Selena Samuela: Turning Tragedy into Strength

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wonder Suite. When Laurie mahaalik Levin, CEO of Mindful Return and author of Back to Work After Baby, returned to work as an attorney after maternity leave, she discovered she could find a course on pretty much any baby related subject under the sun, but she couldn't find any resources to help her navigate the personal and professional identity transition she was going through as she became a working parent.

Louri created Mindful Return to fill this gap. Employers come and join the ranks of the ninety eight other organizations that already offer the Mindful Return program as parental lead benefit. If you're looking for a tool to retain your working parent, top talent Mindful Return is for you. Before we start this show, I want to take a moment to talk about the Supreme Court's decision to take away women's right

to essential reproductive health care. This show is based on the privilege of choice, choice in every aspect of our lives. I've been open about the fact that having children had an impact on almost every facet of my life, but I also chose to have those kids. There are so many women who have had to make the difficult decision of having an abortion. Having a child should be a conscious decision, and if you're not prepared, for any reason whatsoever,

no one should be forced to have a child. This podcast firmly believes in a women's right to bodily autonomy. I know this is an extremely heavy time for so many of us, so take care and keep fighting. I want you to know that this episode has references to

addiction and suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, call eight hundred two seven three eight two five five the National Suicide Hotline, or call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Hotline at one eight hundred sixty six y two Help. Welcome to She Pivots. I'm your host,

Emily Tish Sussman. I had left my decade long political career in DC after having my first two kids during the Trump presidency, and felt burnt out after having my third child, spending a year in lockdown with my family, and another tough and exhausting election. I began to find solace in the stories of women who had made these big career decisions and then found success and happiness in their I began to realize that so many women had pivoted due to personal reasons, and they still found success

through non traditional packs. This new show celebrates these stories, and I'm so excited to bring them to you with She Pivots. Selena Samuela is well known in the world of at home fitness as a star Peloton instructor. She hosts strength boxing and my personal favorite, the outdoor runs. Her intense but warm classes encourage us to push ourselves

to the max. An Italian American immigrant, her journey to Peloton began many years ago when she found a love for surfing and performing while living in Hawaii, but her story is defined by a tragedy in her twenties. By channeling the strength she found in the healing process. She's built a cult following or what she calls her fam. What's up, Plato Fama? All right, what's up? Fam? We did it? Twenty minute glutes and legs, ten minutes just in bad All right, fam, We've got forty five minute

rock at that boot camp coming up. This is our last rock at boot camp for a while. I'm going on vacation. I'm Selena Samuela. Well, I guess now, I'm Selena Simula Virtue because I'm recently married, and I'm a Peloton instructor and I teach classes on the tread and on the mat so floor for strength, cardio and boxing, and I feel so honored and so blessed that I get to do this. This is my job that I get to do some of my favorite stuff. I get to run, and I get to lift, and I get

to celebrate some of my favorite artists. A lot of people are familiar with you. Peloton is so huge. I don't even know the numbers now, but it's all over the country. I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with you, and those who are new to your classes will soon learn, but don't always know that you're from Italy. I'm from Italy. Yeah, you speak really without an accent. Yes, So I moved to the States at like that perfect

age that they say you can lose an accent. So I moved to the States when I was in fifth grade. I was born and raised in Italy. We did a little bit of back and forth in the first few years. My dad was still in school and my mom is from Italy. My father's American. And yeah, I moved to the States when I was in fifth grade, and the first thing I wanted to do was lose my accent, because, as you probably know, kids can be kind of mean

at that age, you know, I was an outsider. Especially the town I moved to is called Elmira, New York, and there was certainly no other foreign kids there. I was definitely the only immigrant in that school, and I was considered weird. How do you feel, I mean, you've gone into a little bit, but how do you feel like your immigrant experience has impacted your path that it's been such a huge catalyst because I had to learn how to pivot, pivot and adjust like at such an

early age. You know, I was essentially taken away from my home, my friends, my family, everything that I'd known and like plopped in a new world and I had to like figure out how to exist and find like a new identity as an American girl. In fact, Selena truly is an American, although she immigrated at a young

age from Italy, her father was a citizen. It was perhaps the first of many times that she'd need to straddle to identities because I was I was also an American girl, and I, you know, like my dad's American, Like I'm Italian, but I'm also American, and I was like, I really wanted to stand my ground and like make

that known. So I think that, Yeah, I think that being an immigrant played a huge role in how I approached life, and I think it made it possible for me to see the possibility and opportunity in the unknown. I feel like that's such an important point to make, that we're so quick to categorize people, but we are you know, it's duality. It's more than that. We are so layered and so many things and can be two things at the same time. You can be Italian and

an immigrant and American at the same time. Yeah, And figuring out how to figure out that path absolutely and and it's also it was also a lesson in like, Okay, this can be scary, but you can make it work. Like it's scary, but it's worth it. So you've always been active and in Hawaii found a love of surfing, but you also found acting around then. Yeah so when So when I was in school in Hawaii, Yeah, I went to high school in upstate New York. That's you

know where I moved to Elmira, New York. I was there for junior high school, high school, and then I ended up going to Hawaii. And I went to school in Hawaiian and I loved it, but I didn't feel like I wasn't passionate about anything that I was doing, Like none in my class as we're really like inspiring me. I loved learning about new things. I studied a lot

of Hawaiian studies when I was there. I was obsessed with surfing, so I wanted to learn everything about the land, everything about the ocean, everything about this amazing culture that cultivated and bred this like this sport that I was so obsessed with, and via Aloha spirit, like all of it just like really jibed with me, and I was really just all about it. And I wanted also to just like pay respect to the land, because I like, I had such an appreciation for the land and I

just wanted to, you know, give back. And I did a lot of stuff like organizationally, like locally, and that was really cool. But I still wasn't like this is my path, Like this is what I'm supposed to be doing for the rest of my life. I didn't feel that then, and so I'd always had this itch to perform. I loved performing, and I think part of my obsession with surfing too is that I actually had I had a chance to perform on a wave, like I was

creating my own art and my own expression. It was like an expression session every time I was on a way, like oh, this is me, this is you know. Selena knew that she loved theater and performing when she was in high school back in New York. She had her first taste of it. Although surfing filled part of that void, she realized she was missing something and she was forced

to really examine what brought her joy. When I came to a moment where I had to pivot or felt like something was coming or felt like, you know, like something needed to change, I would always take myself like what made you really happy? It take myself back to that place, like what's something that made you really happy that you didn't fully get to explore that like you should do. And that's when I decided, you know what, I'm gonna move to New York. I'm gonna study acting

and I'm going to write. I want to be a writer, director, an actor. I want to do all the things. That was really just what I felt I wanted to do. So I did it. I just knew like there was just something in me that like physically, I couldn't stay there anymore. I had to try this thing out. And I was like, I know, I can always come back to Hawaii, but I need to try. And so I did. I you know, dove in head first, and then a lot of things happened from there. But that eventually did

lead me to Peloton in a really weird way. And so that's where I ended up kind of leaning towards like when I auditioned for UH I audition for a number of schools. I auditioned for Yale, I auditioned for RATA, I auditioned for Juilliard, and I always chose I would choose one ingreeneu and like one kind of charactery character, whether it was like, you know, you have to have two monologues like Shakespeare and then contemporary. So I'd always

have one of each. And I wonder if I made the wrong choice, because I always ended up choosing the character you want, like the character actor piece, rather than the like the ingreeneu. And I you know, I didn't get I didn't get picked. And so in that time when you were acting, you met a boyfriend who eventually

became a fiance. Yeah, and so, I mean, this is a tough story, but yeah, so I met this amazingly talented, smart just all the things, like checked all the boxes, this person who wanted to do all the things I wanted to do, wanted to act, wanted to direct, wanted to write, just such a talented writer. We were just so we were so on par He even spoke more languages than I did. Yeah, and I just fell head over heels. Yeah, how did you guys meet? So we

met through a mutual friend. It was a friend's birthday party. And you know, I don't know, I just I think I was in a place where I was I got to a place like this a lot, but I had already been like whatever, I don't you know, I'm like, I'm about my career, like I have this thing that I want to do, like I don't care about having a boyfriend right now. And I was young. But it just, you know, it happened as it does when you're in your early twenties and didn't move kind of quickly. It

moved so fast. It moved so so fast to the point where where I mean, now, looking back, I'm like, oh, yeah, OUs obvious red flags that I just didn't understand because I was like twenty two or something, you know, I was so young. We were together for four years. Yeah, we moved in together really really quickly. I was in love. I thought this was the person. We were going to do everything, Like you said, we're going to conquer the world together. We're just we're going to make it and

we're going to do amazing things. And it started off great. We were like bouncing ideas off each other, sharing our idea like our scripts, reading our work, you know, doing monologues together, stuff like that. It just felt so right. We moved in together, a first boyfriend I ever lived with, and it just boom like felt like magic and it was so amazing. Then six months into it, I learned that he was an addict, and I literally, in my

life had never experienced anything like that before. I don't have any I didn't have any understanding of it, Like my parents don't really drink. There's no like alcohol, there's no addiction in my family. It didn't like so maybe there were signs. I couldn't have picked up on them because I wouldn't have known what they were. But six months into the relationship, there were It just became like there were things that started happening that were like painfully obvious.

And then the more it became, you know, indoctrinated into his world and became friends with his friends, it's the pieces started kind of coming together and information started kind of slipping, and I started to like kind of get the picture that this wasn't the first time, and that like, you know, the first time that he had had problems with drug abuse and alcohol abust and that it was like this is like a career for him. Essentially. It was what was that conversation like when you found out?

I think that that's really when I started doing all of the things things that now I understand are you know, the wrong things. But that's like when I started either making excuses or coming up with ideas on how I was going to fix it. And like it's a great quality that I have is that I want to help people, and and I am very optimistic, and I can always like, Okay, there's a way out of this, like we can do it.

Like yeah, but it you know, in a case like this, it can be detrimental to to someone's well being and to my own well being. But I was losing myself in it regardless because and I think I don't know if that was a good thing, because he would start to do well and kind of get get into a good place where he wasn't abusing drugs or alcohol for a while, and I'd be like, Okay, I see the proof is in the pudding, like it works, like we're doing it, and I would, but I was doing so

much of the work. I was doing so much of the work. And I mean this is when people say, like you can, like you can't want it for them, They have to want it for themselves because like it can work for a little bit, and it did, but it will eventually fall apart. But in the process. I was really losing myself because all of my focus was going to keeping him healthy and keeping him working. So did it fight with your like, with your vision of yourself,

with your own ambition. Yeah. And I think it took a while before I understood even understood that because I got so lost and enveloped in him and his world. I was just really like almost obsessive. It was toxic. Yeah, I can only imagine. Yeah, And quite frankly, I don't even really know how to ask this question, but I mean, can you tell us what happened to him? Yeah? I struggle with this for a number of reasons because I want to be respectful to him, his memory as family

members who are remaining. But you know, I also think that it is a I think that there are probably many people out there that are experiencing something similar to me. And I also think that this is not I'm not an outlier. This is a prominent issue in our country right now. There are a lot of people that are suffering from I mean, they call it like it's like essentially an epidemic, like's there's a real there's a problem. So lex was eventually like in our relationship, one of

the downs got really bad. I gave him an ultimatum. He went to rehabit. He did really really well for a while, eight months actually eight months clean seemed like it was we were on a good trajectory. He went out to rehab in Los Angeles while I stayed in New York. But he had a relapse and I Los Angeles. How did you manage that? I didn't at first, I honestly did did nothing like. I did nothing. I froze.

I mean I would, like, you know, cry and have literally scream because I felt so powerless, and I myself had like I struggled with depression anxiety. I was very, very sad. I was a sad person. I sheltered myself from the world. I wasn't pursuing my career anymore. I stopped writing, I stopped I even stopped reading, Like, I stopped doing most of anything except for feeling sorry for myself for almost an entire year. What was your support system like then? Well, I shut a lot of people out.

I don't like, I don't know what exactly got me to start trying again, or what like got me to recognize the hope that still existed. Do you remember was it like one moment when you started to see yourself come out of it. Yeah, So I think it was kind of a slow process. So it started, you know with like writing again. I started playing music again. I play guitar. I'm not great, but I play guitar and

I like to I like to write songs. So I started to do all the like cathartic stuff, right, the things that like again I knew that I like the things I loved, and like, find the things that you love and start doing them, or maybe find the things you love and you haven't fully explored, and you know, started started working on my songwriting again, started working on my even if I knew it wasn't necessarily going to be a career, but just doing it to like get

it out, like and find a little joy maybe, Yeah, because even if I was writing sad songs, you know, or songs about my experience, there is catharsis and there is joy, and there's like there's you want to keep doing it, you know, because it feels good. Yeah. Do you think you had felt guilty about finding joy during that first year? That's I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think that that that a lot of that, A lot of my kind of pushing people

away had to do with guilt. Like I think there was a part of me that was like why, Like why do I get to like to not have the same kind of problems that you had, like and to still be here and like like live. I think there was definitely like a part of me that was like why my special There came a point where I I decided, you know, I started kind of a little by little the journaling, the music did it, and then I was like, okay, what else, Selena like, let's go back, Let's really go back.

Let's let's find these like moments of like pure joy. And I was like moving my body, surfing in Hawaii, going on your runs, having a routine. So that's when I started doing some fitness classes in New York City, and then I was doing some like boxing for fitness classes. And then I totally did this crazy thing. I dropped everything, quit my bar jobs, quit like the all the stuff that was unhealthy, quit everything and went to Indonesia. As

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shouldn't be the scariest thing about true crime. Just head to Amazon dot com slash ad free True Crime, to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads, and two thousands of Q shows a free for pun suscribers. Some show me how that her best friend from Hawaii was living there at the time, and after the trials of the year before, she knew she just needed to

get out. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to surf and I'm going to spend time with one of my kick ass girlfriends who's just a total badass, like living her best life, like starting her own business, like doing the thing. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to go out there. I'm going to just like soak in all this like good energy for my girl, and I'm just going to go out and surf every day and like try to recenter myself because at that point,

I was like kind of coming out of it. I was like, all right, like you got to do something like yeah, this isn't this isn't you like he died, you didn't, right, Like you you're alive and there's a reason why you're alive, and you like being alive, remember, so come on, girl, get it together. Like so that's what I did. I went out there, I and I I surfed and I read. I read tons of books. Oh my god. I was like I was a voracious

reader to begin with it. That that summer, I was like just ingesting so much so when I I did end up going back to New York because I'm like, you're not done, you know, like this is this is there was a dream that you had go pursue your dream. Went back to New York. Was doing a lot of

my fitness boxing stuff. One of my friends, who was a stunt coordinator, was like, you know, you're still trying to get your SAD card and you're still trying to do the acting thing right, And I'm like, yeah, totally is like you should get into stunt work because you'll like you're perfect for it, Like you're you do all these sports, like you're super fit and like, you know the boxing thing, like you can make that your fight technique. And I was like, great, okay, sure, why not? So

I went to stunt school. So that's how I kind of got into boxing, deeper into boxing because I was like, oh, I got to perfect this fight technique so I can look like a you know, real pro when I'm a stunt when I get hired as a stunt person and then I got into like I got into boxing in a real way. Somebody was like, you're pretty good at that, you should fight, and so I started actually competing and boxing. But that's how I ended up getting recruit into teaching

group fitness. So there was like a little boxing shadow box was this. I don't know if it's still around, but it was a boutique kind of fitness studio that focused on boxing. And then I started doing personal training as well, and I was like, this is a great This is so much better than you know, working in a bar and trying to get a job as an actor.

So at the time, I was still kind of had this like dream that maybe I would still pursue acting, but it was started to fade at that point because the deeper I got in the fitness, the more I was just like, this is kind of like I'm utilizing all the skills that that I'm like just naturally that I'm naturally good at, right, like being an athlete, but also being a performer and being able to like convey important information to like help help people kind of lift

themselves up. Yeah, So it was just like this perfect fit this perfect marriage. This is perfect belonge of all my skills, and I really was just enjoying doing the fitness thing. While teaching her classes, Selena found a strong community and eventually met a student who would change her life. Rebecca Kennedy was the master instructor for the Tribe program and recruiter for Peloton, and she made a proposal to Selena, and she recruited me to audition for Peloton. And you know,

Peloton's literally the dream job. It's all of the things that I love. It's all of the things. Do you still get that same performing fix on camera even without the live audience? Honestly, it's so much better. I just went to see a play yesterday and I just remembered how hard acting is, and I was like, I get to perform, but as myself, Like, right, it is so

much better, Like I feel, it's not so heady. I don't have to like get into this other headspace where I'm this other person and then come back to me and maybe get confused in the in between, which I think happens with a lot of like great performers. And I just I'm like, I get to actually just be myself, but also just like be a star for a moment. You know. I'm a Peloton user. I take all of your classes. I find them very inspiring over the last I started using Peloton right after I had my first

kid about five years ago. But then I kind of dropped off in the middle because I had gained a lot of weight with my pregnancies and got really out of shape and it felt I don't know, I just I couldn't. I was like so depressed about it, like everything just felt too much and depressing. And after the third kid, during the pandemic, I thought, Okay, I've got to get my life together. I got to start doing this. And that was right around when you guys launched Peloton Outdoor.

So I started using the outdoor walks. I started with just the walks, and then I moved up to like the walk runs, and then like got myself into the runs. Yes, and I lost forty five pounds last year and five months. Oh, that is so amazing. Congratulation. And I've taken all of your classes and did it with your classes, Oh my goodness. And it really kept me going. Like I liked the way that you spoke to me. It felt not judgmental. Like it was okay that I could start where I

was starting. How do you prepare for your classes? There's so much encouraging conversation, like do you think about what stories you're gonna tell ahead of time? Yeah? Sometimes? And I think that's that's great that you touched on that, that it's okay to start where you are. I mean, I think I'm just primed to tell that story because like I had to do that too, you know, And and if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere at all. Like you, the best way to like

success is to start. You gotta start right, you know. You know what's wild too, is all this I have these wild stories along the way from auditions that like, from things that I didn't get that had I gotten them, I wouldn't be in the place that I am now. One of the girls that worked the front desk at shadow Box auditioned this same year, same week that I auditioned at Yale, did the monologue that I chose of the entree that I chose not to do, got into Yale,

seriously got into Yale. And then she was working front desk and she was like, I hate my life. I am so in debt, like I can't get any parts, and I was just like, oh my god, I could be you. I mean, do you feel like you found success? Like what do you how do you define success to you? Well, I think that, Well, god, that's so hard. I think there's so many different ways to define success. But I think feeling, you know, right now, being married, being in a job that I love, working with people that I

love to work with. We have such a great culture at Peloton, Like it's just it's such a great space to be creative. I don't actually I don't actually think about like what am I going to do next? Because I'm thinking about like what cool program and am I going to come up with next? So right now, my folks is like currently at Peloton and like how to come up with like better content for the members. Selena

has a way of connecting with her members. In her focus and drive to provide top tier instruction, she always makes sure to make space for anyone and everyone. She is a partner of the Trevor Project and continues to prioritize making safe spaces for anyone who takes her classes

or comes across her platform. I think I definitely think about the member, and I think the member can be so many different people, so I do try to think of a broad I try to be as inclusive as possible in my language, but I see myself in members. So in a way, I know this is going to sound really weird, but I like kind of it's like how I talk to myself. So I talk to you in the way that I talk to myself because I'm like, I know I know how you feel because I am you.

And you mentioned that you recently got married. How did you meet your husband and was that When did you tell him? When did you tell him your story? I told him my story like pretty right away, like early on, because some people could be spooked by something like that,

and I just didn't want skeletons. I didn't want it to and I also didn't want to make it seem like it was that it was a trauma that I hadn't dealt with, and you know what I mean, that it was something that was going to come up and affect us and the way that we could grow together. And had he met me maybe two years earlier, it would have been and I don't think I would have been able to be comfortable telling him immediately, but I told him right away and he was such a champ

about it. I think he just knew. He also knew that like that doesn't and that didn't define me, like you know, because he's just like such a cool dude. Was there was there anything? Just looking back now, is there something? Was there a moment in your life where you felt like, Uh, this thing that is happening to me right now, this is insurmountable, like I don't know how I'm going to get out of this, And now that you look back on it, it set you up

on a positive trajectory. Yes. I think the year that I talked about where I did nothing and I was like, oh, this, I'm incredibly unsuccessful on the this is the opposite of the success story. I think that year was so important, like allowing myself the space and the grace to grieve, to be sad, to not expect a lot out of me because you can't. You can't when you're in that place. And to also understand that feelings can't be erased, they

can't be fixed. You can metabolize feelings, you can kind of break it down, but you can't you can't like switch, you can't switch it on and off. Right. I think that that was so so important, like learning basically learning that in that time and giving myself that space and being able to say, like, you are worthy of something better, right, despite this ugly year that you had, you are worthy. I think there's something that I say a lot in

my class that if you don't take my class. It's one of my favorite sayings is that fears are valid, but they're not trustworthy. Thank you so much, selenas'm well, it's been a pleasure to have you on and Dolly, yes, so much fun. Thank you for having us. Selena still works as an instructor for Peloton. She has started for Rock That boot camp classes and is continuing to pursue the things that bring her joy. This spring, she married her husband, Matt Virtue in a dreamy Florida ceremony, and

they're now expecting their first baby. They live with their dog, Dolly, who made a guest appearance during our interview. To learn more about Selena, follow us on Instagram at she Pivots the podcast. Thank you for listening to this episode of She Pivots. Writ talk with women about how their experiences and significant personal events led to their pivot and eventually their success. Leave a rating in comment if you enjoyed this episode wherever you listen to podcasts to help others

learn about it. A special thank you to our partner Marie Claire and the team that made this episode possible. Talk to you next week. Tired of ads interrupting your gripping investigations. Good news. AD free listening on Amazon Music is included with your Prime membership. Ads shouldn't be the

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