Meet Samantha Harte | Dr Samantha Harte | Author & Physical Therapist
We had the good fortune of connecting with Samantha Harte and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Samantha, how has your background shaped the person you are today?
I’m from Brooklyn, NY, so I was born a truth teller. I was also brought up in a very chaotic home which of course shaped how I saw the world. My parents were unhappily married, my mother was having an affair, my father was an enabler for her prescription pill addiction, and my sister was experimenting with sex and drugs. Let’s just say that I had no clue what a boundary was, and I believed that my ability to control my world and the people in it would work forever. Of course, it didn’t, and I’ve had many rock bottoms in my life. Thankfully, I have learned how to break cycles of dysfunction through lots of hard work and practice of new behaviors.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
As a young girl, all I wanted to do was dance. My mother didn’t see it as a viable career, and when you couple that with what became in my late twenties a raging cocaine addiction, you tend to stray from the original path. After a big scare, I began my journey in sobriety and also pursued my doctorate in physical therapy. After graduation, I moved with my boyfriend to LA and began my career as a clinician. Devastated by our broken healthcare system, I started a private practice where I treated the whole body and the whole person. All the while, I was navigating really tough stuff in recovery. Despite having physical sobriety, I hadn’t really changed my emotional landscape. I relied on perfectionism as my main coping skill, and as my marriage was falling apart, life as I knew it collapsed. This is when my true recovery began. At spiritual rock bottom, I learned how to live with uncertainty. I heard the whisper of my intuition. I fell in love with the process of life. As my sobriety progressed, I was hit with life circumstances that took me to my knees. Most notably, on March 13th, 2022, I lost my big sister Jessica to a drug overdose. When that happened, my entire life changed. I decided to write a book which is now set to release June 10th. Breaking The Circuit: How To Rewire Your Mind for Hope, Resilience and Joy in the Face of Trauma is a modern and psychologically informed take on the 12 steps of recovery so that anyone, addict or not, can have a blueprint for how to turn tragedy into triumph.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If you pick any hike, whether it’s Runyon Canyon, Topanga Canyon or Will Rogers, and you make it high enough, the view is breathtaking. California is a lot of things, but it is unequivocally a gorgeous state. It is one of the few places in the world where you can see both the ocean and the mountains at once. Though it’s very spread out, LA is a bustling city rich with entertainment, shops, nature, fresh food, and every fitness and wellness modality on the planet. From Santa Monica to Hollywood to downtown LA, you have access to anything and everything your heart desires. It’s a pretty special place.
The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Twelve step programs are incredible despite all my misgivings with the language of the steps. The idea that a couple of guys put together a framework and community to help those who were suffering is incredible, and there would be no modern take on the steps if they never existed in the first place. I owe my life, in many ways, to their groundbreaking work with addicts and alcoholics and hope to carry the message of recovery to as many people as I can.
Website: https://www.drsamanthaharte.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsamanthaharte/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjdbmTvhfwy3QAxifMAsMMg?app=desktop
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