Total Health: Shakti Rios of The PHNX Legacy On How We Can Optimize Our Mental, Physical, Emotional, & Spiritual Wellbeing

Honor the voids in your life. There will be times when things feel dark, murky, difficult — that’s part of the growth process. Honor it. Get help. Realize that the void is what allows for the creation process to begin.

Often when we refer to wellness, we assume that we are talking about physical wellbeing. But one can be physically very healthy but still be unwell, emotionally or mentally. What are the steps we can take to cultivate optimal wellness in all areas of our life; to develop Mental, Physical, Emotional, & Spiritual Wellbeing? As a part of our series about “How We Can Cultivate Our Mental, Physical, Emotional, & Spiritual Wellbeing”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Shakti Rios

Shakti Rios is a certified Human Design Consultant and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)practitioner with 15 years of entrepreneurial experience. Passionate about activating innate genius and aligning souls, she empowers individuals to embrace their unique path and true potential. Shakti's transformative approach fuses Human Design and Quantum healing modalities, liberating clients from mental and emotional limitations to achieve authentic success.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

Thank you so much for having me. Yes, absolutely. I am a child of Cuban immigrants. First generation to be born here in the US. My grandparents were ex political prisoners and they basically came to the US with nothing. My parents were extremely young when they got to the US and my older brother was about 4 months old when they made landfall.

I was born years later with a congenital heart defect which required open heart surgery at birth and this became a pivotal component of my life and my path. To have survived that surgery and all the complications and limitations that were placed on me following that has been a true miracle in every way. This also I believe shaped my interest in alternative healing and the power of the mind.

What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.

I think being born with a condition and under a circumstance as I was sets you up to experience contrast really early on. I experienced enormous frustration with being told what I could or couldn’t do based on my condition. Very early on I became interested in testing the limits of what everyone thought was possible for me and my body. This led me to study alternative healing in various ways as an adult.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?

I’ve been really fortunate to cross paths with some incredible human beings in my life and so many of them impacted me deeply in my capacity to create and grow the way that I have.

My maternal grandmother was one of those people. She was a political prisoner and such a strong and intense woman. She consistently believed in my ability to do anything and she was very adamant about me pursuing greater and greater levels of education and opportunities.

She did everything she could to support me and pushed me out of my comfort zone a lot.

At one point when I was about 11, she sort of forced me to enter this writing competition for the entire county that I lived in. I was a good writer for my age. I knew that, but I lacked the confidence and I didn’t realize that I was self sabotaging by NOT submitting my portfolio on time. She found out about this and physically took me to submit it late which was an ordeal in and of itself. I remember feeling so embarrassed and thinking, “What’s the point?! There’s no way I will win.” And wouldn’t you know it — I took first place. I won’t ever forget that as long as I live. It was such a clear moment of realization that I nearly lost that win because I couldn’t see what she saw in me.

I’ve also had incredibly exemplary teachers in my life that stood by me during some really difficult moments in my childhood and I won’t ever forget that. I think it really taught me the value of being in someone else’s corner and how sometimes that’s really all it takes.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?

I’ve had so many mistakes I couldn’t recount any specifics. In fact my entire career consists of one massive mistake after another. Some are so embarrassing I think it would’ve taken another person out at the knees. Like saying something awful on a live stream, forgetting my own consulting rates mid pitch, trying to write copy for an offer and sounding like a complete asshole.

So much of it has been terrible.

The key has been to not let any of it slow me down. I just never let any of it mean anything about it. I have a phrase I use with my son and it goes like this, “You’re either winning or you are learning.’ There is no real loss, unless I decide it was a loss. So I just keep being who I am as I am through the stages I am being and of course, you get more refined and wayyy better at your craft over time. The key is to not take yourself too seriously.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Oh my gosh. Several. But honestly, The Alchemist remains at the top of my list. That book unlocked a core mystical understanding in me. An understanding that trying to control reality is a waste of time. That finding our alignment to source. Honoring that intuitive connection to God will always lead us to what we need as we need it. It was a deep surrender that I needed to read and often re-read even years later.

Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?

I just did! Ha! It’s my own. “You either win or you learn.” If you take that mentality — nothing will keep you from what you want. You will adapt and you will go at it again and you WILL eventually win.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?

Oh man so many! I’m currently refining a course I created for entrepreneurs called Designed to Shine where I teach them how to use the wisdom of The Human Design System to create a business anchored in their genius that they absolutely love. It’s officially going to be an evergreen course this fall and I’m so delighted to think about the new students who will be going through it.

I’m also creating another course to help healers use the Human Design System to support their clients.

And I’m writing a book! The book will be focusing on emotional well being in order to establish changes, habits and new experiences in our life from a place of grace and ease.

OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. In this interview series we’d like to discuss cultivating wellness habits in four areas of our lives: Mental wellness, Physical wellness, Emotional wellness, & Spiritual wellness. Let’s dive deeper into these together. Based on your research or experience, can you share with our readers three good habits that can lead to optimum mental wellness? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Spend time alone. Get away from people. Seriously. When you are always around other fields of energy you have no awareness of who you are and HOW you are.

2. Eat real food. Don’t get hung up on certain types of diets. Really just real food. If it walked on the ground, can be harvested, or cultured simply — eat that.

3. Learn new things. Make it a point to learn something NEW at least every week. Keep your mind and body as flexible as you can.

Do you have a specific type of meditation practice or Yoga practice that you have found helpful? We’d love to hear about it.

The hardest form of meditation I’ve ever encountered & the most effective has been keeping a level mind when my three year old is throwing an explosive tantrum or I have a pile of dishes to wash.

While I’m all about sitting in silence alone -I don’t know if I value it more than learning how to be regulated and mindful when you are in the middle of a storm in your life.

Learn to be present doing the chore you can’t stand.

Learn to be present when you want to run from someone's emotional experience.

Learn to be present when nothing is going your way.

Thank you for that. Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimum physical wellness? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Eat real food — again. The simpler, the better.

2. Move your body in an intentional way at least 30 minutes a day. Walk, yoga, lift — it doesn’t matter. Whatever resonates.

3. Deepen your breaths. The deeper you breathe the healthier you are. Practice deep

breathing, holding of the breath for a few seconds and then long exhaling.

Do you have any particular thoughts about healthy eating? We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?

The reason this doesn’t translate is because of subconscious programming. In Human Design we call it conditioning. We are conditioned to respond to the world in a specific pattern usually very early on and that’s how that will stay fixed for the rest of our lives. Until we start using somatic healing tools to really shift the way the mind and body connect, we don’t ever get to break out and make better choices.

We don’t stop ourselves from better choices because we don’t know them, we stop because something is overriding that new choice that feels more urgent than the new choice. So if you can reprogram that — you’re golden.

Can you share three good habits that can lead to optimum emotional wellness? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Feel your feelings. When they come up, feel them. Even if you have to leave a space for a beat and breathe through them. Don’t stuff them. This becomes toxic in your body and will become disease.

2. Practice emotional regulation techniques like EFT (tapping). Use it often and on everything to help establish a more regulated baseline for your body.

3. Get support. We are blessed to live in an age where help is everywhere. Don’t be too proud to say, I need help! We all do.

Do you have any particular thoughts about the power of smiling to improve emotional wellness? We’d love to hear it.

Smiling breaks the tension immediately. It will disarm anyone pretty quickly. So yes, smile as often as you can. It communicates to the brain that everything is alright and allows the chemistry to shift in your favor.

Finally, can you share three good habits that can lead to optimum spiritual wellness? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Honor the voids in your life. There will be times when things feel dark, murky, difficult — that’s part of the growth process. Honor it. Get help. Realize that the void is what allows for the creation process to begin.

2. Spend time outside. It’s difficult to wallow in ourselves when we look at huge elder trees, incredible stars, and oceans that are endless. The grandness of it all is so breathtaking.

I’m far less trapped in the cycles of my mind when I’m outside observing the wonder that is life.

3. Learn to be present with the things you love and the things you wish didn’t exist -at the same time. Learn to hold them equally. This will deepen your empathy, your presence and will expand your ability to feel connected to all that is.

Do you have any particular thoughts about how being “in nature” can help us to cultivate spiritual wellness?

Yes! I just shared that above. Nature is medicine. It reminds us that we are a part of something bigger. We live in a symbiotic relationship with nature, we have to realize that. When we are out there we can remember that and stabilize our own frequency.

Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

The PHNX Legacy is that movement. Helping individuals honor & receive themselves, their talents, their beauty, their magic and then hone that to be of service to others so that they in turn, awaken the next generation of beings.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)

It’s funny, I really make it a point not to really follow too many people out in the world and idolize them because I find this distorts my own field and work — but I think there are a few souls I would very much love to chat with Dr.Gabor Mate, Paulo Coelho and Dr. Joe Dispenza are a few. Their work has been influential for me personally in my field and my life as a modern mystic.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can visit https://phnxlegacy.com or https://instagram.com/phnx_shakti

Thank you for these really excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success.

It was a pleasure! Thank you!