Breaking the Circuit: Stop Self-Abandoning and Start Living w/ Dr. Samantha Harte pt. 2
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and of course, your own mindful drinking journey. When Samantha Hart lost her sister to addiction, she made a vow. She would help others heal, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually. Today, Doctor. Samantha Hart, licensed physical therapist, trauma informed expert, and author of Breaking the Circuit, is a leading voice on emotional resilience, self compassion, and breaking the deep rooted patterns that keep us stuck.
Speaker 1:In this powerful episode, Samantha shares how she evolved from a traditional 12 step background to creating a modern, neuroscience based approach for anyone feeling stuck or disconnected. Even if you don't relate to the 12 Step world, her work offers a fresh and accessible path to healing one rooted in breaking old emotional patterns, rebuilding self trust, and reconnecting with your intuition. We explore how soul sickness shows up in everyday life, why self love isn't just a buzzword, and how small shifts in self awareness can create lasting change. If you've ever felt like something in your life isn't lining up, even if you can't name exactly what, this conversation will hit home.
Speaker 2:Let's shift gears a little bit here, but I think it's related. And it's something around emotional loops and behaviors, and you described it as being addicted to chaos in the past. What did that look like for you? I think I heard some of it in the message. You know?
Speaker 2:Until you found a way to love yourself, I think that is connected to that and find your spirituality, but I'll let you talk.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, what it comes down to for me, and and this may or may not be true for other people. And I think the other thing people have a a really hard time with is the word trauma. And I have I have a bunch of things to say about that. Right? Because the subtitle of my book is how to rewire your mind for hope, resilience, and joy in the face of trauma.
Speaker 3:And I've had people be like, well, what if you didn't have trauma? Because what I'm about to talk about is Yeah. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Tell about that.
Speaker 3:About about the trauma thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Both. The trauma thing and let's talk about
Speaker 1:maybe I think a lot of
Speaker 2:people have trouble assigning trauma to themselves even though, like, if they don't have a capital t trauma Yeah. Then it's not valid. And I think that that's not true. And then on the other spectrum is some people say, well, that's a something to lean on and as a crutch. But let's talk about let's talk about this idea of trauma, like, either if you have it or maybe some people come to you and say, I don't really actually have that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So so there's there's gonna be two parts to this. To answer your question. Right? In my house growing up, this is sort of a lens inside the four walls.
Speaker 3:I was the youngest, so I had a a sister two and a half years older than me, and I had two parents who were very much like lower middle class, but, like, closer to lower. Teachers just doing the best they could, and there was never enough money. They were miserably married. And by the time I was a teenager, my dad was in the basement because my mom was like, fuck your father. He gambled away hundreds of thousands of dollars that my dad was gonna leave for you kids, and he was trying to control the way I spent money.
Speaker 3:Fuck him forever. She would tell us all about her extramarital affairs that she was having on him while he was living in the same house that we kept secret for her. She would abuse prescription pills, pop them like candy. And when I would ask her why she did that, she would ask me if I liked the things that I had. And if I liked them, then she would have to make money.
Speaker 3:And in order to make money, she'd have to work. And in order to work, she'd have to sleep, and those pills help her sleep. You wanna talk about not trusting your instinct? That was at four years old. My intuition was silenced immediately out of the gate in my house.
Speaker 3:My sister was sneaking out and going to raves in New York City, and her sexuality was sort of in question. So she would hook up with guys and girls, tell me about her wild escapades. I was this young girl where it was like, it's all normal. Like, it's normal to pop pills. It's all to have sex with whatever gender you want.
Speaker 3:It's normal to cheat on somebody, especially if they crossed you. It's totally normal to overshare. So chaos was the norm in my house. Yeah. My nervous system thrived in chaos.
Speaker 3:Uh-oh. It's crazy today. Uh-oh. And my mom's mentally ill, by the way, which I it took me years and years to understand that she was actually self medicating. Is mom gonna be okay today?
Speaker 3:Is she gonna start crying? Is she gonna start screaming? Is she gonna tell me she never wants to speak to me again? What do I need to do? And who do I need to become to make mom okay?
Speaker 3:I had to learn how to operate inside of the chaos. Chaos was familiar. We don't understand wiring that's taking place and how deep it goes when we grow up like that. And that we somehow getting into really chaotic friendships or really toxic relationships that are filled with drama and that are not self serving and why and why and why? Because it feels so fucking normal.
Speaker 3:And in fact, it's even giving us a high for a little bit until we crash. And then we beat ourselves up. And then we do it again until we're in enough pain. And the right person, place, thing, or situation comes in and gives us a healthier set of tools, and we start retraining the nervous system out of this dysfunctional pattern by very similar to substance abuse. Because this has been my work in the last couple years around code pendency, which by the way, before I was an addict was the biggest thing I was addicted to.
Speaker 3:How can I self abandon to make sure you over there, especially you mom, are okay? I will do anything so that you don't stop loving me. I will love you so hard that you never fucking leave me. I have been perpetuating that pattern as a grown woman in sobriety with decades of therapy under my belt until a couple of years ago. Why?
Speaker 3:So familiar. And it's very seductive in the beginning. And my whole fixer saver complex that gave me so much validation as a girl when I can make mom happy, she gets all lit up. She gets a dopamine hit when someone else comes along that I can fix and save until I get hurt so much in these friendships because I've given myself away completely. And, of course, the friend can't give it back at some point.
Speaker 3:And then I'm angry. And it finally occurred to me that, you know, there is something to be said for repairing ruptures where we can. But childhood ruptures, like the ones I'm describing, a mother who was emotionally absent, mentally unstable, a sister who became a very serious drug addict and eventually died. And so for the decade before she passed away was completely unavailable to me. I can't repair any of that.
Speaker 3:I can't change with them in real time what happened because they're not doing their work. Repair requires both people to be willing to do some work. So what do I have to do instead that I've been avoiding, that I didn't even realize because it was subconscious until the pain got so great that I became conscious that something had to change? What did I have to do instead? I had to grieve.
Speaker 3:I had to grieve. That which cannot be repaired must be mourned. I had to talk to the younger parts of myself and say, you didn't deserve that. You needed to be seen. You needed to be the child.
Speaker 3:You needed your big sister. They weren't there. I'm so sorry. That's so painful. But you can stand down now.
Speaker 3:Controller, fixer, saver, You don't need to do that much work anymore to be seen and loved. I see you. I love you. So much work to retrain the nervous system out of those dysfunctional patterns, and yet it is possible. Thank god.
Speaker 3:Thank god. In the beginning, sometimes you have to abstain. The boyfriend, the guy you're dating, the friendship that seems so seductive, that looks so familiar, that makes you wanna do all those same things again. You gotta go slow. You gotta slow down.
Speaker 3:You know what? How about how about I don't give this person a gift? Whatever I would normally do too soon, too fast, just don't. See if they've earned the right to receive it. It's hard work.
Speaker 3:It's hard deep work. Now for the person who's like, well, that's a pretty traumatic childhood. That's a lot. I didn't have any I can't relate to any of that. That wasn't me.
Speaker 3:I had a pretty idyllic childhood. I hear this all the time. Fine. Great. Like, I'd love if people don't have capital t trauma.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. There is no world in which, as children, we didn't have several experiences where our needs just weren't met, where we just weren't seen and loved when we needed to. Or even if our parents tried in that moment to see us and love us, we created a story around what happened that wasn't the full truth, but we had to make sense of it as children. And that story is perpetuating into our adult lives. But let's just let go of childhood completely.
Speaker 3:Forget it. I always say to the person who's like, I can't relate. I don't have trauma. Don't then don't worry about that word. Again, it's like, what is the meaning we're assigning to these words?
Speaker 3:Look at the landscape of your life. Just right now, as you're listening to this, What's the quality of my work life? Do I like my job? Am I counting the hours until the day is over? Do I fucking hate my job but feel like a prisoner and I have to stay?
Speaker 3:What about your friendships? Do you have a couple of really solid friendships you can count on, or do you feel like that's a an empty well in your life? What about romance? Are you in a perpetual state of dysfunction with your partner? Are you trying to find that person, but you can never seem to find it because you always end up in the same situation with a person who doesn't deserve your time?
Speaker 3:I guarantee you, if you scan the major pillars, right, work, relationship, family, finance, There'll be some area of discontent. If not, great. That probably speaks to the level of work you're doing on yourself and on living a meaningful, purposeful, joyful life. But if there's at least one area where it's like, ugh. Everything would be so much better if if this one thing, then you are probably stuck in some cycle and some pattern that at one time in your life helped you, and it is now hurting you.
Speaker 3:And it's worth examining. It's worth examining because life is so short. And when you lose people you love, the urgency it grants you to live more fully is real. And I think about this stuff all the time. I think about where I'm gonna go get joy today every single day.
Speaker 3:Because what's the opposite of joy? Grief. And I've had so very much of it. I look for joy like the air that I breathe. I wish I could give people that gift.
Speaker 3:I wish it didn't have to be so hard. I wish people didn't have to be facedown at rock bottom with capital t trauma to go, god, I really wanna change this. I'm so dissatisfied in this area of my life. I know there's something more. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes. If you're dissatisfied, it's because you know. Your soul knows there's more for you. And this goes back to what I said about intuition and spirituality. Stop ignoring your knowing.
Speaker 3:Stop ignoring your knowing. You will never regret honoring your intuition. Never. You will always regret staying complacent and staying where it's comfortable even if you know it's not really what you want. You will always regret that.
Speaker 2:Wow. So no there is no time I that I have never listened to my intuition and regretted it. So I a % agree that there are a lot of times where I said to myself, I should've listened to myself. And what you said there was, you know that one thing. And I think a lot of people could listen.
Speaker 2:If you haven't caught on, you know, even though Samantha's story is related to some of her trauma and substance, we're talking about anything in in anyone's life that might be making you from having your best life. And so I think whether or not there's trauma, there's no trauma, or there's unknown trauma, it doesn't really matter. I think just bringing awareness and and listening to your intuition like Samantha says and identifying that thing. So let's say we do identify that thing. Is this where we get into the your thoughts on rewiring your brain for more of that awareness or breaking the circuit?
Speaker 2:Is that what kind of the next step is after of course, we're talking in a cliff notes fashion here, but is that what do you do when you when you notice those patterns? Where's the next step?
Speaker 3:Well, it's it's, I mean, of course, unique to the individual and their story and what they need to unpack. Because awareness, we know this. Right? Like, we have to become conscious of the thing that is no longer working and where we'd like to go. Or at least just the thing that's not working, even if we don't know where to go.
Speaker 3:And then the question is, what do we do next to create those new feedback loops, to create real lasting change? And for each individual, that's gonna be slightly different. However, here's what I can say. Right? When I decided to write my book, in the beginning, I just thought, god, I have so many stories that are sort of like drop your jaw.
Speaker 3:I can't believe that happened and that you got through it. Great. There's power in storytelling. Absolutely. But I also wanted the book to be prescriptive.
Speaker 3:I wanted it to be self helpy, and I loved that I could take the doctor in front of my name and make some sort of crossover between what I had seen clinically and what I had experienced spiritually in my own life. And I had to get really honest, you know, what saved my life? Because I don't know if the book is gonna save anybody's life. What rewired my brain ultimately? Why am I alive and my sister is dead?
Speaker 3:Why? What happened? What's the difference? When I work those steps in a more modern and trauma informed way, I had a new lease on life. I have been using the steps in that way for the last eleven years.
Speaker 3:My book does exactly that. It takes the 12 steps, and it reimagines them. To make them current in 2025 with what we now know about childhood trauma, psychology, and addiction. It talks a lot about the nervous system and how to rewire it. So to answer your question under the umbrella of what what would happen next, if a person comes to me, it's because they wanna work through something.
Speaker 3:It's not because things are great. It's because they're stuck somewhere. Could be with substance or any number of things that we've been talking about. I love taking them through the 12 step framework around whatever the pain point is in their life. So I wanna give you an example of step two and how we turn it on its head to reach anyone, addict or not.
Speaker 3:Let's say somebody's having trouble in relationships, romantic relationships. That is the thing. And they're obsessing, and they're fucking like they're in tons of fear. It's just it never works out. They just they they're so sick of being single, and it's just that everything else is fine.
Speaker 3:They have the job. They have the apartment. They're just this one thing. Okay. In the language of 12 step traditionally, step two says, came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.
Speaker 3:Okay? When I heard that step, and really for the first five years, I was so offended. Can I come to believe this is how I heard it? Can I come to believe that some god in the sky with a white beard, of course, had to have a white beard, was gonna wave a want and strike me sane because I'm acting fucking crazy? I was like, are you are you kidding me?
Speaker 3:Is this a joke? This is how I'm gonna get well? Okay. So how on earth would we repurpose that to be modern and trauma informed and to speak to the the human suffering from the human condition? Can I come to believe in this area of my life with relationships where I'm in so much fear, so much uncertainty, that a higher part of myself, not the part that's in fear, maybe my intuitive self, my most loving and compassionate and kind self?
Speaker 3:Can I come to believe that a different part of myself can restore me to a sense of safety? What does that mean? You're obsessing. You're obsessing. You're swiping right and left on all the dating app sites.
Speaker 3:You fucking compare and despair on Instagram. You see everybody else being so happy, and you feel like absolute shit. And you think about that step. Wait a minute. The part of me that's sitting in the driver's seat is fear right now.
Speaker 3:If my highest self, which is not the fear part of me. It's the the part that believes love is possible even if I don't know how or when. The part of me that has some level of faith in humanity and trust and that knows I deserve wonderful, beautiful, big love. If that part of me were sitting in the driver's seat, even for a second, how would it make me feel instead? Oh, definitely feels better.
Speaker 3:What a practice that is, though. You're going from uncertainty to certainty. You're attempting to trust what you cannot see. And just that act alone might actually make you feel better, might actually move you from sympathetic fight or flight, obsessive, fear based to parasympathetic, calm, clear, rested, Hopeful. You know what it's like not to trust.
Speaker 3:It looks terrible. It feels terrible in this one area of your life. You've been not trusting it for this whole time. That's why you're in fear and obsession. Do do you have anything to lose by trying to trust that you maybe don't have all the answers and that maybe there is a really happy future with somebody who deserves the love you have to give.
Speaker 3:So I take people through the 12 steps in a way that resonates with where they are, in a way that lands in their nervous system that makes them safe and feel expansive. That's what I do.
Speaker 2:It's such an incredible exercise there, and I'm so glad that you kind of give us an idea about how you've updated them because I think it's easy to say updating. But but you know what's really amazing also is that even though we're coming up on time, I wanted to end with a powerful question that people can ask themselves, and you've already given us all of that and a glimpse into what there is. So if anybody resonated with this or any of Samantha's story and approach to this, where can they find more information about you, about your book, or any upcoming projects that you have?
Speaker 3:No. I'm very active on Instagram, and my handle is doctor Samantha Harte, and Harte is spelled h a r t e. There just happens to be a silent e at the end. My website is also the same, doctorSamanthaHart.com. And you can DM me on Instagram.
Speaker 3:I will respond. I do not have people managing my account. And so if you wanna speak to me directly, I will write you back. My website also has this fresh rebrand, which I'm excited about. Everywhere on every page, you can find out about all the things I'm doing because I have a coaching program I'm about to launch that's online.
Speaker 3:Of course, I do one on one. I have a podcast. I have my book. Anything you wanna know about, you can read about, click, and either purchase, find out more information. And I would say above all, the call to action on my website is to book a discovery call with me, which is free.
Speaker 3:So if you hear something on this talk and you wanna connect with me, just book a call. We could have a face to face conversation where we're speaking to each other's hearts. Because this stuff is is a big deal, and it's deep, and it's hard work. It's very, very personal. And I have found that the the most effective way, if something is hitting you that you're hearing me say, the most effective way to take the next step is literally to just get on a call with me.
Speaker 3:Because if for nothing else, you get that thirty minutes of connection and probably clarification on whatever you're going through. And so those are the the two ways. You can also just go on Amazon. If you wanted to buy my book, you could literally type into Amazon breaking the circuit, and it'll pop up. There's lots of things, though.
Speaker 2:Oh, well
Speaker 3:Lots of things.
Speaker 2:Has been incredible. Thank you so much for coming on. You've been shared a lot of a real raw story and connected with us and and also brought some of your novel approaches to how to address things when things feel off. So I anyone listening feels compelled. Samantha's very approachable on and off camera.
Speaker 2:She's real. She's the real person that you see. So, thanks so much for coming on today.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me. So fun.
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