Seryna Myers: Unlearning Who We Had to Be

Ross Tayler: Today on Sacred Sundays, our guest is Seryna Myers. Seryna works with people unlearning who they had to be in order to belong, guiding them back to who they've always been. For 12 years, she supported clients through major life transitions, psychic awakening, and psychedelic experiences, helping them dismantle survival identities and integrate transformation so it becomes embodied rather than intellectualized. Drawing on over 30 years of intuitive reading and a decade channeling angelic wisdom, Seryna helps people reclaim self-trust and step fully into their truth. Her work honours the messy, sacred unraveling that happens when we finally stop performing our healing and start living it. Welcome, Seryna.

Seryna Myers: Thank you, I'm really, really happy to be here, Ross.

Ross Tayler: It's great to have you here as well. I recently discovered that you were in Nanaimo too, and I came and visited you at the store. I think we met each other probably nine years ago. I don't believe that, but anyway.

Seryna Myers: It's been a very long time, and it's been really interesting to see how our individual paths have unfolded and then converged here in Nanaimo. How beautiful.

Ross Tayler: So cool to have this conversation with you.

Seryna Myers: I'm looking forward to it.

Ross Tayler: Seryna is going to begin by sharing a channeled message for the collective. So I'll hand it over to you, Seryna.

Seryna Myers: Okay. Before we start, I want to bring into awareness, first of all, that it doesn't matter when this was recorded to when you hear it. Energy isn't linear, it's not bound by time. So whenever you find this episode, whenever this message lands, it is for you, and it's for you to consider. If you hear it and you think that's a bunch of hogwash, well, that's fine, maybe this wasn't your message. However, please know that whenever it does find you, if it resonates, it's something to sit with and listen to. I do think the timing of when this episode is going to air is very potent, and very tied to the things that were coming in before we even started.

When I first started asking the guides what the collective needed, and by the collective I mean specifically Ross's community and the people who are going to be listening to this show, we got these big themes. I'll tell you what they were first: enlightenment, prosperity and courage. When I tuned into those individually, the energy of it felt very urgent. It was something we were trying to rush towards, something we wanted to claim and embody. We are in this frantic energy of wanting to get to the doing, but it's not time yet. We are in the final shed of the year of the snake. We are still having to examine and surrender and release the belief systems, the energies, the habits, the patterns that have kept us in these states of comfort. They've played their part, and we can be grateful for them and the roles they've played for us. However, instead of being comforting things, they are now obstacles for what we are moving into, as we step into that faster, forward-moving energy of the horse that is coming very, very soon.

So we need to give ourselves a little bit of grace. We also need to stop looking at the calendar and deciding that that is the time, because the divine doesn't work that way. We are working in an organic space where things are still unfolding, where we need to allow, where we need to surrender our expectations and our urgency and our demands of things being on our own timeline, so that we can step into a greater state of flow and move forward into these states that we're craving.

Then I asked the guides: okay, great, we've got enlightenment, prosperity, courage. Why does it feel so urgent? It's because each of these things individually gives us a sense of control, stability and safety. We're all craving this right now, and it makes sense, because on a big global level, if we zoom out and look at the macro, there is a lot happening and a lot of uncertainty, and we are looking for connection. This is not a time to self-isolate. This is not a time to put your nose to the grindstone and push and push and force your way to the finish line. This is a time when we need to think about the collective. We need to rise together. We need to hold each other. We need to be witnesses. We need people.

The healing that is required in the next season that is coming is not about the grind. It is not about achieving more or doing more. We are being asked to be in a state of being, a state of receptivity, and to hold ourselves and hold each other. In doing so, we actually get that safety and security we're craving underneath these themes. Chasing enlightenment, chasing prosperity, chasing the big adventure and the big courageous leap, those are distractions. Those are illusions of safety. But in finding each other, and in finding ourselves in those circles, that is the medicine we're looking for. That is how we can feel safe.

The last message I want to leave you with is a beautiful visualization that was shared with me this morning about the year of the horse. Because we have that anxious, nervous energy of wanting to get on with the doing, we feel that as soon as the calendar flips and we go into the year of the horse, it means we get to go full steam ahead. But the vision that was shared with me is that it's not so much about us being the horse and having to do the running. We get to ride the horse. We get to be supported and taken on the journey. That's what's coming. So if you would like a gentler journey into that, I invite you to slow down, give yourself some space, give yourself a lot of grace, and find the people you can rise alongside. Community is so important for us right now. It is the very thing we need for ourselves, and honestly, it's going to be the medicine that heals us all.

Ross Tayler: Thank you, Seryna. That was great.

Seryna Myers: Thank you.

Ross Tayler: I actually felt some emotions coming up during the middle part. I was surprised by that. I think I just started to feel the depth of this journey we've been on, certainly from my own perspective, but also the long haul, because what I've been hearing is that this is the end of a cycle as well. We're in a one year, so we've just finished a nine-year cycle, and there's a lot under the surface that is percolating. We're kind of releasing all those energies right now as well.

Seryna Myers: I think that's some of the tension we're feeling too, because the nine is all about endings and the one is about new beginnings, and we are trying to hold both at the same time. We've got one foot straddled on each side of the line. With that, we have the capitalistic intentions of new year, new you, everything's got to be whatever. We've just come out of holiday hustle. We haven't even landed, and now we're expecting ourselves to change our lives and make everything better and do all the things. It's this constant striving mentality, and it creates an urgency that disconnects us from our intuition, from ourselves, from each other. It's an uncomfortable season we're in right now.

Ross Tayler: You're reminding me that we're in winter, which is all about slow.

Seryna Myers: We're supposed to be slowing down.

Ross Tayler: Exactly. It's about letting things fall away and going super slow, if moving at all. And yet here we are wanting to get on the horse, like that visualization described.

Seryna Myers: It's wild how we are going against our own internal cycles and even nature's cycles. Everything is in front of us. It's a roadmap of how we can live. And yet we've been conditioned to think that we need to hustle and grind and just continue doing the thing.

Ross Tayler: In late November, early December, I did a talk on that exact topic, aligning with the seasons. It was a thought I kept having recurringly over the years and never really acted upon. It was a rich conversation, because so many of us feel like we're being dragged behind a horse that we didn't ask for. We're going against our inner knowing on so many levels, so the idea of slowing down doesn't even seem possible.

Seryna Myers: It's such a pervasive thing in society that we're supposed to have this busy holiday season and then the new year, new you. When we start to feel like that's not working for us, we make ourselves wrong. We think, if everyone else is doing it, why does that feel so foreign and so wrong for me? In reality, a lot of people aren't slowing down to ask themselves the question in the first place. If they did, they'd say, actually, you know what, I could use a little bit of chill right now. Hustle culture is very carefully calculated so that we are always in the doing. We don't get to be in the being. When we're in the being, we slow down, we ask questions, and that's when we become a problem to systems of power. I don't want to go on a whole rant about all of that, which I easily could catch myself doing. But when we don't slow down, there is no space to question authority, to question the structures of power. There's a reason they keep us attached to our phones or our desks. So long as we are busy producing, which disconnects us from ourselves and from natural cycles, we're not a problem. And I'm like, hey, let's just disrupt. Let's set it all on fire.

Ross Tayler: Totally.

Seryna Myers: Metaphorically, mostly.

Ross Tayler: We're witnessing some of these systems already starting to crumble right in front of our eyes, because it's not working anymore. Even looking at the younger demographics, who are saying, I'm not going to work 40, 50 hours a week and get paid so little. We have these natural shifts happening that are changing everything.

Seryna Myers: I think some of that is generational. This young generation is being parented by people who have been a little more conscious and aware, who've gone to therapy and learned the things, and it gives them permission to feel their feelings. I got into a comment war this morning because I was feeling a little spicy in a conversation. This guy was going on about "you people with mental health issues," and I said, babe, just because you haven't been diagnosed because you're too chicken to go to a therapist doesn't mean you don't have mental health issues. It means you just haven't gotten yours diagnosed yet. It's very easy to ignore and deny rather than roll up our sleeves and say the hard thing. It's a big part of the work I do and have been doing, first with businesses, helping people bring more authenticity to their brand and their business, and then it rolled into helping people do that in their lives. A huge part of it is being willing to be disruptive, being willing to piss people off a little bit and make people uncomfortable, and to do that because you are no longer making yourself uncomfortable for their sake. We prioritize our own need for comfort, even if it means ruffling some feathers.

Ross Tayler: That is the thing that's pervasive. All of these structures and systems, the things we've focused on outside of ourselves, family systems, we've put all of our focus outside of ourselves, and all of these distractions along with it, and we've lost our sense of self. Then you add the difficult relationships we can get into, which take us even further from ourselves. We need to reorient back, and once we do, we start to wake up and say, wait a second here. It makes me think of The Matrix and those movies that show us, wait a second, this might not even be real.

Seryna Myers: Where it gets uncomfortable and challenging is that oftentimes when we have that realization, we're enmeshed with people who are relying on us to continue to show up in that way. The things that make us money, and the things that provide security and connection and belonging, they all hinge on self-abandoning. In my work, I refer to those as our survival selves. They're the archetypes we embody in order to make it through. The part that is the most us is what I call the unshakable self. That's the self that stands firm in who they are no matter the situation, whether you're having a conversation with a bigot in the comments or talking to your best friend, you are always you. It takes a lot to even figure out who that is, particularly when we are enmeshed in these dynamics that depend on our old survival ways of being.

Ross Tayler: It makes me think about the channeled message you shared and the emphasis on not getting distracted by these top-level things, because underneath is the safety and security. I feel that's the case with so much of what you're saying. There's always something deeper underneath that we're missing if we don't look there, and those are the things that really anchor us and give us that foundation. But we're still so busy looking at the surface.

Seryna Myers: Because we're taught to look at the surface. That surface is the thing we're going to work toward, spend the money on, aspire to. It's what's sold to us in magazines and ads and TV and the whole shebang. I remember for the longest time I was completely fixated on needing to own a house. That was my thing, and we were living in Vancouver, where that was just not an option. It wasn't until I bought the house and still felt that itchy feeling. We were fortunate the way things unfolded: we didn't have a mortgage, so there should not have been an itchy feeling underneath it. I had to sit with that and ask, okay, so I've got the house, the house was the thing, and I still feel squiggly. What's underneath it? I wasn't looking for a house. I was looking for stability. I was looking for something that couldn't be taken away from me. When I could start tapping into all the ways I was resourced and see that I actually had the things I thought the house was going to bring, it was never about the house. But we often don't slow down enough to ask those questions, and the answers are not the most obvious ones. When it's the thing you're fixated on and striving for and saving up for, you don't even think to ask why it's so important. It doesn't have to be a house. It can be a designer handbag. Okay, what do you think that's going to give you? Is it because it makes you feel good? Is it because you're treating yourself, which maybe you wouldn't typically do? Is it because you think it will give you status? Is it a work of art that brings you joy to take in? Is it about honoring the craftsman behind it? There's always a reason, but we have to actually ask the question, and most times we don't bother.

Ross Tayler: I think most of us are following, there's a video called "Music and Life" [?], with Alan Watts as the narrator, though it's a cartoon, done by the producers of South Park [?]. It's a really short video, but it talks about how we're always chasing a carrot: go to school, get good grades, get a job, get a raise, move up the corporate ladder. The whole time you're chasing this carrot, and then at some point you realize you've got the house and the picket fence and you've had your children and all those things, and there's still that niggling you mentioned of something missing. It was never about the carrot. It was always about what was trying to come out from inside. That's the piece of turning inward, returning to where that precious light is within us that is wanting to be expressed.

Seryna Myers: I love that, a precious light, that's really beautiful. I think we do all have that, though sometimes it doesn't feel like a light. I have a lot of people who ask me about their life purpose. They come in for readings, and I say, you're not going to like the answer to this one. I firmly believe that our entire purpose is not about who we raise, or the jobs we have, or the way we help the world. I believe our purpose is to become the truest, fullest version of ourselves. That's the message. So when we talk about chasing the carrot, of course it's going to feel unfulfilling, because it has nothing to do with the fullness of who we are.

I talk about how we don't slow down and ask the question. There's also privilege in slowing down and asking it. If you're working three jobs to make rent and put food on the table, you are in a survival state of having to grind in order to get by. Don't feel bad if you haven't stopped to ask the question. You don't have the time and space to, so be gentle with yourself in that process. But for those of us who have a little bit of capacity, I feel we have a bit of a responsibility to ask the questions and find out who we are. We are worth knowing, even if it's only by ourselves. Even if the truth we find is too scary to share with anyone else in the world, you are worth knowing even if it's just by you. I know that's probably the opposite of what many of us heard growing up, but it's true.

Ross Tayler: So much of what you're referring to is the conditioning we need to strip away. It's the things we need to let go of, the things we've placed so much importance on because society places so much importance on them. And yet when you talk about coming back to that expression of yourself that is who you truly are, I was recently listening to, I think it was Robert Edward Grant [?], a polymath, talking with Richard Rudd of the Gene Keys. He said that every single person on this earth has a mathematical representation that is unique, like a signature proven mathematically to be absolutely unique, and we're here to express that number, whatever it is. Isn't that wild? When he said it, I was just like, wow.

Seryna Myers: I'm in the middle of reading Malala's latest book, and the back cover says something to the effect of, I don't even know who I was supposed to be in this life, because she instantly became Malala, the capital-M Malala we know. I feel that from the heart of a seeker. I feel that, where I'm like, man, she didn't really get a chance to be anything other than this. However, from the philosophy that we are on this journey to become the fullest version of ourselves, I actually think the things that shaped her, that made her Malala with the capital M, were exactly the point. It does feel a bit predetermined, and I can see that being discouraging, especially for a young person trying to find themselves, but I feel like it's kind of the point. It's not in any kind of victim-blaming way, but we are shaped by the experiences we have.

Ross Tayler: It's both. I know you know your Human Design, and one of the main things about Human Design is that you have parts of yourself that are mapped out: this is who you are, these are the parts you can rely on and live from and express in the world. And yet there are other areas that are usually the sources of our conditioning, whether it's about self-worth or emotional experiences, and those become the distractors the mind grabs onto. We have all this wiring saying we can do all these things in alignment with who we were designed to be, and yet we can also continue to play the game of being distracted by the very things sitting there waiting to be expressed. But that's the journey. This is the conscious and the unconscious trying to find their way, and once they do, it's like, well, that wasn't so complicated, because it's right there in front of us.

Seryna Myers: Yes, and also remembering that not everyone came here to do conscious work, which I sometimes find myself really frustrated by, because it affects the relationships and the depth of some connections. People who are asking questions and people who aren't are sometimes speaking a different language. It's not that one is better or worse than the other, but there is a disconnect in how they connect to the world. I have to remind myself sometimes that it's obvious to me because I've been doing this work for myself for the last 17 years. It's not going to be obvious to everybody else. It's about loving somebody without expecting them to wake up alongside you.

Ross Tayler: Yeah, we're all somewhere on that journey. I always like to remind myself that I've been somewhere on that journey. It's wild to think back. There were times when I would throw my garbage out the window of my car when I was driving, a long time ago, I want to make sure that's clear. That's so far out of my reality now. Yesterday I saw garbage on the side of the road and I thought, who would do that? But I did that. That was just where I was at, and it's not where I'm at anymore. We are all evolving wherever we're meant to be on that continuum, and it's important to have compassion for those folks. They are where they are. This whole realm of looking at ourselves feels so recent that it's become kind of acceptable, almost to the point where everybody's doing it and the pendulum has swung.

Seryna Myers: Yes, and everyone else is the weirdo and the misfit. I look at even the trajectory my own healing has taken in the last couple of years, where I've started moving more into psychedelic-assisted therapy in my own practice, and how that's evolved in my coaching. That stuff was happening in the 60s, but those were the weirdos, those were the misfits. Now, especially on the island, I don't think you could throw a stone without hitting somebody who is in some way connected to psychedelics, whether it's themselves or a friend. It's now so mainstream, and that's kind of a cool thing. We saw it in 2012 when a lot of people started to wake up, and it happened again during the pandemic, when people had the space, with everything else stripped away, to contemplate and be open. Spirituality became a bit trendy, and some people were rejecting it, saying you can't just jump on this bandwagon. But I feel the more of us doing the work, the better. Do we want to commodify it? Do we want to use so much white sage that Indigenous people don't have it for their practice? No. There are still problems with the commercialization of spirituality. But if we're talking about seekers waking up, the more the merrier, in my opinion.

Ross Tayler: When I lived in the Okanagan for four years, there was a bookstore in Vernon with a crystal stand in the middle of the store. People were just magnetized to the crystals, especially the kids. I thought it was really an interesting sign of that pull towards those things. To me it showed that things are really shifting energetically. You lived in Vancouver, I lived in Vancouver, and Banyan Books has been there forever. To see it normalized in the Okanagan in a different way was super cool.

Seryna Myers: Even though Banyan Books is such an institution in Vancouver, it's not the most convenient place to get to. It's half a block long, but it's way out in Kits. I lived there for 20 years and I could probably count the times I went to Banyan on two hands, and I've been a deep seeker pretty much the entire time I lived in Vancouver. I think crystals are a really exciting gateway. We see it at Golden Soul Sanctuary too. The kids love them, and the things people are drawn to tell you a lot about them before they even know it themselves, which is really cool to witness.

The first time I ever got drawn to crystals was actually in the Okanagan, in a shop in a mall in Kelowna. That's how long ago it was. Is it still there?

Ross Tayler: I think it's still there, in Orchard Park Mall.

Seryna Myers: I got drawn to a Lemurian quartz. I had taken earth science in college and handled specimens, but I didn't think of them in any magical way. I picked up the stone and felt it go into my hand, and then the stone felt like nothing afterwards. I thought, my God, I just stole energy from this store. I didn't have the money to buy the crystal, so I put it back and ran away. A decade later or so, I went back and said, I stole the energy out of this crystal, I'm so sorry. They said, oh, honey, no, that was for you, it's okay. I said, I zapped it and put it back, and there was nothing left for the next person. They said, no, that's not how they work. But it was one of those things where that was my time. The fact that it was a Lemurian quartz, and the work I did with ayahuasca years later was tied to a collective energy that lives in Mount Shasta, which is tied to Lemuria, it all made sense with time. In the moment I was just like, God, what has just happened? Instead of asking questions, I booked it out of the store.

Ross Tayler: You didn't understand your connection to it until later.

Seryna Myers: This is the beautiful thing about normalizing it: people aren't afraid to go to the counter and say, excuse me, I broke your crystal, I sucked out all its energy. And then you can be the person with the store who says, it's okay, that was for you.

Ross Tayler: The normalization is pretty cool to witness, the witchiness coming to the forefront. I recently had Claire on, who you know, and we talked about that witchiness and how it's coming to the fold. I love that that energy is surfacing in such a powerful way, and in your store as well.

Seryna Myers: It's really neat, because we see it rise in different cycles. Astrology was huge, then spirituality came, and now the witchy element. They're all flavors of the same magic and medicine. What I think is neat about the witchy element is that it's a return to the earth. We are finding ways of honoring our cycles and getting back to nature, listening to plants, which was kind of the whole point of Claire's episode. They're all needed, different flavors of the same thing, and people are finding them in different ways. You talked about how it used to be commonplace to throw litter out of the car. When we have a reverence for the earth, that is what makes that no longer a thing. It's really neat, and that's one of the cool things about living on the island. It is such a magical place. Even where we opened our store, there are five witchy shops within a few blocks. I love it. People ask, aren't you worried about the competition? No, we're all doing our own thing, and people are going to resonate with who they resonate with. I'm here for all of us. The more of us waking up, the more businesses we need supporting these people anyway.

Ross Tayler: Your store offers a very specific niche kind of energy, and it's beautiful. I love it.

Seryna Myers: Everything is done with intention. We make a lot of our own stuff in house. From the plant perspective, we have the essential oils we bring in and craft with, which has been my world for the last 15 or 16 years, long before I had the business I have now. Then we have crystals, and I get to do readings. It's like my playground. I get to hold space for really cool people. We do cacao ceremonies. It's a playground for me to bring all the skills I've cultivated over these decades, and all the things I like to do, and do them with really cool people who are heart-centered and intentional and trying to be the fullest version of themselves and heal their conditioning. I couldn't ask for a better job. It's literally fun every day I get to go in there.

Ross Tayler: I only moved to Nanaimo in March of last year, and I knew I was coming about nine months before I arrived. I joined all the Facebook groups and the spiritual groups, and I was blown away by how much is happening here on the island in that realm.

Seryna Myers: It's magical.

Ross Tayler: It really is unbelievable. There are more events than you could possibly attend, which is so opposite to the Okanagan, where those things felt absent. COVID really shut all that down, and it took a long time for it to start to resurface. Only right before I left were there starting to be these events. I was kind of drying up without that energy, so to arrive here and have it be overflowing was incredible.

Seryna Myers: Vancouver was kind of the same. There was always stuff going on, but if you wanted to host an event, it was really hard to find affordable space. So the events you did go to were quite pricey, and therefore quite exclusionary. There wasn't a hub like the neighborhood we're in, where you can go to all these different shops. Most of them have community boards, like we do, so you can always see what's going on. In Vancouver everything is so spaced out that there isn't a hub. You'd think in a big city it would be easier, but I think it's way easier to build community here than it was on the mainland. One of the things I love is that because we're in such a touristy neighborhood, we get a lot of people who've just moved to the city. I have so many conversations with people saying, I just moved here, I'm looking for people, everyone I meet is super square and doesn't think like this. I say, come, we are your people. We are the weirdos. We're ready to welcome you in. We have so many different types of events that it can meet you wherever you are. We're not for everybody, but for the people we are for, they find themselves and they find each other. I just get to sit back and say, yay, all my favorite people are in the same room.

Ross Tayler: I just had a flash of that show Freaks and Geeks. I loved that show, and of course all the good shows get canceled, but it was something to identify with, and it was exactly the energy of what you just talked about.

Seryna Myers: There is something about not being the cool kids at school. I went to art school, so it was a little different because we were all weirdos. But with a traditional high school hierarchy, it's really hard to not be the popular kids and to feel like you don't know where you belong. If that enforces anything you heard in family or community before you even got into school, that becomes the armor you have to shed in the years that come. When I started my spiritual path in my 20s, I remember crying and saying to the healer, who was in his 40s, I've wasted so much time. He said, honey, you're 20 years early, it's fine. The point was just to put down my armor. Most of us aren't even starting to consider taking it down until our forties, and that's sad. One of the things I really wanted for our space was for it to be somewhere people didn't have to armor, where they could say, I'm having a bad day and I don't want to share, but I still want to be here, and we can hold space for that. I don't ever want someone to feel they have to put on a mask to hang out with us. It's very come as you are, and all of you is invited. We don't need to hide or reject or exile parts of ourselves, and we need more spaces where all of us are invited to the table.

Ross Tayler: There was a store in Squamish called the Eclectic Circle [?], and when I was having a rough day I would go there and walk through. The woman who owned it read cards and was totally open to conversations, so sometimes you got a free reading just by talking to her. You'd walk out feeling better and go back to your everyday life.

Seryna Myers: The ideal thing would be that we find our people, and we've unraveled the identities we put on as armor to survive. Getting back to ourselves and onto our day becomes the norm, rather than the armor being the norm. The more we can find spaces where it's safe to do that, I think the better.

Ross Tayler: I want to double back to something you mentioned that I think is important, and I don't think we've talked about it too much on the podcast: psychedelic experiences. For me, I think it was 2018, 2019, when for the first time in my life I did psilocybin. I did it with intention, in the forest, and had a mind-blowing experience, and then continued to have ceremonies after that. I always say psilocybin saved me thousands of dollars in therapy. It was such a helpful piece, so I'm curious what you want to say about that realm.

Seryna Myers: My experience with psilocybin was in high school, where I was not intentional and I was just tripping balls. For me, my first five years of my spiritual journey was ayahuasca. If anyone had told me what I was signing up for, I probably wouldn't have done it, so I'm super glad it worked out this way. I went into it thinking it was a psychological tool that would help me know myself better, and then I ended up communing with the divine, which is a slightly different experience. I learned a lot about myself in those spaces. As I'm learning now, I think a lot of the space that was held was not entirely safe, and it actually reinforced a lot of old things, which is what I'm deconstructing now, and that's fine.

Most recently I've been working with MDMA. My therapist works with MDMA and psilocybin, but they're completely different medicines. Psilocybin is really great for that cosmic understanding, that intuitive awakening, being in that expanded consciousness state, similar to what ayahuasca offers. I thought, okay, sure, pass me the mushrooms. She said, honey, that's cute, MDMA is particularly great for trauma. One of the things all of these offer is that in the two, sometimes up to four weeks following a session, we're forming new neural pathways. Because I have complex PTSD, MDMA enables me to drop all my protectors and have completely shame-free discussions that are very candid about my past. I always feel I'm pretty shame-free, but things creep in afterwards and you start to question, and I think, okay, maybe I do have some feelings about that. In this case it's completely unfiltered, five to seven hours of therapy. Then in the two weeks that follow, I baby myself so much. I monitor what I watch on TV, what foods I take in, that I'm drinking enough water, because I know I'm forming neural pathways. Given that I'm using it as part of trauma rehabilitation, I'm allowing my brain to have new corrective experiences, so the neural pathways I'm rebuilding are supportive of the person I want to be. When we talk about Malala not knowing who she would be if not for her experience with the Taliban, I've had that question about my trauma. I wonder who I would be if not for this childhood. It doesn't matter, because I like the person I am. But when I work with psychedelics, I know I get to find new ways back to her. I feel that's part of their gateway, particularly when you have integration support and you're not just let out into the wild, having to fend for yourself with these new mind-blowing, sometimes life-disrupting experiences.

Ross Tayler: You're highlighting something to do with psychedelics, and also the piece shared in the channeling up front: the whole piece around wanting to jump on the horse, wanting to have the experience with psychedelics, but not having the time to slow down and be with the experience. I think you described your experience of integrating in a beautiful way. Even for myself, I would go back to work. I think I was working at treatment centers at the time, and I had to keep it secret. I couldn't even talk about it. So it's partially not having the luxury of being able to slow down that much, but also trying to go for the next thing, the next experience, signing up for the next retreat. I see that a lot, people not being able to take the time to integrate and to notice all these things.

Seryna Myers: The other piece is that sometimes we aren't calibrated to the work yet, so we chase the experience because we know the good thing is on the other side of it, and we expect the experience to do the work for us. When I was in corporate, I would go every three months, give or take. That was me not actually embodying the medicine and the lessons I was learning. It was me looking to Aya to save my life and make it better. And guess what? By the time of my third or fourth ceremony, I got laid off from my corporate job and had to start all over anyway. We can't look to external things to fix us, because one, we're always going to have someone's hand in our pocket pulling out dollar bills, and two, it's not long-lasting unless it comes from within. That's why integration and embodiment are so important, I believe. I say that as someone who totally let ceremony be my quick fix. I'm guilty of it too. That's how I know it's a thing. I'm not condemning anyone. We don't know better.

Ross Tayler: Myself as well, just wanting the answer. Show me the thing that's going to unlock the dam, whatever's next.

Seryna Myers: Whatever's next, yeah. Which is so hard, because it's uncomfortable in the liminal, in that in-between phase. It sucks because we want to do something and there's nothing to do. The doing is just sitting with it. Especially if we've got programming around laziness and needing to be productive to be valuable, that's even worse. Not being able to act feels really disempowering. But when you have a relationship with your guides, with the divine, with whatever, and you can surrender it, it no longer feels unempowered. It feels supportive, like you're held. That's giving up a lot of control, but it's worth it.

Ross Tayler: Because you now have a team you can refer to and ask for guidance.

Seryna Myers: Yes, and be supported by. Especially when that channel is clear and that relationship is strong, the discomfort of not knowing what to do next is lessened by the fact that you know they're going to tell you. You're going to know what to do and when to do it. You just have to chill in the meantime. Once you have that security, the rest of it feels a lot easier.

Ross Tayler: The other thing people might struggle with is that these medicines are very metaphorical, at least in my experience. They're not always direct. I've never done ayahuasca, but I've heard it can be quite the trickster, leading you down a path and showing you something and then coming back around and saying it differently, so you can question your own reality. But not everybody sees the world metaphorically. Not everybody has those lenses to look through. When I've sat with people to talk about their experience, what seems so obvious to me, they don't notice.

Seryna Myers: What's interesting is that earlier in my journey, and even into my coaching, I felt I was given this gift of being a decoder ring. I'd say, would you like to know what I'm getting in terms of those symbols? In April I'm starting a certification specifically for integration of psychedelic journeys, so I can do it in a more trauma-informed way rather than just basing it on my own decades of experience. What I'm learning, just in following the teacher, is how much I have robbed people of the experience of finding it out for themselves. While I did have a consent-based approach, do you want my input, yes or no, and if it's a no, then I shut the fuck up and that's fine, it's not always my job to give the answers. Think about whenever you've had your own epiphany and the light bulb goes off and you say, holy crap, this just changed everything. It came from you. How much more satisfying is that than going to a psychic or whatever?

Ross Tayler: Way more satisfying.

Seryna Myers: Apologies to everyone I have ever given answers to. I'm learning. I do want to help, and it's not about making myself the Oracle or the source of knowledge. I know what it's like to have the questions, and I have answers that are not mine to give. I'm learning to shut up a little bit more and let people have their experience.

Ross Tayler: Thanks for that, because it's the dilemma of not being able to see it when you're in it and yet needing to figure it out by yourself.

Seryna Myers: This is where I think having a guide who can ask the questions, or who can just hold space while you talk it out, helps you figure it out for yourself, rather than ruminating by yourself or writing in a journal. Without leading somebody, I think holding space allows epiphanies to come. We need more space held for us in general.

Ross Tayler: That's the essence of coaching. It's not about giving answers. It's about supporting and guiding with the right questions and pulling those things out, having the person speak them.

Seryna Myers: Exactly, and I'm sure you've had the same thing, where you're in session with someone and you see the light bulb go off and you think, okay, you're picking up what I'm putting down. It's so beautiful to witness people figuring their stuff out. My job as a witness, in the store, in circle, in coaching, in all of it, is one of the greatest honors of my life, and I don't say that in any kind of exaggerating way. To be witnessed is such a vulnerable, intimate thing, and for someone to let me in enough to do that, whether one-on-one or in a group, I'm humbled by it. I think about the spaces where I've been willing to share and where I haven't been, even though I seem like an open book all the time. I know what it feels like to be held, and for someone to let me do that, I'm just like, thank you, thank you.

Ross Tayler: It's beautiful. It makes me think of my seven or eight years in treatment centers, watching people step into the journey. Treatment is often their doorway into spirituality, because addiction is usually the suppression of that or the lack of connection to it. To see people wake up and to hold space for them, and the same with the men's work I do, in groups and one-on-one, it's like, wow, what a privilege to witness this journey, to see the steps you're taking and the courage it takes. Having been there myself, I know what it feels like and how hard it is. It's a beautiful full circle moment.

Seryna Myers: I think that's the thing no one really talks about, and it's literally the sexiest part of the work. It's the most exciting, the most thrilling, and the most validating, because you get to be a part of something bigger. We're all healing for ourselves, but the impact it has on the collective, when we see that ripple effect happen, sometimes it's just, thank you for letting me be a part of this. Thank you for the opportunity and the privilege and the absolute honor of being here in circle with you and watching people witness each other. Remember, during COVID I ran a program, and one person showed up in week one with her camera off and said, I'm here but I'm not participating, my camera's off, my mic's off. I said, cool, no problem. In week two she had her mic on but not her camera. By the end of it she was chatting up a storm, probably more than everybody else. Six weeks later, little chatty Cathy. I love it. That speaks to safety. I always say the safer you feel, the deeper you'll go, and anything I can do to cultivate that within somebody, so they can feel safe to be themselves, I'm here for it.

Ross Tayler: I could go on so many tangents just based on what you just said. I want to end with this: every once in a while, someone comes back around and says, hey, that thing you did was really helpful. It doesn't happen that often, and we don't always get to see the impact of a conversation or a support session, whatever it looks like. When it comes back around...

Seryna Myers: Sometimes it's a Facebook post. Something you posted three years ago, where you're just shouting into the void because it's social media, and then someone from high school reaches out and says, how did you get through that, or that really meant a lot, I saw myself in that. It's these micro moments.

Ross Tayler: I don't know about you, but sometimes it can get really quiet in this work, and in those quiet moments I wonder, am I really having an impact? Is this really what I'm meant to be doing? We always have these moments. When we get some feedback, it's like, okay, it is worth all the effort and all the work, because it is work to do this work with people. There's also so much reward. It's kind of two sides of the same thing. You're right, we don't talk about this often.

Seryna Myers: This is where I'm grateful for the store, because I get instant feedback just from conversations, let alone sessions. When I was working entirely online, I was tapping on the microphone like, hello, is this thing on, is anybody out there?

Ross Tayler: I stopped doing videos of just me talking because it's so foreign to my nervous system to not have someone else there. That's why this podcast is so nourishing. Even though we're not in the same space, we're still connected, still having this conversation. It's way better. I'm responding to something rather than trying to push a rock up a hill.

Seryna Myers: I find conversation a lot easier than trying to spontaneously come up with the cool short-form tidbit of information, because nobody has an attention span these days. I'd rather have a long-form conversation and get really real, roll up our sleeves and say, sometimes it's messy, let's just get it done together.

Ross Tayler: Exactly. All right, this feels like a good place to press pause. I always close by asking my guests the same question: what is one simple way someone could connect with the sacred today?

Seryna Myers: The first thing I saw when you asked that was dropping into your heart and asking, what do I need right now? So it's the sacred within you, as opposed to anything outside of you. Just ask your heart, what do you need right now? It might be a cup of tea, it might be a conversation with a friend, it might be a nap. Just give your heart permission. Nothing's too big or too small.

Ross Tayler: I love that. I love the simplicity of that and the accessibility of it, so thank you.

Seryna Myers: You're welcome. Thank you for having me. This has been a beautiful conversation.

Ross Tayler: You're welcome. If anybody wants to stay connected, what's the best place to find you, knowing we'll put all of that information in the show notes?

Seryna Myers: If you're local to us, you can pop by Golden Soul Sanctuary in the Old City Quarter. Otherwise I'm online, and I'm at Seryna Myers on most social media.

Ross Tayler: Excellent. So nice to reconnect in this way and have you on the podcast. I really appreciate all the directions we went, and I know we could have gone in many others. Thank you for this conversation.

Seryna Myers: Thank you for hosting it. It's good to have spaces like this. People are looking for it.

Ross Tayler: You're very welcome.