The Unshakeable Self

In This Episode: What happens when a trusted source of information challenges something you've built your entire worldview around? Seryna is mid-certification in somatic psychedelic integration when a single quote stops her in her tracks — and sends her straight to the microphone. In this honest, unscripted solo episode, she unpacks the question she didn't expect to be asking: is personal transformation the same thing as spiritual awakening, or are they genuinely different paths? And more importantly — does it even matter? This episode is about challenging your assumptions, holding your truth without needing to recruit anyone else to it, and what it really means to teach from a place of integrity rather than certainty. What You'll Discover: The quote from Seryna's psychedelic integration training that made her stop everything and hit record The key distinction between personal transformation and spiritual awakening — and the metaphor that makes it click Why willingness may be more powerful than any framework, lineage, or method you could follow Where shadow work lives in relation to both paths — and why it's the place the lines start to blur The responsibility that comes with having a platform, even a small one, and why Seryna is committed to teaching rather than preaching How to receive information that challenges your beliefs without needing to make the other person wrong Episode Highlights: 00:32 - The certification moment that launched this episode 02:15 - Is personal work the same as spiritual transformation? Seryna's honest answer 04:00 - Renovating the house vs. asking who the homeowner is 06:10 - Why willingness matters more than method 07:45 - Shadow work: where personal and spiritual paths start to blur 10:00 - Calling herself out: the assumptions she's been making as a teacher 12:30 - The Kyle Gray retreat and the room that couldn't let him be wrong 16:00 - Your permission slip to hold your truth and let others hold theirs 19:00 - Seryna's invitation: how do you define the distinction? On Assumptions, Frameworks, and Trusting Your Knowing: There's a quote that landed in Seryna's training notes and wouldn't let go: humans are born with an innate capacity to heal from trauma, and healing can become a catalyst for profound personal and spiritual transformation. For most people, that sentence flows right by. For Seryna, it stopped everything — because she realized she'd been treating "personal" and "spiritual" transformation as the same thing, without ever stopping to ask if that was actually true for everyone. The distinction, when she unpacks it, comes down to this: personal transformation is about working on the self — healing patterns, integrating wounds, changing behaviours. Spiritual awakening is about questioning the self doing that work. One is renovating the house. The other is asking who the homeowner even is. And she's clear: neither is deeper or more advanced than the other. They're different in intention and framework, not in value. But here's where it gets really interesting. Seryna argues that willingness — the genuine, uncomfortable, embodied kind — may be the most powerful force in either path. Someone who has never opened a spiritual text but is willing to sit honestly with their own suffering might access something that a seasoned practitioner chasing peak experiences cannot. Because intellectualizing without integration is just another form of bypassing. And then there's shadow work, which is where the lines between personal and spiritual start to blur completely. Surface-level, it begins as personal inquiry. But follow it deep enough — into the exiled emotions, the lineage, the systemic threads — and something much larger starts to crack open. What this episode is really about, though, is what Seryna does next. She doesn't double down. She doesn't dismiss the challenge to her worldview. She sits with it, examines it, and shows up to share the messy middle of that process — not because

Seryna sits down with clinical herbalist Claire Bonin to explore the sacred medicine of rage — how plant wisdom, feminine archetypes, and the intelligence of your anger can guide you back to your truth.

Seryna tackles one of the spiritual community’s most uncomfortable blind spots: unsolicited energy readings, channeled messages, and even prayers sent without permission – and why good intentions aren’t enough.

Author and book coach Rocky Callen joins Seryna to talk about surviving trauma, writing the book that cracked her open, the wild publishing journey of A Breath Too Late, and why vulnerability is the ultimate act of rebellion.

In This Episode: Sometimes the medicine we teach is the medicine we need most. Seryna records this episode on the road (with imperfect audio and a whole lot of F-bombs) to share a raw, real-time story about what happened when a stranger moved her bag on an airplane and she completely lost it. This isn't a polished lesson about boundaries—it's the messy truth about what happens when old conditioning takes over, when survival self strategies kick in, and when you realize you've self-abandoned in a moment you thought you were past that pattern. This episode is about fawning responses, righteous anger, the patterns we inherit about deferring to men, and why it's okay that you're not going to get it right 100% of the time—even when this is literally the work you do. What You'll Discover: The fawn response: What it looks like when you prioritize someone else's comfort over your own needs and why it feels automatic How perfectionism is a survival self strategy (and why Seryna recorded this episode on AirPods anyway) The deeper truth beneath anger: How rage often masks feelings of vulnerability, shame, and self-abandonment Why safety is at the core of people-pleasing patterns (and what happens when you lose control to old conditioning) How reduced capacity changes your ability to respond from your unshakeable self The importance of having strategies in place for environments that typically shake you Why the work you do to heal yourself is never wasted—even when you "mess up" How to give yourself grace when you revert to old patterns under stress Episode Highlights: 00:00 - Recording on the road: Pushing through perfectionism to get the message out 01:15 - The airport incident: A stranger moves her bag and everything spirals 03:42 - The freeze and fawn response: Deferring to someone with zero authority 05:20 - Righteous rage kicks in: When the flight attendant validates she was right all along 07:35 - The spiral continues: Hangry, delayed, and ready to fight in the airport 10:18 - Recognizing the pattern: This isn't really about the purse 12:40 - The deeper wound: Self-abandonment and conditioning around deferring to men 15:25 - Safety as a core value: How people-pleasing protects but also costs you 18:10 - What happens when survival self takes control (and why it's so maddening) 20:45 - The cost of self-abandonment: When it becomes your default setting again 23:00 - Strategies for staying grounded when capacity is reduced 25:15 - Anger as a mask: Revisiting the medicine from Sacred Anger 27:30 - The medicine is for you too: Why this work makes a difference in her own life 29:00 - You don't have to get it right 100% of the time—just a little better than yesterday About Self-Abandonment and the Fawn Response: We talk a lot about fight or flight, but we don't talk enough about fawn and freeze—the nervous system responses that prioritize safety through appeasement and people-pleasing. The fawn response is what happens when your body decides that going along, deferring, accommodating, or self-abandoning is the safest strategy in a moment of stress or threat. It's the "yes, of course" when you mean "absolutely not." It's the automatic prioritization of someone else's comfort over your own needs. And it's often rooted in deep conditioning about whose needs matter more. For many people raised as women, this conditioning runs especially deep. We're taught to be accommodating, to not take up too much space, to defer to male authority (even when that "authority" is just some random guy on an airplane who has no actual power). This isn't about blaming anyone—it's about recognizing how these patterns get wired into our nervous systems and continue to run the show long after we've done years of healing work. What makes it so deeply maddening is when you know better. When you've done the work, when you teach this work, when you have a podcast literally called The Unshakeable Self—and then some stranger moves your bag and you freeze. Y