this like mindset coaching and reading all these books and you know, consuming all this content, but I was still not changing. It was still I was still feeling like very stuck. So anyway, I went to Bali, I found this this man that she talked about in the book. I had a session with him. And at the end of our session he just was like You think too much you need to go go meditate, like go get in your body and I’m like, no. So I remember going to this meditation class or this meditation studio and there was no meditation class. But there was a breathwork class. And I remember when I first heard of that I’m like, breath work, like, what is that? And it was a three hour class. And I’m like, What am I going to do for three, I just breathing for three hours. Like, that sounds excruciating. But there was something deep inside of me that was like, go do this thing. It’s gonna be good for you. So anyway, I went and it just blew me away. And I realized that our breath is the ultimate healer, our breath is the ultimate teacher. And when we can use our breath in an intentional way, we can heal a lot of the trauma that’s stuck in our bodies. And what tends to happen, or what I was experiencing is, I was trying to overthink it and overanalyze it. And I just get I just got caught in my head, when really, we’ve been created with the ability of our bodies knowing how to heal themselves, through the breath. And so I, when I learned that, I healed my eating disorder, within three months, I felt so connected to my intuition. And I just knew I was going to be a student of this for the rest of my life, I didn’t know I was going to start this company. But seven years after that, seven years after doing breathwork, and training with the top breathwork facilitators in the world, I got this very strong call to bring this work into the world. And that’s what was the start of Pause Breathwork. And note, we’re now the world’s world’s lodging leading breathwork. Company. So Harry is

Kara Goldin 6:31
awesome. That is so awesome. So for those who aren’t familiar with breathwork, what like, what does that mean? Exactly? I mean, obviously, we all have to breathe. But what is breathwork? I know there’s, there’s a ton of science behind it as well, that you talk about on on your site, but also, like, what what is it? I mean, and how long do you have to do it? You know, there’s so many questions that I think people have, especially if you’re just beginning to sort of explore it, and yes, are inquisitive about it, but aren’t really sure exactly what it is, for sure.

Samantha Skelly 7:12
So breathwork, the simplest definition of breathwork is its continual breathing, right? Continual breathing, uninterrupted, so it sounds like this.

So there’s no stopping it. Right, how we typically breathe is it’s very chaotic, right? If we get anxious, we’ll be like, and then we’ll just like stop breathing. And then other times, we’ll be like, take a deep breath. And then we’ll like depending on our emotionality, our breath pattern follows our emotion. And so for most of the world, we’re living in a very like anxious state. So our breathing is very anxious and chaotic, which reinforces that anxious state. So with breath work, what we’re doing is we’re interrupting the emotional pathways and sort of guiding the emotions to go into a different direction. So breathwork is the continual conscious breathing without stopping. So that’s like the mechanics of it. Now what it does, it stimulates the amygdala, the amygdala is the part of our brain that is responsible for our emotional control. So it mitigates the amygdala response, meaning it releases our survival strategies, our survival strategies are that part of us that are that is like, don’t cry, go faster, keep it all together, keep working. Don’t Don’t do this. Like and it’s like trying to keep us safe, but it’s really just keeping us caged. So when the amygdala is relaxed, the body can actually process a motion without our survival strategy stopping us. Hmm. And so then what does that result in that results in us being able to release a lot of the stuck energy trauma and pain that’s been stored in our bodies for decades, and allows the body to actually purge and cleanse and release a lot of that energy that’s not serving us anymore. So that is essentially how breathwork works. Now. We can depending on the type of experience we want to have, there’s various factors that influence how that breathwork journey goes, for instance, the duration, okay, so if I do that breath, too, and one out for a minute, I’m going to feel like a little bit tingly, I’m gonna be like, Oh, the sky looks a little bit more blue. Like my awareness is a little bit more crisp. But if I do it for three minutes, while I’m gonna feel like really like the colors have shifted, I’m going to feel a lot more dropped into my body. I’m going to have a lot more of activation of energy. If I do it for past eight minutes, then I’m kind of entering this zone of an altered state of consciousness. This is where I feel not connected to this, this reality. And I’m kind of like off in a different reality, we’re still we’re still here, we’re still safe, but we’re not. So our focus isn’t so here. So that’s duration. Now, the breath pattern itself also has a big influence on it. So that breath that I was demonstrating to in one out that’s more of like an activating breath pattern. That’s going to charge the body with more energy than say something like this, which is inhale through the nose. And just relax, exhale. That exhale is not forced, I’m not pushing them out, I’m just letting the air fall out of my mouth.

So it’s very just like, Ah, it’s very graceful. Okay. And then. So that’s duration, breath pattern speed, right, we can change change the experience through speed. Versus there’s going to be a different experience, right? Depth is another way we can change the experience, this is a really deep breath. Versus right, so all of these different factors, music changes it if we have like some tribal beats, and a lot of like intense drums, that’s going to have an impact on our emotions, right? Our body, when when we’re in that altered state of consciousness, the body has really responds to music differently, versus like meditative music. And then mantra, like our mantra of how we want to direct the energy for that breathwork session. So there’s all these different ways in which we can change the way that we do it. at PAWS breathwork, we have a class, it’s called the experience. And it’s a 60 minute class that we do with six different rounds of breath work. And so it kind of like works up and comes back down. That’s the classic class that people take. And they’re like, Oh, I’ve done, you know, the experience, the PAs experience, but we have on our app, we have tracks that are three minutes, anywhere from anywhere from three minutes to 45 minutes and everything in between, to give people like a little taste of breath, work, and

Kara Goldin 12:22
follow it. So if somebody’s just starting out, and they haven’t been doing breath work at all, and they go to your app. So you would suggest what what should they do first? Yeah, there’s

Samantha Skelly 12:33
a free 14 day trial. So get the trial, do the three minute ones, right. So when you go on to the when you go on to the app, you’ll see there’s two categories, one of the categories says take a breather. The other category says go on a journey. Right? So under the take a breather, there’s three minutes, five minutes and 10 minutes. So I would start with three minutes. And then you can figure out okay, what do I what do I want to feel right, there’s clear the mind, reclaim your power, the power presence and energy booster, which is like a little expresso shot, shifting into clarity, finding inner peace, activating your inner power, so you just kind of like opening up your heart, you’re like, Okay, I want to open up my heart, then you press play for three minutes, it takes you through the journey. From there, do a few of the three minute ones, and then be like, let me try a five minute one and just kind of like work your way up. It’s better to go slow and to slowly open up that window of tolerance versus just, you know, going for it all at once. When

Kara Goldin 13:25
you think about breathwork and how it’s kind of changed your life. You talked a bit about your own experience of how it cleared a lot of things that, you know, maybe just didn’t even realize we’re so attached to this. So sharpening intuition, expanding consciousness. What are some of the stories that you’ve heard from other people on how breathwork is really helping them? And and why do you think this has become such a hot topic? I think for for people. I feel like breathwork used to be, I don’t know, 810 years ago, it was kind of the the extra, you know, the fufu now I feel like it’s becoming more and more a part of mainstream. Absolutely.

Samantha Skelly 14:14
Yeah. Yeah. You know, what breathwork helps us do quicker than anything I’ve experienced is take us out of our, the parts of us that are our inner child parts, right? I was at an event on the weekend, and I was doing as I was teaching breathwork and doing my keynote, and the amount of stories that I’ve heard that I heard there were just incredible, you know, like this one woman came up to me, she’s like, can I talk to you for like, five minutes? I’m like, Yeah, what’s up? And she’s like, breathwork healed my marriage. And I was like, really? I was like, Tell me more. She’s like, because when I used to fight with my partner, I was caught in my trauma. I was caught in my survival strategy. I was caught in this like, small part of me and I was fighting with him from that part. And when I learned how to do breath work, I realized that That’s not who I am. And breathwork helped me remember that I’m actually strong and powerful and kind and loving. And I don’t treat him like that anymore. I don’t yell at him anymore. I don’t project my emotions on them anymore. I know how to take care of myself. So that I can do that. Another one of the stories from from this amount, which was last week, this woman came up to me and she’s like, Can I share with you how breathwork helps you manifest? And I was like, Tell me more. She’s like, when I’m doing breathwork? I don’t have doubts. I don’t have fears, there’s there isn’t that part of me that saying you can’t do this? Or, you know, who are you to do this, or who are you to think you can do this, she’s like, it’s just clear, like, the energy is just open. And from that place, I just feel like I can do anything. And because of that, I’ve been able to, like, grow my business and create all these beautiful things she’s like breathwork has, is my tool for manifestation. So there’s so many different ways in which people use it, people use it as a healing tool to like heal trauma, because it’s one of the best ways to heal trauma. But then they also use it for like vision and manifestation and creation. And like, the real exciting stuff, too, so. And so it’s not that healing trauma is not exciting. It’s just, you know, a little bit of a different flavor.

Kara Goldin 16:13
So you had not built a company or an app you had been doing really, you know, awesome, important work. And, and, but suddenly, you decided I want to take this globally, I want people to be able to start this company, how do you get the word out about that, and what, like, what other challenges have come up along the way that maybe you just didn’t really realize you would encounter? I

Samantha Skelly 16:42
mean, every day is a challenge, you know, every day, every day is hard as hell. And I think when we’re deciding to do big things in the world, it’s, that just comes with the territory of building a big mission. You know, I could simply like, I could completely simplify my life and have a couple of high end clients and, you know, run a couple of retreats a year. And that would be it. And that would be cool. And it would be a lot easier. If I’m honest with you, it would be. And I know that God gave me this ability and this potential to create this mission. And it’s very clear to me that this is what I meant to do with my life, you know, and saying yes, to that comes with so many challenges, you know, it’s like, running, running a massive company, having all of these employees and 1000s of clients all around the world is like, as beautiful and amazing as that is, it also pokes on every one of my insecurities every single day, and constantly invites me into deeper layers of leadership, which are hard, you know, it’s like, it’s not easy to to, like, hold all this energy all the time. And so it’s just, it requires me to be so committed to my personal growth every single day and committed to this path of leadership and being a better version of myself and moving through all of my, you know, old parts that are not going to serve me in my next level, and the company is only going to grow to the consciousness of myself. And so it’s a huge responsibility for me to say yes to that, and to not give in to self sabotage, or my lower self being like, this is too hard, because there’s times where I’m like, This is too hard. And then it’s like, okay, and I know for me, when when I feel that, I asked myself what salmon was last time you took a vacation. Last time you had at least 72 hours without going on Slack, you know? Yeah.

Kara Goldin 18:33
No, I love it. So when I think about your business, it’s not just about I mean, you kind of have two audiences to write. So you, you have the consumer that’s listening and listening to pause, breath work and getting the experience Direct. But then you’re also enabling so many other people to actually teach what you’re teaching, right? Because that’s something that I think maybe a lot of people aren’t as familiar with, like all these facilitators that you are enabling. I mean, that’s a really powerful thing. But to your point, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of responsibility, right? You just want to help people breathe and help people do what you found to be super helpful. But you’re doing something even bigger than that, which is, you know, pretty awesome. So, but can you just talk about that side of your business? Yes. It’s almost it’s a b2b. Right. You’ve got to b2c and b2b Yeah,

Samantha Skelly 19:34
yeah, for sure. So the main thing that we do at PAWS breathwork, is we train people to become breathwork facilitators and our our vision and our big hairy audacious goal is to help 50 million people worldwide and we’re going to do that through our facilitators through training and certifying 10,000 people to become breathwork facilitators. And so the two audiences you’re absolutely right. It’s we have our b2c audience, which is everyone that’s on our app and everyone who’s just like I’m just here to breathe right? That’s like the lawyer, the accountant, the woman who works at State Farm Insurance. And she’s like, I just want to feel better in my body. Here’s pas breathwork. And then we have leaders, lightworkers, coaches, facilitators, consultants, doctors, people who want to add breathwork into their existing business or they’re aspiring, they want to learn a modality where they can become a breathwork facilitator. And so they’ll come and they’ll do our training. And they’ll learn how to become breathwork facilitator, and then they will integrate it into their existing business, or they’ll start a business teaching people how to how to breathe and how to heal trauma. And that course is absolutely extraordinary. It’s been going on since 2017. And we’ve trained and certified 1000s of people now in our methodology, and it’s so cool to see these people come in, transform their lives, and then go on to, you know, to teach this to 1000s people around the world, it’s just been such a beautiful journey. That’s

Kara Goldin 20:55
so cool. So I’ve heard you talk about feminine leadership, you talk a bit about that, because I think a lot of people don’t necessarily associate breathing with with just being feminine or feminine leadership. But I loved your explanation of this, if you can share that. Yeah,

Samantha Skelly 21:15
you know, a couple years ago, I kept getting all of these questions of like, Sam Howard, how have you been able to build this business? And you’re still very much in your feminine? Like, how have you been able to do something like this without going into like that masculine energy? And I just sat with that question for like, years. And I’m like, the reason why it’s like this is because I don’t use my masculine energy, like a little bit. But like, it’s because I realized, like, as a woman, we are the ultimate creators. And when we use our feminine energy and our creative energy, were able to innovate and collaborate and become these like energetically rich beings. And we can pour all that energy into our businesses. And I just really believe that, you know, money in the hands of the distorted masculine has been a thing for far too long. And I really believe the world is going to change when money’s in the hands of women in their power, who are doing amazing things in the world. And so, because breathwork is, that’s how I’ve been able to build Pause Breathwork and my company before that, I did not run it like that, which is why I had the contrast of it, you know, my last company was very, like force and hustle and stress and pressure and intensity. And I realized, like, if I’m gonna build another company, I don’t want anything to do with that energy, I want to I want to do it from alignment and flow and power and creativity and collaboration. And so I really believe that energy is our ultimate strategy. And when we can prioritize energy above everything else, we win. And I just think there’s such a missing gap in in the business world for feminine leadership. And so many women are just trying to be men, and it’s not working for them, and it’s burning them out. And it’s having an impact on their nervous systems and their mental health. And so if we can learn to use our God given intelligence of feminine energy in our businesses, it’ll just flows so much easier. So

Kara Goldin 23:20
much easier. So when you think about your own favorite experiences from from the Pause Breathwork what what do you enjoy the most from the experience? Like is there one runaway? I guess it could be two different questions Is there one runaway best must do for you every single day, or whenever you get time to do it that you would recommend?

Samantha Skelly 23:48
So there’s a track under the 10 minutes one called unlock your infinite potential, there’s something about that track that is just so powerful. And every single time I do it, I no matter what I’m feeling, it always brings me into this state of just like pure joy and pure love. And just like the worries of the world just melt away. So if I’m, if I’m at my desk, and I’m like, feeling stressed out with work, and I got so many emails, my to do list is so long, and I need to film these Facebook ads, but I don’t want to film them, because I’m so tired. And like, you know, all that stuff’s going on. I’ll just sit in that chair. And I’ll do that track. And I’ll come back and I’m like, I feel so much better. So that’s number one. Number two is that experience that I was talking to you about, which is called the PAs experience, which is a 90 minute experience, or sorry, a 60 minute experience. And just if you have the time for it, it’s just beautiful. It’s just done in rounds, and the music is just gorgeous. And it just walks us through. Just like really waking up to our potential. I

Kara Goldin 24:46
love it. So looking to the future. What is next for if you could snap your fingers and everything was happening. You talked about a number of 50 million but what’s the goal? All I mean, what do you wish could happen sooner? I think that the most challenging thing for most entrepreneurs, I included is that patience is, is something that maybe you even lose breaths over. Hopefully not especially not you. But it’s just, it’s hard because you, you want a lot to happen with this. And certainly when you’re trying to do something in the entrepreneurial space that you know, will help a lot of people, but it’s just hard, right? Yeah. What do you hope? What, what’s the dream that you wish could happen? Tomorrow? Or today?

Samantha Skelly 25:39
Yeah, as you say that I a couple of weeks ago, I was running my mastermind. And one of my women I have about I work with about 30 Women at a high level. And this mastermind called The Life Mastermind and Life stands for lucrative, impactful, fun and easy. And she asked this question, she’s like, how do I just be patient? Like, when all my dream, like when my dreams are taking longer? I was like, I don’t know. I’m not the teacher for that. I’m not that good at it. So yeah, patience is definitely something that I’m like learning and embodying. But I to answer your question, I, there are certain visions that I have of the future of how to advance this mission, which feel very exciting. Like, one of the goals and the visions that I’m working on right now is selling out the sphere in Las Vegas and doing a massive breathwork session there. With all like, the music and the visuals and just having like, 14,000 people breathing and awakening, I know, I’m, like, so excited for that. So that’s happening, are like,

Kara Goldin 26:39
when is Wait, hold on, like, when does that happen?

Samantha Skelly 26:43
I don’t know. Yeah, but it’s gonna happen. It’s, like, if I was to guess I’m getting married this year, I’m going to take a little bit of time off in October, probably towards the end of next year or early 2026 is kind of like when we’re feeling off. Yeah, it’s gonna be right, it’s gonna be amazing. So that’s happening at the sphere in Las Vegas. Again, it’s like I’m really pouring into my facilitators right now. And really helping them reach as many people as possible. And so really climbing that number of the amount of facilitators that we’ve trained in certify, like, that’s a big focus right now for us. And then I have a book coming out, and it’s called the where the drug? And the intention of that is like, how can we just get breathwork in the hands of as many people as possible all around the world? And so those are like the big things. It’s like, How can I just create opportunities for people to stumble across breathwork? Whether it’s through an experience at the sphere, whether it’s through my podcast, whether it’s through a book, and then people like, Wait, what is this and then they do the experience? And they’re like, Whoa, oh, my God, I had no idea that I had the potential to feel this amazing. So yeah, little by little, we’re getting there.

Kara Goldin 27:51
I love it. Well, Samantha, you are changing lives. And you’re doing an incredible job doing it. And I think if anyone has has not tried the Pause Breathwork app, you definitely have to if you’re interested in the facilitator program, too, you should absolutely check out all the information in the show notes. Samantha scalli, you are absolutely amazing. And it’s such a pleasure to finally meet you, and really appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us today, too, and your podcast. And all of that will be in the show notes, as well. So thank you again, and thanks, everybody, for listening.

Samantha Skelly 28:32
Thank you so much for having me. This has been so fun.

Kara Goldin 28:36
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review. And feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and good bye for now.

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