The Unshakeable Self

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

Sometimes our unshakeable self asks us to pause the things we love to create space for something even more aligned. After six months away, Seryna returns to share the truth about what happened during her ”break” – opening a physical sanctuary, rediscovering the power of face-to-face connection, and learning that inspiration doesn’t always look like we think it should. This episode is about honouring the seasons of your work, recognizing when the survival self is running the show (even in our most sacred projects), and trusting that your path is unfolding exactly as it needs to. In this episode you’ll discover why the ”New Year, New You” energy might be keeping you stuck in old survival patterns, the survival self pattern of needing external validation to feel worthy, and why exhaustion and inspiration can coexist when you’re truly living your unshakeable truth.