Freedom Flow Collective

Freedom Flow Audio

[00:00:00] Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the Greater Topsail area of North Carolina. Coming up We are welcoming a new host, Mari Lee Backus, as she leads a heartfelt conversation with Haley Marie, a certified trauma-informed breathwork facilitator. Haley shares a powerful story of her daughter's birth and it's an emotional journey that led her to become a doula and later transition into breathwork.

Before we begin though, a quick note. This episode discusses a difficult birth experience, which may be triggering for some listeners. Haley also explains the healing potential of breathwork, her community offerings and more today on Topsail Insider. It's time to indulge and experience the finest [00:01:00] coastal hospitality on Topsail Island with Saltwater Resort and Suites in Surf City, North Carolina. Designed to exceed your expectations, guests can enjoy elegant suites featuring premium, luxurious bedding, fully equipped kitchens with dishwashers, 75-inch flat screens, en suite washers and dryers, and gorgeous ocean views.

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Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. My name [00:02:00] is Mari Leigh Backus, and I am a new host with Topsail Insider. I am a trauma practitioner, mindset and embodiment coach, somatic and energy healer. You can check out my podcasts, Magnetic Tools by Mari Lee. Or to find out more about me and our other hosts, go to topsailinsider. com. I'm happy to be here and joined by Haley Marie today. Haley is the owner of Freedom Flow Collective and specializes in breathwork. Welcome Haley, and thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. I'm happy to have you here as well.

And I'm excited for this conversation. I would love for you to share a little bit with our listeners before we really dive in. about it is you do. So I am a certified trauma-informed breathwork facilitator and I get the opportunity and privilege and honor to hold people in a sacred and safe space, to move through.

whatever it is that they need to move through. And breathwork is a healing modality that gives them [00:03:00] access to do that. in the community, I do local events at multiple studios offering group breathwork sessions as well as one-on-one private breathwork sessions. And then online, I have an online breathwork, membership as well as one on one clients.

 Tell us, what brought you to breath work? How did you discover it? What made you passionate about sharing it with other people? So my journey with the conscious breath starts back in 2020. I was working as a local birth and postpartum doula here in the Hampstead community.

I became a doula in 2017, so by 2020, I'm full throttle in the doula community and I also had a toddler at home and I found myself in burnout and survival mode. I found my body was whispering at me for many months until it started screaming at me to slow down. And about the time I [00:04:00] decided to make a conscious decision to slow down.

I started taking care of my body, COVID hit and it was probably around that time that I really started to be conscious and curious about, okay, what can I do to take my own healing into my own hands? And a coach that I was working with at the time holistic coach had just got into a breathwork training and I was like, Oh, sign me up.

And that very first session that I dropped into was a virtual session and I sat up out of that on my yoga mat and I was like, this is it. This is how I come home to my body. This is how I heal what's happening in my body when nobody else around me could really help me. This is how I sit with what I knew in that moment, knowing what I knew about the body already.

As a doula and the power of the breath and that's really where my breath work journey began It was like that day from then on I was a dedicated to my breath. I love this because so many individuals today are facing things [00:05:00] like burnout like not listening to the signs that our body's telling us when we're constantly getting sick or anxiety or overwhelm and exhaustion fatigue so If you don't mind sharing, I would love to hear a little bit more about what was happening in your body, what were some of the changes that you experienced from breathwork, and just going a little deeper on this because I think some of our listeners will really resonate with the fatigue, the burnout.

Anxiety, exhaustion, not listening to our body and some of those things that you've highlighted just a little bit and I want them to really understand how breath work can help them.This is a really deep question. My journey with the breath, it really began consciously in 2020, however, I was working as a doula in the community as I shared the couple of years prior and also having a toddler at home and through that journey, I [00:06:00] can look at it, if I'm looking at it in my mind on a sheet of paper and I can be like the before and the after, it's two different people.

It's two different people and what really, what the breath first showed me was awareness of presence. And where I was not present, like in my body, and it brought me back, I couldn't run away from the pain that was happening. And so for me, what was happening in my body was all centered in my womb space.

And as a doula, what I recognized in this like over, like overworked, burned out, not really taking care of myself. My body, my menstrual cycle, everything was off. I realized that I'd never slowed down enough to process. So not only was I going client to client, birth to birth, I was holding everything I was witnessing and not giving myself any space to process it.

To breathe it out. To go to therapy and talk about it with somebody. And now I'm holding all of [00:07:00] these experiences and witnessing them and then I never processed my own birth trauma. And what I know to be true about my body and what I experienced back then is that everything that accumulated and arose within me was from Me running away from me not sitting with and healing the trauma that was in my body was screaming through inflammation My body was screaming through Really was inflammation.

that's that's what it was. It was inflammation through my entire body You can look at pictures and see how inflamed my entire body was and when I dropped into breath and once it began It was very emotional at first because that's what breathwork does. It takes whatever is emotionally sitting in the body and it's going to pull it right out.

And through that process in the beginning and being with a trauma-informed facilitator in a safe space, repetitively having somewhere to process, going through that whole journey, that is when I [00:08:00] began to realize that, Oh, it's time for me to really heal what I went through. So then I can really show up and serve in the way that I know I'm meant to serve and I knew that very first Breathwork session that my next chapter wasn't meant to be a doula It was meant to Take what I knew as a doula and all I gained as a doula and the gift that I know I carry in a space With a woman but through this way of healing with the breath I do think there's something to be said for when we're carrying a trauma, and we don't take the time to process it.

A lot of people don't understand that it's something that truly does need to be released from our body, from our mental, emotional, physical planes. Now you brought up your History as a doula a few times here. What made you want to become a doula and take that path? Before I had Eva, my little girl's name is Eva, before I had her right before I got pregnant I was looking up doula trainings.

I was about to [00:09:00] sign up for one and then I found out I was pregnant I was like, oh, okay, I'm not gonna do this and I ended up finding a doula for my own pregnancy and birth. And,, my doula was amazing. She was super supportive and involved. And at 33 weeks, my little Eva decided that she wanted to make her entrance earth side on her own time, which was early on our time.

 And she, my, so my water broke at 33 weeks and went to the hospital. Yeah. You're like, all right, we're just gonna hang out, here for, we're gonna try and keep her in here for a few days and see and by day three on, if you've ever, anybody listening has ever had a preterm baby, you know that like they're gonna give you lots of medicines, there's a lot of things like you, you're getting pretty comfortable there and rightfully so, right?

All for the safety of the baby and the mama. By day three, my doctor.he wasn't there but he called and he was like, Ari Haley, , we need to have this baby today. we're just starting to see some things that I think we need [00:10:00] to, she needs to come out today.

everybody's ready for her. And I was, , because I had gone in my pregnancy with the mindset of having a natural birth and, really didn't want any interventions, I was at my final intervention of him like wanting to offer Pitocin and that was the one thing I didn't want. But after a few hours, I finally agreed 

so we started the Pitocin and by the end of the day, I had, because I could control it, I refused an epidural. And so I had my doula there, her father and my mother. I was in town and, by the end of that labor, I was in active labor for a few hours getting through it, and they, a bunch of nurses came in rushing.

They're like, Haley, we've got to go down to the O. R. now. she, she's dipping. We need to go. And I'm in labor, I'm like on my side just in labor land and by the time they rolled me down to the O. R. I look over at my L. N. D. nurse and I'm [00:11:00] like, No, I'm ready to push like she's coming and she checked me and she was like, Oh, yeah, you are ready, but Dr.

E's not here yet, but I've done this before start pushing and mind you like, I'm in the O. R. on the metal table and in this particular O. R. because they're ready for her, they'd been ready, they had made little signs and. The whole NICU team was right there next to me with her bedside waiting and so I start pushing and About that time dr.

E comes in and she came out and the whole room got quiet and I opened my eyes and her dad had turned pretty pale and I'm like what's happening? What's happening? And the whole room was quiet And if you've had a baby, after you have a baby, like your hormones, everything starts shifting. So my whole body is starting to do the shakes and it probably wasn't even 10 minutes and they were like, we're gonna, we're gonna take you back to your room.

everything's okay. Mind you, I still haven't heard my baby [00:12:00] cry. And so when they rolled me out, all I saw in the rush of things was the, surgical gowns of the physicians, like the doctors around her bedside. huh. So when I was rolled out, I saw two fingers on her little chest. resuscitating whenever I was rolled out.

And so we went back to the room and my dad was there and we prayed and we waited for an hour and a half. And, Eva, when she was born, she wasn't breathing. And they resuscitated her for 54 minutes. They called her time of death. They started to gown her up. They took deceased pictures.

My doctor was walking down the hallway and stopped in the bathroom and in the approximately six minutes after her time of death was called, she took her first breath. She was white and turned pink from her toes to her head.

There were three physicians left in there. One was just holding the umbilical [00:13:00] cord and was like, his version of the story is chilling. He was the doctor who resuscitated her, Dr. Craig Sussman. And after that she spent 39 days in the NICU. I was told that she would have severe brain deficits, from the lack of oxygen for so long.

She had nine rounds of epinephrine. She was three pounds, 12 ounces. So if you're in the medical field, you already know. in those 39 days in NICU, she blew everybody's minds. I was by her side throughout the entire time and The doctors would come in and do rounds and say, what's changed?

And her numbers would go up and they're like, nothing's changed. And there were people praying all over the country for her. there was a big outreach and so when she came home with a G tube. I barely had to use it. It came out at month five. She started exclusively breastfeeding at five and a half months and she breastfed until she was almost two If you met her, you would have no idea , she's just a small, petite little girl. She's a miracle. 

 [00:14:00] her name is Eva. She's named after my late great aunt. And I didn't know until after she was born, a friend had told me, do you know what the name Eva means? And Eva means breath of life. Truly so amazing. Her birth story has, I mean , it's altered my life completely.

I feel like it's been the greatest gift to be her mother. It's a gift. It's a gift. And so then once she was home and I breastfed and we moved to Wilmington, like two weeks after she got discharged from the NICU, or in Hampstead. And, once I started getting, I guess she was about six months, I started going out into the community and made, I went to milk club at the hospital, so breastfeeding circles, birth circles.

I just put myself in the community. I knew I needed women around me. And I went to therapy for a year and a half. I did do what I thought was the work. I did the talk therapy. What society tells us is, which really helped a lot. it was so profound. [00:15:00] It helped me so much. It gave me clarity and that it gave me direction into how I wanted to become a do.

I wanted to go back to that. And that's. That's when I got back into it. But then as I dove deeper into it and I witnessed birth after birth, , I've supported home births, I've supported hospital births, no mat the maternity system in our country, doesn't matter where you are really, is broken.

And witnessing that over and over, like I said earlier, I, it's like my body, I realized I wasn't just holding my own, I was holding so much of what I was witnessing that I couldn't do anything about, I couldn't control, I couldn't step in certain situations that I witnessed these beautiful mothers go through, so then in their healing, The same thing my doula did for me.

She was so supportive in my postpartum healing until I moved and even after I moved. But the same thing with the clients that I had, like I was supporting them to the best of my ability with what I knew then, and still that [00:16:00] wasn't enough. 

 And my body finally was like, listen. And so then once I listened , that is when my spiritual awakening began. That is when I really woke up to like to life. So 2020 is really when I started to bring mindfulness. to every day. I started tracking what I was eating. I started going to pelvic floor therapy and getting really intentional, and that's when I learned about diaphragmic breathing from, Caroline Keeler with Inside Out Pelvic, PT.

She's in Wilmington, and she, I worked with her for about six months, and through that process, I also was getting into fitness and exercise. So it was really like the basics. I started drinking water the right way. I was going to pelvic floor therapy and learning this connection to my breath in a different way that was connected to my pelvic floor.

I started, Tracking my cycle like all the things that were happening in my body and trying to put them together So when I would go back to the doctor, I'd have this information, right? But [00:17:00] throughout all of 2020 even doing all of that Every physician that I saw could not help me with what I was experiencing and without really going into too much detail it just it came to a point where it was like I had this choice to go into an OR and trust somebody to cut something out . And so then, I, the coach that I had been working with, that's when around the end of 2020 she was doing her breathwork training. And I started breathing with her and I haven't stopped since. I did breathwork intentionally with her through every program and container that she offered for about a year and a half until I jumped into the training.

It was a six month intensive training to become a trauma informed breathwork facilitator and it was life changing. It was everything. It was like everything that I did prior to that training just led me there. and through my breathwork journey, what was revealed to me through what I was experiencing in my body was not only was I carrying what I was witnessing in [00:18:00] other women, what I was still holding onto from myself, but I was holding the trauma of my mother.

I was holding my grandmother's trauma. What it led me down this discovery path of asking questions and then really bringing this awareness and this curiosity to my family members and being like, wait, this situation that happened, I'd like to know more about this situation.

And then, Without even going into the traumas that the women in my ancestral line experienced, it all made sense why I was the one now awakening to it. And once I made that connection and I shared that with the mentors that had been working with me, it was like, boom, we started clearing some energy out really fast, actually. We do carry so much generational trauma, patterns, beliefs. And it does come down to holding them on a DNA level when you get down to the core of it. Yes, [00:19:00] there was the energetic and spiritual side of it, but there's also the physical side of it of how it's woven into our DNA and our genetics. I personally truly believe that.

And thank you so much, I want to just say, for sharing your NICU story because that is amazing and incredible. It sounds like a lot of things have truly come full circle for you from the doula work, the breath work, how your daughter was born, her story, and even her name to what it is you do today.

How else has breath work changed your life? Really, before even the training that I did to become a facilitator, there, as I got curious with all the truths, understanding what was happening , in my family lineage and then coming back to thyself, I recognized that I had truths that I was not speaking.

My throat chakra was completely blocked because what I learned in that time is [00:20:00] that the womb and the throat are connected. And so where my womb was blocked, so was my throat. And at that time, I had been unhappy in my marriage for quite some time and my mentor, she shared this one phrase with me and I think it's so valuable and I shared a lot and it's Can you just speak 10 percent more?

what would it feel like? If just 10 percent more truth. And for women who have silenced themselves, which many women. Many women. Yes. And men too struggle with the people pleasing, with putting up any boundaries, with speaking authentically because of the fear of what people will say or think. Yeah.

It's that fear. And so it was like moving through fear 10 percent more, 10 percent more. And so I would speak my truth 10 percent more. And through that journey , my breath led me every time I dropped into my breath. My breath showed me what was [00:21:00] next. What to say, to whom. And for me personally, my breath is connected to my source.

My breath is connected to my creator. My breath is connected to my highest self. When I'm in my breath and in my body, it's clear. There is no like one bypass the mind and so every time I would come out of a session I'd be like, okay, I know what I need to do now This is gonna be the hardest thing I have to do and basically what I did the last Two and a half years is I took everything I built and I burned it down and I rose back up through that And I rose back up with my breath.

I rose back up with the community of women all around me And I chose courageously over and over because every time I looked at my daughter, I was like, would I want this for her? How, if she came to me with this information right now, if I, if she was coming to me, describing to me her life right now, what would I tell her? And that's [00:22:00] such a valuable question to ask yourself for anyone listening. I tell this to my clients sometimes as well. If that was your daughter, if that was your best friend or your sister, is that what you would want for her? That's literally what moved me through. Every step of my journey was her.

How will she remember this? That was a thing I learned as a doula, too, in the space with a woman. It's like, how will she remember this? And so with Eva, it's like, how will she remember this? And it always humbles me and it brings me back to presence, too. Breathwork has changed my life.

I have a whole different life now. I'm, happily divorced. I am happily in a different partnership. it's like I have a, my own home, like everything is so different and it's because my breath. In the most beautiful way though, it sounds like it was truly a phoenix rising from the ashes story. Truly.

truly. [00:23:00] I do want to now go a little bit deeper into your offerings, your services. How can individuals work with you? Can you give us an overview of where people can find you, and how they can start connecting to this breath work as well?

So currently there are multiple ways that people can find me and our local community. I'm going to start with that because that is where really I get the most lit up about and I can't get enough of it. In person. Yes, it's so powerful. so primarily you can find me at Upstairs Hampstead. It is located off of 17, right above Pier Pan Dentistry.

And it is the sweetest little spot. If you've never been, you have got to check out the website because there's multiple things that you can do in that space. So I have been facilitating breath there since July of 2023. And I do group, events there once a month called Pause and Breathe.

I [00:24:00] also have the capability to do one on one private sessions, so I have some clients who will come in. I've actually had a mother and a son come in, couples. So I can also do private sessions in person there now. We actually just opened that last month, so I'm really excited to share about that. Was just thinking that how healing it is for an individual, but then doing it even in a partnership and it just takes your relationship to a new level, a whole new level, a deeper level of intimacy.

And also at Upstairs, speaking of that, I also do an event called Ethereal Breath and Sound. And that is where I. I do breath and sound, I do breath work and my partner Luke Leterio leads the sound healing, the sound journey and it is such a beautiful experience. So that's also once a month at Upstairs Hampstead.

I love that. Will you share just a overview of what sounding healing is for our listeners who don't know? Sound healing. So sound healing is. For me, vibrational [00:25:00] medicine. it's a frequency, it is a medicine for your body. . It is a way for once we really drop into , a meditative state, in our particular experiences with breath and sound at Upstairs Hampstead, , every instrument is attuned to a certain frequency, a healing frequency.

And so in, in our experiences, Luke becomes the instrument to his instruments. And so every instrument that is playing has a sound healing frequency that affects the body all the way to a cellular level. But when you're in it, you're not even thinking about science and stuff like that. You just receive.

It is a way for you to really relax into this like restorative state. Like the sound itself takes you to a different state and it allows you to really relax. And when you break it down truly and you get down to that molecular level, everything is made up of energy. Sound is made up of energy. And so when we receive these different frequencies, these different [00:26:00] Wavelengths of sound.

It does transition your DNA. they have that study where people say specific words to plants and then you have the plants that are dying and struggling because of certain sounds or words that they're hearing. Have you seen that study? And then there's one where plants are thriving and that is the plant that people are saying like beautiful, loving things to.

And sound truly does have such a large impact on our body. So I love that you guys have. Combined the sound healing and the breath work, it sounds incredibly powerful and I'm ready to go to your next session. energy is everything. I'm so glad that you said that because that's, yes, energy is everything.

And that's what's beautiful about coming into that space because you can go to and Luke does this. He leads many like solo sound journeys, And have a,you're getting a healing session. Yeah. and then when you marry the power and the benefit of breath work, conscious breath work with that, poof.

I'm also thinking, of how they have [00:27:00] those things that you can look at the images of water freezing as they listen to different music. And it's just So incredible. . How powerful sound truly is. . And that just made me think so this is perfect. 'cause the other space that I facilitate breath work at is a space in Wilmington called The Quantum Journey.

And it is a energy, it's a, like a luxury holistic health spa, and it has an energy enhancement system within it that emits inner, like healing frequencies through the room. So people just come into that space just to sit in a really cozy chair. Like it's a beautiful, like you feel the energy when you walk in the room.

And so in that space we offer breath and sound as well. So then you get a trifecta. Yeah. Energy healing, or just an experience in general, you could come in that room and just lay there and experience. That sounds so beautiful to be able to surrender and receive and rest and give that space for yourself so that you [00:28:00] can recover, release all of these things that when we go back to the start of your story five years ago, you were really struggling with and not giving yourself that time and space.

So share a little bit more. What other offerings do you have? Where else can people find you and work with you? Yeah, so Upstairs Hampstead, The Quantum Journey, I also have clients who will book me to come to their homes. You had mentioned this earlier, but families will book me or sets of friends.

We'll book and I will go into their home and we will have a private group breathwork session so that is another way that people have really, we, I've really enjoyed that as well. On my website where it says booking, you can book one on one sessions as well.

So I do a lot of online work with clients all breathwork coaching packages 

you can book one on one sessions in person. I can come to your home or we can book them in an actual studio. And then. Everything that I do group wise in a community is through [00:29:00] upstairs Hampstead you can go to my website and when you click events and scroll down, it'll show everywhere I'm at. I love that. Yes.

 Yeah. Perfect. We're looking at Haley's website right now and it is so simple. You can go to. Freedomflowcollective. com and go to book and there you can see her private options as well as Group experiences and events that she has coming up at all of the different the quantum journey upstairs Hampstead Different collaborations coming up.

 What options would you suggest to someone who is a little more hesitant about breath work? They're not really sure where to start Yeah, that's a great question. So I always I just like to offer people to come into a space with me for 30 minutes. So anybody who's new to breathwork, you could absolutely come to one of these places that we just mentioned, and you can drop right into a longer meditative session.

But for people who are usually hesitant, they're usually not going to do that. They're usually. Not even going to show up. They're going to wait a [00:30:00] while or that's what I found to be true in the past and so I like to offer people an opportunity to come into space with me at least three times.

If you can book three 30 minute sessions. In those three sessions, we're going to titrate, which is another word for like baby sipping, baby stepping the breath. So in that experience, what's so important and what is crucial, it's imperative as the facilitator that I am and the leader of breath is that you feel safe.

And a lot of people, Don't even know what safety feels like and so my first and ultimate goal and mission with anybody Who's new to breathwork is for you to understand what that feels like to really truly feel safe to close your eyes for three minutes and try a breath pattern that I may teach and see how it feels.

That's really, that's how simple it is. A lot of people I have found have a hard time even doing that. Just to [00:31:00] close your eyes is really hard. It can be so difficult for people to take that first step. And I love that you offer this to people to have those. Three 30 minute, even one 30 minute options.

Usually just takes one. Yeah. For, as someone who the first time I tried breath work, I dove right into a one hour and 90 minute breath work I was just like when is this going to end? I can't keep doing this. that's not other people's experience, but going right into that extreme was a lot for me.

And so I'm really glad that you offer that. And it does give people a little bit more space and time to slowly get into their body and become more present Especially if they're hesitant or a little more closed off in the first place.

Yeah, that just made me think too So I've had a lot of first timers come into upstairs Hampstead And I it's a a two hour session and it's a one hour meditative journey and I allot that much time because I want to have time before and after for us to connect individually or in [00:32:00] community to really ground in, to really be able to rise back up.

And what I always say, and the people who have been breathing with me for a long time, even to this day, they'll be like, so every time you say that, I hear it differently. It's such a good reminder. When you are beginning breath work, you are going to instill within yourself your fullest sovereignty. And I'm going to be the guide that reminds you that you are your own sovereign being.

And I say it over and over. You can stop. You can start at any time. You can slow down the breath. You can speed it up. You can pause when you want. You could not do the breath at all. And then come in and do it. You could do a different breath pattern. there's no right or wrong way to do breath work.

It's the intention of just being open to trying it, to being curious, but you're your own sovereign being. , getting that, filtrated within your entire system over and over again, that's when your power starts to unlock. That's [00:33:00] when you start to reclaim so many fragmented parts of yourself because you remember that you're sovereign and your sovereignty is not just on the mat in breathwork.

Like it's in all the choices of your life. And so I've found like it's reminding you over and over. That you have full sovereignty. And that permission is huge for individuals to have that permission, especially women, men who feel like perfectionists, people pleasers, they go into these spaces and you constantly think I'm doing this wrong or am I doing it right?

And you're just still in your head and the purpose is to be. Present and in your body, which is what breathwork does. It bypasses the logical mind and drops you right in your body. I said earlier, Oh, I was doing all the right things, right? I did the talk therapy. Okay. So talk therapy is what we call a top-down approach.

Breathwork is a bottom up approach to healing. When you put the two together, [00:34:00] you can have a lot of transformation with breathwork body leads, mind follows. Yes. . 

 For listeners who would like to take a moment and drop in?

Can you give us a microscopic experience? Yeah. If you are in a space where you can just take a moment. And feel your feet on the ground.

Maybe you roll your shoulders back. Maybe you find a soft gaze.

And in this moment, I'd just like to offer you an opportunity to bring awareness to your breath just as it is.

And if you slow down for just this one micro moment,[00:35:00] 

can you notice anything here? Is your heart racing or is it slowing down? Is your belly breathing fast or slow?

And in this simple moment of having and cultivating breath awareness, it can be your starting point. Coming home.

Yeah. That's what I'd like to offer. Thank you so much for that Haley. I know as a practitioner myself that you just, I can feel the depth radiating off of you of the experiences that you offer to other individuals. And I truly believe that. You can take your clients as deep as you can go yourself, and I can see that and I can feel that sitting [00:36:00] here with you.

So everyone who just experienced that, I don't want to shock your system by speeding up and talking louder all of a sudden. So keep moving slow if you need to. That was such a microscopic experience, but I can feel that depth. I hope our listeners can as well. I would love Haley for you to share a little bit about your future plans, any upcoming services people can look forward to from you.

Yeah, I'm so excited about what's coming in the new year. I'm in the middle of like my creatrix portal is open right now. And so I'm creating something so juicy and just sacred and potent for women. And it's all around the womb. It is centered around womb activation and heart activation. And so in the new year, I will have a brand new offering.

It's going to be a signature program of mine. It's actually something I launched right after I graduated breath work two years ago. [00:37:00] And I, it was a five week program where I helped women attune to their menstrual cycles with tracking and breath work. And what's actually coming in the new year is It's it's a three month container where women can work with me in a group setting with tracking and attuning to their menstrual cycles, understanding all the phases of their cycles, creating rituals.

It's for themselves so that when they walk out of that container, they feel fully sovereign and embodied and able to, and to be connected to their body and their breath and their cycle in a whole new way. And that's what I'm creating for the new year. So that's what's coming is a really big offering.

And then I don't want to go like too far into the new year. But there are, I've told a lot of our local clients that there will be a retreat coming locally on the island. And so my vision, my big vision is to continue this work with women and see where it takes me there. I will also be offering [00:38:00] women, a women's circle at upstairs Hampstead starting in January.

So we'll have a women's circle. I'm also going to go ahead and plug Luke is going to be. Hosting a men's circle, a spiritual men's group at Upstairs Hampstead. Love that. there's a lot of community. Like it's just diving deep into the community work and, working with women more closely.

That is incredible. I'm so excited for these offerings and they sound so, so powerful. I'm excited too. Yes. Thank you so much for sharing. you're really intertwining. The doula work, the breath work, all of these different layers. Haley, what is one thing you would like to leave our listeners with today?

All right. So I was reflecting on this question before I came here and it's dropped in a few times and it actually dropped in as something I received for myself and it's one of the first, sacraments of the goddess that I learned back in 2019. And it is to slow down. [00:39:00] So the question that I would love to leave listeners today is, what would it feel like in your life if you slowed down?

What would it feel like if wherever you are in this moment, however you're moving throughout your day, if you slowed down your words, if you slowed down how fast you're moving, if you slowed down, you may find That you are able to hear differently. You may find that you are able to feel differently and ultimately what slowing down enables us to do is to find presence and Presence is what it's all about.

, the more present we are to our life, the more alive we feel, the more alive we become. And then we're in full sovereignty. That was truly beautiful. Thank you so much, Haley. Thank you, Christa, for having [00:40:00] me here. I'm so excited to be doing more with the Topsail Insider community.

So come back for more episodes soon. Thank you so much. 

Thank you for joining Mari and Hailey today on Topsail Insider. To learn more about Hailey Marie, visit her website@freedomflowcollective.com where you can explore her offerings, upcoming events, and book group or one-on-one sessions with her. You can also connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

We'll have all of those links for you in our show notes. Please be sure to check out the links. Also to learn more about Mari, . Our new host and she will be covering holistic wellness, , and alternative healing businesses and events in the Topsail area.

Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode of Topsail Insider, please show your support by clicking the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Please also go to topsailinsider.com and join our mailing [00:41:00] list by clicking on the Make Me a Topsail Insider button.

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