In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Evi Kyriakopoulou, who spent fifteen years as a corporate overachiever, a director, an expat climbing the ladder in the Netherlands, the kind of person who could push through anything. Until her body stopped letting her.

Evi names something Victor sees everywhere: a nervous system that learned worth had to be earned, and never learned how to stop. The chasing. The nightly replay of every conversation. The small panic attacks at the first sign of uncertainty. We call it drive, when it is often a body bracing for a threat that never clocks out.

The conversation follows one arc: where she started, what wired her, what turned it, and what safety feels like now. The warning signs built quietly. No coffee, no alcohol, no stimulants, and still a resting heart rate of one hundred twenty beats a minute. Then, on a summer trip to a Greek island, the collapse. A hospital bed, numb hands and legs, an extreme panic attack the tests could not explain. Her body had finally said stop.

The turn did not come from one clean fix. A two day reaction to SSRIs closed that door fast and left her one path forward: natural remedies, talk therapy, hypnosis, and CBT, given as much time as it needed. Six months in, steadier, she took a Harvard course to understand what had actually happened in her brain, and started to uncouple her identity from her job title. At thirty seven she chose to start over, helping people move from what she calls anxious surviving to liberated thriving.

The signature question of the show arrives where it always does: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now? Evi's answer is simple. She has learned to read her own cues, to treat anxiety as a notification rather than an emergency, and to take the day off before the body forces one.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why high performance can be a nervous system that never learned to stop. The early warning signs that get explained away. What a resting heart rate of one hundred twenty is really telling you. Why her recovery went past positive thinking into slow, unglamorous relearning. Uncoupling identity from job title, and building a self around your own values. A practical close you can use tonight: breath work, ten minutes of stillness, and the truth that the benefits accumulate over time.

ABOUT EVI KYRIAKOPOULOU

Evi Kyriakopoulou is a former corporate director turned guide for people moving from anxious surviving to liberated thriving. After a nervous system collapse ended a fifteen year career, she studied the neuroscience of her own breakdown and rebuilt with natural remedies and talk therapy. She is based in Greece and, by her own choice, still mid journey.

Find Evi: https://www.ennoia.me/

FROM VICTOR

If your mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside BreathX Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

BreathX Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.

Dr. Adam Anthony learned to read rooms before he could name why. As a same-race Black adoptee who came up in spaces that were not always safe, his body got good at sensing the shift before it happened, knowing who was safe and who was not. He calls it sharp attunement. It kept him safe as a kid, and it did not switch off when he grew up.

In this episode, Victor Goenka sits with Adam around one arc: what the wiring looked like, what started to change it, and what safety feels like now. They get into the cost of staying alert, the difference between a personality trait and a survival adaptation, and the day Adam felt his body want to respond differently but not yet know how.

Adam works with young men of color carrying their own versions of this, navigating identity and belonging in a world that is not always safe for them. He names the two directions he sees a young nervous system go, high alert or numb and zoned out, and the internal experience that rarely matches what people see on the outside.

We also get into the turn. Therapy with someone who understood and made space to unpack it. Faith as the steady thread that tells his body who he is when the old alertness fires. And the move from rebellion to self-care: choosing his spaces on purpose, and the line he lives by now, that his presence is a gift wherever he goes.

In this episode:

- Sharp attunement, and why reading the room is a skill, not a flaw

- How a child in an unsafe space builds a threat radar that stays online for life

- The difference between your personality and what your body learned to survive

- What constant alertness costs a young man over time

- Therapy, faith, and the first thing that quieted the radar

- The signature question: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now?

- A doable first move for anyone exhausted by always being on

About Dr. Adam Anthony

Dr. Adam Anthony is an educator, leadership consultant, and speaker, and the founder of EmpowerMENt, where he builds intentional spaces for men with adoption and foster care backgrounds to explore identity, belonging, and healing with honesty and care. He holds a Doctor of Education in Leadership from Trevecca Nazarene University, and his scholarly and community work centers male adoptees and Black male college students and educators.

Find Adam:

Website: https://www.empowermentbydradam.com

Instagram: @empowermentby_dradam

From Victor:

If your mind runs loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside the BreathX Collective and one-on-one with a few people.

https://nas.com/breathxio

Feel Safe in Your Body is hosted by Victor Goenka, psychologist and breathwork coach, based in Tulum, Mexico.

In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Sherri Grieve, a peer support coach, author, and founder of Life Rewired who works from lived experience. For most of her life Sherri ran on survival mode without knowing that is what it was. From the outside she looked like she had it all together. Single parent, full-time job, putting herself through college, volunteering for every one of her son's sports.

On the inside she was anxious, switched off, and slowly disappearing.

This conversation is about the moment the picture flipped. The people pleasing, the fixing everyone, the over functioning, the need for control. Sherri stopped seeing those as flaws and started seeing them for what they were: nervous system adaptations her body built to keep her safe. As she puts it, we are not our patterns.

She talks about what survival actually cost her, how the patterns turned into habits that went against her own values, and the night she hit a wall and asked for change. That was the start of the rewiring. She walks through the difference between coping and healing, and the first time she could sit in silence and hear her own heartbeat instead of running from it.

Victor maps each turn to the nervous system in real time. People pleasing that earned safety through approval. Fixing that borrowed control where there was none. Chaos that felt safer than calm. The guest brings the story, Victor brings the map.

The signature question arrives where it always does: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now? Sherri answers with peace, acceptance, and the tools to remind herself that a hard moment is a moment in time, not proof she is unsafe.

She closes with gentle first steps for anyone who feels like their whole personality was built out of survival. Start small. Speak to yourself differently. Ask what happened to me instead of what is wrong with me. And keep the line she wants you to hold: you get to choose who you are.

IN THIS EPISODE

High-functioning on the outside, dying on the inside. People pleasing, fixing, over functioning, and control as nervous system adaptations. How the patterns turned into habits that went against her values. The night she asked for change. Coping versus healing. Learning to sit in silence and hear her own heartbeat. Turning lived experience into books and coaching. The signature question, and why you are not your patterns.

ABOUT SHERRI GRIEVE

Sherri Grieve is a peer support coach, author, and founder of Life Rewired. Through her own journey of overcoming trauma, abuse, and life's challenges, she discovered that healing is possible with the right support, practical tools, and a willingness to grow. Today she helps others move beyond survival mode by building healthier boundaries, strengthening resilience, and creating lives rooted in hope and authenticity. We are not our patterns.

Her books, This Is Me (a bilingual English and Spanish memoir) and Dig Deep Shit (a workbook), are on Amazon worldwide.

Find Sherri:

* Linktree: https://linktr.ee/life.rewired.sherri

* @life.rewired.sherri on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads

FROM VICTOR

If your mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside the BreathX Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

* Breath X Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.

In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Keola Grey, a childhood brain tumor survivor from Oahu who has spent over two decades learning how to feel safe in a body that was once the battlefield.

Keola was diagnosed as a young child. The tumor was caught early and removed completely, and that is where the harder part of his story begins. He had to start again from ground zero. Learn to walk again, learn to speak again, learn everything from A to Z. For years he could not relate to other kids his age. As he puts it, he fit in everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

This conversation is about the second fight, the one that arrives after the medical one is over. Keola talks about the day he realized his cancer history and his mental health were two separate things, what it took to come back into his body, and why the holistic road called to him after years on the pharmaceutical side.

At the center is a simple reframe that changed how his system runs. You don't have depression, you're feeling depression. Keola describes emotions as the puppet and the mind and body as the puppet master, and how learning to watch a feeling instead of being run by it gave him room to choose. Victor maps that in real time to the nervous system work of stepping back and observing rather than attaching.

The signature question arrives where it always does: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now? Keola answers from the day before, fresh out of the ER with clean scans, surprised to notice he felt safe in the one place that used to undo him.

He closes with hard-won, practical advice for anyone in a health fight right now, theirs or their child's: listen to your doctors, keep your checkups, ask the follow-up questions, get the second opinion, and above all learn to read the signals your body is already sending. And the one line he wants you to keep: don't let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.

IN THIS EPISODE

Starting from ground zero and relearning the body after surgery. Fitting in everywhere and nowhere as a kid. The second fight, when the medical battle ends and the mind's begins. Why the holistic road called after years on the pharmaceutical side. The reframe: you don't have depression, you're feeling it. Emotions as the puppet, not the puppeteer. Feeling safe in the ER, the place that used to undo him. Practical advice for anyone in a health fight right now.

ABOUT KEOLA GREY

Keola Grey is a childhood brain tumor survivor and mental health advocate from Oahu, Hawaii. He shares his story to support others moving through their own health fight and the longer recovery that follows.

Find Keola:

* Instagram: @green_i808

* Facebook: Keola Grey

FROM VICTOR

If your mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside the Breath X Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

* Breath X Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.

In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Farrah Weir, a life coach and single mother of two from South Africa who rebuilt her own sense of safety through years of moment-to-moment practice.

Farrah came on with a simple line: if anyone's nervous system should be shot, it should be hers. A marriage that ended, a business lost, a birth navigated with almost no support, two kids raised largely alone through real financial and emotional pressure. By that math she should be wrecked. She isn't. This conversation is about why.

Farrah and Victor see the map differently in places, and they say so on tape. What they agree on is what the show is built around: safety is not a place you arrive at, it is something you build from the bottom, moment to moment.

At the center is one repeatable move. When the fear arrived, can I pay rent, can I feed my daughter, Farrah learned to come back to a single question: are we good today? She tells the story of sitting on the kitchen floor in the middle of a small disaster, stretched thin, and noticing the old spiral did not take her this time. The thought came in, and the thought went out. That is when she knew the work was working.

They get into walking meditation, the "neutral observer" where you watch a thought instead of being run by it, why energy work is a band-aid without moment-to-moment choice, honoring a hard emotion rather than bypassing it, and reparenting the younger self who first decided the world was not safe.

The signature question arrives where it always does: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now?

Farrah closes with a first practice for the exhausted parent at 11pm with ten minutes and nothing left: stop, take one breath, lean into what you do have rather than what you fear, and ask, are we good today.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why "are we good today?" became the question that held her nervous system together. Walking meditation as a way back into the present. The neutral observer, and watching a thought instead of being run by it. Why energy work is a band-aid without moment-to-moment choice. Honoring a hard emotion instead of bypassing it. Reparenting the younger self who decided the world was unsafe. One doable practice for the wired, exhausted parent.

ABOUT FARRAH WEIR

Farrah Weir is a life coach, consciousness teacher, and single mother of two based in South Africa. Her work helps people come back into their bodies and rewire old survival patterns.

Find Farrah:

* Website: https://farrahweir.com/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farrahweir.iam/

* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC4Gp6zAtUVCNP8sLnBGXAw

FROM VICTOR

If your mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside the BreathX Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

* BreathX Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.

In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Derek Notman, a somatic educator and lifelong student of movement and healing arts who teaches people how to come back into their own bodies.

Derek has spent more than three decades studying physical culture and philosophy, including years living in China and Southeast Asia training with traditional masters of martial, movement, and healing arts. What he is after, in his own words, is peace and contentment. Not a destination he has planted a flag on, but something he is still moving toward.

The conversation traces one arc: where he started, what wired him, what turned it, and what safety feels like now. At the center of it is awareness, which for a nervous system is where everything begins. You cannot settle a state you cannot feel, and you cannot change what you cannot notice.

Victor and Derek get into the idea that our thoughts shape our reality and that the body becomes the vehicle to experience them. They talk about how fluid movement rebuilds the bridge between a mind and a body that modern life keeps separate, what actually reacts first when the body meets real danger, and the moment awareness first arrived for Derek, when he felt what his body was doing instead of only thinking about it. They explore comfort in discomfort, the observer behind the thought, and why, when you stop thinking about it, there is nothing wrong with right now.

The signature question of the show shows up where it always will: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now?

Derek closes with a first move for anyone who lives almost entirely in their head, a way to begin to relax, and a message for the person who is afraid that feeling what is in their body will be too much.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why awareness is the starting point for any nervous system change. How thoughts shape reality and the body becomes the vehicle to experience them. Rebuilding the bridge between a separated mind and body through fluid movement. What reacts first in real danger: body, nervous system, or mind. Finding comfort in discomfort, and how ice work and vipassana point to the same thing. The observer behind the thought, and meeting the present moment. A first, doable move toward awareness for people who live in their heads.

ABOUT DEREK NOTMAN

Derek Notman is a somatic educator and the founder of Island Physical Culture. For over three decades he has studied the movement and healing traditions of the world, including martial arts such as Tai Chi, Xin Yi Liu He Quan, Bagua Zhang, Nei Gong, and Qi Gong, movement systems including Gyrokinesis, Gyrotonic, the Egoscue Method, and Somatics, and bodywork including Jin Shin Jyutsu, Ortho-Bionomy, Zero Balancing, and Reiki. His work helps people upgrade their movement patterns, release tension, and reconnect mind and body through embodied practice.

Find Derek:

* Website

* YouTube

* Instagram

* Facebook

FROM VICTOR

If your ego or mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside the Breath X Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

* Breath X Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.

In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Trung Nguyen, a founder who spent ten years and three burnouts learning that the decisions breaking his business were not business decisions. They were nervous system states dressed up as strategy.

For years his answer was the same. Push harder, more output, more proving. It looked functional. Underneath it ran on hidden stress and old survival wiring. Then he caught the pattern: dysregulated, he overreaches. Calm, he thinks clearly and decides well. Chasing more goals never fixed the old patterns. It just gave them more speed. A lot of that landed on a bike, alone in Vietnam, where there was nowhere left to hide.

They get into ambition as a numbing strategy, the slow creep of stress as death by a thousand cuts, what staying with discomfort actually feels like, and the ten second break that teaches the nervous system it is safe.

The signature question arrives where it always does: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now?

IN THIS EPISODE

Why dysregulation makes founders overreach. Ambition as a numbing strategy. Staying with discomfort instead of converting it into work. The body level tells that a crash is coming. Why business problems are often regulation problems in disguise.

ABOUT TRUNG NGUYEN

Trung runs 90 minute Founder Bottleneck Diagnostics, finding the constraint founders scale around before they can name it. Born in Berlin to Vietnamese parents, now based in Vietnam, he cycles long distances, which is where most of the real thinking happens.

Find Trung:

Website: https://iamtrung.com

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ctn1991

Substack: https://theuncomfortzone.substack.com

FROM VICTOR

If your mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside BreathX Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

BreathX Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.

In this episode of Feel Safe in Your Body, Victor Goenka sits down with Robyn Riedlinger, a public speaking coach who helps founders and entrepreneurs find stage confidence, and the founder of Your Signature Talk.

Public speaking is the most common fear on the planet, and Robyn's premise is that it is not a mindset problem. It is a body problem. The moment you stand in front of a room, your nervous system runs the oldest program it has. This conversation is about what that fear actually is, what it felt like in Robyn's body, and how mastering it became a doorway to something far bigger than the stage.

Robyn started a women's walking community in Charlotte that grew to groups of sixty, eighty, a hundred women. The first time a friend filmed her promoting a walk, her whole body tried to override her. Underneath the camera was something older: a girl who was bullied in middle school and learned that being seen was not safe.

She reframes the speaker as a conduit, not a performer, and shares a counterintuitive move for anyone who freezes up. Instead of waiting for the body to settle, go straight to the voice. The thing you are most afraid to use is often where the relief is hiding. She and Victor get into why so many high performers take huge risks yet still fall apart in front of a room, and how the throat holds the block.

The turn came on a stage in Las Vegas in 2024, where Robyn spoke first at her own event and named the hardest part of her childhood out loud, not to make it her brand story, but to release the shame and decide she did not have to carry it anymore. She talks about selling her house and everything she owned as a nervous system decision as much as a business one, and the two and a half years it took to become her own safe space.

The signature question of the show shows up where it always will: how do you know, in your body, that you are safe right now?

Robyn closes on the one thing she tells anyone about to walk on stage in fear. Put in the reps. The stage is not the pinnacle, it is the laboratory where you find out if your message works.

IN THIS EPISODE

Why public speaking is a nervous system response, not a confidence flaw. What the body does when a room locks eyes on you. How childhood experiences of being seen wire adult stage fright. The conduit reframe that takes the attention off you. Why going to the voice first can calm the body. The Las Vegas moment that released a lifetime of shame. Selling everything as a nervous system decision. Why adrenaline is not danger, and how to put in the reps.

ABOUT ROBYN RIEDLINGER

Robyn Riedlinger is a public speaking and stage confidence coach for founders and entrepreneurs, and the founder of Your Signature Talk. She sold her house and everything she owned, built her business while traveling the world, and now speaks on stages internationally, from her own events to keynote rooms full of policymakers and industry leaders. Her work helps business owners access their voice and command a room without manipulation or tactics.

Find Robyn:

* Website

* Instagram

* Email

FROM VICTOR

If your mind is loud and your body never quite settles, that is the work I do inside BreathX Collective and one to one with a few people at a time.

* BreathX Collective: https://nas.com/breathxio

This is Feel Safe in Your Body. Thanks for being here.