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The Courage to Pause: What a “Soulbattical” Can Teach You About Change with Tina Bruce

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You know that feeling when everything that used to make sense suddenly stops working? When your work feels heavy, your confidence wobbles, and something inside whispers, it’s time for change?

That’s exactly where today’s guest, Tina Bruce, found herself. Tina Bruce is an author, speaker, breathwork facilitator, eco-retreat leader, intuitive coach, death walker, spinal energetics practitioner, and yoga teacher. For more than two decades, she has walked the path of wellbeing, first through science, working as a clinical cardiac technician in medical devices, and later through soul, as a guide for those seeking deeper healing and connection.

After years leading yoga, breathwork, and retreats, she reached a point where her soul called for something deeper. What followed was a radical act of surrender, a “Soulbattical”, as she calls it, a complete pause to reconnect with her truth. That journey led her into the wilderness, where she undertook a powerful Vision Quest: four days and four nights alone in nature, fasting, praying, and surrendering to the wisdom of the land.

In this episode, Tina opens up about how she followed that inner call, even when it meant walking away from everything familiar. She shares her profound vision quest experience, her reflections on ego death, and how she’s redefining what wellness and success truly mean.

We talk about the shadow side of the wellness industry, the fear of slowing down, and the deep trust it takes to let life lead. It’s raw, soulful, and full of wisdom for anyone standing at their own crossroads.

🎧 Tune in to hear:

  • The moment Tina knew she had to step away from her work
  • What a “Soulbattical” really is (and why your soul might need one too)
  • Her powerful lessons from fasting alone in the forest
  • How to recognize the signs your ego is running the show
  • Why true wellness begins with self-trust, not self-optimization

If you’ve ever felt the pull to pause or reinvent yourself, this episode will remind you, you’re not lost, you’re evolving.

Connect & work with me:

Connect with Tina:

FREE LIVE MASTERCLASS: Monetise Your Magic

Connect directly via Instagram or Linkedin

To work directly with me, bookings are available at https://www.prueaja.com

SPEAKER_00:

The word soulbadical and what it means to me is to create space to leave your familiar life and your social roles behind in order to be of service to your soul and what it is asking you to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Seen and Heard, the podcast for multidimensional entrepreneurs, creatives and change makers, ready to evolve into their next chapter from the inside out. I am Pruaja, personal branding coach, photographer, speaker, and mentor. For over 21 years, I've helped people align who they are with how they show up so they can live, love and lead from in their element. This show is your space for breakdowns that become breakthroughs, deep identity work, and real stories of transformation. Together, we explore manifestation, mindset, visibility, and creating a personal brand that is truly you. I believe when you're in alignment with your truth, you don't just show up, you become magnetic and you share your gifts to make the impact you were born for. It's time to be seen and heard. Thank you for accepting my invitation to come on the podcast today. Because we have known each other for probably 10 years now. And I've been through many evolutions of your personal brand and business from yoga to breathwork to retreats. And now we're entering a whole new realm and evolution as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, Prue. This is a mighty time. And I'm very happy to be talking to you today because 10 years is like a cycle, like it's a decade, it's a solid chunk of life. And yeah, evolutions is right. Like I feel like I'm in this liminal space at the moment where nothing is very clear, but everything is clear at the same time. Like I'm in a process of change. But this time has been different from the little changes along the years. This feels a lot stronger, much more of a turning point and a powerful time to be alive, I would say.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think that is on an individual level, because I know a lot of people are feeling this, but also a global level as well. We're seeing huge shifts happening economically, environmentally, culturally, all over the globe. And I feel like this universal liminal space we're like, what's going on? And I know there's a lot of fear out there. I personally feel it, but I'm quite excited for it because I really believe that things can't go on the way they're going. And we have to have a breakdown and to have a breakthrough, whether that's in the world or personally as well. And I know you're in that space still. I've been through a similar thing. You know, everyone's as different. And that's what the podcast is about. Sharing these journeys to allow people to feel not so alone when they're going through it, and that there is a light on the other side, but also what it takes to get through it. Or what it feels like to be in the middle of it, which is I felt it was terrifying and painful, and I never thought it was going to end personally. But I know you've taken a soul badacle. So do you want to share a little bit about what that is and what made you take it now?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I made that word up, soul badle, because I needed to create space in my life. And the way I see the word soul badacle and what it means to me is to create space to leave your familiar life and your social roles behind in order to be of service to your soul and what it is asking you to do and how to be. So different from a subadical, like traditionally, a lot of people take this break from their professional life or their work life to go and reskill or study or qualify in something, which is really about serving the intellect. However, a soul badacle to be in service to your soul is not a mental exercise. And the soul's mission and what it has been in the last six months is about taking me on a descent to go underground, to really go outside of the identities which have formed who I am and how I present myself to the world, and to strip those away. So, like you said, it has been terrifying to do that, to walk away from my business, from teaching, to just shut everything down. But I feel like I didn't really have a choice because it comes at you first as a calling, like a tap on the shoulder, which you either get like this call or this crisis that happens. And about a year and a half ago, I got that call to adventure, that tap on the shoulder to say, hey, Tina, there's something more, there's something else. And of course, at the time I ignored it because I had responsibilities and commitments, and I was editing my second book, and I had groups to take overseas on retreat, and I had already responsibilities that I had to fulfill. So I ignored it and thought that's ridiculous. This is not the time to do that. And over that space it started to build up inside of me, and it came to a point of what you would perhaps call a crisis. That moment when all those constructs that were holding me in place just stopped working. And I distinctly remember I was teaching a breathwork class, and it was as if the universe just flicked off a light switch, like literally de-animated me and put me in the dark, as if to say, okay, that's enough now. You're done with that. And I felt it like energetically, it was like, oh, well, I can't pretend or push through this, and it's a clear message that I've got to step away. So I made that decision to create the space and just shut everything down. And at the time, like you're changing hormonally as well. So the classic midlife crisis that our culture talks about, it's not the most empowering way to talk about this change. You know, when you look at the meaning of crisis in the Greek meaning of it, means to sift, crisis with a K, the etymology of the word means to sift, which is basically to remove everything that's not true, to sift out all the crap so that what is left is the gold at the bottom, the gold nuggets and midlife. And I think this is true for a lot of women, like it's menopause and the whole change that you go through. In our culture, it gets reduced to managing symptoms. But I actually think it is a threshold that we cross, that it's a great turning point and it's a chrysalis that we're being invited into. It's the cocoon or the descent that the soul wants to take you on is a deep introspection, a cocoon to wrap yourself in so that those old constructs that are not working, those ways of being, need to dissolve. It is a death, actually.

SPEAKER_01:

It is a total death. There's a few things there, an invitation. I don't think you get invited. The tap was the invitation, and if you don't listen, then you are forced into that chrysalis. When you were getting the tap on the shoulder. Just so that people listening can understand what that might look or feel like. What was a sign of that?

SPEAKER_00:

It felt like my work started to feel heavy, like a workload, rather than what was lighting me up, which I have always felt aligned with doing the Dharma, which I'm here to do and to teach and to share in a way that is really true to me. But it started to feel heavy. And I think that was the sign of the tap when things started to feel weighted, and then my nervous system was becoming more difficult to regulate. So I had to spend more time every day just to stay fucking grounded. Like all the practices and the tools and the modalities that we know and that I teach, like I was working them strongly just to stay in my body and to be present. It felt like it took more energy rather than gave me more energy. Yeah, that was the sign.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's so interesting when your work becomes heavy. I felt that's a big sign when we got to listen to our bodies and when we don't, the signs get louder and show up in different ailments as well. When you were in that breath work class and it really hit you, what was that?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it was scary and confusing because I love what I do and to have it just switched off, it was out of my control, and I'm a control freak as well. So part of my inner work that I've been facing the last six months is looking at my ego, my spiritualized ego, and how that little part of me that likes to feel special and important and recognized for what she does is not sustainable. And it actually drains me of energy to come from that place of survival and protection. And it has its roots, I know, in this very young anorexia brain that I have that I'm outgrowing, but still she comes alive when she's scared. And I think any change and big midlife thresholds are scary, and your ego will fight for its survival during that time and start to activate, and you feel triggered and you feel activated, and you feel worried that you're going to lose everything. So it was very humbling to go. Well, if I'm not that Tina that is known for teaching and leading retreats and everything I've worked for, then who am I if that's not actually who I am? I mean, it's very confronting work, I think, to face our identities and yeah, the parts of us that get some sort of reward, some sort of protection, I suppose, from constructing these personas and recognizing that my soul and my ego need to learn how to live together in a one-bedroom apartment in my head. Like that's how I see it. They we can't survive without one without the other. There has to be a relationship where I am here to serve the needs of my soul. And in order to do that, to have a soul radical, it needs to take me down on a descent into the subconscious, into the underground to dissolve those identities and those past patterns of survival, which have been there forever in order to expand into the next phase.

SPEAKER_01:

It's so interesting because I used your exact words when I was going through. Because I'd moved back to Byron Bay, my hometown where I grew up, and it started coming on like a ton of bricks. And I was like, who am I if I'm not this photographer in the city working for these amazing people? And it was such a shedding and letting go of sitting in it and feeling through it. And I went to doctors and they did tests and everything. I thought maybe it's perimenopause. I was 39. And they wanted to put me on antidepressants and anti-anxiety. And I was like, No. No. Twice I went because the second time I was like, I can't handle this anymore. I need to just suppress it. And it was amazing to see how many of my friends or people I knew were on them and how it was helping them. But there was something like in me that just said, You have to sit through this and just shed it and let it go and feel it out. Oh, I remember when you were going through that. It was so scary, like waking up with pins and needles, not being able to eat, blurry vision. So I couldn't type or do any work as well. Running out of money, like literally going and I think a big part of it was shedding my fear around money as well. But it's nice now to have more awareness to listen to my body and give myself more space and be more gentle. And I'm lucky I've got a partner that he really holds space for me to do that and kind of like stay in bed longer today, you need more rest and do things that are fun and light you up. So yeah, it's been a big part of my journey. I know that you do quite a few different things to nurture your soul and experience it on deeper levels. And a few weeks ago or a couple of months ago, we spoke about you're just about to go on a vision quest. And that wasn't the big reasons I got you on here, because I'd read about a vision quest in a book that someone went on, and then you were going on one. I was like, oh my goodness. So can you tell us what it is first and then a bit about your experience?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, when I first heard the words vision quest, I can't remember when, a couple of years ago, it was just like I didn't even know what it entailed, but it was like a hell yes, like a full-bodied yes, I'm going to do that one day. Like full goosebumps, hair on the back of my neck. Like I just knew, and then I found out what it entailed, and I was terrified. And I feel like people either fall into two different camps. They're either like, hell no, I'm never doing that, or sign me up. So the week after I took the sabbatical, shut everything down. This notification dropped into my inbox Vision Quest, New South Wales, August 2025. And I looked at it and I thought, it's now or never. So there's several reasons why I was inspired to do it. I think the main thing is that this wild woman has been waking up inside of me to really reclaim her power in nature and this earthy feminine power of instinct and intuition and connection to her deep natural spirit. So that was one thing. And my teacher, who was running this vision quest, she was on that reality TV show called Alone, where she spent time in the African desert. She was the first Australian woman, her name's Katie Ridge, to be on the US TV series. And I became really obsessed with that through knowing about Gina Chick as well, our Australian other woman who won the Tasmanian version. And there's something about women in their power, in nature, that just called to me so strongly. And I wanted to experience that. I wanted my confidence back. I felt being in this liminal space that my confidence was waning. I wanted to know what it was like to rely on my instincts, on my intuition, and to be in that space with no distractions. So the lineage that I quested in was part of a Native American model, if you like. It's four days and four nights as a solo vigil in nature without food. So you're fasting, but you have water, and you spend this period of time, which is in the lineage of a Native American shaman called Stalking Wolf. So we came together as a retreat group. So it was nine days in total, and you spend the first couple of days preparing, and then we're on this mountain, and you go out and you select your site, and then come back to base camp, prepare your things, and then every woman goes to sleep, wakes up the next morning that she's to quest, gets up as the sun rises, puts her backpack on, and walks to her site. And it is so profound, like it's really hard to put into words that experience walking off to your quest site and settling in for that period of time into the deep unknown. Like you have no idea what's going to unfold, except that I felt safe knowing that the quest protectors were back at base camp praying for us. It is a strong ceremony. So it's not something that any woman enters into casually. I think in your bones that a vision quest has an element of ordeal to it. It's an initiation, traditionally, in that lineage. So for any initiation, it is a contained experience of death. And actually, the words VisionQuest means a little death. Going on a contained experience of ego death is done in a ceremonial way to respect a tradition and to respect Mother Earth and know that she's holding you. Mama Earth has got you. Like she's seen it all, and the cycle of your initiation is you're going to receive exactly what it is that you need. It may not be what you want, your experience, but it will be what you need. So that's what I found happened with my time out there because when I had to choose the site, I was humbled really quickly. My initial reaction when they said, okay, go out and choose where you want to spend your solo time. I ran straight up to the top of the mountain and thought, I want the highest view, I want to be on top of the world, I want the most space that I can see. And I tied my scarf around a tree to claim my space. And I was really quickly told by the facilitators that Tina, it's it's too far, it's too steep, it's not safe. How are you going to descend on day five when you haven't eaten any food? We can't approve that site. And I was so gutted because I just remember thinking, I want to be like the eagle, like I want to be way up high. And my ego was just crushed, and I was shown really quickly where I needed to be, which was in a deep fern forest at the bottom of the mountain in the mud, literally. So I was placed and I was guided because by this point I was so overwhelmed choosing my site that I just found Katie and collapsed into her arms and just said, I don't think I can do this. And God bless her, she guided me to a site deep in the forest, and it was dark and there wasn't much sun, and I was surrounded by all these trees and ferns. And I spent that time in the mud, really, and that's what I needed to decompose, to literally be at the bottom in the soil, where all that death gets recycled and the nutrients absorbed and you're supported in that way. Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

That's almost a little bit of an ego death in itself, being told that you couldn't have that place up on the mountain. So do you go off and find a place and then come back and show them where you're going, or you're going as a group and I'm going here.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you go to find the site and then you find one of the quest protectors to get approval of it, and then once it's all signed off and safe, then you go back to base camp and you get your things ready for the next morning where you walk out to that site. So you don't take a tent, you are only allowed to take a tarp and a piece of rope and a sleeping bag.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's cold that time of year as well, up here in August in the foothills of the mountain, and you were really in the mud cold part of it. So tell me about the actual experience of decomposing there. Like your first night going to sleep.

SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting. The psyche goes through this kind of shedding process with the fasting as well. So my intuition really got its own way because it said, I need you alone in a forest, I need you not to have any distractions, I need you not to be able to reach for anything, I need you not to be able to read or write or eat. And so the physical mind gets starved of distraction and you go through this sort of boredom to the point where then you slip into an altered state of consciousness. But the first day you're very busy doing, like you're setting up your tarp and you're making your medicine circle, and you know, laying out a mandala of rocks and flowers and whatever you can find, like setting it all up. And then day two was just hell. I think that archetypal sort of dip of any transformation, or even like you would know, going on a retreat. You gotta go down before you go up. It was freezing, it rained all day on the second day. And what was tough about that was not so much getting wet, but because you don't have a clock or you don't know what time it is, you depend on the sun for the time of day. So you're always looking up to see where the sun is in the sky and what time of day, how many more hours are left until I can get into my sleeping bag. So when it's raining, there's no sun. So obviously, you're very vulnerable to nature, and you're not in control of the time. Time gets very bendy. So all of a sudden it goes from horizontal to vertical time, the veil's getting really thin between the physical world and the non-physical world, the breakdown starts to happen. You sit in a lot of grief. And feeling supported during that process as well. I think what I learned during those moments of real sadness that you go through is that we're so not alone, even when you're alone in a forest. There's so much support. My dead grandfather came and visited me and put his hand on my shoulder wearing his World War II military uniform, like he was in the trenches with me. And I just felt his hand on my shoulder. And oh my god, I'm getting emotional thinking about it. But like he was there with me. We forget how closely supported we are by spirit, how closely we're watched and loved. And I remember thinking on that day about homeless people and thinking about the human will to survive and how they seemingly have nothing, like a person living on the street under a tarp on the beach, which I can see at the end of my own street in Melbourne, there's homeless people. And I wonder about their will to survive when they seemingly don't have loved ones or a job or a roof over their head, and yet they go to bed every night and get up in the morning and have a spirit that still wants them to survive. And I was thinking about my own life so much on that day and how much I have to live for, and how easy life really is, and how complicated we make it. So those sort of revelations, I think that was one of the gifts that I got out of Quest was just this immense gratitude for life and how the forest just reflects so much of that death and life cycle to you. You know, those fern fronds unfurling, like new life is growing all the time. And at the same time, there's just so much decomposition falling to the forest floor, which is feeding the new growth. And it's just this cycle of death and rebirth. And it I felt so safe in that process because Mother Nature knows exactly what she's doing, and the world is a safe place to live. Like we're in safe hands. There is nothing to worry about. It is just the ego that is scared of death because the body is finite and it will die, which means the ego will die, and that is the only reason to be afraid of your mortality. But really, the soul is immortal and continues on, and we get only to experience life in Tina's body for a brief moment before she moves into another form. Like it's incredible.

SPEAKER_01:

That is so incredibly profound, and it makes me think about yeah, the power of Pasha Mama and how the trees and the flowers and the plants and the animals just live in this kind of peaceful evolution supporting everything supporting each other. And so you're really surrendered into that space. And it's interesting living in a city and being in our busy lives and now technology and AI and how much this is just forcing a disconnection from that. And even thinking about our children and having phones, being teenagers and attached to this thing, and how much they really need that connection to nature and how important it actually is before we turn into transhuman stuff. Speaking of these experiences, and there's a huge movement happening around the wellness space. There's these wellness clubs that are popping up. So people are choosing that over going to nightclubs. But there was something they wanted to talk to you about was the shadow side of wellness and what you've seen or experienced around that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, a lot in the last 10 years. It has shifted and changed so much. I think wellness has moved away from well-being, unfortunately. I think the temptation has become to rush through transformation or growth or change without really taking the time to integrate things and to pace the growth and the change, because now people want a quick fix. It's become about biohacking, like we're some sort of machine. It's become about living forever, longevity, this underpinning fear of death, which drives the wellness industry now. And it centers around making money, essentially. It's in a capitalist machine. We can't do much about that. But what we can do is just be really aware that whose timeline Are you on? Are you stuck in this perpetual cycle of growth, of a process of suspended initiation because the wellness culture is telling you you're not healed yet or you're not good enough that you have to keep on working on yourself to keep you in that system of buying the next thing, of biohacking the next thing, of trying this. I think it requires a lot of authority to hear your own voice as to how well are you doing to be able to pause and ask yourself that question rather than being told by all these other voices that you need this and you need that and you need to do this. Yeah, that's the shadow side of it, is when you lose your own voice and you just start to go with what all of the outside noise is telling you to do or what the next trend is or whatever that is. So I wonder whether AI is going to replace wellness as well. But what do you think?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's so interesting because it does from my breakdown and breakthrough, a big part of that was realizing the external validation and doing what society try to fit into a box and be seen as a certain way. And that's all external stuff. And that's when, you know, I think we go through these breakdowns and tap back into okay, what's actually who am I underneath all these labels and surface and similar with this longevity thing, I'm so grateful that they made that beautiful documentary series around the blue zones because uh those people are living so simply. It is so simple longevity. And uh maybe people that are obsessing about taking certain vitamins and tracking every single little thing in your body, they're so obsessed about not dying that they're not actually living. They're focused. It's like energy goes where attention is. If you're so focused on living really long and it's all about that, then are you actually being present and living and enjoying your life? And I'd rather die young and with fulfilled life than I'm not really interested in really living a very long time. I just want to be healthy, peaceful, and present with the people that are around me and consistently create as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's driven by fear because you know it's only the ego that dies. So that's where it's coming from, right? The mortality fear, the fear of the ego dying. So it's grasping on to anything it can outside of itself, which essentially becomes another addiction, another thing to cling and grasp onto, and just coming back to your soul, your eternal body that is safe, that is so strongly rooted in knowing that you're not alone and that you're only passing through. We're visitors here. This is not home. Home is source. This is just our exploration, our call to adventure, our passage through the earth, earthly plane is a blip. It's just like a whoop, and then we go home. And who knows what happens. Being in the mystery and letting the mystery have its way with you is a surrender experiment of trusting that mystery, letting it unfold.

SPEAKER_01:

It is amazing that we actually need these experiences to remind us. Like I know when I've done an experience like that, and I'm going, oh, why am I so serious all the time? This is actually just like being in the theater in a show or something. It's just an experiment. We're here to play and have fun and learn and grow and share and contribute. And it's nice to be reminded because when we get caught up in all this stuff, you're like, this actually doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I know. Why do we forget? Why are we such fools? Like, I'm just a fool. Like, I just fall into foolery and I'm like, oh my god, I've forgotten again that I'm immortal. Like that my soul is okay and it's all good. And why do we forget? I think it's just being human. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

It's that ego, like that ego coming in and throwing all the shoulds at us and trying to keep us safe from what it thinks safe is and secure. Yeah. Life is interesting, and I'm glad we get to to share it and experience these things. And yeah, be reminded as well. So to wrap up, I'd love to know. I know you're still in Chrysalis and maybe beginning to emerge out the other side. Like, what future pathways are you feeling or you know, are coming through in your intuition? I know you're going to Peru in a few weeks as well.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. So the quest is not quite done with me, even though I feel like I can't wait to never do that again. But it's not finished because I am going back into the forest next month, into the Amazon. Big jungle, bigger trees, but a culture again that I've always been so fascinated with, and sort if there's ever a time I'm going to do that, it's going to be during my soul badacle. So venturing into the Amazon, spending some time with the indigenous people there and learning from them, and then volunteering with some missions in Cusco. We're volunteering in the local communities and then hiking up Machu Picchu. Yeah, all that boring stuff. I'm deeply excited about that. And when I get back, which will be before Christmas, I think the future pathway, having that opportunity to end the year and beautiful peak moment, I will just want to appreciate mundane ordinary life in a way that is more fulfilling. So next year I'm my heart is feeling ready to rebuild community, to bring people together again in sacred spaces. Where I perhaps see a need for that is particularly around creating grief rituals for community. There's a lot of isolated, lonely, sad souls out there, and we don't really create space for the power of grief. And I use breath work, but there's being in nature, being with trees and spaces of people gathering with the same intention. It's just bringing people together. And I've got I have actually enrolled in a nature-based leadership course next year to study and further explore those types of models of learning which yeah comes from real earth-based wisdom. So I'm excited to do that in Melbourne. And one of my other pastimes, which I've picked up during the Solbaticle, is I've become a bit of a bird nerd. So I've joined a like bird watching group. Oh my God. Like, and I love it. I'm getting obsessed with animals. And I also want to follow my curiosity around wildlife conservation and collaborate with those experts and learn from them and see what we can create together as well. So I don't know, it's still a mystery, Prue.

SPEAKER_01:

I can see all the pieces and I can see how they can evolve together as well. But again, it's not about forcing things, it's allowing it to come together and you will know. Thank you. And I'm excited to see what happens. And I will pop all the links to your social media and your substack so people can follow you and keep in touch as well. And we might have to get you back on in a year from now and see where you are. Yeah, I'd love that. And uh thank you so much. It's just been a joy chatting to you. My pleasure. So good to see you. If this episode inspired or moved you, send it to someone who needs it. You never know who's waiting for a nudge to step into their next chapter. To explore coaching, retreats, or branding photography that supports your full expression. Visit Pruaja.com. And each month, one listener who writes a review will win an align and energize one on one strategy session with me. It's my gift to help you get back in alignment with your light and purpose. I'm your host, Pruaja. Thank you for being here and remember your voice matters. It's time to be seen and heard.