Reinventing Yourself: Turning Life’s Transitions into Moments of Renewal | Silfath Pinto

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Episode Transcript:

Silfath Pinto: [00:00:00] Through embodiment, you come into your wholeness, your truth and your voice, and you remove layers of conditioning and fear and wounds and trauma, and then you start really stepping into your power. When you are aligned, when you are really anchored, you meet little resistance because you are centered and you are not in conflict yourself.

Jonathan Fields: [00:00:23] So have you ever had one of those experiences that just cracks something wide open inside you, where you stumble into a new way of being or perceiving the world, and suddenly everything looks different? For me, it was melting into this transcendent experience in kirtan or devotional chanting. I was on the beach in Mexico. This was over two decades ago with 100 others and legendary kirtan leader and musician Krishna Das. It was like I was floating and seeing and feeling everything different after that experience, even though I had no idea what I was even chanting, there was just this deep knowing that I had just reconnected with an essential part of myself and those around me. So maybe you’ve had a similar experience, an awakening moment where you realize there was a whole dimension of you, of your truth, your vitality, that had been lying dormant, unexpressed. That breakthrough is often just the first glimpse of a deeper inner journey waiting to unfold. And my guest today, Silfath Pinto, has dedicated over 13 years to helping people reclaim and inhabit that dimension of what she describes as embodied wisdom and power through her luminescence process, an integrative approach fusing body energetics, mindfulness, and neuroscience. She guides people in shedding the layers that obscure their brilliance so they can step fully into their authentic power and a bigger, more robust, abundant life. And her own personal transformation is pretty powerful. Building from an early career in, of all things, finance, moving rapidly up the ladder and then dismantling her career and life after one single experience of awakening to reimagine a path that aligned with movement and healing arts that had been calling her and over a decade later, still immersed in deep study.

Jonathan Fields: [00:02:10] Silfath has led hundreds of transformational journeys worldwide, now from New York to Bali. Her passionate quest to empower both men and women has seen her train extensively in somatic therapy, shamanic wisdom, sound healing and so many other modalities. Luminaries call her an energy shifter, a soul whisperer, a magic maker. In our conversation, she shares her own inner journey of reclamation from the pivotal movement class that sparked her awakening, to navigating the uncertainty of life transitions to the daily practices that can help us integrate profound openings and sustain and expand them. We explore the quintessential relationship between the feminine and masculine energies, and how reuniting with the wisdom of the body opens the path to wholeness, to intimacy and living a truly good life. So excited to share this conversation with you. I’m Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

Jonathan Fields: [00:03:13] Kind of a fun and interesting starting point is just you, the personal journey that you have been on. I mean, looking back, I’m deeply fascinated by personal stories, stories of transformation and liberation. And you started into sort of the world of your professional life in the corporate world, KPMG, L’Oreal, really, and sort of like the finance, the, the accounting side of things and then made this powerful transition into a life devoted to healing arts and to serving people in a profoundly different way, which makes me deeply curious what happens in those early days. Like, how does this journey get set in motion for you?

Silfath Pinto: [00:03:53] Mm. I went to business school. Majored in finance. Like a little bit of context. I’m an African younger. My mom sent me to France. It’s either I’m a doctor, I’m a banker, I’m a lawyer, or in finance, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s like you.

Jonathan Fields: [00:04:09] Got your four options and that’s it.

Silfath Pinto: [00:04:10] That’s it, that’s it. So I went for finance because I was good in math, right? I was like, I’m good in math. I go in finance. There was not really a deep thought process around who am I? What do I want to do with my life, what kind of legacy I want to leave in the world? It was more like a logical that’s the next step. Then I in New York, I’m working in banking and I’m miserable. And I feel like something is wrong because I’m supposed to be happy. I did everything by the book. I have the amazing job. I have the husband. I have the view on Central Park. What’s the problem? And then my boss in finance tells us one day I saw this class, ladies on Oprah. It was on Oprah, so it must be good. We have to go. It’s a sensual dancing class, and I’m like, how did we get into this conversation? First we were at work and, you know, I was like, African lady, Muslim background. So I was like, how are you coming up with this idea? I’m not doing it. And then everyone was teasing me like, come on, you’re in New York. If you don’t try it now, why are you going to try? And I went to this class and that was the beginning of my awakening. I found myself in a place where I was looking at women and all the stories I have around being a woman, being sensual, being free. Like a lot of the constructions I had were falling down. I was very confused, so I actually didn’t sign up for this class right away I left, I went home, my boss signed up, so she kept talking about it. So for months after I signed up and that’s how I dropped in my body, I reconnected with myself and one day I was like, I want to quit banking. I want to do something that feels aligned to my soul.

Jonathan Fields: [00:05:55] I’m curious, when you go to that first class, you experience the class and then you walk out and you know something has happened, but you’re also there’s a voice inside of you that sounds like it’s saying, but I can’t actually do something with this right now.

Silfath Pinto: [00:06:11] Exactly.

Jonathan Fields: [00:06:11] What happens between then and the time that you finally say, I actually can’t ignore this, that makes you you sort of say like something actually does have to change here.

Silfath Pinto: [00:06:21] When I left the class, I was very intrigued. And it’s like a part of me was saying, yes, I’m a part of me was like, yes, this is it. But then a part of me that was conditioned was like, but this is not right. My gift was that because my boss signed up for the class every Thursday morning, she would come and she would talk about her experience. She would talk about what they did and how she felt and the music and the excitement and the sisterhood. And every time I’ll be looking at her and I’ll be like, oh my God, this sounds amazing. So I think I needed this for months to come to peace with that. Yes, to shut down the conditioning and the but but, but but this is not right. But but this is not really what a woman does. This sound so beautiful. But is this appropriate? Yeah, but look at the power that is feeling. So there was, you know, this conversation after four months, I was like, you know what? I like to negotiate. So I negotiated with myself and I said, okay, I’ll just do one session, which is two months, eight class, at least I would say that I’ve done it. And then I started and of course, I couldn’t stop.

Jonathan Fields: [00:07:31] Yeah, that’s such a great insight though, right? Because so often I feel like we look at something that’s presented to us and the bigness of it scares us away from it. Yeah. And you sort of chunked it down and said, well, okay, I’m just committing to this little, this little thing. That’s it. Like I’m not doing anything more. And it let your it like it. Let your brain say yes. And then it sounds like maybe over that two month experience, then everything else started to say yes along with it.

Silfath Pinto: [00:07:57] Oh my god. Oh yeah. What? By class three I was like, this is amazing. Like, I was, I was, I was feeling home. It was like a landing. It was a sense of wonder. It was like meeting, you know, when you meet someone, a friend that you haven’t seen for a long time and you knew they kind of there, but you didn’t talk to them. So I knew that there was a part of me that I was not accessing, but I didn’t know how to access her. But I always felt like something was missing. And so it’s like a piece of me was coming back. And then the sisterhood, because there is big sisterhood wound. And we talk a lot about it in the work I do. We met women. Men have like a better, broader code, like in terms of how they hold each other. Like sometimes women, we can be a bit competitive and, you know, there are many wounds there. And then we are in this space where we are facing our deepest pain, where we rage, where we cry when we howl, and then the next minute we are swirling on the pole and we’re laughing and we are sexy, we are sensual and we, we are. We were connecting at such a level of beauty and intimacy. It was just like poetry. Like for me. I remember sitting in the studio watching the other women dance and be like, wow, this is poetry. So it was just in so many ways, different aspects of me were coming together in this experience.

Jonathan Fields: [00:09:28] Now that sounds beautiful. So when you experience this, I mean, I could see how you could start to feel that. And it’s hard to back away from that. It’s hard to ignore what you’re feeling. But what I’m really curious about is instead of you just saying, oh, I have to keep going back to this class like this now just needs to be a part of my life and just sort of folding it into the other things that you’re doing in your job and everything like that. It sounds like this also is a bit of an inciting incident to shake up everything, to basically say, like, okay, I need to there’s something happening here that’s leading me to want to re-examine everything.

Silfath Pinto: [00:10:05] Here’s the thing I didn’t realize when I said I’m going to continue. I didn’t realize how much it was going to shift me. I didn’t realize I was quite young, and it was the beginning of me doing this kind of work. So I was just like a like with a sense of wonder, like, oh, right. I was not really thinking, oh, this. Because now I see with my client they’re like, but what if I change radically? Like they’re kind of forcing that and they’re like, I don’t know if I want to go there. Like, but for me, it was like a little girl in a candy store and I’d be like, wow. Oh, and then I was like, oh, the styling is beautiful, but I want more than that. What is it? I want to go deeper with women. What is it? Because when I quit my day. So when I started that I quit banking, I became a personal stylist. That was the first transition. But maybe one year into the program and then I was a personal stylist. Two years into it, two years into it, I was like, there is more to working with women than the wardrobe. I love it, but there is something deeper. So I was changing progressively and my friend was starting to be like, she’s like, you’re different. You talk different, you work different, you’re more confident. So it was happening. It’s only when I did the teacher training that I understood how through embodiment, you come into your wholeness, your truth and your voice, and you remove layers of conditioning and fear and wounds and trauma, and then you start really stepping into your power. But when I signed up, I didn’t know that. Right? So I ended up completely shifting my career. I ended up having a divorce. I left New York, went to Dubai first London and in Dubai. So it created so many ripples of change in my life. But at first I was not aware of it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:11:54] And those are big ripples of change. Yeah. One of my curiosities here is, as you describe, the way you grew up, your parents had this ideal of like who you would be. What was an appropriate career path for you? Like the four things you described earlier. Then you go and do it. You’re like, I checked the boxes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I’m in New York. I’ve got the job. I’m doing all the things. Did you feel like to make this transition that there was you had to almost renegotiate the expectations and the relationships in your family to sort of, like, feel like you could actually move into this season of who you want to be.

Silfath Pinto: [00:12:30] Yeah. I feel like because he felt so right and because I felt so aligned, I was very clear. It was more again, talking about my negotiation was more how do I present it? How do I make it appealing to my family? And so when I quit my banking job to go to Sterling, I talked to my mother and she was like, okay. I had like a whole, you know, slide deck.

Jonathan Fields: [00:13:00] Yeah.

Silfath Pinto: [00:13:01] Right. Right. Really well organized. And I called me sir. When I started the the coaching and the healing, the coaching part was fine. But all the aspect of the work that is working with women and sensuality and trauma, like the more intense because coaching is like in our culture. Okay, we don’t really, but we get it. But I went further than coaching. I went into energy healing, sacred sexuality, work, restoring women, trauma. It was a lot. So I just explained to my family, you know, in my mother, my brother, I explained, and they got it, which was a surprise to to me. And they really surprised me positively. And my mom, I explained to her in very simple terms and she was like, okay, you know, so what I realized and what I do a lot with my clients is when you are aligned, when you are really anchored, you meet little resistance because you’re centered and you are not in conflict yourself. Often what I’ve seen with myself and with the people that I coach is that the tension comes from a conflict that they haven’t resolved themselves. So people outside just amplify that conflict that they haven’t resolved. So the transition was for me, the most difficult part was was not my family. Actually, the most difficult part is why I had to become and all the layers that I had to shed to make this transition and to keep evolving in this path that I chose.

Jonathan Fields: [00:14:38] What did you find that you really felt the need to let go of along the way?

Silfath Pinto: [00:14:44] When you have your own business as much as you, you plan and you structure and you project, there is an element of uncertainty that is a little bit more than when you have a corporate job. And for me, it’s it’s a creative experience. It’s like entrepreneurship is a creative experience. Basically you’re being stretched constantly. So my there was a bit of a tension between my need of stability and the pull to expand, to transform. And as I expand and transform what I offer, expand and transform. That was an adjustment for me because I was coming from a background where I didn’t like surprises. It’s like I have plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D, everything is organized and I learned to be more creative, to go more with the flow, to surrender more. That was an adjustment for me.

Jonathan Fields: [00:15:40] In the way you’re describing it also, and the way you described when you started to actually do this work and experience it yourself. Coming home to yourself, it’s almost like you have to somehow find a way to be okay, stepping into the void to create the space to come home to yourself, but also probably learn and develop the skills and the practices to not just completely freak out and melt down when you’re out in that space.

Silfath Pinto: [00:16:05] Exactly, exactly. It was. They were, I’m not going to lie. There were moments. And, you know, the thing is, I don’t always go for the easy strategy. So when I left New York, I was like, listen, you have all these women doing this work in New York. What about Africa? What about Middle East? So I decided to go to London to stay with my brother, to digest my divorce and to think about the next step. A friend of mine is like, why don’t you come to Dubai? My first answer is like the work I do in Dubai that will get me in trouble. No thanks. And he’s like, I think you should think about it. I’m like, no. But after a few times I was like, mm. So here I am going to Dubai. I do not have a network there. There is barely a yoga studio there. And I’m going to go teach at Event Sacred Feminine Work in Dubai. When I did it, it was like when I started the class, I was like, yeah. And then I got there and I realized what I got myself into.

Silfath Pinto: [00:17:04] I was like, oh, this is going to be groundwork. And whatever I learned in New York, I cannot teach it in Dubai. Way too much. I have to backtrack, go back to basic and shift a little bit the approach. So it was challenging, but it made me grow so much as a practitioner, as a woman, as a teacher, because I really had to expand in the way I hold space, basically. I really had to understand, develop my capacity to understand where people are and how do I translate the activation of the wisdom in a way that they can receive. So it was very intense. Again, when I moved to Dubai at the beginning, everything flowed like I had people sign up right away for my session. First time arriving like women sign up for two month program with me. I was like, and then once I settle here, I was like, no, it’s going to be a little bit more harder than you think. And that’s where the creative aspect comes, because you have to kind of look and be like, okay, reassess, redirect, adjust.

Jonathan Fields: [00:18:17] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Part of this also, it sounds like and I know I’ve experienced this also, I imagine a lot of people have. It’s like when you discover something new that is so powerful to you, and then you immerse yourself in it and you just become a learning machine and you’re like a sponge. Like it’s almost like the knowledge is building up pressure in your heart, in your head. And you just want to let it out. And and you’re in a place where the culture allows you to do that, you know, like it’s New York. It’s like people are ready. They’re like, so you can just bring it all. And then it’s so interesting. Then you move somewhere else where you don’t have that same release valve, and you have to sort of like, dial it back. That must have been such an interesting, I mean, challenge for you.

Silfath Pinto: [00:18:59] I’m telling you. You know what? I realized I was having a discussion with someone recently, and I’m going to say something. I realized that I went through a little bit of, um, a dark hole of depression because it’s like you are going full force writing, like. Yeah, and you saw all these women and you know what’s possible. And then you get some ways to hold your horses. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. Like I have seen women change and heal, but it’s like there is a frequency of possibility that you have experienced and it’s not there yet. So there was a part of me that had to grieve that that had to grieve what I experienced, what I thought he was going to be, and the reality. And it doesn’t mean that the reality was less beautiful, but there was a grieving process because this experience, as you said, was so precious to me and so deeply transformational to me that it was. And that’s why it took me some time to realize, in fact, you have to readjust because there was a for a while, I hold on. I was like, no, this is what I want to teach. And then then the question was like, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to help and have impact, or are you trying to get stuck in your ways? And so I adjusted.

Jonathan Fields: [00:20:17] Yeah, I mean, I think it’s one of those moments right, where we love to show up and do what we want to do in the way that we want to do it. And when we’ve tasted experiences where we can do that, it’s kind of transcendent. Yeah. And then when we have to sort of like, reimagine it and then this new idea comes in that says, oh, part of this work is actually understanding where people are. And part of my job is actually to meet them where they are and not just tell them to come to where I am. Yeah. That’s not easy. And I’ve been through that multiple times. And especially when you’re when you’ve left like a meaningful, stable career behind. And part of this is like you’re earning your living doing this thing. So part of it is I want to be of service. I want to share what I wanted, what I know, and part of it is also is and I also need to like, do this dance of meeting people where they are, in part because that’s how I’m of service to them, but also that’s how I sustain myself financially along the way. Like it’s all part of the mix.

Silfath Pinto: [00:21:14] Yeah, it’s all part of the mix. And that was a big conversation for me because one of my friend last year, I was I was chatting with him and he was like a very successful businessman. And we were talking and he was like, Steve, like, you need to to start being a little bit more business savvy. Like your whole thing about saving the world is good, but like, you are over 40. Like you need to start really building wealth. And I was like, yeah, you’re right. So it always has been my bit of my I remember when I was a stylist in New York, we had a group of women entrepreneurs meeting once a month, and every month we had a topic and I think we were six months into the program. But like the organization or the group, and we had a session on finance and money and how we price ourselves. And I was pricing myself at $75 an hour. And at this point, all of them had done make over with me. So when it came to my turn, they were like, girl, you’re cheap. And I was like, what? They were like, yeah, you cheap $75. And now we’re like, for the work you do, it’s cheap. And I was like, how much should I charge? And they were like, at least 150. It took me a year to get to 125. They were like, good job. Now go a little bit higher.

Silfath Pinto: [00:22:30] And then I was like, okay, 175. And so there were two conversations that carried with me for a while. And I have resolved now. One aspect of the conversation was, but I want this to be accessible to women. I’ve never been that person who wants to be like, elitist in the sense that I want to work with people who have money. I want what I do to be accessible to regular women. And then there was also a whole conversation and healing around abundance and self-worth. So those two conversations here and I went when I went to Dubai, like the conversation started with a stylist in New York, but then I went to Dubai and went to the next level. It was this constant dance between how do I make my service accessible and still sustain myself. Do I value the work that I do, and the time that I put in the effort that it took me to be where I am now? And it’s something that I really worked with over, I would say at least 6 or 7 years to come to a place now where I’m like, comfortable with what I offer. I figured out a formula where, okay, different price points can receive the medicine and honoring my time and expertise, and I’m taking care of myself at the end of the day while doing what I love. So it has been a dance for sure.

Jonathan Fields: [00:23:54] It’s so interesting also. Right, because I would imagine a lot of the women that you work with look to you as an example to a certain extent. Yeah. And if part of what you’re working with them on is this notion of self reclamation, which is one of the things that I want to dive into a little bit with you and like, really honoring who you are and the value that you bring to relationships, to your life, to everyone, then part of what the challenge is for you is you also need to show up and model that behavior in your relationships, in your work, and also stand proud in the value that you know you offer. And that is a hard thing to do. But if you don’t do it, it’s almost like you’re saying one thing and then modeling the opposite. And there’s this disconnect that I would imagine people would feel.

Silfath Pinto: [00:24:39] Yeah. And you know, what I realize is that I was coming from a place, even when I came to a place where I was like, I get the value. Like very early in my journey, I got the value of the work I do because I see how powerful it is. But there is one point where I was having this conversation with a friend and she said, where did you learn that other people’s needs are more important than your needs? Because as I was talking to her, the thought process was, let me be the bigger person. But where I was coming from, I was the elder sister, so I was told all the time, you’re the one who knows better. You do know the one who is more resourceful. Just allow the sister. Just give to your sister. Just enable her. And that moment was a turning point for me because I was like, first, I’m not putting, like, really taking care of myself properly. Number one. Number two, I am enabling people in a victimhood mindset also by being like, oh, they cannot help themselves. I have to be the bigger person. Like who am I? Or like, what? Is that right? And so it was like this big aha moment where I was like, okay, of course. Correct.

Silfath Pinto: [00:25:57] Those are my services. Those are the different price points. I still really want what I do to be available. Here is my strategy. But certain type of service, with the amount of energy work and the value that people get, it has to be at that pricing. But there were so many. There were so many layers in this conversation. That’s why it took me seven years, because I’m a little late and I’d be like, yeah, I’ve got this. And then another layer will start to be like, what? And I was going to it. And so really it was seven years of just dancing with that conversation again and again. What I said to the women I work with, I say to them, listen, ladies, I’m not here saying that I have figured out everything. I am a woman on a journey. I am learning what I have understood and integrated. I share it, that’s where I am. Like, I don’t pretend to be like I have all my stuff together. No, I have figured out certain things. I’m happy to create a space to share these things. That’s what I do, because in all humility, every year there is something that hit me and I’m like, oh, okay, I understood this is another layer I didn’t think about.

Jonathan Fields: [00:27:09] It’s a level of humility I think we have to bring to the work. It’s so interesting the way you described it. Also, this notion of how we sometimes say that we’re being the bigger person. But in doing that, we actually make ourselves small and we don’t realize it. We think we’re making ourselves bigger, but we’re actually making ourselves and our world smaller. Yeah, it’s so interesting. So you spend years as you sort of like, you move out of, you know, first it was finance and it was your own business and styling and then really into just a deep mix of healing arts. And you spend years studying so many different things. It starts with that one modality that you described. But then you know, like body energetics, energy healing, cellular reprogramming, somatics, all these different things. And it seems like over the years you weave these into your own modality approach philosophy that that you offer as luminescence. Take me into how this synthesis kind of evolves how this comes together.

Silfath Pinto: [00:28:11] It’s funny because I just had a really long session with a client today. The way I work, I like to say that I am a bridge between somatic and tantric, shamanic and mindset. Somatic and tantric is the intelligence of the body. It’s all the layers of the conversation that I have to do with emotional body, nervous system, cellular reprogramming, how to change the behaviors, all that. The shamanic is more working at a more subtle level. For me, I would say to simplify the somatic. And the tantric is the physical and the emotional body and the mental and spiritual body will be like mindset and shamanic. It’s really teaching people how to think differently, but also helping people understand the different levels of subconscious programming, how to access them and how to shake them. So typically when I work with someone, they come to me and they I say, usually there is a problem. Like I was struggling with this in finance, love, career, whatever. I do, what I call a diagnosis, energetic map like what’s going on and my approach is actually very simple. I’m like, okay, this is what we have today. What we have today, which is the present, is the result of what happened in the past. So I have a past, present, future approach. Present is here’s a behavior that we have today that is not aligned to your highest expression. And this is where it’s coming from. So we are going in the present to change your thought patterns and your behavior.

Silfath Pinto: [00:29:45] But we are also going to address what happened in the past where this energy started through inner child work, shadow work, ancestral healing, sometimes past life. So really looking at like where this energy originated. So it’s a work present and past is a work of deconstruction in all the bodies And we use movement, breath, voice activation, shamanic journeys, acupuncture, somatic release, massage, all the different tools. Then when the energy started shifting, that’s what I call releasing the old software. Like we are putting all the pieces of the like. Today was amazing because she was putting all the pieces together, the stories, how they were creating, they creating a reality where it’s coming from. She has the full picture now. Now in the next couple of days, I’m just going to be doing emotional release, trauma release with her, but also awareness. How do you change differently? How do you change the way you think here? How do you act differently. So training that’s the first part. Then the next part, which is what do you want? What is it that you desire. So we have shifted the energy. We have come back to a more neutral, I would say, an energy more anchored in truth and love. But then it’s like specifically based on what you want. How do we now start embodying the frequency of the thing you desire? Now, so let’s say we take the example of a woman who’s like, I’m ready to meet the man of my dream.

Silfath Pinto: [00:31:18] I’m ready for love. There’s no man out there. Okay. We start deconstructing the idea. We realized that there is a fear of intimacy and a fear of commitment and not trusting the masculine. What are all the behaviors that you have today regarding all these stories? What are the thought patterns? Okay. Where is this coming from? Healing the bad wound. Ancestral healing this date. You’re going to this date. Okay. How are you going to act differently now? So we’re doing all that. We start shifting the energy. And then when I feel like she’s back to neutral, I’ll be like, okay, now what kind of love do you really want? Describe to me the ideal day with your man. Describe to me the frequency of this love. Describe to me how you feel around you. So now we understand. Okay. This is the paradigm. The frequency we want to embody more. How do you embody it? More so my work is very pragmatic because there is the whole aspect of the work that is energy healing. But the coaching aspect of my work is decisions, actions, behaviors today. How do we shift them to embody where you want to be? So that’s a little bit my approach. It’s like deconstruction, death, then rebirth and then aligning to our highest expression.

Jonathan Fields: [00:32:35] It’s so interesting hearing you describe sort of like how it all comes together. And part of my brain is sitting here saying, I wonder how much of this also is similar, but in a radically different way in domain and client base and type of service to the work you’re doing with numbers, because you’re thinking about this in a very systematic way. You know, like when you’re working with numbers and finance, it’s like, let’s look at like, what is the outcome that we want? Like where are we right now? Like, let me look at all of the data here and really deconstruct it and understand the story that it’s telling. And how can we use this to then understand where we’re at and understand how we got here and then figure out, like, where do we want to go from here to get to that place that we have in our mind? So it’s funny because it feels like you operate in this very deeply energetic and ethereal space, but underneath it, it feels like there is this mathematical intelligence that informs it all.

Silfath Pinto: [00:33:28] There is. I said to the women I work with, there is a method to the madness. You know, I was talking to a client two days ago and she was like, you know, the thing with you, you come, you laugh, you light, and everyone feels like, oh, I’m sitting with a friend. And all of a sudden, bam! You have this realization, and then you’re crying and you have this release. I’m like, yep. I always say my my time in public accounting and at KPMG really served me because I have a thing for system. Even when I was a personal stylist, I created a system. So I do have a thing for a system. And then there is the part of me that is also very organic, like this plane that just arrived today for one week of work. I understand the system. I have the key element I want to work with, but I also work with. That’s where the feminine aspect comes in. I leave flow space for flow. I leave space for listening to where a higher self or body wants to guide us. So it’s constantly this dance. Like when I organize a retreat, I have teams I want to cover, but the first retreat I organize are Tak tak tak. I was so organized. And then day three I woke up and I was looking at the group and I was like, this program today is not going to fly and I’m not feeling it. And so I learned to find the right balance of having my system and my methodology and then flowing with the energy. So like my, my new retreat that I’m doing in, in, in Bali, it’s all about bringing transformation for beauty, for Beautiful passion for art. And so again, there’s going to be a system to it, but there’s always going to have some time to just be, to allow the creative muse to come, to connect with nature, to connect with each other and see what comes together. So I really try to find the the balance between masculine and feminine. Really, that’s what it is.

Jonathan Fields: [00:35:19] Yeah, that makes so much sense. It’s like you’ve got to allow that space for serendipity as you’re describing that it’s having a flashback. I was in the early 2000. I actually owned a yoga studio in New York City, and I taught for seven years also. And you get to a place where you feel like you have a pretty solid command over the basics, the fundamentals, the tools, the postures, the breath, all the different stuff. You feel pretty confident that you can put them together. Intelligent way. And I would show up to teach a class, and I would have an intention, and I would have a class in mind in a sequence and a flow, like I’m ready to go. Like I know how to create an intelligent, well-formed, like experience that’s going to take people like from where they started. And 90 minutes later they’ll feel a different way. And I did that in the early days. I would just kind of like do my thing. I would like, you know, I’d follow my plan, and it’s probably a couple years in where I started to just pay more attention to what was happening in the room. And you’ve got 50 bodies there, and they’ve just had a hard day’s work in New York, and they’re taking 90 minutes out of their day. And there’s a sense of responsibility there, right? I’m sure you feel it in your work as well. It’s like, I want to honor this person and the time that they’re giving me. And I start to realize that when I was paying attention, instead of walking into the room and just doing the thing I had in my mind, but walking into the room saying, I have a plan, but I’m going to really just pay exquisite attention to what I’m seeing and see if I can feel the vibe and the needs of what’s unfolding, and then just respond to that in the moment.

Jonathan Fields: [00:36:43] And it was mildly terrifying in the beginning because I had to let go, you know, like all of a sudden the plan is out the window, but then you start realizing, like, that’s where the magic happens. That’s where like, you have those those sessions. And I literally remember walking out of some of those evenings and the students walking out of the room drenched in sweat, just looking at me, saying, I don’t know what just happened in there, but can we do it again? And me basically saying to them, I don’t either, because if you ask me what I had taught and what sequences I’d had and what asanas I was offering, I had literally no recall. I couldn’t tell you what just happened. But somehow, when I allowed myself to let go of the rigidity of the plan, trust my training and my knowledge and my experience and drop into the moment and just offer what I was feeling was needed. That’s where the magic happens. I feel like so many of us have that impulse, but we’re terrified to let go and just go there.

Silfath Pinto: [00:37:38] And yeah, those moments are so beautiful. And the most challenging for me is when I do a retreat. Because it’s a whole week, people are taking a whole week of their time there. It’s a considerable investment. And I tell them, okay, here are the teams, but I’m not going to give you like to tell you exactly this is what’s going to happen. Because when you all come together, I might realize that out of the seven teams, three are really relevant for this group. And just cover it up and there is an element of surrender on my side. There is an element of surrender on the women’s side. And when the women and we truly surrender and we enter this dance, that’s what she said is like something is happening and it’s beyond us. It’s just an intelligence that takes over. And for me, I think it’s one of my favorite things with the work I do is those moments. I feel like there’s grace. I remember one of my favorite, favorite moments. I did a nine month priestess initiation, the first one I did at the end of the program. The ladies were like, all right, we have to wait. Like it was just like at the end of Covid 2020 where they were like, we have to meet.

Silfath Pinto: [00:38:53] And I was like, okay, so here I am, two months to prepare retreat. We organize the retreat and the retreat. There’s a lot of flow. It was last minute. The group has been together nine months, and in the retreat, each one of them had to teach something to share their genius, their brilliance, their magic with the group. And things happened in such a way that the last session of the retreat was one of the women doing a voice activation on the beach, and even the way that voice activation idea came up was just so random. But then that voice activation on the beach was a pure moment of grace. Like when we finished, it started raining. We felt all heart open, we were crying and we all had like the same vision. It was such a moment and two days ago it was not meant to happen. It just happened in the most random way. Okay, let’s do that. The last thing on the beach and that was that. So for me, it’s like like you said, when we were allowed that, that’s where there’s magic that unfolds beyond what we can imagine.

Jonathan Fields: [00:39:58] And we’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Part of the work that you do, and I mentioned this phrase earlier, I’ve heard you say it, this sense of self reclamation of but, you know, underneath that, what that implies is that we’ve lost track of who we actually are. Talk to me more about this. Is, is this something that you actually see as a common experience, and how does it tend to show up in someone’s life?

Silfath Pinto: [00:40:28] I think let me just I like to simplify, but in that case I will because it comes down to body and feminity. I think that there are there are two primordial intelligence that are yin and yang, feminine and masculine. And when those two are in harmony, we live in harmony As a collective, but also individually. And when you create a society where one of these energy is stifled, we enter dynamics that are very unhealthy because the balance is not supported, and the way it shows up as an individual level is the overpowering connection with the mind and the body being shut down. And the way it shows up in our society today is the difficulty we, we have in relationship to kind of establish beautiful, sacred relationship stress, anxiety, depression, like a lot of the women who come to me. The body is dead. There is no life force anymore in the body. They’re like head walking. The life force energy. The force of creation, aliveness, possibility. Creativity turned on. It’s shut down. Completely disconnected. In that space. How can you be intimate with yourself? How can you be truly intimate with someone else in that space? Of course you are exhausted because the life force is not moving anymore.

Silfath Pinto: [00:41:55] Of course you are stuck because your capacity to create something new is completely stifled because again, the energy is not moving. So of course we have fertility issues more and more, right? So for me, the reclamation when I started the work was about the women, the feminine and restoring women. And then I am moving to union because what is this conversation is really about the feminine without the masculine and the masculine without the feminine. We need to be together. We need to be elevated together, and then we need to create together because we are complementary. And so my conversation went to women, women, women, to the sacred dance of the feminine and the masculine. And how do we restore it within ourselves? So that’s the conversation we’re just having. When I say when I organize a retreat, I find the balance between flow and structure. And those two yin yin are powerful, necessary and complementary. So the reclamation for me is the reclamation of Union. It’s the reclamation of understanding those two intelligence and understanding how together they amplify each other.

Jonathan Fields: [00:43:08] I mean, it’s interesting the way you describe the two intelligences. I think a lot of people hear those and they gender them. You know, they’re like, oh, okay. So like the masculine is about people who identify as male and the feminine is about people who identify as women. I think traditionally that’s just the way that it’s been handed down. It’s the way it’s been taught, at least in Western culture, maybe not so much in eastern culture or indigenous culture, where I think there’s a much more fluid understanding. But in Western culture, I think that kind of is the way that we do it. And it’s sort of like, okay, so if you identify as this gender, the work is to step more into whatever is the energy that is publicly associated with it. If you identify as the other gender, that’s where your work is. And so what you’re saying is no, no no no no no. This isn’t even so much about gender. This is about the fact that there is this sort of like dual energy that exists in all of us and how we bring unity to it and navigate it. That is the work.

Silfath Pinto: [00:44:02] We live in, a society that is predominantly, predominantly masculine. So men in a sense, you know, maybe our default setting there would be more in a comfort zone and women are stretching themselves more. But the reality is that there is so much range in between. Right. So the question really is what is the balance that you need to thrive, and what do you do to get to that balance? So when we talk in terms of relationship, there are women who are more on the masculine spectrum and still want to be with a man, but they would like to be a man whose mind is Swimming, for instance. Right. Just like the basic reconstructing of life, some women come to me and be like, oh, so I have to be my feminine. I’m like, no, you don’t have to be what feels right to you. And if you feel right being in your masculine, are you comfortable with the intelligence of the polarity, knowing that you will attract a man that will be more in his feminine? It’s completely fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. But you want to understand all of the layers of the conversation and learn how to navigate them. Now, a woman who comes to me and say, I am ready to be with a man within his masculine attire, and I want to see her hat, and I want to be more in my surrender and receiving and soft all the time. Okay, great. But you’re in your masculine all the time. The polarity is not going to work. So when we come in we talk about relationship beyond the gender is what’s the polarity that works for you and how do you cultivate that? When we talk at an individual level, our physical, emotional, mental, spiritual well-being, it’s like, what is the balance that you need to function at your most aligned and happy potential?

Jonathan Fields: [00:45:51] It expands the ideas to really be very inclusive. If you’re in a same sex relationship, a gender fluid relationship, whatever it may be, it’s like these are all at play. So like focus less on that and focus more on like what is the energy that we want to bring to it and that we want to receive from it. Exactly. And then sort of like build around that. Does that make sense?

Silfath Pinto: [00:46:10] Exactly. When we talk about relationship, that’s one of the big conversations, right? It’s like what is the polarity that you desire? What’s the polarity that would work for you to be happy as a couple. Okay. And then there is another part of the conversation that is less that has less to do with polarity, but that are basic relationship skills that many people don’t have, like communication and teamwork. Shadow work. You know how we deal with our shadows. So all this is part of the mix when the polarity is not clear, and then the awareness of shadows is not clear. That’s where it becomes really complicated, because a lot of projections start happening in the couple and they don’t understand. No. We just need to do polarity work. That’s what we need to do. Some people come to me and they have so many issues, and all we need to figure out is when do you want to be in your masculine? When do you want to be in your feminine? Each one of you. Okay. How do you put together a dance that works for the two of you? And that’s it. And so, same sex fluid. Everyone needs to sit with themselves and be like, the same way. I would do my shadow work to be, like, have a happy relationship. The same way I would work on my communication the same way I want to understand my priority.

Jonathan Fields: [00:47:24] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. One of the things I’m curious about your take on is the experience of transitions. Life transitions. You know, we are all going to go through them. I just learned. I just learned this term actually from from social psychology called Disorienting Dilemmas, which is an experience in your life that is so shatters your beliefs and to a certain extent, your your identity that you’ve built around those beliefs. Like, you just see something and it can be positive or negative. That is so obviously controverts the way that you create a belief, seeing yourself in the world, that kind of shatters the model of that. So it’s this disorienting dilemma. And like the work then becomes, how do I reassemble the pieces in this moment into a new set of beliefs and identity and beingness that feels right for like the season that I’m now stepping into, the person I’m now becoming. And you could call this more broadly like like inciting incidents, change moments. But a lot of these show up in that moment. Often shows up in these these big life transition moments that often involve loss or grief or, you know, health issues that lead to an awakening that says, like, there’s a big change that has to happen here. I would imagine people come to you sort of like in these moments on a fairly regular basis. Like what are some of the early ideas around, like how you might help someone process moments like this?

Silfath Pinto: [00:48:51] First, I had a few of those moments. One of them was when I started a dance class. Right. One of them was when I quit my banking job to be like, I’m going to be a personal stylist, you know? And I’m going through one right now. There are many layers. There is one layer that is, and they don’t necessarily go in that order. I’m just going to share them as they come. One is grief is taking the time to grieve whatever we are letting go of. There is a moment. There is a time to grieve. So that’s one aspect of the equation. But before we get into the grieving, we want to know what are we grieving? It’s just helping people articulating clearly which chapter I’m closing, which story of me I’m letting go, which aspect of me I’m letting go of. So just that element of clarity. Let me okay. There’s a lot going on. I feel a big loss. Okay. What is it that is finishing? What is it that is starting? What wants to be birthed? What is ready to let go of? Just being able to find that clarity and spread it out freely already brings a lot of peace to people. That’s number one. Number two is okay. We will have to grieve that story that we’re letting go of that chapter that we are closing. Then there is the space in between that I call. And that’s where everything is possible. That’s where we want to connect with our sense of wonder, our curiosity, our capacity to think beyond what we think.

Silfath Pinto: [00:50:35] It’s possible to open the field of possibilities, basically because the field of pure creativity and potentiality. And for me, in that space, it’s a place of play, wonder and discovery. Before we get to that, we need to grieve what people want to do. They want to bypass those two. They don’t want to feel the grief. A lot of time. And they want to have a plan right away. Why are you in a rush to have a plan? Be curious. Explore. Discover why? Because that period of uncertainty. We don’t like it. We want to plan real fast, right? What if we could make this period fun and change the energy around it? I have a client who comes to me recently. She goes, I have this Kundalini awakening energy. In fact, I don’t know what to do with it. I go through those weird emotions because when the life force energy is moving through the body, it’s moving all these emotions or shells, like waves of intense emotion. Then she has ecstatic emotion. Then she’s turned on and she’s like, I think I’m going mad. And then she she does Akashic Record readings. So she does like, really more like upper chakra work. And now she’s like, like all the lower chakras are being activated and she’s like, okay. She’s like, okay. I feel like something is going to finish me as a practitioner. Only in the upper chakra will probably transition because I have all this energy, but I don’t know where I’m going and I’m a bit scared and I want to like put them together.

Silfath Pinto: [00:52:08] Separation. No. Not together. Separate them because I feel like they’re not complementary. And I said, wait, wait, before we start thinking about what’s going what’s leaving Nana? Let’s play. What would it look like? What’s possible to make those two energy? What kind of experience you could create as a group, as a one day retreat. And then we work into this brainstorming. She was afraid about her husband, like, oh, maybe if I really allow this energy to become alive, I’m going to be so different. It’s going to leave me. Wait, what could happen? How could it deepen your intimacy with your partner? So we went into this one hour of like, what is possible? Next week she comes back, she’s like, oh my God. My relationship with my husband has completely shifted. We went deeper into intimacy and now we start and we hurry. We didn’t before, like we got along, but we didn’t talk. And she was like, all these layers of our relationship are coming up. So there is clarity, there is grieving, there is possibility. Play, curiosity. Those are the three big elements that I would bring if someone is going through this transition. Another aspect is if there is a lot of trauma that is unprocessed, the change is scary. So do trauma release and grounding in the body so that the person feels more anchored and safer to be in that period of transition and unknown and play with it instead of being scared of it.

Jonathan Fields: [00:53:34] Yeah, there’s three, three different sort of phases. They land well, and I think you’re right, I think we tend to skip over the earlier ones because we just want to we want to know what’s going to be on the other side. We’re like, just get there. Like, let’s lock it, lock that down rather than staying in that place of play and wonder, which again involves uncertainty and the unknown, which we tend to really dislike. That is where there’s no possibility without uncertainty. It’s like there are two sides of the same coin. Yeah, but it’s still uncomfortable. It is.

Silfath Pinto: [00:54:03] Uncomfortable. And there will be discomfort because we’re being stretched. But you know what I do for myself and I and I and I do with my my clients, I tell them, think about all the times where you allowed the unknown and the magic that the universe created that you couldn’t have. Sometimes I just do meditation on it. Let’s just anchor that in a nervous system. Let’s make a list of all the moments where you didn’t plan, and what the universe brought to you was beyond what you could have imagined. Okay, we describe it. Then I’d say, let’s do a journey with it. Let’s encourage it in your emotional body. And when you do that, because we have a lot of emotion that we don’t process consciously and we don’t anchor in the body. So it’s not fully integrated. It’s like I remember the woman who did a voice activation on the beach. We were doing a private session a few months after, and I looked at her and I said, you know what? You haven’t integrated the woman that you were, the woman who created that vortex and the experience that we had, you have touched her, but you haven’t integrated her. So there are so many things that we have experienced, but we haven’t anchored it in the body fully. And so that’s why we still doubting it. So sometimes also depend on the client because, you know, each person is different. Or sometimes just going through that process really bring a sense of, oh, yeah, the universe. Okay, universe, show me now what you can do. And they bring more of the playfulness and the. Oh, yeah, I know you can do something better than me, right? I trust that, so sometimes that also works.

Jonathan Fields: [00:55:33] Do you feel like there are any sort of daily practices, simple daily practices, maybe even one that we might be able to say yes to that would allow us to more readily be able to anchor those moments of awakening, those flashes of, oh, this is what’s possible in our body, or that would make us more receptive to sort of like bringing it from the ether or from our minds, or from that just momentary experience where it was revealed to us and allow us to more easily have it integrate into our bodies.

Silfath Pinto: [00:56:07] That’s that’s a really good one. You know, as you’re talking, I’m thinking about a few things, and it will be depending on what the person is dealing with. If the person is dealing with trusting themselves and trusting life. I would be like, make a list of all the times where the universe got your back right and meditate with it every day. If it’s a person who is like, I’m afraid of the unknown, I’d be like, make the list of all the times where you went into the unknown and what came out was amazing, and then meditate with it on a daily basis. So depending on what the person is working with and what is the resistance that they’re facing, there is an element of ah, yes. And there’s also something else here. Okay. Let me say that part of the practice would be we have data from the past. Let’s use that data. Let’s integrate that. You already happened. You did it already. You touched that frequency already. Let’s integrate that. And then when we make the practice for a while and the nervous starting the nervous system start being like, okay, then we go, mm. Now how do we do it on a daily basis? What would you do differently if you trusted more a little practice for you.

Silfath Pinto: [00:57:17] So for people who are control freak, some of my clients at this point would be that don’t plan your day for next Saturday. Just wake up and see what happens and they’ll be like, what do you mean I just efficient? I was like, okay, good morning. We had negotiation. Right. And so there is using the data from the past. And then when the nervous system are slowly being like, okay, okay. Then it’s like, okay, now what do we do differently now? And again it’s like a training, right? Or like you do when you go to the gym, you don’t go right away with the big the big, you know, heavyweight. You do it slowly. So that’s that. And then another practice that I want to I would say cultivate and not some clients for instance, they don’t know how to play. They don’t see the beauty around them anymore. So I give them a practice about play and wonder. I’ll be like, what makes you, you know, bring a sense of wonder. Oh, I like sparkle. Have sparkles in your car. Sparkles everywhere. When you wake up in the morning, it sprinkles on sparkles in your car before going to work. And you know what? There is no one way. Like each person I work with. I kind of feel the energy and I’m, like, brainstorming. And then we’re like, bring more. Play the client. I’ll be like, do colorful nail polish like a fairy. And she’s like, yeah, but I always do red. I’m like, yeah, that’s the point. Like, try something more playful, you know? So it really depends on the person. I think the first part would be identify what you’re working on, look at the track record. So either you’re working on trust. Either you’re working on oh the unknown can get very juicy. Either you’re working on play and wonder whatever you’re working on, whatever the tension is for you, then you look at the past and be like, where in the past I experienced the contrary of my fear, where I experienced that all the ways possible, let me meditate with it more and anchor it. And so I make them go back to the event. Even when one is done and then we are not, then the next step we are more. We believe more. Then it’s like, what do we do differently now? Meditation is good now.

Jonathan Fields: [00:59:22] Action now. That’s beautiful. It’s a lot to sort of like think about as you’re describing that I was remembering. I have a friend of mine who, um, was running a couple different companies at one time, but one of the drawers in her desk was filled with confetti. Exactly. She just loved confetti. And she just she would open it up and just, like, put her hand in and, like, play with it. And like, that was just this momentary release that she always had. She’s like, I kind of always want to have a drawer filled with confetti. So I never lose touch with this sense of playfulness and joy. Like, no matter, I’m building a business, doing serious things. There’s stress. But she’s, you know, she had this thing where she could just keep touching into it and this, like, tangible, physical thing that was just right there.

Silfath Pinto: [01:00:01] Exactly. You know, when I was in banking, I remember because I was in, um, auditing. So we had times where, like, we were working late and we were tired And those, whether they were, arrive in the morning looking fabulous and dressed up and everyone would be like, how did you get the energy to do that? I’d be like, that’s what makes me happy right now. That’s my moment of joy right now. That’s my art right now. That’s my play. And it would be like, okay, fair enough, but it will be in my way to treat myself, to make me happy, to be creative because we’re working crazy, right? So it’s like each one of us, we we develop our little strategies like that.

Jonathan Fields: [01:00:40] Yeah. No, I love that feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well. So in this container of Good Life Project., if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Silfath Pinto: [01:00:52] I would say the body, I say the body. I would say our roadmap to our good life, our truth, our voice, our essence, our legacy. It’s all in the body. It’s all in the body. The body is the vehicle. The body holds the chords, and for me to be a very actualized human being is to have developed a really good understanding of how to be in your body and to live in harmony in your body. And then a lot of things come into place.

Jonathan Fields: [01:01:27] Mhm. Thank you. Hey, before you leave, if you loved this episode safe bet, you’ll also love the conversation we had with Liz Gilbert about waking up to what’s real. You’ll find a link to Liz’s episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez. Kristoffer Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Adelle Bliss for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven’t already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project. in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did. Since you’re still listening here, would you do me a personal favor? A seven-second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email? Even just with one person? Just copy the link from the app you’re using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you’ve both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that’s how we all come alive together. Until next time, I’m Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.