Today we’d like to introduce you to Shannon Cury
Shannon, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
If you were to tell me 10 or 15 years ago that in 2024 I would be living in San Diego as a breathwork coach and wellness facilitator helping people connect their mind body and spirit for deeper healing, my jaw would’ve hit the floor.
Prior to living in OB here in San Diego, I actually lived in New York City and worked for Google. My life was Broad City meets Wolf of Wall Street meets Silicon Valley. My fitness routine was sprinting up the corporate ladder into management, my meditation practice was getting to inbox zero and my community was my coworkers and neighborhood bartenders. My body was more of a dumpster than a temple. Soul crushing anxiety was my bestie, only leaving my side after a handful of IPA’s. Burnout was my baseline.
And then came 2020. Tiger King. Banana Bread. COVID. And for me, a cancer diagnosis. Talk about a dumpster fire. A tumor very literally cracked me open at the heart, leading to a deep spiritual awakening that brought profound near death perspective. Up until then, I truly had no idea I was a whole worthy loving human outside of my career. Learning the hard way that my wellbeing was more important than my productivity was a loud wake up call that I needed to live differently. In order to learn how to take care of myself, I knew I needed to get to know who my authentic Self was under the life I’d built chasing promotions and professional success. I needed to learn how to live from the heart, not the ego.
I finally stopped sprinting and went inward, committed to bringing alignment into my mind, body and spirit through meditation and self compassion. The soul crushing anxiety dissipated despite still navigating cancer of the immune system in the middle of a global pandemic. I felt more myself than ever. My mind was blown and along came a calling to share the power of radical self-acceptance and embracing impermanence. Little did I know that was the beginning flame that fueled the passion that got me where I am today. I started small. My first blog was coupled with vulnerable shares & stories on social media. Those early writings still live on Substack. What a time.
Cancer was the catalyst, but the real change came from committing to a loving relationship with my body, cultivating compassion for my neurodiverse mind, befriending the full spectrum of my emotions, and leaning into full surrender to my spirit. Going through chemo was a masterclass in identifying and advocating for my needs, setting boundaries and using my voice to speak my truth. My family and my community showed UP and I allowed myself to truly receive the love, support and care around me. Don’t get me wrong, cancer was terrible and also I am grateful for the growth I pulled from it.
Shortly after finding out I was in remission, breathwork found me in the most divine timing when a new friend in the cancer community recommended I try it. This powerful self healing tool helped me sustain clarity on how to live a life that embodied my authenticity as I transitioned into survivorship and went back to a life that no longer fit. Turns out Broad City meets Wolf of Wall Street meets Silicon Valley was not sustainable nor healthy. Who knew! Getting certified to become a breathwork facilitator in 2021 was another small step to make space for my authentic Self.
When I moved out to San Diego in 2022, my intention was to slow down and hold space for healing – my own and others. Dom of Crave Community and Nicole of The Rainbow were the first of many open arms that welcomed me into the world of wellness here. I’m forever grateful to them and this community. When I got caught up in the big tech layoffs in January 2023, I accepted the invitation from the universe to lean into this work full time by focusing on elevating collective wellbeing – starting with myself. Not long after, collectively well was born.
collectively well is your down to earth healing collective. We cultivate community healing events and experiences that support you in connecting your mind, body & spirit – both online and on the beautiful kumeyaay land we inhabit here. We’re all about living intentionally without taking life too seriously by focusing on slowing down, staying silly and taking care together.
My journey to where I am today has been nonlinear, to say the least. Giving myself permission to lean into the post traumatic growth on the heels of cancer while staying committed to taking care of myself & my spiritual growth has empowered me to know and love myself in ways that I never dreamed possible. Woulda been great if it didn’t take cancer but alas, we make the most of the cards we are dealt. Calling San Diego home and empowering people to unlearn what’s holding them back from taking care of themselves is such a gift. This community inspires me everyday.
As cheugy as it sounds, healing is really just living, laughing, and loving. We’re all out here feeling and healing and doing our best – we might as well do it together. I’m unbelievably grateful I get to do it slowly and intentionally with ya’ll here.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Hard no. Aside from the obvious answer—cancer—growing collectively well has been a slow and steady process, full of stop-and-start energy. Building a community healing movement grounded in anti-capitalist principles has required unlearning my old corporate conditioning of moving fast and breaking things.
Not long after being laid off and diving headfirst into entrepreneurship, I hit another wave of deep burnout. It turns out I couldn’t blame my old employer anymore—the call was coming from inside the house. My body was asking me to finally slow all the way down and process what it had been through. That season forced me to confront what I call “hustle culture healing”: the byproduct of capitalism meeting spirituality. It’s one of many consequences of the West colonizing Eastern and Indigenous healing modalities. (If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend Who Is Wellness For? by Fariha Róisín.) My early breathwork journey was all about sprinting through limiting beliefs, just like I sprinted up the corporate ladder—at the expense of my nervous system.
Slowing down enough to get out of survival mode—in my career and my personal process—showed me how harmful and unsustainable “love and light” spiritual bypassing can be. Life is dark and messy, and true healing requires making space for all of it.
Today, more than ever, the collective needs radical acceptance over silver linings. Personal healing and social justice go hand in hand. Acknowledging how systems fail us is the first step to unlearning the ways we fail each other. Recognizing the role of oppression in our wellbeing journeys helps soothe the internal sense of failure that comes from chasing a mythical destination of “wellness”—a lie that keeps us buying face masks and self-help products without making sustainable change towards true inner peace.
To co-create a world that supports everyone, we must regulate ourselves enough to break the harmful patterns that brought us here. This means decolonizing the societal programming embedded in our nervous systems and naming how capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy undermine our health. We’re not meant to move at the speed of technology, and trying to keep up only deepens the harm.
We’re humans, not robots. In building collectively well, I’m committed to moving at my own pace and prioritizing my wellbeing over my productivity. That takes time and isn’t always smooth. If there’s one word I’d use to describe the human experience, smooth wouldn’t even be a contender. Leaning into radical acceptance and learning from the bumps in the road is all part of the process.
We’ve been impressed with collectively well , but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
collectively well is a down-to-earth community wellness collective focused on elevating wellbeing through slow, intentional living and personal healing. Our offerings range from private breathwork support and coaching, San Diego events, community programs, and professional wellness workshops.
The Authentic Shift, our signature breathwork program, helps folks align their mind, body, and spirit with community support—our next round kicks off in February 2025! Our digital detoxes offer a collective break from social media, giving our minds a reset and helping us set boundaries to protect our peace.
Locally, we partner with Queer San Diego for The Slow Down Series at The Healing Collective in OB, a meditative book club and breathwork session, and we’re thrilled to join RESET in Hillcrest as they expand their wellness offerings. The post-breathwork sauna and cold plunge are such a solid Sunday ritual. We host pop up events with a wide range of creative community partners too – I’m excited for what we have in store for 2025.
For folks looking for more intimate guidance, I support people navigating personal and/or professional transitions to deepen their mind-body-spirit connection through their breath. These sessions help build the skills I developed through my cancer experience—mindfulness, boundary setting, and learning to identify, own, meet and advocate for their needs.
collectively well’s mission is to elevate collective wellbeing, and I’m most proud of our commitment to slowing down and redefining what success means to us—even when it’s challenging and not what business “experts” would recommend. We focus on cultivating supportive containers over prioritizing Instagram aesthetics.
We acknowledge the vulnerability that comes with supporting people through growth and healing, and we’re committed to meeting people where they are while gently guiding them toward where their soul is ready to be—without urgency or overwhelm. We provide tools to tend to the mind and soften into the body, helping build communities that truly heal by lovingly addressing the societal forces working against our wellbeing.
We humbly consider ourselves part of the larger movement for collective liberation—a mission that will only grow more important in the years ahead. We are profoundly grateful for the teachers and visionaries of social justice through the Black queer feminist movements who have been building this foundation for years. Our work is deeply influenced by adrienne maree brown, Prentis Hemphill, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Tricia Hersey. I’m especially grateful for Breath Liberation Society, the breathwork school I am currently pursuing my Global Professional Breathwork Alliance certification with.
Speaking of hustle culture, we’re passionate about healing that bad boy from within too. We offer workshops to corporate teams and mission-driven organizations, equipping them with practical tools—like breathwork and meditation—to set stronger boundaries and take care of themselves at work and at home. We recently hosted a wellness workshop with the UCSD’s Psychiatric Residency Program – a lot of folks were blown away by the power of the breath after a deeper self healing session. Instead of “work hard, play hard,” we’re all about working hard and resting harder. We’re especially passionate about partnering with progressive mission driven organizations to help sustain their wellbeing as we all co-create a more equitable world together.
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Just start. A quote from San Diego native Angelia Trinidad of Passion Planner comes to mind: “It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just has to start.” If you have a dream, a passion, or a deep knowing about something you’re meant to be doing, the world will benefit from you starting and committing to keep going, one small step at a time. YOU will feel so much more alive once you start. The more scared you feel, the more likely it is that your soul really wants to do it.
The mind is wired to prefer familiar safety over the unknown, so it will always come up with reasons to hold you back. Maybe that looks like comparing yourself to others doing something similar, imagining all the ways it could go wrong, or fearing judgment from others. Lovingly move through that resistance and remind yourself of why you started. Collaborate with people in similar spaces, make a list of all the ways things could go right and how that would feel, and don’t give your power away to people whose opinions don’t matter—like random high school classmates or people who may not understand your path. In the grand scheme of your life, they aren’t thinking about you, and they don’t matter.
Hone and protect your spark of an idea. Share it with people who truly see you, support your vision, and celebrate your truth. Lean on them to remind you of your “why” when your mind tries to pull you back into the safety of the familiar.
Anchor yourself in your vision and the alignment of your mind, body, and spirit. Learn from people who share your values and your collective vision for the world. Any work worth doing is worth doing with others. Collaboration and community make your vision stronger. Even though entrepreneurship can feel like a solo ride, I’m so grateful to partner across San Diego and for Marta of Locally Well for the community spaces she’s created for us to feel less alone in our journeys.
Take it from someone who was, very literally, on their deathbed: you’ll look back on your life and wish you had listened to your heart and found the courage to put yourself out there and follow your dreams. Honoring your spirit and your creative ideas will always help others—whether it’s one person or many. There’s no such thing as failure, only lessons that help you grow.
We get one life, and it can change in an instant. If your life changed tomorrow, would you feel at peace with how you’re showing up for yourself and your community? Would you wish you had started sooner?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.collectivelywell.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/collectively__well
- Other: https://www.shannoncury.com
Image Credits
Anna Tello of Anna Captured for headshots and brand photos & Evelyn of The Modern Capture for group photos.
