Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Follow Your Breath to Find Your Purpose with Francesca Sipma
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 497 of Live Happy Now. As we move toward the new year, it’s common to think about what we like to see unfold in the coming months. This week’s guest is here to help. I’m your host, Paula Felps, and today, I am joined by Francesca Sipma, an international speaker, trainer, and author, who created a process called HypnoBreathwork, to help people connect with their state of flow and discover their purpose. In her powerful new book, Unblock Your Purpose: Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow. She walks readers through the methodology to tap into their unique purpose and find clarity for the future. Let’s have a listen.
[EPISODE]
[0:00:43] PF: Francesca, welcome to Live Happy Now.
[0:00:45] FS: Thank you so much for having me.
[0:00:47] PF: Oh, this book. What a book you have written. It’s really an incredible tool. As you and I had talked about, it’s just something that I think so many people need right now. And before we dig into what all it offers and what this is about, your backstory is amazing. So, tell us how you went from this fast-paced, hard-dropping life as an advertising person to studying, and teaching breath work.
[0:01:12] FS: Yes. So, I watched too many movies when I was young, and I had really glamorized this lifestyle of advertising in Manhattan, and just went and chased after that dream, and eventually worked hard enough that I got it, and I sort of hit those goals and those milestones. But when I reached the top of the mountain, I just found myself just insatiable and chasing the next promotion, and the next account, and the next trip, and the next guy. And realized that there was no external fulfillment and accomplishments that were really going to create meaning and joy in my life.
That sort of led me down a path to understand what was broken, what my true values were, what would actually light me up. That’s when I just followed this voice inside me and this feeling that said, “Go to Bali. Book a one-way ticket to Bali, and go to this seven-day breathwork retreat.” Honestly, that’s where I met myself. I just did this really intense, it was holotropic breathwork, and released a lot of old stories, and suppressed emotions, and had very vivid imagery, and just making connections between the identity that had formed, and the mask, and the protective strategies.
I became so fascinated and mind blown by breathwork that I had to study it. I had to know it deeply. Then, I’ve just felt inspired to optimize it and create my own modality. That led me to HypnoBreathwork, where I combine breathwork hypnosis and visioning. I bring it to modern entrepreneurs, and just have created a very efficient and effective process that has brought me so much fulfillment, allowed me to live my purpose. Now, I hope to make that accessible to the world.
[0:02:58] PF: One of the things that I found so amazing in your story as you went on your journey were the blocks that you had to remove and how things that you thought, “Hey, we’re good there.” You didn’t even realize there was a block. I was amazed at how deep this journey took you and just how healing it was. That really jumps off the page, like how profoundly this changed you spiritually.
[0:03:22] FS: Yes, it really did. I think the most brutal one, that was also the most beautiful one was around the relationship to my mother. I just always thought that we had a really great relationship, and I loved, and appreciated her. I knew how special she was. That really came to the forefront that I didn’t, and I had taken her for granted, and I was very unconscious about our relationship. And sort of, the shame and guilt that came out of my body when that awareness hit was such a revelation, because I thought I was smart. I thought I was intelligent, and self-aware, and had been in therapy, and all the things. If I was that far off from what was actually going on in my psyche, how far off are all of us?
[0:04:03] PF: So, explain to us what you mean when you talk about breathwork.
[0:04:06] FS: Yes. So, there’s a lot of different styles of breath work. It’s sort of like yoga or fitness. You’ll find different techniques and different benefits. But essentially, breathwork is an experiential therapy, and it allows you to release suppressed emotions and energetic patterns from your nervous system. It also allows you to access altered states of consciousness. What that means is, you’re able to go into your subconscious mind. That’s the storehouse, that’s the depth that we want to get to in order to create real change. Because our subconscious shows us our values, our beliefs, our memories, and our emotions.
We want to go into the depths of the subconscious to really understand the root, the source of our behavior patterns. Once we’ve identified that, and once we’ve dissipated the emotional charge, we become more free. We have more agency to have control over the things that we once had a conditioned reactive pattern to. So, it’s just a very powerful and profound modality for healing and for clarity.
[0:05:15] PF: Then, what you developed out of that was HypnoBreathwork.
[0:05:18] FS: Yes.
[0:05:19] PF: So, explain how that takes it to the next level.
[0:05:22] FS: Definitely takes it to the next level. It was interesting in my Bali retreat, because I just remember the teacher saying to me, “Oh, you have a really keen ability to connect the dots. Like you just have this ability to kind of process your experience.” I didn’t know what they meant by that until I started doing other workshops, and classes around the world, and even certifications, and trainings. Where I just witnessed a lot of people having very cathartic releases, but not actually knowing what it meant, and not knowing how to utilize the practice to change their day-to-day life.
I saw this huge gap in breathwork, where we had an opportunity to help people set an intention, make sense of their experience, and then, take action as their higher selves. The modality that I felt was really powerful in sort of helping with that linear journey was hypnotherapy. Because when you have vocal cues and you have vocal guidance, you allow people to have focal points in their brain. Then, they can access the memory or the belief. They can start to reprogram it, they can start to rewire it to a more expansive future.
Then, I was always really in love with Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work and the way that he used mental rehearsal and visioning or visualization for us to step into the version that we want to come and feel the emotion like we already have it. So, I experimented with those three things. I would use an EEG headband to understand when I was accessing deep theta states, and saw that the circular connected breath, two inhales, one exhale actually dropped us into theta within four minutes. If you played the right music, and you set the right intention, then you could really help people go through this very meticulously crafted journey and produce results in just 22 minutes. It was through my own self-experimentation, and then, obviously, bringing that work to my clients and students, and it’s just sort of taken off.
[0:07:14] PF: Yes, it has. With your book, one thing I love about it is, you offer that experience. Because, as we listen to this, it’s like, “Okay. Well, how am I going to find someone who’s going to walk me through this? How are we going to do it? You’ve created that, because each chapter of the book has writing prompts at the end, and it basically has an assignment. Then, you have an app that people can download, and they get that HypnoBreathwork experience. How did you envision all that and just put it together in such a concise, helpful package?
[0:07:47] FS: Breathwork.
[0:07:48] PF: It told you what you needed to do.
[0:07:51] FS: Honestly, I do HypnoBreathwork every single morning, and it gives me so much clarity. And even more importantly, it gives me so much intuition. I started utilizing it when I transitioned from corporate to becoming a breathwork coach, because I didn’t know how to be an entrepreneur and I didn’t know how to scale a business. I was used to a very comfortable lifestyle. So, I was like, “How am I going to make money doing this? How am I going to sort of create my own brand?”
Every day, I would breathe, and I would just get amazing creative ideas. I would just get marketing strategies, and who I needed to reach out to, and partnership opportunities, and themes for workshops, and retreats, and courses. I was like, “This is profound.” I’m getting into this flow state and I’m getting all of this ideation. Now, every single one of my projects has come through breath, the format, the pricing, the messaging, the website, the colors, the outfit I’m going to wear.
The book was the same way. It was like, “These are going to be the chapters. These are the parts. You’re going to start with this quote. You’re going to go into a personal story. You’re going to add some psychology and philosophy. Then, you’re going to go into other people’s stories, and then you’re going to make it really tangible with action steps. Then. it’s all going to tie into mastery. So, that really came through in my breathwork journey, and I stayed really consistent in that practice as I was writing, to make it very clear, and to help hold the reader’s hand, so that they could have a very tangible product to discover their purpose.
[0:09:12] PF: You brought up a great point that I want to note, and that is, it is rooted in science and psychology. It’s not some woo-woo, “Hey, you’re going to lay on the floor, I’m going to hypnotize you, and you’re going to take a couple breaths, and everything changes.” It is very scientific and very rooted in how our mind actually works.
[0:09:30] FS: Yes. So, there’s two kinds of components to that of how the science is working, and it’s mind and body. So, from a physiological standpoint, you’re actually activating your parasympathetic nervous system. That’s the rest and digest, and that’s why people can feel so calm and relaxed after a session. But neurologically, because we’re changing the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, we’re actually quieting down the prefrontal cortex. That’s the analytical mind. So, people who have high anxiety or they’re trapped in thoughts of depression, they’re actually stuck in these thought loops, and they can’t see a way out. Every day feels mundane. But when you breathe, you’re actually stimulating different regions of the brain. You’re expanding that imagery. You’re seeing different visions of the future.
Then, when you bring in the emotion of that, now, you can see yourself having freedom or on that stage, or feeling abundant, and having your own business. Then, you feel the gratitude, you feel the creativity, you feel the love in your body. Now, you’re truly starting to change your state, you’re starting to change your energy, and you begin to attract those synchronicities and those opportunities to you.
[0:10:41] PF: Absolutely. Right now, it’s particularly important, I think. There’s a lot of division, a lot of turmoil. People are kind of trying to figure things out right now. The name of your book is Unblock Your Purpose. What do you think are some of the main blocks that you’ve seen for us discovering our purpose?
[0:11:00] FS: Oh, there’s so many. But I did do a lot of research and I actually was very meticulous in collecting data as I was coaching, especially during COVID. I had a virtual format where I would have people write their blocks down in the chat box. I would then transcribe those into Excel sheets and start to understand patterns, and what vocal cues could take them out of it in what they were experiencing. What I found was. for women, the number one block was self-doubt. Sort of a parallel to that was a bit of fear of being seen. Then, for men, the number one block was the fear of uncertainty.
[0:11:36] PF: Interesting.
[0:11:37] FS: Yes, they needed to know, they need that security, because I think that they’re programmed more to have to provide. So, they need to control mostly their finances in order to feel secure in life. Especially, if you follow Dr. Joe, you know that all the magic lives in the unknown. I was going to get really comfortable with letting life be unpredictable and showing us new and magical ways.
Breathwork sort of helps you relax into those possibilities and see what is possible. There’s a wide array of fears that people have, everything from fear of failure to fear of success, to procrastination, to perfectionism. But luckily, we have all of those different topics on Mastery App, so that you can pick the one that’s most relevant for you. Breathe it out, get to the root of it, reprogram it, and then take action as your higher self.
[0:12:32] PF: Do you think most of us know what our purpose is?
[0:12:35] FS: No. No.
[0:12:37] PF: Because I think we feel like we should.
[0:12:40] FS: Not necessarily. I think that life’s hard sometimes and it can definitely make us build walls, and protective exteriors, and coping mechanisms that truly make you lose sight of who you are. I remember in my third, I think – no, it was my second ever breathwork session. I had this vision of myself in a flowy red dress in a meadow, and I was like, “Whoa, I’m feminine.” That feels like a far departure from the tough girl New Yorker. But it was also like this deep knowing of like, “Whoa. Once I breathed out all the barriers and all the walls that have been accumulated from being hurt, or being betrayed, or being scared throughout my life. There’s this pure person who just wants love and who just wants to feel enough.”
Once I got into alignment with that version, and the more authentic side of myself, then it was like, “Oh, this is what I’m passionate about. This is what I’m curious about. I forgot that I have a love for this.” Like, “Oh, I can pull in these experiences.” I think people also need permission for their purpose to be nuanced, because it’s not necessarily following some traditional role, and a system, and a process, and this corporate job. But a lot of times, it’s extremely creative. It’s like, “Oh, I’ve always –” for me, personally, had this desire to understand psychology and neuroscience. But now, I’m in love with spirituality and I’m obsessed with breathwork, but I also have this marketing background.
I’m on this path for excellence, and I was able to find the intersections, and that convergence to discover my purpose, which is to write this book and create Mastery. I find the same thing with my clients, is when you start to look at your skills, your experiences, what you wanted to be when you were younger, what’s the biggest obstacle you’ve overcome. Those are usually the main components. When you turn it outwards, it’s no longer about you, but who you can serve. Then, your purpose becomes pretty clear.
[0:14:40] PF: As you unpack that and evolve, does your purpose change? Does it grow? Does it move? What happens?
[0:14:46] FS: It can, but purpose usually tends to be sort of a universal concept. So, for me, I would say, like my purpose is to help people get into alignment with their purpose. So, that can take a form in many different ways. It can be through retreat, it can be through an app, it could be through a book, it could be with a high performer, an athlete, or a – there’s so many different ways that it can unfold. But it’s usually the way that you just want to help other people with your skills. If we break it down extremely simply, just think about your skills and think about how you can serve others. And if you breathe on that for a few minutes, you will likely get some clues into your purpose.
[0:15:26] PF: That’s a wonderful meditation right there. How have you seen it dramatically change people’s lives when they start using HypnoBreathwork, and they discover their purpose, and they lose the fear of pursuing that purpose?
[0:15:40] FS: Well, I won’t say that they lose the fear of pursuing it per se, because that definitely requires a consistent practice, which is also why I do it every single morning as well. But, I think, this is such a high number, but I have a course that complements the book. It’s called Unblock Your Purpose, it’s 12 weeks, where we do HypnoBreathwork on the topics in the book. I feel like 80% of the people quit their corporate jobs when they did it.
[0:16:08] PF: Really?
[0:16:10] FS: So, beware. But you know, a lot of other people were like, “My purpose is within this company, and it’s to do this.” And/or, “I want to pursue something on the side and start to build my passion as I have this security.” So, it can look different for other people. But one of my favorite stories is, I was working with a music producer. He was actually a producer for Justin Timberlake. And he thought that his purpose was to bring music that changes culture. After three HypnoBreathwork sessions, he saw very clearly that actually, his purpose was to inspire minority boys to show them that they could live their dreams. It’s interesting when you go a little bit deeper. It’s not on the ego and it’s not on the surface. It’s usually a lot more soulful.
[0:16:56] PF: That’s so interesting. The journeys you’ve witnessed must just be absolutely breathtaking.
[0:17:02] FS: Oh my goodness. I feel called to share one of them with you because it’s still one of the most shocking ones for me. I was leading the first round of my Unblock Your Purpose course, and I had just beautiful 12 group of humans that we just had like the most miraculous time together. One gentleman joined this group, never having done breathwork before. After his very first session, I could tell he got pretty rocked in the session. I just asked, “Hey, how was it? What came up for you?” I was really excited. It was his first one. There was tears, he was like shaking.
He realized that he had suppressed memories of sexual trauma from when he was five years old and hadn’t thought about it in five decades. It was actually the block to him leaving a legacy for his children. So, that was the block to his purpose. He had to heal that, release the emotion of that, free his own energy, and then, the clarity in the next steps started flowing in. So, it’s extremely, extremely powerful, and transformative work.
[0:18:05] PF: Absolutely, it is. So, one of the things that you talk about is intuitive action. First of all, can you explain to us what that is?
[0:18:14] FS: It’s the most important component, and it is –
[0:18:16] PF: So, it’s good we’re talking about it. Yeah, I’m glad that you brought it up. So, intuition is your inner knowing, that’s your inner guidance, that’s that wisdom and infinite intelligence within you. Then, action is just purely executing on it, and having that confidence and that conviction to see the intuition through. It’s really a concept that I learned through Shakti Gawain in her book, living in the Light, where she said, “We have to learn how to get out of our heads and into our body. To do that, we balance the feminine and the masculine energies. The feminine is intuition and the masculine is action, and learn to act on your intuition.”
I started doing this in small ways, like my head was like, “Go back to work, get the job and marketing again.” Then, my intuition was like, “No, book a flight to India.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is so strange to feel so conflicted. “But I was trying to train my intuition and it really is like a muscle. The more you act on it, the stronger it gets, the more you flex it, the more you practice it. Then, the universe would start to reward me. I would get a thousand-dollar voucher for going on that ticket. Or I would just meet the most interesting, fascinating people, or I would have an insane opportunity that brought so much magic and color to my life. So, act on your
intuition. That is a superpower.
[0:19:36] PF: It’s scary to do if you haven’t been doing it, because you’re going to second guess yourself. It’s like, am I making this up? Do I really think – there’s so many questions, so many ways that we question ourselves when our intuition pops up and we’re not practicing it.
[0:19:53] FS: That’s why breathwork helps, because breath is truly a direct line into your intuition. It really clears out all of the mental noise. In HypnoBreathwork, the most important component for us is in the very last song, the very last vocal cue that you will get in every single session is what is your one next intuitive action step. So now, it’s crystal clear. Typically, we’ll start small. Your next action step might be, send the email, put the post on social media, apologize, have the conversation. If you learn to start honoring those, they’ll start to get bigger and they’ll get bolder.
[0:20:31] PF: Yes. I think that’s so interesting to watch how we get rewarded as we take that step. Then, each one is like a little test. Then, we take that, we pass it, and then we build on to something larger, and it just soon becomes a way of life.
[0:20:45] FS: Yes. Sometimes, the reward is just the growth in itself. Sometimes I take these really big intuitive actions. I’m like, “Okay. I just emailed 200 of my old employers, or teams, or colleagues. So now, something must happen. I’m going to get that corporate speaking gig now.” And it doesn’t play out, and I’m like, “Okay.” Because I had to either get more creative, get more experience, breathe through my fear of rejection. There’s all these things that the universe kind of puts in front of you so that you can become the person who can hold what it is that you desire.
[0:21:17] PF: Yes. I remember seeing Laura Silva speak and talking about how sometimes the exercise is just learning to listen to that intuition. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe it’s just – it was put there. It’s kind of like doing reps at the gym. That one rep isn’t going to build that muscle, but you’ve got to do it to be able to do more.
[0:21:36] FS: I love that you said that, get your reps in, and then, something magical happens, where it’s like three years later, that person reaches out to you and they’re like, “Now I’m ready.” You’re like, “There it is.”
[0:21:47] PF: There you go. So, we’re living in anxious times. We’re living in uncertain times. Can we talk about how people can use HypnoBreathwork to help navigate some of the challenges that are going on right now?
[0:22:02] FS: Anxious energy is truly when you just don’t allow yourself to feel. It’s been stacked and accumulated because you’re used to numbing out and you have to be tough, and you have to be strong, and you have to just grind and hustle, and survive. So, the breath allows you to release some of that emotion, which I think is really important for everyone, and I think it’s universal for everyone, because the world feels heavy right now. So, just breathing to give yourself like a pressure valve release, I think, is enough right now. We actually just recently created three-minute sessions on Mastery App, so people could just dump out that emotion.
I would start there, with just three minutes of circular connected breathing, so that you can get rid of some of that tension, some of that stress, and some of that anxiety that’s accumulated in your body. Then, when you’re ready to go deeper, once you see the benefits of that, once you see how much lighter you can feel just from a few minutes of breathing, then, you might start to get more curious about how it can serve you in other ways, how it can serve you in self-awareness, how it can serve you in dissolving triggers in relationship. Then, hopefully, and eventually, how it can help you discover your purpose.
[0:23:12] PF: That is so excellent. I love that you brought up the relationship because you write about that in the book, and how you can think things are going one way, and then you work together. You have a session with your partner, and it was so different than what you expected. Can you kind of speak to that, the power of doing this as a couple. I imagine, it would be the same like with a parent and child, any relationship where there’s conflict, you could do it together.
[0:23:37] FS: That’s probably – I have full body chills right now. That’s probably one of the most powerful ways that you can use breathwork. I’ll give you an example of just literally yesterday. So, I’ve done HypnoBreathwork every single day for five or almost six years. I haven’t missed a day. And yesterday, I was in conflict with my partner. I said, “You’re just not seeing me. I’m so busy with this book launch. I’m traveling to every city. I’ve been in seven cities in two weeks. I need more support. I need more understanding. I need more empathy. You’re not being compassionate enough. You’re not being considered enough.” I was so frustrated, but I was also just so exhausted, and so tired.
I thought, 100%, for sure, he’s the problem, not me. So, we went to – it was like, all right, we’re not getting anywhere, just trying to talk this out. So, we went into the breaking relationships pattern HypnoBreathwork session from my course. He calls that one my Mariah Carey greatest hits. He’s like, “That’s the best –” We go into the session, and I mean, I don’t even think it took me more than two minutes. I started bawling. I was crying so hard. I just saw immediately, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I have to tell him I’m so sorry. I’m not seeing him. I have once again put my career ahead of my relationship. I have lost sight of what’s important. Somewhere in my mind, I said, “For the next three months, I will be focusing on this book, and you’re not going to be important to me.” I was the one who was in the wrong, which was shocking to me, so shocking to me.
[0:25:10] PF: How did that happen?
[0:25:11] FS: Oh my gosh. I mean, he obviously felt all the emotion releasing from my body, and he was hugging me as I was kind of breathing and crying, and I came out of it. Once I had that realization, and that awareness, and that clarity that I was actually the one in the wrong, then I started seeing these visions of us. We want to get a place in Portugal, and I saw us renovating a place, and I saw us walking on the cobble streets, and I saw us going to little local cafes. I was like, “Okay, I can do both. But I have to stop telling the story that work has to come before love.”
That was the reprogramming that happened for me, and then, these really beautiful expansive visions happened. Then, I came out, and I apologize to him. I mean, that’s just how it works, 20 minutes, and you shift your entire relationship.
[0:25:56] PF: That’s a good investment. That is a fantastic investment.
[0:25:59] FS: Definitely. Definitely.
[0:26:01] PF: So, we are going to tell our listeners where they can find your book. We’ll give them a link so they can find the app. But as we let you go, what do you want them to take away from this conversation?
[0:26:12] FS: I want you to know that your purpose is accessible, that it’s attainable. And that through this book, you’re going to get clues, and hopefully put the dots together, and create those intersections to know what that is. And that truly, when you find your purpose, and you’re using your gifts, and your skills, and your innate talents and curiosities, and you turn it outward to contribute to something greater than you, your life will have meaning. It will have color, it will have fulfillment, it will have more joy, it will have more freedom, and it it’ll have more peace.
[0:26:41] PF: That is beautiful. Francesca, thank you for all the work that you’re doing and what you’re going to continue to do.
[0:26:47] FS: Thank you so much for having me.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:26:52] PF: That was Francesca Sipma, talking about using breathwork to unblock your purpose and tap into your intuition. If you’d like to learn more about Francesca, follow her on social media, discover her Mastery Breathwork app, or download a free chapter of her book. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every week, we’ll drop a little bit of joy in your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
