Francesca Sipma on How to Unblock Your Purpose Through HypnoBreathwork | EP 566

0:00Coming up next on PassionStruck. You need to use hypno-breath work to heal because if you've been numbing out, if you have a big ego, if you have a lot of protective strategies, you can't get into that higher state of clarity because all of that energy is just working on suppressing that ability to access your highest states. So you have to heal first and then you can start to make creative connections and discover how your skills and your experiences and your obstacles and then turning those outwards will help you discover your purpose. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.

0:42Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hey, PassionStruck fam. Welcome to episode 566 of the PassionStruck podcast. Have you ever felt stuck, like there's something more waiting for you? but you just can't seem to access it.

1:22What if the key to unlocking your full potential isn't working harder, but about rewiring your subconscious, releasing fear and tapping into your intuition? Our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are deeply shaped by subconscious patterns, many of which were formed long before we were even aware of them. These invisible barriers can keep us trapped in cycles of doubt, hesitation, or even burnout. But what if you could break through them. What if you could reprogram your mind to step into the most aligned, purpose-driven version of yourself? That is exactly what we're diving into today with my guest, Francesca Sitma, a transformational coach, breathwork facilitator, and the visionary behind HypnoBreathwork.

2:01But before we get there, let's take a moment to reflect on the incredible conversation we had earlier this week. On Tuesday, I sat down with Dr. Dave Vago, a leading neuroscientist and mindfulness expert to discuss the neuroscience of mattering. Why our brains are wired for belonging and how mindfulness can help us create purpose and connection. If you haven't listened yet, be sure to check it out. Last Friday, I shared a powerful solo episode on deep work and the five keys to mattering in life. Breaking down how eliminating distractions and focusing on what truly matters can transform the way you show up in your career, relationships, and personal growth.

2:35And don't forget, if you're looking for curated episodes on topics like emotional well-being, mindset, personal mastery, peak performance, and alternative health, check them out on our episode starter packs, either at passionstruck.com slash starter packs or Spotify. For weekly inspiration and actionable insights, be sure to subscribe to my Live Intentionally newsletter, also at Passion Struck, where I share exclusive tools and challenges to help you apply what you learn here to your own life. And if you prefer watching these conversations, every episode is available on our YouTube channel, where you can catch video highlights, full episodes, and more.

3:10And if you truly love today's episode or any of our episodes, please consider leaving us a five-star rating and review. It helps us magnify our mission and bring more people into this community. Now, let's talk about our guest today, Francesca Sitma. Francesca is a former New York City advertising executive turned transformational coach, entrepreneur, and founder of Mastery, personal development platform designed to help individuals break through subconscious blocks and unlock peak performance. Francesca is the creator of HypnoBreathwork, a breakthrough methodology that fuses breathwork, hypnosis, and visioning to rewire limiting beliefs, eliminate self-doubt, and activate intuitive decision-making.

3:50Her work has impacted everyone from Fortune 500 executives, Olympic athletes, and high achievers worldwide, helping them all to access flow states, emotional clarity, and deep personal alignment. Her new book, Unlock Your Purpose, Breathwork, Intuition, and Flow State, reveals how we can overcome fear, reprogram the subconscious mind, and live with greater clarity, purpose, and fulfillment. Francesca's work bridges science and spirituality provide a powerful roadmap for personal transformation. In our discussion, we explore why traditional goal setting doesn't always work and what to do instead.

4:24This is something, if you want to turn back to it, you can also look to my episode with Caroline Miller, where we did a deep dive on this very topic as well. We also go through the science behind hypno-breathwork and how it can rewire your subconscious. We discuss how fear and the need for certainty keep us stuck and how to break free. Why intuition is the ultimate success tool and how to strengthen yours. we do a deep dive into the role of breathwork in unlocking peak creativity, clarity, and flow, and how to take intentional action towards your highest potential. If you've ever felt held back by self-doubt, struggled to trust your instincts, or sensed you were meant for something more, this episode will give you the tools, insights, and inspiration to break through.

5:05So let's dive in. Here's my conversation with Francesca Sitma. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

5:22I am so excited today to welcome Francesca Sipma to the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Francesca. Thanks for having me, John. So just to give you a little bit of background, at PassionStruck, we explore how individuals can live more intentionally, and we focus on purpose and how to create a life that truly matters. And as I was getting into your book and preparing for this, I found that your work is such a perfect example of this ethos. Helping people clear subconscious blocks, tap into their intuition, achieve peak performance. I am so excited to go into your new book and into your hypno-breath work.

6:04So I thought a good place to start was you spent a decade in New York's advertising world, which I know how challenging that world can be, before embarking on a spiritual sabbatical. And I think this is the first parallel that I saw between the two of us. We both had these big careers in large-scale organizations, and then we both had kind of an awakening. Can you take us back to that pivotal moment when you realized something fundamental was missing in your life? Yeah, I think for me, it was definitely when I got to the peak of the mountain, I had a very clear goal that I wanted to be an account director on one of the biggest brands in the world at the best agency in the world.

6:49So when I was an account director on Google at a creative agency called Anomaly, I just thought I would feel so fulfilled once I got there. And I thought I'd be so proud of myself and I would just feel accomplished and my life would have meaning. And instead, as soon as I got that title and I got the projects and the recognition, I was just like, okay, what's next? What's the next goal? What's the next promotion? What's the next metric I need to hit? And I realized that I even tried then to go client side on the global marketing team at Bacardi. And that was a really glamorous job. And after a couple months of that, I was like, all right, what am I going to do next?

7:27And there was never a moment where I felt truly fulfilled. It just felt insatiable. It felt very empty. And that's what forced me to start looking inward. Did you ever have this experience that you just felt so much apathy in a way that you were almost becoming numb to it? I recognized that I didn't have gratitude for where I was. And I was numbing myself out with a lot of different coping mechanisms because I was working extremely hard. It was very fast paced. And then I would get to what I was working really hard for and there was no internal reward. So apathy, a little bit of disconnection, some aloofness too, because I just wasn't attuned to my feelings.

8:12There was also substances that I was using that was numbing me out as well. So it was just a mixed bag. Just what kind of happens when you're on the hamster reel and you're just in this conditioned autopilot mindset and not really attuned to yourself and your values. Yeah. I think one of the best stories I've heard of that is when I talked to Gabby Bernstein and how she was facing that same thing and then had that awakening that she could either keep going down the path that she was on, or she could do away with the bad habits she had, some of the things she was doing and touch millions of people with her work.

8:47And I see the the same connection to what you're doing. So you end up doing travels, as I understand it, through Bali, Peru, and India. And that led you into breathwork and ultimately the creation of hypnobreathwork. What was it about this practice overall that resonated so deeply with you and inspired you to dedicate so much of your life to it? Can I ask, John, if you've experienced breathwork before? Have you done it? I have. I started doing breath work all the way back in my mid-20s, ironically, when I was working with SEAL teams. And we did a lot of yoga, a lot of mindfulness training, and a ton of breath work, both for when we were firing weapons, but more for keeping ourselves calm when you're in an operational state.

9:38I've read about Navy SEAL training doing breath work and specifically box breathing. The style of breath work that I really resonated with or that I started off with was holotropic breath work. So that's a really intense experiential therapy where you're releasing suppressed emotions, you're healing childhood memories, everything that you've basically been storing and holding onto in your body comes out and it's extremely cathartic. But again, it's very intense. So I was very fascinated by physiologically what was happening in my body, psychologically, the patterns and the insights and the awareness that were coming into the forefront.

10:16And I just found that in talk therapy, I was aware of my patterns and my behaviors and my voids, but it wasn't changing my behaviors in terms of what my nervous system was still attracted to. And I needed something deeper. And this breathwork just took me right there. It took me to the source of emotions. It just brought to light so many things that I had really buried in my subconscious. And so I became really fascinated by it. I studied it around the world. I traveled. I tried all the different instructors and the different styles. And I realized that there was a missing piece. There was a gap for people to really understand what was happening in a session and how to actually change their life.

11:02And so that's where the hypnosis comes in. It's just very specific vocal cues to help people focus their mind and rewire some of those negative patterns. Yeah. So I understand that the methodology combines breathwork, hypnosis, and visioning. And it was interesting because I'm not sure, I know you live in San Diego. So someone you might want to catch up with is Mark Devine. Mark is a former SEAL. And he really dives into these same three types of areas. And it was these things that helped him, I think, be the first leader at BUDS who ever had his entire boat crew get through all of the training because he got them to use breathwork.

11:52He got them to use visioning and he got them to really start looking at their challenges as if they were a rubber band and that sometimes the challenge is so intense that you need to look at it as a contracted and other times the challenges is more elongated, like a rubber band spread out. And I bring him into my book because it was such a powerful practice. So I wanted to ask, as that is a buildup, how do these three elements work together to help people clear blocks and then achieve flow state? It's a great question. So breathwork on its own is completely transformative and extremely powerful.

12:36So you could just do two inhales, one exhale, laying down by yourself, no music, no facilitator, and you'll feel releases. You'll feel tingling, you'll feel physical sensations, and you'll likely access some memories or some visions. So alone, that style of breath work is incredibly healing. Now, the hypnosis, again, helps with the specific focal points and intentions so we can start to rewire and reprogram the mind. And I find that it's really hard for people to just skip to having a positive mindset and having positive affirmations. they first need to release some of the fear, some of the shame, some of the guilt, the self-doubt.

13:15So that's what we really do in the middle of a journey with the hypnotic suggestions. And then the visioning comes at the end where we have you see that expansive vision for your life. I think a lot of the reason that people get stuck in habitual thought loops or anxiety or depression is because they're either reminiscing too much about the past or they're just stuck and they just feel lost and they don't have a clear roadmap and clear direction for the future. So once we're clearing out the emotion, we're reprogramming the limiting belief. Then the last part of the session is seeing the life that you want to create, seeing the goals already attained, feeling the emotion of what that would be like when you're on the stage or you have your own company.

13:55It's successful, that home, that family, whatever that looks like. And then the very last part of every single Hypno Breathwork session is what is your next intuitive action step towards that goal, towards that life, towards your higher self. And now they have a very clear, tangible action item. And if you do that every single morning for 20 minutes, you will be so clear. You will have so much direction, more intuition, sharper cognition, and you will start to live a life that you're proud of and a life that has a lot more meaning. So before we got started today, I told you I got to listen in to an interview you did with a mutual friend of ours, John Kim.

14:34And one of the things I like that you brought out that I'm going to ask you to bring out in this interview as well, is you went through a number of different examples of how intuition and this practice of hypno-breath work influenced you to make some certain decisions that have led to positive outcomes in your trajectory. One of them was actually about John Kim. So I thought maybe that would be a good example of how you've pulled this together in a tangible way. So when I was going through my spiritual awakening, John was somebody that I really revered. And he was someone I loved following and listening to his stories.

15:13I found him to be so vulnerable and so authentic. And I had seen in a breathwork session to reach out to him and see if he would partner with mastery and be an influencer or be an ambassador for us. And so I sent the email that came through in my breathwork. He responded. We had a meeting and I said, we want to turn your book. I used to be a miserable fuck into a hypno breathwork session. We'll use your concepts. We'll use your words. And he really liked the idea. So that then started a friendship. And he had invited me to his retreat home. I did breathwork on it. It was hell yes. We went and did cold plunge and we did breathwork together.

15:49And our friendship really grew. And I was talking to him about the holistic psychologist. And I just really admire her. And I'm a huge fan. And he said, oh, she's going to be on my podcast. You should come out for that. And I was like, hell yeah, I'm coming out for that. And then he had sent a text message to everyone saying, oh, Francesca is going to lead breathwork. breathwork after the podcast. And I was like, I am, but he sent it really early in the morning. And I did breathwork as soon as I got the message. And in my breathwork journey, it was like, cancel all of your meetings, read Dr. Nicole's book today, and then turn that into a session so that you're prepared after the podcast.

16:24So I did that. And then I drove it to the podcast and John's like, Hey, how's it going? I'm like, dude, I just turned Dr. Nicole's book into a hypno breathwork session. He's like, Dr. Nicole, come over here and meet Francesca. She just turned your book into a session. And she goes, oh, I'm going to stay for that. And then I developed a relationship with her and she endorsed my book. They both endorsed my book, all from just series of intuitive actions that I had the courage to take. And my mindset or my psychology, my blocks were don't be a burden, don't ask for help, don't be annoying. But my intuition was like, go for it, add value, and then ask.

16:59And I did. And I mean, both those friendships have been great for personally and then also professionally. Yeah, I love both those stories. And Nicole is another guest that I've had the privilege of having on the show. I love her books. They're so easily digestible and applicable. And I can see why between that and the crazy stunt she does on social media why she's so popular. But I think you brought up something that's really important there is, I know I've been asked a number of times, like, how did I get some of the endorsements that I got for my book? And when you reach that, well, sometimes publishers do it for you.

17:39But in my case, I asked all the people directly. But what I found is you can't do this cold turkey. It's not like I'm going to ask Seth Godin for an endorsement without knowing him. I mean, it was over a few years building up a relationship with him that gave me the confidence that he knew who I was, knew what I stood for. I'd invested time in getting to know him. And even when I asked him, he said, look, there's no guarantees. I don't do many of these, but I'm willing to take a look at it and we'll go from there. So I think it's an important lesson because you've got to build that bond if you want someone to reciprocate.

18:19I had a strategist tell me to reach out to 30 people to get the eight endorsements that I wanted. And typically as a New Yorker and somebody who's used to going above and beyond and just forcing myself to the grind and the effort, I would have sent 50 emails or 100 emails and just gone for gold. But I did breathwork on that too. And I was like, no, I want these six. And I'm going to highly personalize, highly customize this outreach. And I'm going to follow up and I'm going to nurture this. And that's what I did. I went against, again, my conditioning of just grinding and forcing it. And I just sent really heartfelt messages to these six people that I had developed relationships with.

19:00And one of them was my hero, which is Robert Green. Are you familiar with his work? Of course. I think the first time I heard him on a podcast, I think it was with Lewis Howes. And I think it was like Lewis's first or second podcast he ever did, but love his work. Yeah, he's the GOAT. To me, Robert is an absolute legend. And he's honestly shaped so much of who I am as a coach. I named my company after his book, Mastery. That's how much I revere him. And this is an even crazier intuitive story is I saw he was speaking in Seattle with Ryan Holiday. I was like, oh my gosh, I have to get tickets immediately.

19:36but I didn't do my morning breathwork yet. And I don't do anything before I do breathwork in the morning. And in that breathwork session, just very clearly it flashed in my mind, row F, row F. So I go back on my computer and my cursor was hovering around row G. I go to row F and in very fine print, it says meet and greet. And I was like, holy crap, I almost missed this opportunity to meet Robert. So I booked the meet and greet. And then my breathwork sessions leading up to that told me that I had to say, when I had the opportunity to take a photo with him, I had to say, I named my company after your book.

20:14I do breathwork and hypnosis. I would love to turn one of your books into a subconscious journey for your readers. And I had practiced that and I had rehearsed it. And as soon as I got my shot, I said it exactly, almost a little too robotically. and he goes, breathwork, I'm curious about that. And I was like, what? And that allowed me to actually facilitate a session on him and also develop a relationship with him. And that's how that sort of got rolling for him to endorse my book. And he's on the front cover of it because I mean, again, he's a legend. Well, that's a great story and a valuable lesson as well.

20:53I wanna go back to something you touched on. Well, before we do that, since we've been talking a little bit about the book, how did you come up with the title, Unblock Your Purpose? Because in my subtitle, as you brought up, as we were talking beforehand, I say unlock your purpose. You say unblock your purpose. Yeah. And it's a slight but interesting and profound difference. It really is. I came up with that title, I think, five years ago because I created a digital course and I just felt that we have so many emotional and mental blockages. Blocks like I'm not good enough, blocks like fear of self-doubt, blocks like procrastination or perfectionism or self-sabotage.

21:37I just felt like we had a lot of self-imposed limitations and emotional blockages. And so block was just the right word for me. And naturally, John, as you'll know, that title came through in a breathwork session. So that's what we ultimately went with. Well, I love it. Mine originally was going to be much shorter and it was almost going to be, I'm not sure if you've read Robin Sharma's book, The 5am Club, but he's got a very short subtitle and it was going to be like that. And my publisher didn't like it, so they expanded it. So mine, but it captured the essence of what I was going for. Yeah.

22:18Well, where I wanted to go back to is you mentioned before some of the things that hold people back. And a couple of those things are fear, negativity bias, imposter syndrome, the desire for certainty. Yeah. And those things keep people stuck in their track. How does hypno-breathwork help people to overcome those barriers and to embrace the unknown? The first thing it does is it always finds the highest emotional charge. And I really want that to land. Breathwork always finds the highest emotional charge. And we're not always aware of what our blockages are. And if we are aware, we don't always know the source or the root of where they stemmed from.

23:06So what breathwork has this uncanny ability to do is find the source. So if I'm, say I'm triggered and I don't want to send this investor update and I'm having anxiety about it, I'll go into a breathwork session and be like, where is that coming from? Where is this like anxiousness coming from? And it's, oh, okay. It's the need to prove my worth to my father. And I'm now projecting that onto these investors. Cool. It reveals the source of your behavior patterns. And once it reveals it, you use the breath to actually exhale out a lot of that emotion. So you're breathing out the stress, you're breathing out the tension, you're breathing out the guilt, the shame, the sadness, the grief, whatever's been locked and stored in your body.

23:47And then once we take you to that journey and it's okay, visualize how you want this to go. What's that emotion? What's your action step? Then you've transcended the limitation and that again, suppressed energy that's been in your body. And you have a very clear next action step and direction so that you move immediately out of it. And I think that's something that you would really appreciate in my work is I'm extremely spiritual and intuitive. And by that, I just mean my connection to myself. But we're executors in hypnobreath work. The action is just as important as moving through the psychological limitations.

24:22I love it. I just did a solo episode today that is all about how do you bridge the gap between theory and action? So I love that that's a core focus area for you as well. So I have recently had a few guests on the show, specifically Lisa Miller and Susan Grau. Lisa, if you're not familiar with her, studies the science of spirituality. And Susan is a master in spirituality and a medium. And it reminded me of how your work blends science and spirituality in a unique way. How do you go about balancing these two seemingly opposing forces to create something that resonates not only logically, but also touches the emotional side of people?

25:13This is really the sweet spot. I think that a lot of people skew too far on one end or the other end. I'm not about just living in love and light and having no strategy and structure and just hoping things fall into place. I don't think success works that way. But then I also have learned from experience, and I'm sure you did too, in the corporate world that force and exertion and just having that discipline and consistent habits can also allow you to have limitations and hit ceilings. But when you can merge the two, when it's rooted in the science and you understand that the physiology of breath work is changing the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, which means it's shutting down your prefrontal cortex, which is your logical thinking brain, which is that things have to be done systematically in the way that I've seen in the past.

26:00And you actually start to keep breathing and you activate different regions of your brain. You're expanding your capacity to tap into new information, to tap into knowledge that's been stored, to tap into infinite intelligence. You begin to make new creative connections. You begin to expand your mind. This is where innovation happens. So from a physiological standpoint, I know that we're oxygenating our body in a way that we're stimulating our brain to expand and see something new. And I believe that greatness really happens when you can merge both worlds, when you can merge intuition with action and you can merge spirituality with strategy.