Stephanie Zubiri speaks out on rising from her darkest days to freeing herself from silence, and the importance of holding space for others.
Stephanie Zubiri’s Soulful Feasts was born from darkness. While the podcast launched in October of last year, she shares, “I guess the journey really began when I was leaving my ex-husband and had a very difficult time in my life, and I even went through suicidal ideation.” In an exclusive interview with Lifestyle Asia, she elaborates by saying that she had gone through “a lot of depression and some very, very dark days.” Stephanie adds, “Plus, coupled with the pandemic and all the anxiety and changing hormones in my body, it was, everything in one go.”
Stephanie intimates, “I think a lot of people feel forced to keep going towards the light. No, man, go dark, dark, go deep, go inward. Look at your shadow and all the ugly stuff. Look at all the trauma and then bring it to light. Alchemize it. I have a talk called ‘Soulful Alchemy’ and it’s really about turning your darkness into gold and how not being afraid to do your shadow work to really go through that dark night of the soul. It’s the only time you can really start.”
Five years ago Stephanie began the deep dive into herself. She started asking the tough questions: “Why am I doing what I’m doing? What are these patterns that are happening in my life that seemingly lead to hurting myself and other people?” She reveals that it reached a point when one of her doctors suggested prescribing her Xanax. But she was unsure if she wanted to go in that direction. As a devoted mother to her two children, it was important to Stephanie to be the best version of herself. And so began her path toward holistic healing.
Discovering Self-Love
She narrates, “I thought it was about fixing myself, but really it was about loving all parts of me, even the bad parts, and understanding myself and my issues and my patterns and my childhood. I really wanted to be the best version of myself for my kids. So that came with a journey of meditation.”
She credits Sara Black who had been her guru for some time, helping her through this personal journey. Stephanie adds that over the past year, she officially became Sara’s student. Through Sara’s mentoring, she has learned to be a teacher too. She learned breathwork, going inward, and mantra meditation, which she used to help herself with energy shifting. She also went for therapy sessions with a Jungian psychologist which resulted in insights that allowed the heavy energy to bubble to the surface.
Referring to the heavy energy, Stephanie shares, “I didn’t know what to do with it. And then I would turn to the meditation, and the breathwork, and the movement, which would help process all those feelings.” Through her Jungian psychology therapy sessions, Rose Yanko became her mentor. Stephanie is taking Jungian psychology herself in order to be a depth psychology coach.
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Describing the worst of her situation, Stephanie shares, “I was also bleeding internally and it was impacting my physical health. So I also attacked it from a wellness, nutritional perspective.” For instance, she stopped drinking coffee. She says, “From my own journey, I realized that it has to be a holistic approach because body, mind, and spirit are one and very often we want to treat only the symptoms and not the root cause, and then it manifests in different ways.”
Making Wellness Accessible
As Stephanie immersed deeper into her practice, she experienced the difficulty in finding peace of mind in the city. She explains, “The wellness stuff out there is for the rich, wealthy white woman, right? Like who lives by a forest and can go forest bathing and go for a walk with your dog?”
Putting this into perspective, Stephanie shares, “I live in Poblacion. It’s noisy. Or how do you find peace of mind and quiet time when you’re in a house, a generational home. Or you have traffic. So really one of the keys to my daily wellbeing was adapting all these practices that I had learned from people who so generously shared their wisdom with me, but adapting it to life in a big Asian city.”
And that was the impetus for the podcast, named Soulful Feasts. She wanted to have a space where she could share what she has learned, where she could help others find insight, within more realistic parameters. She says, “I would meditate in traffic. You don’t have to go on a retreat in Bali to find insight. I have two kids. I can’t just leave them.”
Aside from wanting to share the holistic wellness aspect through her podcast, Stephanie just really wanted to be her authentic self. She realized that she has spent a lot of her life pleasing people and creating a narrative for herself. She shares, “Like what a good Filipina wife and woman is supposed to look like. And, it didn’t feel real. And I think the podcast was a space for me to be myself, honest, and let all this stuff out, some of the stuff that I haven’t even told my own parents.”
Raw and Real
Stephanie believes that by sharing her story, it is healing for her and hopefully it can help other people in their own way. This ranges from making difficult decisions to leave an unhappy marriage, dealing with sexual abuse, struggling with the challenges of being a single mom, and coming to terms with the news that your child is on the autism spectrum.
Another purpose of the podcast is to delve into topics that people want to avoid. She shares, “Other topics that I felt people sidestep, like, the woman’s right to have an orgasm and to be a whole sexual being. I’m very much in that women empowerment movement.”
Photos by Scott Woodward
Stephanie adds that the podcast is just a really fun project with no monetary interest around it, saying, “The response was so good. And it makes me happy when I do it. I don’t need a big audience because I know at the end of the day, the message will reach whoever needs to hear it. But my goals right now would be, I would love to grow the community and I would love to make it more interactive, more participative.”
She acknowledges that she is “privileged to have access to some really wonderful people who have so generously decided to say yes to being on the podcast.” She appreciates how her guests have openly shared their journeys, adding that the podcasts are totally unfiltered. She emphasizes, “We don’t bleep anything out, like we don’t cut anything. So it’s all very raw and real.
The Gift of Vulnerability
On how Stephanie feels about celebrating the first anniversary of Soulful Feasts this 2024, she says, “You know, I think for a long time, I didn’t like to celebrate my own achievements. I’m so used to being the journalist celebrating other people.”
However, she elaborates how proud she is of this small endeavor and where it can go. Apart from the podcasts which started it all, offering a space for open conversations, she speaks particularly about the workshops and retreats, which are very unique. She believes that through these endeavors they are able to shift energy and uplift people, by welcoming vulnerability and leading them through a journey of emotions. She shares, “Seeing people lean in to receiving love and giving love–it’s like I’ve become another person. After leaving the workshop, it’s like something else switches on and I really enjoy it. I feel like I unlocked a hidden talent to help people unlock their power inside–to heal themselves.”
She clarifies, “I don’t pretend to heal anybody. I just help you with your healing journey, you know, however I can. And sometimes it’s just holding space.”
Soulful Feasts Women’s Circles
Which leads us to Soulful Feasts Women’s Circles. The monthly circle Stephanie launched is meant to be accessible to anyone who needs a space to share, whatever they might be going through. Stephanie explains that the circle is contribution-based, with an energy-exchange approach: “You always have to give some kind of energy exchange. So whatever you want to give, it’s up to you. If you want to bring homemade banana bread, I will accept that. I really made it geared to women because I feel like there’s not enough space for women to speak freely.”
She narrates, “I just came from lunch with somebody who is going through a really difficult time and didn’t have anyone to share with. I know what that feels like and there’s nothing worse than already going through a bad time and feeling alone. So I just hope people feel less alone.” This is the reason for the monthly circle, which is to let women know there are people to hold space for you.
Ongoing Challenges
On her challenges and key learnings over the past year since launching the podcast, Stephanie shares, “I think for me, really, as a personal challenge and learning is to really be fearless in being authentic and real.” She expounds on how she is very open on the podcast about what happened to her when she was younger–and how the trauma from the sexual abuse she experienced had resurfaced later in life. It is something she had never shared on her Instagram, but was able to speak about in her podcast.
She continues, “So I turned 40 this year and part of that journey is to be able to share it. And I didn’t share it because we self-silence ourselves. So part of this weird struggle is you’ll see that I am most myself on my podcast and in person, but I still can’t put it out on social media. So I really like trying to integrate and be as free as I can in all platforms and be as honest. And at the same time, accepting that it’s okay to not be okay.”
Another challenge is to let go of certain narratives such as being competitive in the digital space. As a content creator dealing with the pressure of metrics, it has been an internal challenge. She says, “I just learned to deal with that. Whoever needs to hear the message, will hear it. If you needed to hear that message that day, you’ll hear it. And that brings me joy.”
The Value of Connections
She shares, “I’m most proud of the fact that people connect with the content. That for me is most important. I used to care a lot about the metrics and get a bit pressured and then I just stopped. The most important really is people who connect with it, whatever the topic was.”
Sacred Body sharing circle; Stephanie Zubiri with Kimi Lu and Ava Daza Zanirato; all smiles after the Sacred Body workshop
Stephanie adds, “I get messages every day. Just today I got a message from someone who was like, ‘I hope you post new episodes because I’ve been going through a really difficult time. I just broke up with someone after nine years. And when I listen, I feel like you’re my best friend.’ And I just started to cry, you know?”
Stephanie Zubiri with Sara Black and LJ Navera during their Global Mala collaboration
Going Global
The mom of two explains how Soulful Feasts has evolved from her podcast to meaningful, face to face experiences. Thanks to Sara’s guidance, she has started leading her own workshops and retreats. From mixing what she has learned from Jungian psychology to mindful movement and adding her own flavor, she has grown the community by sharing what has worked for her with those open to trying it too. Future plans include migrating the content to YouTube, to make Soulful Feasts more accessible, so that her audience will not need a subscription. She adds, “We’re also going to make more videos. Each episode will have a bite-sized version, like snippets, so that it’s snackable content, basically.”
Furthermore, she hopes to expand by inviting more experts from the region such as Singapore and Hongkong, while also taking the workshops there. She has already begun this expansion beyond the Philippines, with her first international retreats that she facilitated in Guam and Singapore. In 2025, Stephanie will be leading another international retreat in Vietnam.
INA Wellfest 2024 in Guam
“I was contacted out of the blue by Liv Marati, the founder of INA Wellness Collective in Guam, she invited me to be the keynote speaker of INA Wellfest 2024 last June in Guam,” Stephanie shares. She gave a speech called “Soulful Alchemy: Turning your darkness into gold.” She describes it as a very frank and honest conversation about the darkest times of her life. During this time she contemplated leaving this earth and leaving her marriage. She also experienced mental health problems like severe depression and self-harm.
Stephanie adds, “I also shared how being open about it has become not only healing for me, but also empowering for others to get the help they need and not feel alone in their journeys. The response was overwhelming. So many came up to me after, women in particular who felt judged for leaving their marriages, for choosing themselves, they expressed that they felt seen. My heart was so full.”
Stephanie Zubiri as the keynote speaker during INA Wellfest 2024 in Guam
Stephanie also animated two Soulful Embodiment Practices, her signature “I Am Divine Love” for a smaller more intimate group of 16 and “Ignite Your Inner Light” for a large group in a ballroom setting of over 50 people. Stephanie shares enthusiastically, “It was INCREDIBLE! The energy was electric and so powerful! We had a live percussion group co-create the space with me to raise the vibrations even further. It was my first large group and wow. I was moved to tears in the end.”
She affirmed how special and pivotal a moment it was for her, “And to hear how people enjoyed it, that they’ve never experienced anything like that before, that they felt expansive and full of emotion, I still get teary. I really felt like I was doing exactly what I was meant to do.”
IKIGAI Hub SG
Stephanie shares how in October, she collaborated with IKIGAI Hub SG, an insurance investment company founded by a young Filipino with an amazing story, Michael Pe. His humble beginnings began in Singapore as a dishwasher, during which time he would be studying in the evenings to be an insurance broker. He worked his way up and opened his own company, now advising OFWs in Singapore on proper investment of their earnings while working alongside larger high net worth clients as well. Stephanie says, “He invited me to host a Soulful Embodiment Practice, “Ignite Your Inner Light” for his clients and staff. I am currently in talks with a few hotels and resorts in Singapore to come in as a special guest practitioner in 2025.”
A Soulful Journey In Vietnam
What’s next for Stephanie? A Soulful Feasts Retreat titled “The Goddess Within: A reclamation of soft power, the divine feminine, and uncovering your mythic life.” The retreat takes place from March 4 to 8, 2025 in Name River Retreat, Hoi An, Vietnam.
Stephanie describes it as a transformative retreat, a way to reconnect with your divine feminine and awaken your inner power in the serene Vietnamese countryside. It will be set along the Thu Bon River, a journey offering curated experiences that will nourish one’s soul, restore balance, and rekindle vibrancy.
Retreat participants can look forward to exploring goddess archetypes through Jungian principles and Depth Storytelling, guided by Stephanie’s Soulful Embodiment sessions. These will feature meditation, Himalayan breathwork, mantra, and mindful movement to help reclaim energy and inner sovereignty. Guests can also indulge in awakening their senses with holistic healing rituals, daily treatments, and a nourishing cooking class. Connect deeply with nature through meditative walks, while embracing the spiritual harmony of Vietnamese culture through temple visits and lantern wishes.
The retreat will be hosted at Namia River Retreat, a luxury boutique property on the quiet Cồn Ba Xã Islet in Hoi An, offering private pool villas for a deeply restorative experience. Limited to just 16 guests, learn more about the intimate retreat by contacting Stephanie directly through Instagram @stephaniezubiri.
Banner photo by Scott Woodward.
