Stephenie Purnell

Stephenie Purnell, Founder of Spiritus8 ®, is a certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, Trance Movement™ practitioner, and expert in the use of expanded states of consciousness for healing addiction. Sober since 2010, she credits her recovery to Holotropic Breathwork®, which succeeded where traditional approaches — including AA, therapy, and treatment — could not. For her, Holotropic Breathwork® served as a reorganizing psychospiritual principle, creating new neuropathways and dissolving maladaptive coping mechanisms.

One of only five certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitators in Texas and the only certified Trance Movement™ facilitator in the U.S., Stephenie brings over 15 years of experience and more than 800 hours of training in expanded states. She is known for her ability to create trauma-informed, safe, sacred containers where profound transformation can unfold.

Stephenie previously served as a development officer and national advocate for young people in recovery, including leadership roles at the University of Texas Center for Students in Recovery. While fundraising and leading teams for the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, she remained actively involved in supporting collegiate recovery programs both locally and at the national level. Her capacity to hold space — whether for students, donors, or the dying — reflects the heart of her calling: to witness, support, and honor the moments that shape us – the breaking, the becoming and the beauty in between. She now leads Holotropic Breathwork® and Trance Movement™ retreats across the U.S. and abroad. Passionate about integrating Buddhist understanding of addiction as a cycle of insatiable hunger and thirst, she bridges this lens with expanded-state healing modalities. Through lived experience, she believes that every addictive pattern is reversible through deep psychic change.