Psychotherapist Stephanie Canavesio, who developed the somatic and transpersonal approach Presence Embodied, speaks in an excerpt from Pinchbeck's online course The Future of Consciousness. She recounts a childhood with an addicted father and an emotionally unstable mother, an eating disorder from age twelve, years of modeling, and a long stretch of drug and alcohol addiction, and describes meeting Gabor Mate in 2008 when he was being interviewed for the documentary Neurons to Nirvana. His questioning of her people-pleasing and anxiety began her move toward sobriety and later toward the group work that became compassionate inquiry. Canavesio says she spent roughly a decade spiritually bypassing, mistaking numbing for elevation, and also studied contemplative psychotherapy with Robert Thurman and Joe Loizzo at the Nalanda Institute in New York.
Guest: Stephanie Canavesio
In brief
- Canavesio argues that psychedelics are not for everyone and can themselves become an addiction to bliss states and to being out of the body.
- Canavesio says talk therapy alone did not reach her trauma, because the body holds repressed memory and emotion that the mind cannot work through on its own.
- Canavesio describes her connection to spirit as arriving through willingness to sit with her own fear, grief and anger, not through peak experiences in ceremony.
- Canavesio maintains that real change happens in integration rather than in retreats, and that she kept returning to old patterns while going deep on retreat after retreat.
- Canavesio says awareness works like a muscle, built through practice, ritual, discipline and commitment rather than acquired once and kept.
- Canavesio argues that awakening is an ongoing process of questioning layers as they reveal themselves, sustained by the presence of another person rather than figured out alone.
Full text
I had a therapist for many years in New York City when I was in high school in the 90s ' 80s 90s and I I don't think that the just talk the just a talk therapy was really um had any effect I mean it it it was I mean it was useful it got me through but I I experienced like many of us quite a challenging childhood I I would say with very unstable my father was an addict my mother was um just emotionally very unstable and rageful and suicidal and I grew up with that not having any awareness of it as I was going through it other than my way of surviving was closing Within Myself And um you know I began with eating disorder when I was 12 uh 12 onwards and then with uh drugs alcohol um I dove pretty deep into addiction and never really knowing that there was a possibility to to get out um I pretty much had just decided that I wasn't going to do anything with my life in my 30s after I modeled for 10 15 years and then I didn't think I was always told you know getting older as a model that I wouldn't do anything with my life that it was too late um and then I met Gabor mate in my living room in 2008 and that was the first time he was coming for a a movie a documentary that Nur neurons to Nirvana that I think you probably probably were a part of as well Daniel I knew about it yeah yeah so he was interviewed for it and he started speaking about trauma and he was staying over he was staying at our house and he was recognizing my behaviors of people pleasing and my anxiety I was drinking a lot at the time and I think he was the first person to really look at me and and see I felt like he was really looking at me and questioning do you know like are you okay like what do are you recognizing your your behavior and what he yeah made me question this this quality I had I guess of putting others first and forgetting myself which I had done all of my life um I didn't know that there was really another way and so that began me on a journey of number one getting sober first I got off drugs then off alcohol I did that through um plant medicine I started I was already uh working with Iowa since the late 90s and I I would I also say I have my Ph D in spiritual bypassing because I I I spiritually bypassed for 10 years thinking I was elevating myself but just numbing myself uh with alcohol and drugs you know I kept on going back to the old ways of being I'd go on Retreats I'd go deep and I that's when I really understood that real change is the integration work which wasn't I wasn't doing and that's why I don't believe that psychedelics are for everyone and that they can also be another type of addiction to Bliss states to like this feeling High because I was addicted to Feeling High I was addicted to being out of my body and the real work came when I started doing the inner work and that was the really uncomfortable part so back going back that work that I would was doing was with Gabor mate on Retreats when he was doing a he wasn't leading the medicine retreats in Mexico at the time but he was um he was present and then next day he would do this big group circles which is what's called now compassionate inquiry which is this process of going into to the emotional layers understanding that in our bodies this is my interpretation of it that in our bodies we hold Memories We we repress feelings and emotions I know through my experience that I was holding a lot in my body and I could work as much as I wanted with my mind but until I drop deeper into the pain of of my fear and my anxiety and my sadness my everything my grief my anger until I became friends with my emotions then I I well number one I realized for me that my emotions were my direct connection to spirit because I was having all of like I was in all of these ceremonies and everyone was connecting to God and source and I wasn't feeling anything I was just having memories of my past and just so much fear and I realized for me anyway that my connection to my own to my soul to my spirit however you want to call it was something that unfolded through my willingness to be with my own pain it wasn't something like just you know the the sky opened and God appeared yes like for maybe two weeks I would feel God presence but to integrate it and to hold that presence in my human body when I was out of the ceremonies and was was actually I mean for me that's the real work that's why I do what I do today uh I went to school in New York City in a program of contemplative Psychotherapy called um uh it was yeah a contemplative Psychotherapy with Robert Thurman and Dr Joe lito at nand Institute that was amazing and that was where we learned through um Tibet studying Tibetan Buddhism this ability to connect to this different energy that existed that I W hadn't I was never really educated in that way to connect to energ to different energies of different um frequencies and different um deities and that was really beautiful to understand the work the teachings of the Buddha but then I kind of moved away a little bit from that started studying with Gabor learning this the Psychotherapy approach of tapping in questioning the stories but also understanding what's underlying our stories and that we have the ability to transform our emotions with our awareness but awareness is like a muscle and it's something that we develop with practices and rituals and discipline and commitment it's not something that you just wish to have for me anyway I I I thought that once I got it okay this is good I got that but it's a process I'm in it every day I'm still in it it's never ending it's it's like I'm sure all of the PE the people on the call who've experienced uh Awakening it's an ongoing process it's not just like you wake up and then you're awake it's continually questioning the layers as they reveal themselves and so that's why I'm a therapist that's why I love to do what I do is because I I've been through this I'm in it and I understand that the presence of another being helped me to understand that I wasn't crazy that I didn't need to figure it out with my mind that it was a process of stepping into my heart and that required a deep deep deep letting go of a need to control through my mind and that that's been very humbling and uh and ineffable
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.