Podcast appearances and mentions of samantha paige

Our guest, Samantha Paige Davis, is the Founder and Executive Director of Black Swan Academy. A fearless leader, an advocate, a trainer, an organizer, and an unyielding optimist determined to make change in Black and Brown lives through civic leadership...

Follow Samantha on Instagram @samanthapaigemeFollow Keith and Omar on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWl5r6mg47gvnkkZzZbdC6Q/videos

This week I'm interviewing my friend, Samatha Paige. I met Samantha through a Facebook group supporting women and gender nonconforming people in the music industry, and through my YouTube channel, have done a few videos and chats with her previously. For this episode, she talks about how she got started in the music industry and her advice for anyone else wanting to do the same. http://spaigephotos.com/ https://www.instagram.com/samantha.paper/ This is an interview series to feature badass concert photographers. When I started my career in music photography, there weren't a lot of resources out there for women, and I was at a loss for who to turn to, who would understand my concerns and questions. This series was started for two reasons: in hopes to help those starting their careers and get the advice and tips that they need, as well as creating a safe space for everyone to talk about experiences & prejudices faced in the music industry, share advice, and how they got to where they are today. Join us! We're Taking Over The Photo Pit!!

Follow Samantha to keep up with her photography and other work!IG: @Samantha.Paper

After faced with one of the scariest diagnoses a person can face, Samantha Paige was taken on a journey that forced her to literally strip away layers of herself. At only 21 years old, her doctor found a lump on her thyroid, & soon after she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It was then, that her life profoundly changed. Today Samantha, mama of an adolescent & founder of the "Last Cut Project" tells us how to listen to our inner voice, because it is much more important to our health than we think.    Go to https://www.soulmammas.com to read more on her story, show notes, take-aways and more! And please and join the new Facebook Group and follow me on Instagram!      

Last May, Juno Ishida and Eliza Hope Duran joined Samantha Paige for an honest conversation about living beyond the construct of a gender binary. In this special episode, Juno, a trans male university student, and Eliza, a gender fluid prize-winning poet, share their views about the boxes that society places us in around our bodies, gender and sexuality. They highlight what it means to navigate life beyond the gender binary and add insight and perspective to the experience of expressing one’s identity in a manner that lines up who we are on the inside with who we are out in the world. This powerful discussion touches upon what it means to lead an authentic life, how we take care of ourselves and ask for needed support in the face of judgement and how we find inner strength and connection when external, societal beliefs can make us internalize doubt and unworthiness.   In light of the recent leak of President Trump’s memo regarding his administration’s plans to narrowly define gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the time is now to be discussing the historical and current violence that trans, gender non-conforming and non-binary individuals have and continue to endure on a daily basis.   Thank you to Juno and Eliza for bravely and boldly opening up with their own stories. Thank you to the Get Lit team for hosting the recording of this podcast at their Los Angeles studio. For more information on Get Lit, please visit getlit.org.   N.B.: During the recording, we refer to Eliza as Erika, which was the name they were using at the time. They have since adopted Eliza.    Please visit our website, lastcutproject.com, for more information on this interview and ways to support the trans, non-conforming and non-binary communities.

What would you do to live your truth?Samantha Paige is an artist, parent, philanthropist, and the founder of the Last Cut Project – but you most likely know her from Equinox’s “Commit to Something” campaign.She’s a thyroid cancer survivor and BRCA1 previvor, but she’s a symbol of strength for so much more than that.Samantha was subjected to a series of uncomfortable decisions throughout her life, but after a double mastectomy and an implant surgery that continued to make her sick for months, she found herself faced with surprisingly, her most life-changing decision of all: to remove the silicone implants.Directly after her surgery, Samantha’s life took a turn, she looked around and realized that she didn’t even recognize her surroundings. As soon as Samantha made that initial decision to remove her implants, she found herself. She found truth and freedom, and was finally able to live a life that feels like hers, but with that came an internal battle to accept her new body.Over the years, this struggle has forced her to take a long, hard look at disease and prejudice in society. She asked herself why she felt self-conscious without her breasts, and ultimately, set out on a mission to change this status quo by formulating different conversation around these topics. This inflection point led her to launch the Last Cut photo project, social movement, and podcast (“Last Cut Conversations”) which has helped encourage others to seek freedom by honoring similar decisions, their individuality, and a life that feels uniquely right to them. Now, she creates community around these conversations and allows others a place to share without shame.+---------------------+We're grateful for the kind support of: Harney & Sons Fine Teas by Master Tea Blenders: $15 off your first order of $49 or more. Go to Harney.com and use promo code GOODLIFE for your $15 off.ShipStation: Manage and ship your orders. FREE for 30 days, plus a bonus. Visit ShipStation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in GOODLIFE.Tula: Try TULA probiotic skincare today! Go to Tula.com/goodlife to get 20% off and free shipping on your order with the promo code at the top of the screen. Cultivating Place: Thoughtful conversations with both world class and everyday ordinary gardeners, growers, naturalists, scientists, artists and thinkers.To take a listen, go to cultivatingplace.com, subscribe to the podcast, and sign up for the monthly newsletter.

Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field reflect on the second season of Last Cut Conversations. They discuss the universal threads shared across the many diverse conversations, and the notable moments that made a lasting impression as well. Each Last Cut Conversation continues to be unique and powerful in its own way, but each season also organically presents lessons that relate to us all. This season’s overarching theme was freedom, which was clearly defined by each guest uniquely and beautifully. These conversations highlighted the power of voice, creativity and vision in the healing process and as a means of activism and service in the world. We covered many powerful stories of trauma, loss and change, as well as our innate ability to overcome and inspire through our personal growth. Samantha and Lisa's conversation reminds us that while each of our stories differs in detail, we connect beyond the particulars through our humanity and common desires for love, connection and community.

Zoe Buckman is a multi-disciplinary visual artist, activist and mother. Originally from East London, she now lives and works in New York. Buckman powerfully weaves together art and activism into pieces that draw viewers in with aesthetically pleasing beauty, while offering an undercurrent that inspires deeper contemplation on political issues. Buckman speaks to the process of transforming what she sees happening in the world around her into thought-provoking works of art. With creations such as “Let Her Rave,” “Mostly It’s Just Uncomfortable” and “Every Curve,” her work beautifully weaves together the feminine with the fierce, sparking conversation around feminism, mortality and equality. Buckman shares how her activism informs her art and how both inform her parenting of her young daughter. After admiring Zoe Buckman’s work for years, Samantha Paige was excited to sit down with her to talk about art, activism, the shared experience of mothering daughters in this moment in time and the power of last cuts to wake us up and foster change. To learn more about Zoe Buckman’s visual art and upcoming projects, including her 2018 LA installation with Art Production Fund, please visit zoebuckman.com or @zoebuckman on Instagram and Twitter.

Samantha Paige first heard of Pidgeon Pagonis’ powerful story of growing up Intersex through a video clip produced by Human Rights Watch. Paige wanted to learn more about Pagonis’ experience of discovering they were Intersex at age 19 and the subsequent deconstruction of a believed identity, gender and (false) cancer diagnosis. In this raw, vulnerable episode, Pagonis discusses a childhood defined by a struggle to conform to a familial and societal definition of “normal.” They had been told a believed, yet constructed story of a childhood cancer diagnosis, built around the notable differences in their body and development as well as the scars on their body. It was not until Pagonis attended an advanced psychology class in college where Intersex was outlined that they discovered they had actually been born with the very condition being taught. Pagonis underwent three medically unnecessary surgeries at age 1, 4 and 11, as well as years of traumatizing interactions with the medical world. They share here about their rediscovery of self as a nonbinary, queer activist and filmmaker in the context of reality over protective lies. Pagonis speaks beautifully to the universal experience of living with trauma and creating a life that feels like one’s own. To connect with Pidgeon and learn more about their work, please visit their website at http://www.pidgeonismy.name or their Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/pidgeo_n. To view Pidgeon’s powerful documentary film, “The Son I Never Had: Growing Up Intersex,” please contact them directly through their website.  

Kyle Knight is a researcher in the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch in New York City. A former media journalist who chose to do reporting work with more policy follow through and impact, Kyle is a brilliant motivator for change. Samantha Paige sat down with Knight to discuss the details of his most recent Human Rights Watch report entitled, “I Want to be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US.” Written in partnership with interACT, an organization that advocates for the human rights of children born with intersex traits, this detailed report documents the medically unnecessary surgeries done on many intersex children, who make up close to 2% of the US population. Intersex people are born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals. Knight eloquently outlines the unethical treatment of many intersex patients, the lasting psychological and physical effects of these unnecessary surgeries and the proposed policy change to create a kinder, safer environment for intersex patients in the medical system and beyond. This episode touches upon important issues related to gender, nonbinary identity, parenting, health advocacy and societal biases and norms. Prior to joining the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch, Knight was a fellow at the Williams Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles and a Fulbright scholar in Nepal. As a journalist he has worked for Agence France-Presse in Nepal and for IRIN, the UN’s humanitarian news service, reporting from Burma, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia. For more information on the Human Rights Watch and interACT Intersex report, please visit https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/25/i-want-be-nature-made-me/medically-unnecessary-surgeries-intersex-children-us. For more information on interACT, please visit https://interactadvocates.org.

Samantha Paige met Lily Mandelbaum and Elisa Goodkind, the creators of Style Like U, at their “True Style is What’s Underneath: The Self-Acceptance Revolution” book signing in Los Angeles. Just weeks later, Lily and Elisa interviewed Paige for their Dispelling Beauty Myths video series with Allure magazine in New York. In this interview, Paige was excited to switch roles and ask the mother-daughter duo powerful questions about their lives. They touch upon life before Style Like U, the last cuts they made to step into this creative endeavor, where they find inspiration for and connection to their work and how they stay open and vulnerable to and during this transformative process. These two women share eloquently and openly about the importance of redefining individuality, the value of staying true to oneself in spite of society’s homogenizing messages and the deep connection all beings share. In the same vulnerable spirit of the intimate docu-style video portraits of Style Like U, Mandelbaum and Goodkind open up with Paige about the importance of always going deeper within oneself in order to make a bolder contribution in the world. To connect with Lily Mandelbaum and Elisa Goodkind and discover more about Style Like U, please visit stylelikeu.com, Style Like U on YouTube and @stylelikeu on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

“I am always refining my truths, and my truths are always changing.” Melinda Alexander Melinda Alexander, aka Mumu Mansion, sat down with Samantha Paige to speak about love, self-healing, parenting and the gift of learning from life’s most challenging moments. Melinda is an all-around lover, mother, healer and social activist who does women’s work in many forms to heal herself and others. She is dedicated to learning from the internal and external conversation about life, vulnerably and boldly welcoming thousands on her own personal journey. Following the birth of her son and a painful divorce, she revolutionized her life and created a broad platform to show the possibilities born with the willingness to learn from what is not working. Melinda proved to herself that she had the power within to work through anything if she stayed open to extracting the information, and thereby evolution, found in even the most difficult moments. This candid conversation touches upon love, healing, parenthood, race, divorce, trauma, the beauty in the discomfort and the power of transforming pain.   For more information on Melinda Alexander’s powerful work, please visit melinda-alexander.com and @mumumansion on Instagram.

Samantha Paige sat down with bespoke leather worker and qualified saddler, Mia Sabel of Sabel Saddlery, in her East London studio. The two talked about how one creates a life that feels like one’s own and the freedom found on the other side of our biggest last cuts. Sabel shares her journey from an existence ruled by an overpowering corporate job with no time or space for loved ones, nature or connection to a more balanced life filled with creativity, horse riding, travel and solid relationships. Speaking to the power of the significant decisions, or the last cuts, we make in life, Sabel illuminates the idea that change is most powerful when we elect it, rather than when we react to the things happening to or around us. She honestly and vulnerably speaks to the darkness that can occur when we are disconnected from ourselves and the bravery required to leap from a known state of being to a new one.   For more information on Mia Sabel’s beautiful custom leather work and workshops, please visit sabelsaddlery.com.

Samantha Paige recently sat down in London with Lily Parrott and Laura Stahnkhe, two of the founders of Migration Collective. Migration Collective is a group of dynamic and creative women who aim to challenge the current, narrow rhetoric on migration. Through events, film festivals and soon cooking programs, they seek to focus on inclusion, what is shared rather than what separates people. This episode highlights the simultaneously increasing number of humans voluntarily and involuntarily leaving their homelands and the rapid rise of nationalist rhetoric around refugees, migrants and foreigners. Using the power of art and expression to examine the experiences and reality within migration, displacement and diaspora, Migration Collective’s founders are broadening the conversation around these issues and facilitating connection by highlighting the humanity behind every story. Parrott, an American, and Stahnke, a Dutch-Italian, share their own personal stories of living in the UK, the potential impact of Brexit and why they have dedicated their lives to changing the dialogue around migration. For more information on Migration Collective and their upcoming London Migration Film Festival, please visit migrationcollective.com.

Sofia Lindvall was born and raised in Harads, Sweden (population: ~600), just 60 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle. She is a trained stunt person and daughter to Kent Lindvall and Britta Jonsson-Lindvall, the founders of the TreeHotel. The TreeHotel is a collection of 7 unique tree houses, designed by Scandanavia’s leading architects, where guests can sleep 4 to 6 meters up in the trees and commune with nature. In the middle of untouched Swedish forest, Samantha Paige gathered with Sofia to hear the story behind the TreeHotel and the love of nature that inspired her family to create this magical place. Honoring and embracing nature is the key to the whole TreeHotel experience; incredibly, no trees were cut during its construction. Sofia shares about growing up and living in a small town in a time of globalization and urbanization, why she left for a bigger city and what motivated her to return after one year. This conversation highlights the beauty of strong inter-human connections, the importance of living in harmony with our natural environment and the power of slowing down our pace in life. For more information on the Lindvall family and the TreeHotel, please visit treehotel.se.

“For me, it’s [freedom] about taking it as a gift that I have been given privilege, I’ve been given certain assets, certain abilities. How I am going to use those to affect others and to make my life, honestly, a life of meaning? That’s how I define freedom.” Arthur Gross-Schaefer Arthur Gross-Schaefer is a man who literally wears many hats. He is a husband, father, rabbi, lawyer, CPA, professor, mediator and murder mystery author, amongst other roles. What comes through most beautifully in his conversation with Samantha Paige is how he threads his commitment to honoring tolerance, kindness, thoughtfulness, vision and intelligence through all he does. Gross-Schaefer shares in detail how he works with his students and community members to establish conversation and connection with controversial and polarizing issues, such as DACA, racism, climate change, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and party politics. He speaks to the importance of creating a personal mission statement, knowing your core values and remembering to find humor and humanity in all we do. Gross-Schaefer opens up about losing one of his sons. Avi Schaefer, to a drunk driver, and how that painful loss inspired the Avi Schaefer Fund, which actively works to promote peaceful dialogue and empower young people to bridge intolerance. For more information on the Avi Schaefer Fund, please visit avischaeferfund.org.  

Samantha Paige dialogues with her dear friend, professional soccer player Annie Hawkins, in this touching episode about living life from the heart. Hawkins opens up about losing her father to pancreatic cancer six years ago and how his passing, and possibly more profoundly, how he lived the last months of his life, inspired her to deepen her own dedication to a meaningful, service-filled, and connected existence. She shares what soccer has taught her over the years, her unique relationship to time and how she has opened her heart and schedule to traveling the world to connect, explore and inspire others to live their fullest lives, while remaining radically true to herself. Paige and Hawkins also address the importance of community and friendship when one is living a life outside of the box. To stay connected with Annie Hawkins, please visit her website, www.the10influence.com, and follow her on Instagram and Twitter @anniehawkins.

In this moving episode, Samantha Paige reunites with her childhood friend, Jennifer Yashari, who opens up about living with hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM), a rare degenerative disease that causes muscle cells to weaken progressively. Diagnosed in her early 30’s, Yashari, a psychiatrist, has learned to cope with the massive loss delivered with the disease and all the subsequent losses that have come in its wake over time. She started a blog, “Living with HIBM,” in 2011, and writes beautifully and with a piercing rawness about the experience of a living with an ever-evolving disability that affects how she moves, parents and interacts with the world. Yashari details the importance of mourning each and every loss fully, so that we can then do our best to be present in life, and fostering strong, loving relationships to support us on the ride. In telling her own story, she provides guidance and vision for how to speak with others about differences and how to maintain a connected mindfulness in the process. For more information on Jennifer Yashari, please visit her website, www.jenniferyasharimd.com, and her blog, www.livingwithhibm.com.

Mallika Chopra joins Samantha Paige for a powerful conversation about living life with intent and conscious parenting. In her humble and authentic manner of sharing, Chopra details her self-defined "somewhat messy journey" to deeper purpose, peace and joy in all aspects of life. With anecdotes from her life and conversations with her father, Deepak Chopra, and friend, Eckhart Tolle, she models how we can set clear intentions to create greater balance in all areas of our lives. She shares her belief that conscious parenting requires mindfulness in speech and actions with our children as well as a continuous reflection on our deepest desires for the journey as parent. We discussed how she is raising two empowered, engaged feminists through her family's honest sharing of what is happening in the world and how she is always modeling the need to connect with self in order to navigate everything with grounded confidence. Mallika Chopra is a mother, author, speaker and entrepreneur. Her books include “Living with Intent: My Somewhat Messy Journey to Purpose, Peace and Joy,” “100 Promises to My Baby” and “100 Questions from My Child.” She is the founder of Intent.com, an online community where members can share their dreams and aspirations, and receive support from others to do the same. For more information on Mallika’s work, please visit mallikachopra.com (@mallikachopra on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and Intent.com (@intentdotcom on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter).

Model Sara Mills, best known as “Sara on the Internet,” reached widespread international acclaim with a viral YouTube video highlighting her twerking her breasts to Mozart. Her global Internet fame focused greatly on her silicone implant enhanced breasts, as well as her tattoos and distinct voice. However, along the way, Mills has also openly shared about her relationship to her body, autoimmune ailments that increased with the implants and an autism diagnosis she received two years ago. Finally, in 2016, after moving towards a healthier lifestyle in an effort to feel better, Mills opted for an explant surgery. Not concerned about what effect this decision would have on her following, she did what she does and made a YouTube video announcement. Sara’s direct and outwardly vocal style around her choices is what drew Samantha Paige to her story. When they finally met in person to share this conversation in LA, Mills shared so much more with Paige, including her take on the effects of chronic illness on creativity and friendship, “social inoculation” with autism, body positivity, the reasoning behind her tattoos and her take on societal norms. It is no surprise that her strong, clear voice and intelligence around these issues have actually garnered her a much larger following, far compensating for anyone, or anything, lost with the implants.

In this special Mother’s Day edition of Last Cut Conversations, Samantha Paige and her mother, Jeanne Marks, share about the evolution of their relationship over the years, but specifically open up about the deepening of their bond during this first year after Last Cut’s inception. In this honest and raw exchange, this mother-daughter duo dialogue about motherhood, the big life choices we make and learning how to respect and love one another as unique individuals. This episode is poignant and sweet and speaks more broadly to the power of listening and learning from the important and key people in our lives. Happy Mother’s Day to all!

This is the first part of a series Tony and I will be doing on the amazing impact of enzymes on your health, beauty, brain, body and overall health. There are so many misconceptions and half-truths out there about enzymes, it's critical you understand have a foundation before getting into more advanced tips for maximizing this critical nutrient.  Next, I have a very special guest Samantha Paige who is a personal friend of mine and the creator of Last Cut, a photo documentary that's turned into a movement. Samantha is also an artist, mother, and a young adult cancer survivor. Listen in as Samantha shares her personal struggles with reconstructive surgery and how you too can embrace your weaknesses and overcome shame, regardless of your situation.  [BULLETS] Tony and I discuss why digestive enzymes are so important to our health and beauty... What enzymes are and why they are so critical to our overall wellbeing... How enzymes facilitate or accelerate specific reactions in digestion and repair of tissue... What are enzymes and how they break down our digestion and deliver different functions throughout our body... Whether enzymes are found in cooked versus raw foods and how they break down in our body... We talk about our bodies natural enzymes and ways we can support it in manufacturing them in a more efficient degree... Samantha shares what the Last Cut is and what it means to women and people in a larger sense... Samantha shares her backstory on why she decided to get a double mastectomy... How Samantha reacted to the surgery and subsequent reconstructive surgery... How you can embrace your own weaknesses and scarring, and begin to explore your own inner self... What you can do to overcome the emotion of shame... [FEATURED GUESTS] About Samantha Paige Samantha Paige is an artist and mother with a passion for the truth and connection. As a young adult cancer survivor, Samantha has learned to use life experiences as fuel. Her health challenges have been her greatest teachers. After 6 major surgeries and some lovely scars to show for it, she is happy to feel stronger and healthier than ever. In January 2016, Samantha launched Last Cut, a photo-documentary art project and started writing her upcoming memoir. Last Cut was born when she opted to remove silicone implants she had elected with a preventive double mastectomy in 2008. Paige collaborated with photographer Lisa Field to document the year following this surgery. This project is inspired by her love of the truth and belief in the great power of community and connection with other like-minded individuals around our most profound life experiences. She also spoke her truth and bared her scars in a video commercial posted to the brand's worldwide social media audience. About Anthony Flores, or "T" as Kimberly affectionately refers to him: He is a long-time friend of hers who, after graduating from Stanford University, began researching and writing professionally in the health space full-time. He has a passion for natural health, especially Beauty Detox, and loves to share exciting new studies and insights he learns with Kimberly and the community! He can be found writing spiritual/inspirational words on Instagram @poetrybyanthony. [RESOURCES / INFORMATION] Without enzymes, biological reaction essential to life takes 2.3 billion years: UNC study:https://www.med.unc.edu/biochem/news/2008/without-enzyme-biological-reaction-essential-to-life-takes-2-3-billion-years-unc-study STUDIES ON ENZYME ACTION:       http://www.jbc.org/content/31/1/201.full.pdf The role of enzyme supplementation in digestive disorders:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19152478 Are You Eating Enough Enzymes for Beauty, Health and Anti-aging?: http://kimberlysnyder.com/blog/2014/09/04/eating-enough-enzymes/ Introducing Probiotics... My Simple Solution for Enhanced Digestion, Health and Beauty: http://kimberlysnyder.com/blog/2013/09/22/why-i-created-a-probiotic-before-any-other-nutritional-product/...

In the final episode of Season 1, Last Cut Creator Samantha Paige reflects on the Top 10 Lessons she has learned over the first year of Last Cut. Ranging from the internal process to the external need for community, this episode is a thorough recap of Last Cut’s primary themes.

Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field reflect on the first season of Last Cut Conversations. They discuss the universal threads shared across many of the conversations, and the notable moments that made an impression as well. Each Last Cut Conversation has been special and unique. However, Season One’s ongoing dialogue about the significant decisions each individual makes to live their truth highlights how universal these choices are as well. Samantha and Lisa's conversation also circles back around to how last cuts must come from within, but are often made easier and supported by community and connection.

Last Cut Creator Samantha Paige reflects on how the truth lives in our body. She candidly shares how her body tends to show her when she is not living according to her truth. This episode is a raw and vulnerable snapshot of Samantha’s recent physical and emotional dance with her body.

Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field speak candidly about the evolution of their friendship over the last decade and how they have navigated working so closely on Last Cut. In sharing about the birth of Last Cut, they discuss how their trust and connection has fed the art and also the need to speak up and create boundaries to honor the friendship. 

What is most true to you? How are you living it? “Honesty is what drives me, but in order to be honest you have to understand who you are. You have to go through experiences to build who you are, but you also have to look at yourself and reflect because honesty is the only way to receive love.” ~Vanessa Cuccia, Founder of Chakrubs Vanessa Cuccia, founder of Chakrubs, speaks about her movement towards self-love, healing and pleasure in this Last Cut Conversation. Meeting last summer on Samantha Paige’s birthday, Vanessa opened her Chakrubs’ office and heart, telling the story of her personal discovery of self and pleasure. She has shared the literal and figurative tools crucial to her own evolution through the creation of Chakrubs, the original 100% crystal sex toy company. Samantha connected with Vanessa through her exquisite and artfully presented Instagram account for Chakrubs. Everything that Vanessa has her hands in is beautifully powerful. For more information on Vanessa Cuccia and Chakrubs, please visit chakrubs.com or @chakrubs on Instagram.  

Samantha Paige and Last Cut Photographer Lisa Field discuss the lead up to Samantha’s participation in Equinox’s 2017 Commit to Something campaign. Equinox’s message around commitment and how our commitments show who we truly are, parallels the underlying themes of Last Cut in unbelievable fashion.   Equinox Creative Director Elizabeth Nolan speaks with Samantha about the power of commitment in life, not only the gym, and how Equinox chose Samantha for this image.  Samantha’s provocative image from the campaign conveys her empowered embodiment, which landed and evolved powerfully this year through her explant surgery and Last Cut.

In the introductory Last Cut Conversations episode, Last Cut creator, artist Samantha Paige, tells her personal story and discusses how the Last Cut project was born. Samantha talks vulnerably and candidly about her cancer diagnosis at age 21 and the debilitating effects of unaddressed trauma, anxiety and depression over the following decades. After years of suffering from PTSD and undergoing additional major surgeries, Samantha finally began to ask herself some powerful questions that led to greater freedom, wellness and peace within and around her body. Last Cut is a photo-documentary and book project about those big life decisions {last cuts} made to bring us closer to living truth and more freedom. The project was born in January 2016, when Samantha opted to remove silicone implants she had elected 8 years ago when she had a preventive double mastectomy. Her explant surgery became the metaphor for the many ways in which we are faced with choices that ask us to address big questions within ourselves, commit to our truth and own our scars. Her explant inspired the launch of the Last Cut project with photographer Lisa Field with the intention to capture these moments of truth and bold ownership of self.  The basis of the Last Cut way of living is asking questions, such as “What is most true to you?” and “How are you living it?” These questions provide the foundation for the Last Cut Conversations.   Samantha is currently finishing her memoir, Last Cut, and working with Lisa Field on the Last Cut photo-documentary and Last Cut Conversations, where bold individuals are interviewed and photographed.   To read further about the Last Cut project, visit thelastcut.net.  Last Cut is on Instagram (@lastcut) and Facebook (@lastcutproject).