How to Manifest The Body & Life of Your Dreams w/ Dr. Samantha Harte

What if you could break free from the constraints of traditional healthcare and truly transform your life and the lives of your clients? Let me take you on a journey of self-reinvention that I call "Samantha 2.0," where I share my decade-long experience as a physical therapist disillusioned by an insurance-based system. This episode reveals how personal challenges, such as recovering from addiction and coping with the tragic loss of my sister Jessica, propelled me towards a more holistic approach. By establishing a cash-based practice, I've embraced treating the whole person, addressing both physical ailments and the deeper "soul sickness" many experience.

Explore how embracing a higher power—or a more compassionate self—can restore peace and self-worth, especially during personal crises such as marital distress exacerbated by addiction. Through a heartfelt reflection on the 12-step process, I discuss overcoming resentment, processing childhood traumas, and the liberating journey towards resilience and joy. With steps focused on daily personal inventory and mindful meditation, this episode introduces a 12-week program to recharge your physical and mental resilience. Join me as I invite you to connect further through my website and social media, offering guidance and support for those ready to embark on their own transformative journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Samantha 2.0
• 16:28 Overcoming Resentment and Self-Blame
• 35:48 Rewiring for Resilience and Joy

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everybody and welcome back to the truth about addiction. I am here today to do a solo episode because it's been a while and I have some things I want to share. Mostly, I want to share the version of me that exists today. I titled this episode Samantha 2.0, very intentionally, because for the last two and a half years I have been reinventing myself. So if you're listening and the landscape of your life doesn't resonate with you anymore and you have no idea what the life of your dreams that would resonate looks like you're going to be okay, so long as you lean into that knowing inside of you and you don't ignore it or anesthetize it. Many of you know listening right now parts of my story or all of my story, but I'm going to travel back in time for a moment because it's really important to take you up to speed, even though growing up, I always wanted to be in the performing arts world. Always wanted to be in the performing arts world. I played it really safe and I won't go into detail why you can buy my book and find out all about what happened in my childhood and what led me to feel so incredibly safe and comfortable in academia. But eventually, after so many trials and tribulations and going to school for things that didn't mean anything to me. I discovered physical therapy and thought, yeah, this will work. And eventually, after 10 plus years of school, got a doctorate. 10 plus years of school, got a doctorate, graduated in 2010,.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Came out into the working world and discovered that most physical therapists, at least in the orthopedic setting so the ones that treat sports injuries, back pain, knee pain, post-operative care if you've had a joint replacement, a sprained ankle most of those physical therapists were seeing so many patients per hour and what resulted was simply chasing down the patient's symptoms not ever, really, unless it was such a straightforward case getting to the source of the problem. And even if you did, because of the constraints of insurance and how little they reimburse and how little they reimburse, the clinical owners can only stay open if the physical therapist themselves is doing mostly evaluations, which means that if you come in with a simple ankle sprain when you are doing your corrective exercise, that hopefully prepares your body to get all the way back to soccer or running or whatever it was that you wanted to do and we're doing before the injury, you are not doing that work with the doctor of physical therapy. Nine times out of 10, you were doing it with a physical therapy assistant or, even more commonly, a physical therapy aid, who is so much less qualified to get you back to full fitness and function. So why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because after three years of working for someone else and making $33 an hour as a doctor and, by the way, it is almost 15 years since I graduated and most doctors of physical therapy are still earning under $50 an hour, which is absolutely insane. Which is absolutely insane.

Speaker 1: 4:54

I was in a really tough financial situation, in a very serious marital crisis and also not as fulfilled doing what I wanted to do in the world. So what did I do? I decided to start a cash-based practice. So, in a sea of clinics in Santa Monica, california, that were all taking insurance, I opened a business that did not accept insurance. I would provide patients with a super bill so they could build their insurance and, depending on their out of network benefits, they might get some decent amount of money back. But I needed to lift the constraints and treat people whole body, whole person, and really meet the patient where they were at and hone in on my ability to listen, to hold space for them and to create not just a comprehensive program where the exercise prescription was actually going to match the demands of their life and the tasks that they cared so badly about getting back to, but also so that I could see and attune to the psychological and emotional roadblocks that were baked into that person's life and psyche and, of course, within the scope of my practice, be able to meet them in those places and design a program that fit into their very busy and often very stressful lives. I have that clinic for 10 years and I loved it and at the same time I was gathering time in recovery.

Speaker 1: 6:47

So, if you don't know this, I'm 15 years, sober from drugs and alcohol, and come from a very long lineage of addiction, mental illness and emotional cycles of dysfunction. It started to become more and more difficult not to see the soul sickness in the patient. So, yes, in 12-step rooms I was hearing tales of tragedy. I was experiencing my own tragedy again and again. These people in my clinic were not cocaine addicts or fall down drunks. They were high functioning quote unquote normal people whose addiction to the beauty and body standard, perfectionism, productivity, self-righteous anger, denial was completely getting in the way of what they were paying me to do, which was often to cure their knee or low back pain.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Why does this matter? Well, number one, it was hard to know that I was limited in how much I could help that person in that place, because they were coming to me for their body and I was an expert in the body. And then, on March 13th of 2022, I lost my sister, jessica, to a drug overdose, which absolutely wrecked me, and I'm going to tell you that Samantha 1.0 died. On that day, too, the way I was living, the way I was treating patients, the work I was doing in the world went somewhere to die. On that day, I could no longer just show up as Dr Hart treating the body. I had no idea where I was going or who I was becoming, but I knew it would require me to do so much soul excavation so that, wherever I showed up next, I was showing up as all of me, the body, but I would treat my body, spirit, as one living, breathing connective tissue, because that is real and true.

Speaker 1: 9:58

So I subleased my space. I hit the pause button. I subleased my space. I hit the pause button. I'm practicing, and I started writing and I wrote, and I wrote. And I wrote because I knew I had to write a book. I just didn't know what the book would be about.

Speaker 1: 10:17

And two years later, my self-help memoir breaking the Circuit how to Rewire your Mind for Hope, resilience and Joy was born. What started as a book about the story of my life and how I've overcome became prescriptive, became a modern reinvention of the 12 steps of recovery, so that anyone, addict or not, can use them as a template for how to get through life's hardest things. For how to get through life's hardest things. Today I am taking clients on again and when I do, they don't just get the best of me as a clinician the person who is a biomechanical expert, who will take someone from wherever they are to exactly where they want to be on a physical level, but who is also going to take a person through the steps and use those steps on any and all life situations that they are in, so that, on the other side of this 12-week experience, they have a sense of physical and emotional peace, power and freedom that they never thought was possible, and freedom that they never thought was possible. What I'm going to do now is take you through what I mean by a modern reinvention of the 12 steps.

Speaker 1: 12:16

Some of you may have no idea what they are. Some of you may feel recoil on the inside, like what happens to us when we want to touch a hot flame, a visceral reaction of absolutely not. Those steps are religious, patriarchal, archaic, and I get it. Some of you might be really open. The whole reason I wrote that book is not because I couldn't save my sister. I was a living, breathing embodiment of what a sober, beautiful life could look like. I did everything right and everything wrong to try and save her life and still it didn't work. What I can tell you is that only when I worked those steps, five years into my recovery, when I was physically abstinent and spiritually bankrupt, did my life change. That book is my guidepost for how I have lived through my husband having a very long and very serious extramarital affair, how I have lived through miscarriages.

Speaker 1: 13:39

How I have lived through severe postpartum depression and having to get on medication in recovery, friendship breakups, the sudden death of my father, the sudden death of my father, the absolutely uncontrolled mania of my bipolar mother and the loss of my sister to a drug overdose.

Speaker 1: 14:11

The steps in this new trauma-informed version have been my lifeline and I am going to spend the rest of my life telling everybody about them.

Speaker 1: 14:31

This is the first time I'm coming on this podcast and really sharing the shift in language so that it might just apply to you, the listener who hears my voice right now. So if you take a second and you scan your life, if you scan the quality of your friendships, your love life, your work life, if you're a parent, how you're parenting, your relationship with your children, your relationship with finance, sex, just scan it. And, most importantly, your relationship with your own self-talk, whatever sticks out the most as being a pain point for you. I want you to hold on to that while I take you through this modern reinvention of the steps, because that is going to be the thing you dial in on and you're going to tailor the language to that pain point and see if you can shift your perspective. Take away some tools and then use them today and see if it helps you feel better, See if it helps bring any clarity or any peace of mind that is your job today.

Speaker 1: 16:09

So step one in a traditional 12 step recovery program goes like this I am powerless over we'll just say alcohol, for now insert substance of choice and my life has become unmanageable. Great, let's say, you're not an addict. Think about one of those pain points when I was in my marital crisis. It was I am powerless over my marriage, and I would go as deep as I could. I am powerless over the way it looks, the way it feels that it's falling apart, that anything I say or do cannot make my husband forgive me for everything that happened on the front end of my addiction. I am powerless over the future of it. I am powerless over the shattering of all my hopes and dreams, of what I thought this was going to look like at this point in my life as a 30 year old woman. And the list goes on and on and on. And when I try to exert power over him what he thinks of me, whether or not he'll go to therapy or his own 12-step program to work on forgiving me my life becomes unmanageable in the following ways I am obsessing over him and not focusing on myself. I give my power away, I have no access to real peace and I have zero sense of self-worth. Okay, great, that starts to make a lot of sense.

Speaker 1: 17:56

Step two came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Let's quickly and easily change that language. Can I come to believe, in my case, that something other than my inner perfectionist, which, by the way, is so loud and so mean not anymore, I'm very proud to say, but for a large chunk of my life can I believe that there is some other part of me, besides that part, that could restore my nervous system, my brain, my heart, to a sense of safety? Well, there must be something besides my inner critic. There must be, because this is, yes, partly genetic that I'm type A, but it's also a result of my environment and how I survived and coped. There is a part of me that wants to play and rest and laugh and move my body and have peace. Maybe that part of me has a seat at the table and could help me feel better.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Step three became willing to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. As I understand him, I used to hate this stuff, you guys. I was a raging atheist when I came into the 12-step rooms. So again, if we have found a more loving part of ourselves. If we know it exists or we can't find it, but we know it's there somewhere, maybe just buried under a pile of criticism or shame, if it's running us into the ground, if we're really miserable enough over it, could we be willing to try and turn up the volume of that really harsh inner critic between our ears? Because when we live off of that, we have evidence that everything feels terrible and truly, when it comes to matters of the heart, it doesn't solve anything, like a marital crisis. Right? My inner critic, my inner perfectionist, my inner controller, didn't matter what she said or did, couldn't control him. So maybe, maybe, maybe there is another part of me that if I let that part direct my thinking, my heart, my life, I might feel better, I might gain insight.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Step four is all about making a list of people, places, things and institutions that you're angry at. So the first part of this is put yourself at the top, don't question it. Somewhere we are carrying a grudge toward ourselves. It is critical that you go at the top of the list and then list whoever and whatever you want. It can be as long or as short as you'd like. The second part of this list is just to write out what happened, what they did, what it did to you. The third part what did it affect? Did it affect your sense of worthiness? Did it affect your financial security? Did it affect self-esteem, ambition? It doesn't matter. Anything that comes to mind, write it out, get it out of your body and onto paper in a traditional 12-step program is what is your role in your own resentment? And I think this is really critical also to start taking the power out of it. However, however, I want to be really clear that when we are children, anything traumatic, big or small, that happens to us is not our fault. This last part of the fourth step is not at all a place to blame yourself for trauma that happened to you when you were a child. So it's very, very important that we get nuanced here. I assume everybody listening to this is an adult, 18 or over. Okay, what happened to us when we were children is not our fault, but what we do with it as adults is our responsibility.

Speaker 1: 23:39

This part of the fourth step is where we take responsibility for how we are seeing the resentment, thinking about the resentment, how we are choosing to behave in light of being so angry, not just towards that person, but toward ourselves. If we want to be free from resentment because resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die If we want to be free from resentment, we have to take responsibility for the way we are viewing that person, place, thing or situation. Maybe it's just that we're focusing so much on what they did. Maybe it's just that we're focusing so much on what they did instead of focusing on feeling the sadness and the grief of that experience. Maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe we're taking something personally that someone did to us that truly has nothing to do with us. So we're going to dig for some place that we can take some responsibility in a trauma-informed and loving way, without blame or shame, so that we can access more peace and more freedom.

Speaker 1: 25:13

The fifth step is just to read that list out loud right, a sick brain can't cure a sick brain. When we are suffering, it is so helpful and so important that there is someone else. This does not have to be a therapist, though it could be if you have a trusted one but just someone you know will hold space for you. So have discernment when you do this and get this stuff out of your body, and not just onto paper, but into the universe. Out of your body, and not just onto paper but into the universe, so you can give it away and discharge the level of power it has over you. Not to mention, if you share it with somebody you love and trust, you might gain some really cool insights and you might also get some validation through your lived experience, which feels really good.

Speaker 1: 26:22

When we go into steps six and seven, it starts to talk about character defects. Of course, I hated this language and I have since reimagined it. For good reason, because we do not have a defective character. Every human being on Earth has a long list of character traits that at any time can either be assets or liabilities. So we're going to list, in step six, our character traits. Right off the bat, I can tell you I'm controlling, I have perfectionistic tendencies. I have perfectionistic tendencies. I'm also highly ambitious, I am extremely loyal, I'm funny, I'm blunt, I may or may not use my character trait in a good way or a bad way.

Speaker 1: 27:42

So this is nuanced work and it helps us start to do some pattern recognition right, so that when a character trait becomes a liability, we go huh, doing that thing again. And every time I do that thing it doesn't feel good and I end up hurting someone and having to make an amends. So what do I need to soothe inside of me right now, for example, when I am trapped in a loop of perfectionism? What does that mean? That means I want to control something. Why? Because I'm terrified, because there is some outcome that I can't see or predict or imagine, and so I'm doubling down on trying to figure it out, instead of sitting with my fear, loving myself through the terror and trying to trust that in time I will have the clarity I am so desperately seeking. Okay, so we start to learn deeply about ourselves and why we do what we do, and then we have a choice we can keep doing it, knowing how it ends, or we can do something different, or we can do something different when we go from six to seven.

Speaker 1: 29:24

Step seven is simply asking that more loving part of you that we talked about in step two and three. When these character traits that become liabilities crop up, we ask that loving part of ourselves to please help us redirect the trait. So it's an asset. So if my inner perfectionist is sitting in the seat of CEO in my head, wanting to run the show, and I start to notice that because I'm doing all the things I always do Controlling people, places things, obsessing, ruminating, feeling really constricted on the inside of me I can say okay, okay, I'm afraid I get it. I'm totally afraid. I can say okay, okay, I'm afraid I get it, I'm totally afraid. Is there a calmer, more trusting, more patient and tolerant part of me that can hold me and love me through this thing that I'm so afraid of? Am I willing to ask that part of me to show up? It's just a matter of willingness. Even that is a shift in that old feedback loop.

Speaker 1: 30:46

The practice of these things is what literally builds new circuitry. It is what literally rewires our brain body connection so we can have a new experience and a new lease on life. By the way, which is my story, because, against all odds, I am sitting here talking to you about this my brain is not the same that it used to be through these practices. So now we move on to steps eight and nine. We take our list from step four, all those things and people and places we were resentful at, including ourselves, and that becomes our amends list. So, yes, you must be at the top of your amends list. So eight is just repurposing that list from step four. Maybe you have a few more people to add, maybe you don't. Step nine is making direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would be harmful. This is where running the list before you make the amends by that trusted friend or person or therapist can be helpful.

Speaker 1: 32:12

Why does it matter to make an amends to yourself first? Well, again, in my experience, if you're anything like me and you're type A and you're inner perfectionist is loud and unrelenting. It may not have ever even occurred to you. It may not have ever even occurred to you to let yourself off the hook. In fact, you might be afraid to do that. You might feel like you might not be productive if you're not beating yourself to a pulp in recovery.

Speaker 1: 32:49

I was 30 years old and five years sober and had never in my life spoken to myself with compassion until someone said have you ever made an amends to yourself when I began a practice of more compassionate self-talk, which is a practice? You do not wave a wand and suddenly speak to yourself in a loving and kind way when you've spent decades criticizing yourself, but when you get into a practice of redirecting the harsh inner critic in a more loving direction, you're, you have a way to clear the shame that you have been carrying about past behaviors, thoughts, actions, choices. When you can clear shame, which is so corrosive and creates a darkness inside of us and litters the lens through which we see the world, because we only see things from a well, I guess this is what I deserve viewpoint. When we clear it and we go, wow, if I don't deserve to feel bad, if I don't deserve to be punished, what might I be entitled to in this life? And that becomes limitless. And suddenly the inner critic is a lot more quiet and you just might hear the whisper of your intuition, which is a game changer.

Speaker 1: 34:45

And you go on and you make those amends. And, by the way, making an amends is so much more than saying I'm sorry, is so much more than saying I'm sorry. To amend is to change. You need to change your behavior. The practice of making an amend is the practice of changing the old behavior that got you in trouble in the first place, so that whoever it is that you're making an amends to, including yourself, can trust that you are not going to do that again. You must practice the new behaviors, and then we move into what I consider the land of the living.

Speaker 3: 35:48

Steps 10, 11 and 12 this is where it gets really good, you guys.

Speaker 1: 35:56

Step 10 is all about taking personal inventory. What does that mean? That means we get into a daily practice. By the way, we're talking five minutes or less Okay, Of scanning our day, less okay of scanning our day, thinking about who we saw, who we helped, who we hurt, including ourselves. We think about what went well and what could have gone better. We think about the blessings of the day and what we're grateful for. We think about our intentions for tomorrow and if there's anything in there that we're not proud of, we don't beat ourselves up. We do better the next day. If there's anything in there that points towards making an amends to someone we care about, we do it, we own it, so that when our head hits the pillow that night, we are clean and clear and we just promise to try and do better the next day.

Speaker 1: 37:10

Step 11 is using prayer Not a religious type of prayer, any prayer mantras sitting in silence, waiting for the whisper of your intuition and then honoring what she says. We seek daily, through prayer and meditation, a combination of the two, one or the other or both, it doesn't matter For guidance from that more loving part of ourselves. Maybe it's a day really really stressed and everything's going wrong and that critical voice in your head is so, so, so, so loud. Well, you need prayer and meditation more than ever. You need to be still so you can witness that critic and not feed it and give it energy or believe what it says. You need to get quiet enough to watch what it's doing, know that it's giving you information, that you're probably afraid of something or sad about something, and then you need to wait long enough to hear what that loving part of you has to say about it. Sometimes you just need to sit with the feelings until they pass. Sometimes there'll be an action item that you can do or take to shift the course of your day, but we are seeking out our highest self through the course of the day.

Speaker 1: 38:52

And step 12. Simply says having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to practice these principles in all of our affairs and carry this message to other people. What does that mean? That means that if you have arrived at this point in the work, you've learned a lot, and you're not someone who has to graduate from your spiritual curriculum or be a saint and a Buddha to help somebody else. You have done enough work where, when you see another person stuck in a cycle of dysfunction, when it is appropriate, you can extend your hand and offer help and continue to practice any and all of these principles every day of your life no matter what situation you're in, until they are woven into the fabric of who you are.

Speaker 1: 40:18

That is how you rewire your brain body connection. That is how you overcome trauma. I hope that you understand these steps in a new way. I hope that you see that they can help you, regardless of what you're struggling with. That has nothing to do with substance abuse. That has to do with life and love and loss and joy.

Speaker 1: 41:14

Who helps people overcoming trauma, rediscover hope, resilience and joy? And I'm talking any kind of trauma physical, mental or emotional. How do I do it? I take people through a 12-week process where we completely reboot and rewire the physical and emotional body.

Speaker 1: 41:52

On the other side of working with me, you will be stronger physically than you ever have. You will know exactly how to move your body without getting hurt. You will have a fitness program that actually matches the demands of your life. So you are super fit and confident. No matter what exercise class you ever walk into, no matter how many breaks you ever need to take between working out, you will know where to start, how to ramp up and how to maintain, how to build, and you will have a 12-step template for your mind, no matter what you are going through, whether it is a friendship loss, a friend who's sick, a parent who dies, a child whose tantrums are driving you insane, a job that you hate, you will know how to take your pain and feel it, heal it and repurpose it. You will be able to find your way back to passion, play, laughter and joy, no matter how hard life gets.

Speaker 1: 43:39

This is Samantha 2.0. This is what I have to offer you and the world. If you want to work with me, you can Go onto my website and book a discovery call at dr Samantha heartcom H a R T E. I also have a free webinar tomorrow, thursday, at 11 am Pacific time, where I am giving away so many tips and tricks about how to stay physically, mentally and spiritually fit this holiday season, and for everyone who stays on the webinar until the end, I'm giving something really amazing away for free, besides, which, I will be inviting you into a free 12 day shred fitness challenge.

Speaker 1: 44:38

Find me on Instagram, tik TOK, youtube, all the places at Dr Samantha Hart. Message me, stay in touch with me, ask me questions. I am on a mission to 12 step the world, because without this mission, I can't make complete sense of everything that's happened to me and this feels like my life's work. I hope something that I said today doesn't just help you. I hope it changes your life. I hope to hear from you If you are enjoying this show. It would mean so much to me to leave a review, to subscribe, to subscribe. I want as many people to have access to these messages as possible. I love you guys and if no one has told you yet, today I am so proud of you, I'm on my knees, whipping my mistakes to jump over the grief.

Speaker 3: 46:24

Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough. It's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern.

Speaker 2: 46:41

Find a new reprieve Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I gotta live the life.

Speaker 3: 47:10

I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Trust the process, cause it's gonna set me free, breaking the circuit.

Speaker 2: 47:32

Making it worth it all. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. All I got love the life. Gotta gotta gotta break it or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on, one, two, three. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got nothing like. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got this life.