Building A Spiritual Vessel That Can Hold Your Success with Dr. Samantha Harte

What if the problem isn’t your goals, but the vessel meant to hold them? We dive into the gap between outer success and inner steadiness, tracing a path from relentless hustling to embodied healing. A live event about Internal Family Systems and a chance encounter with David Guillaume became a turning point, reinforcing a hard-won truth: real change starts at the center—spirit, heart, and mindset—not at the edges of achievement.

I share what years in clinical practice quietly revealed: many high-functioning, high-achieving people carry soul sickness beneath polished lives. As a physical therapist, I watched how trust, listening, and being seen softened pain before any exercise did. Then I connect those observations to personal milestones and fractures—addiction and recovery, perfectionism dressed up as productivity, a marriage that couldn’t survive old survival strategies, and the devastating loss of my sister, who seemed to have it all. These stories aren’t drama; they’re data. They show how external abundance without inner integration can become unbearable.

Together, we unpack the difference between hustling and healing. They can look similar on the surface—busy routines, stacked goals—but they feel different in the body. Hustling chases worth; healing expresses it. You’ll hear simple, practical ways to strengthen your spiritual vessel: daily stillness to sense your baseline, breath that slows the nervous system, intentional movement that releases held tension, writing that gives voice to your parts, and honest repair that rebuilds trust. Keep your 2026 goals. But ask the deeper question each day: how will I strengthen my capacity to receive, hold, and enjoy what I seek?

If this resonates, share the episode with someone who needs it, subscribe for more grounded conversations on recovery and growth, and leave a review to help us reach others who are ready to build from the center out.

To book a FREE discovery call with Dr. Sam, click the link below:

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:10 A Story That Sparks The Topic
• 1:02 Rediscovering Self Through Many Selves
• 2:10 Meeting David Guillaume And A New Lens
• 5:19 Start At The Center
• 6:37 Success Without Soul Work
• 8:24 From Physical Therapy To Soul Care
• 11:06 Personal Loss And Unshakable Proof
• 12:46 From Hustling To Healing
• 14:52 A New Year, A Stronger Vessel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Welcome back everybody to the truth about addiction. It is just me and you today. And I want to start this podcast by sharing a tiny anecdotal story, which then leads me into the topic. Last year I went with a girlfriend to go see Gabby Bernstein live at the Savan Theater, give a talk, and it was all part of her book release, one of her latest amazing books that I was totally judging when I saw the title of. And it's so hilarious that I would be judging it based on what it's actually about. The book is called Self-Help. And I was thinking to myself, really, Gabby? Self-help? How literal could you be? Of course, you're in the world of self-help. You've been in the world of self-help forever. Could you not have gotten a little more creative with the title? Turns out it's literally about internal family systems, which is a therapeutic modality that's all about the different selves, the different parts of us that form as we're growing up, and impressions are being imprinted in our nervous system and calling upon in our healing journey our highest self to help us. It's actually a really clever title, it's kind of brilliant. So this is not the story, by the way. So just before this event, I had heard this man on Lewis Howe's podcast. And his podcast is called The School of Greatness. And he had a guy on who I had never heard of before, whose name is David Guillaume. Now, I've been in the world of personal development for two decades. I've been in a ton of therapy. I'm gonna be 17 years sober next month. I say that only because this particular episode stopped me in my tracks. And I listened to it about four times, and I also shared it with a ton of friends, and it takes a lot for me to do that. And it was the way he spoke, and it was the content itself that I found so intellectually stimulating but spiritually fascinating. And there he is. There is David Guillam. And I go up to him like he knows me. By the way, that podcast blew up. His work has blown up. And he has seminars all over the world now and has an amazing AI version of himself that you can coach with. And just his spiritual platform has exploded. And so this was at the precipice of that. He had already become a very successful business owner with his ex-partner, who he's still very close with, the mother of his children, Mary Ruth. But spiritually speaking, I think this was one of the big catapults into this side of his life becoming financially fruitful. And I love that. I love that, right? So here he is, sort of blowing up. He has no clue who I am. And I I just rush over to him and I'm like, you're David Kean. He was so sweet and warm. I said, I heard you on Lewis House Podcast, and I listened to your episode a bunch of times. I'm sober. You know, I give my little two cents and I said, you know, the thing that I really love about the work you're doing and the subject matter you speak on is that you're constantly redirecting people back to themselves. I said it's very interesting that you say that. Oh, so he spoke for a few minutes. I actually gave him a copy of my book that I was holding on to. Who knows if he's done anything with it. That's today's topic. I am here as a guidepost, as a spiritual advisor, as a friend, as a person on a healing journey to just have a talk about starting at the center. Everything, everything, everything, again and again and again comes back to where we are at in our center. And when I say that I mean in our spirit, in our heart, in our mindset. No matter what your goals are for 2026, no matter what external goals you have set for yourself, about money, about romance, about relationships, about your body, every single one of them is contingent on how sturdy your center is. Here's why. Because I I think there's an objection that comes up quickly in in these conversations, which is well, I can think of a ton of people who have manifested a bunch of success, you know, lots of money and things or relationships, but they haven't done any work, they haven't done any soul work. So what are they excluded from this? No, they're not excluded. This is why there are so so many documented and thousands more undocumented cases of people who have been quote unquote wildly successful and who are miserable. Why celebrities who have all the fame and all the money in the world, access to everything they want, kill themselves. You can achieve a ton of external abundance, but if you have an empty vessel, if you have a spiritual vessel that hasn't been prepared to receive those things, you will not be able to hold them. Blow up. You may have it for a time and eventually it will all go away. You may have it forever, never kill yourself, but hate your life. So let's just get that out of the way now because I don't think that's what any of us are really wanting. Right? And it's interesting because there was no sense whatsoever when I was deciding to be a physical therapist that this would be a point of contention in my work life or a point of deep passion and inspiration for me. But it is. Why? Because I built a relationship, because they trusted me, because I listened well, and so as a result of all those things, I made them feel seen, heard, and cared for. But they were suffering from what I call soul sickness. They were in emotional cycles of addiction and dysfunction. Even though they had all the things. And a lot of you know this part of my story, right? It's something I I witnessed for years. I spoke to it, I spoke truth to it, but I didn't have a framework, I didn't spiritually coach them per se. It always reverted back to their body because that's why they were there and what they were paying me for. And once I lost my sister, I really put a stake in the ground and said, I will not turn away from this. Because I don't need another example. I have so many from my own life. Right? On the night of getting accepted into my doctoral program, I overdosed on cocaine. Five years into recovery, still hanging on to perfectionism as a survival skill, my marriage collapses and I feel depressed, miserable, and want to die. And here I am with a sister who on the outside had it all. Beautiful, law degree, two healthy children, house in the suburbs, and she's drug addicted, soul sick, and now she's dead. I don't need in my own life any more proof that the tending to our spiritual vessel is the most important thing, the most important work of our lives that we will ever do. And that it comes before the ability to manifest and hold any external abundance that we say we want. So now the work I do is deeper. I still work on the body. The body is the vessel. But I work on the spirit, the soul of the person, and wherever they're stuck. On the mental loops that we're trapped inside of. It's holistic, it's somatic. It's an integrative process of healing as it should be. And as an overcoming, recovering perfectionist, I will tell you that hustling looks a lot like healing at first glance. And that's because a lot of us hustled as a way to heal when we were young. Hustling, performing, and perfecting was the solution to a broken heart, to needs that weren't met, to grief and sorrow that couldn't be expressed. But if we do that into perpetuity, into adulthood, we will burn the candle at both ends. We will wake up one day and wonder whose life we're actually living. And we will never have done the healing that our soul came here to do. At the start of the new year, at the top of 2026, that whatever your external goals are, keep them. Have them, dream about them. If you have them, they were meant for you. But please, at the same exact time, ask yourself every single day. How can I strengthen my spiritual vessel so that I am capable of holding all of the blessings that I so badly desire. And I promise you you will find your way forward. Until next time. Give yourself a hug, give yourself a pat on the back. You're doing the work. I'm proud of you, and I will see you again soon on the truth about addiction. Bye for now.