Canela Michelle Meyers Interview

Canela Michelle Meyers Transcript: Psychic Awareness and Spiritual Awakening

Summary

Canela Michelle Meyers discusses her journey through spiritual awakening, psychic experiences, and overcoming personal challenges like addiction. The conversation explores how direct experience, self-inquiry, and being present with one's feelings can lead to greater integration and self-understanding.

Questions This Interview Explores

• How can I work through addictive patterns or unhealthy attachments in my life?
• What does it mean to use uncomfortable emotions as invitations for self-exploration?
• How can I experience both the solidity and the spaciousness of reality in daily life?
• Is it possible to support others in their healing without taking on their issues?
• How can I cultivate self-sufficiency and find love within myself rather than seeking it externally?

Key takeaways

• Opening to uncomfortable feelings can transform them and reveal deeper understanding.
• Addictions lose their power when we honestly face and feel the urges without resistance.
• Every challenge or irritation is an invitation to explore and integrate hidden aspects of ourselves.
• True support for others comes from being present and connected, not from fixing their problems.
• Direct experience of reality can reveal both its fluid, spacious nature and its tangible aspects.
• Self-love and fulfillment arise from turning inward and caring for oneself as one would for others.

Transcript

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer and my guest this week, or today, is Canela Michelle Myers from North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. So welcome, Michelle.

Canela: Thank you, Rick. It’s good to be here with you this morning.

Rick: Yeah. So Michelle and I were talking a little bit… Canela. You go by Canela, really.

Canela: Either one works. Canela Michelle is my first name.

Rick: So, you don’t care?

Canela: so no.

Rick: Okay. We were talking before the interview about what we were going to talk about, and we thought we’d give you a whole sort of overview of both Canela’s personal life story, particularly as it pertains to spiritual awakening, and then an expression of what it is she likes to express in terms of knowledge, which some teachers exclusively like to do one or the other. But I think having listened to Michelle quite a bit in preparation for this interview, I find that she’s comfortable with a wide range of expressions, and so we’ll run the whole gamut. So where would you like to start?

Canela: Oh, I don’t know. How about a question?

Rick: Okay.

Canela: It’s like, you know, from the vastness, pick something.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: It’s helpful.

Rick: So I would say, I mean, most of us… You’re younger than I am. I grew up in the ’60s and kind of got on to kind of spirituality in the late ’60s, and, you know, through various chemical assists. And then after about a year of that, got sick of it and learned to meditate and turned to more natural sources of spirituality. And even though you’re of a slightly different generation, I have a feeling that your background is somewhat similar, you know, of a fair amount of experimentation and bumbling and eventually coming into a much greater sort of clarity of purpose.

Canela: Yes and no. I mean, the experimentation as far as, you know, with marijuana or hash, I hadn’t actually explored anything more than that. But it kind of came to a standstill after that experience when I was 15.

Rick: Oh, yeah.

Canela: So I didn’t actually go into any more of that because I was terrified of the same thing happening.

Rick: Yeah. Tell us about that. That was quite an experience.

Canela: Well, apparently a joint that myself and my girlfriend smoked was laced with MDA or LSD. I mean, that’s what a doctor guessed because we were having, or I was having flashbacks while I was on a trip to Disneyland with my mom and dad. So, you know, in one way it was good that it started out of necessity. I had to tell my mom and dad because I was scared and I didn’t know what was happening and why I was having this incredible experience that I was attempting so strongly to stop. But of course it was horribly uncomfortable and not fun whatsoever. And it was this doctor that happened to be on the bus tour to Disneyland that my parents approached, who said, “You know, there’s nothing you can do with a flashback. You need to just open to this because this might be the way that your life is.”

“You need to just open to this because this might be the way that your life is.”

Rick: And what was the experience exactly?

Canela: Well, if my eyes were closed I could see more than what I was seeing with my eyes open. I could see people talking and voices, all sorts of information that I couldn’t shut off.

Rick: Hallucinatory or things that were actually happening around you?

Canela: Oh no, things that were hindsight. I believe it was stuff that was actually happening but not present in that room.

Rick: Right.

Canela: I was picking up on psychic information. That part of me had just totally whacked open. So if I did have my eyes open and my parents came toward me, they’d be all stretched out sideways and speaking in slow motion, “Eee, why?” like this. And of course I was trying to stop it with every ounce of my 15-year-old self, until this doctor spoke with me and said, “This might be it. You need to open to it.” And what a blessing, you know, because that’s exactly what I did.

Rick: Just relaxed.

Canela: Bit by bit I allowed myself to relax open and so it didn’t actually stop. It’s more like I got used to living with that part of myself open, but because the fear wasn’t there and the contraction and the resistance to it, it softened. And the only time that it would kind of break open to a place where it was uncomfortable was sometimes in crowds in a mall or something like that. And then I would just breathe and open to it and be alright.

Rick: So did it go on for weeks and months and years or did it eventually just stop?

Canela: It, well once I softened open, it wasn’t really so gradual. I don’t know that it really stopped. It just became integrated and normal.

Rick: Do you still have anything like that to this day?

Canela: Well…

Rick: In terms of picking up stuff that’s from afar and so on?

Canela: Oh, absolutely. But now it’s a support. Like I was in Costa Rica and woke up one morning and I didn’t know. I was just on this beach where some women had been kidnapped. And I was just in that morning time of not quite awake and musing and just kind of wondering what it must be like for them to be kidnapped, these women. What would they be experiencing? And just out of the blue I saw a word across, whatever it was, however it was I was seeing, it said “Belem” and I could see these women and they were in a hut with a dirt floor and chickens were walking around and stuff. I didn’t really think anything of it until we packed up the van and were headed back down the road. And the next town that we came through was Belem. And I didn’t even know and so the whole thing that I realized, “Whoa, this was real.” What I was seeing was real.

So I ended up actually contacting a notary that said “English spoken” and just thought, “Okay, I’ll just give a statement and if this person can send it to the family of these women that have been kidnapped, who am I, some Canadian woman who has this vision and who knows what it means?” But if I was their parent, I would still want to know of anything because they had been missing for quite a while. And so the notary actually contacted the police while we were there. It didn’t really tell us, it kept us, kept keeping us there through just saying, “Oh, hold on, hold on.” Like telling us some sort of story. But pretty soon some detectives came from San Jose and I started actually working as a psychic, I guess, for them. And then they found some house in Belem, in that area that they had some suspicions about. And I did hear later that they had found them.

Rick: Oh, I’ll be darned. Did you just work on that particular case or did you start working on other cases as a psychic?

Canela: No, just that particular case. And then it kind of came up a couple of other times with other people, if it came within a Reiki session or out of the blue when a woman was missing. But I never pursued it as an offering to say, “This is something that you can find here with this Canela.” It was just, if it happened, that’s where it would go.

Dealing with Addiction and Inner Longing

Rick: So when you were 15, how long did it take you to realize that, “Hey, this is kind of cool actually, and maybe there’s some silver lining to this shift that I’ve undergone?”

Canela: I didn’t really look at that like that. I definitely stayed away from drugs. That was the good side effect, I think, because a lot of friends continued on with exploration, and some of them got to some really tough spots that I didn’t, because I didn’t end up even belonging to the group anymore because I wasn’t participating.

Rick: Yeah. But you did allude to, before we started the recording, you alluded to alcohol or something. Was there some significance of alcohol in your life?

Canela: That was much later, yeah. So alcoholism is something that, or say an unhealthy relationship with alcohol is on both sides of my parents’ families, and it’s part of this ancestry. But I never really thought of myself as being an alcoholic or having that term applied to myself. But as I started to meditate, after I started practicing Reiki and life shifted so much from realizing I didn’t need to fight, I started looking at things more closely, and I started looking at my own relationship and noticing that whenever – I think it was my own relationship with alcohol. So at the time, what I noticed is that whenever anybody offered me alcohol, it was always yes, and if I had a drink, there was something in me that thought I would have an even better time if I drank more. And it wasn’t working because the next morning I’d feel horrible.

Rick: Yeah, right.

Canela: Not that I drank a lot, it’s just like sharing a bottle of wine with my husband at the time. All I knew is that when I looked directly at it, that alcohol was something more than juice, water, tea, or coffee. It held something more for me, and I saw that that wasn’t healthy. So in my own honesty with myself, I decided, “Okay, I’m going to stop drinking to see what this is.” And so what happened was I abstained from drinking, but yet the urge was still there. So I would sit – whenever the urge came up, I would sit with how I felt and feel the energy inside myself that was kind of longing or believing that there was some sort of magic in alcohol that was going to be good for me somehow. And I would just sit with those thoughts and feelings, the sensations in the body, until they – eventually they disappeared.

And then came a time when someone offered me some wine, and I knew in that moment, fear actually rose. Because once I had found and released myself from the power I had given alcohol, see, I had learned that giving over power as if alcohol held something more than anything else. So I met that and basically took the power I gave alcohol back to myself. And then in that moment when somebody said, “Well, would you like a glass of wine?” and fear rose, I realized, “Well, I could give alcohol that power again if I started to fear it.” So I said, “Okay, well, just give me just an inch to see what will happen.” And so I, breathing in fear, and I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose what I had gained. I thought I might lose it again to alcohol, to this wine, you know, that it would all show up again somehow.

And instead, I just had that little bit and it was somewhat tasty, it was okay, but nothing happened. You know, awareness was softened, but there was no draw, no pull, the longing didn’t show up again.

“I met that and basically took the power I gave alcohol back to myself.”

Rick: I’ve heard that sort of thing advocated for overcoming any kind of addiction – food, or smoking, or anything else – just sort of tuning in to what you’re really feeling inside when you have that craving, rather than just blindly succumbing to the temptation. And it seems like mechanics of it are that it can actually root out the root cause of the addiction.

Canela: Well, that’s exactly. And this is the sort of support that I offer people, too. Anything that they feel that they’re giving more power to, like money, we can work with it and see where it connects in and bring it up on purpose. And that can be with any kind of addiction. It can be an addiction of thoughts of the mind, right? Where people focus in on a person in particular who is particularly irritating, or any kind of idea of blame that that person – or power, that person has power over themselves. Then we have something that we can work with and explore and see where it connects energetically.

Rick: So in other words, any sort of irritant or annoyance or whatever can be used as a tool to explore a blind spot or an area that hasn’t been explored or uncovered or freed of obstruction. Is that what you’re saying?

Canela: Yes, I see them as invitations. They’re energy that rises, and if it’s uncomfortable, that means we’re trying to get our own attention. So people usually in the comfy experiences, they come and go. And it’s the uncomfortable ones that people try to move away from.

Rick: Which is kind of a nice… I mean, everybody has this opportunity, obviously, because life is always presenting us with challenges of all kinds. And so there’s no shortage of evolutionary possibilities.

Canela: Absolutely. I don’t have any ideas around people needing to be anything other than just a human being. As long as they’re interested to look and see, I have found that people of all walks of life, whether they’re interested in the spiritual search or just interested in enjoying their life more, it has no prerequisite to explore these bits.

Rick: Yeah. We’re getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but that’s okay. So I’ve listened to a number of your satsangs, and you sort of do that with people. They’ll come up and sit with you, and then you’ll kind of tune them into what’s going on now. They’ll go off on some flight of fancy, and you’ll say, “Well, how about right now? What’s going on?” And kind of give them a taste of being sort of sensitive to how one reacts to things and what’s actually going on inside when we feel this, that, or the other thing about someone or something.

Canela: Yeah, actually I support them to find that.

Rick: Right, you’re not finding it for them, obviously. Yeah, I don’t tune in really. I’m with them, and so it’s sort of like a joining with them. I call it “with-ness”. You know, like right now you and I have this connection that’s with us right here, right now. So all I do is open to that connection and see what rises, inclusive of what they’re seeing, because I can’t see what they’re perceiving. I can only feel the energy.

Well, that’s significant. I mean, the average person might not feel the energy, but what you’re implying is that there’s been some sort of opening in you that enables you to be more sensitive to the energy that someone else is emitting or going through, right?

Canela: Well, it’s in no separation.

Rick: In no separation, yeah.

Canela: So this with-ness is no separation, so that is, awareness is aware of what actually is. And this system is particularly sensitive to energy and the felt sense of that. So it’s been, I don’t know, explored extensively and therefore expanded on, like anything that you play with quite a bit, you get better and better. I mean, talk about my son’s video games.

Rick: Yeah, right.

Canela: So yeah, it’s something that everybody is aware of in their own way. I might have a particular way of being, hearing the energies and very empathic system, my physicality, I can actually feel it in my body. But everybody has their way of hearing what is. And that’s what I love to support, is people to recognize that they’re actually with, as soon as they see it, they can see that it’s been right there with them. It’s just that they’re not looking quite in that direction, it seems.

“Everybody has their way of hearing what is. And that’s what I love to support, is people to recognize that they’re actually with, as soon as they see it, they can see that it’s been right there with them.”

Rick: So let’s say you’re sitting with somebody and they’re feeling very fearful about something. Do you actually feel some like queasiness in your solar plexus or some such thing, corresponding to the fear that they’re experiencing?

Canela: Yeah, it comes in different ways depending on the person. Sometimes it’s like just a real strong stillness in a particular area of the body. Or sometimes I feel the actual emotion in, so you’ll see that in Satsang, that tears can come as I let sadness or grieving. As I’m with somebody, if it’s particularly strong, if they haven’t allowed that, I’ll actually be with them in the feeling of the grief. And somehow that makes it easier for the person to open to these strong emotions or feelings.

✨ Oneness, Awareness, and the Nature of Reality

Rick: That’s interesting. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Amma, the Hugging Saint, but she’s kind of interesting to watch because she’ll sit there for 10 hours at a time or something, and people are coming up and she’s embracing each one. And it’s like there’s kind of this infinite flexibility in terms of her adaption to each individual who comes up. There’ll be tears one minute, laughter the next. It’s amazing. It’s like Mark Twain said about the weather in Connecticut. If you don’t like it, wait a few minutes. But there’s this infinite flexibility in responding to each person and going deep into the situation with each person, and uplifting them and helping them to clear out whatever it is they’re going through.

Yeah, this being with, we feel so alone. That’s what the separateness is. It has a feeling as if you’re alone. Nobody’s really alone. We’re such an incredible mix of everything that’s happening. But it’s to open to that. It’s also scary. People find that scary to really let in that they are more of a gap than they are substance. And that there is no glue holding them together as a human being. It’s just happening that way. There’s a magnetic-ness and intelligence to the molecules and atoms, but there’s no glue.

Interesting. Well, there is and there isn’t. Isn’t there a level of our life which is totally open and totally unbounded, and you used the word “vast” at the beginning of the interview? And then at the same time there’s a sort of a structured level, a manifest level, which has its integrity, even though science would tell us that if you look closely enough, it’s mostly empty space, but there’s a sort of an individuation that makes life possible. Or not. I’m not willing to put words in your mouth, but do you see it that way or otherwise?

Canela: Well, I know that there was a time when I did see it that way, and that fell away when I connected with Isaac that time.

Rick: Isaac Shapiro?

Canela: Yes, I just asked him, “Is it beyond perception?” And he said, “Yes.” And in that moment, the part that was sort of feeding the belief in as if I was something, disappeared. It just actually fell away. It seemed to be sort of around me, this structure, and it just disappeared. It completely left, and so there is actually a… When I look, there’s a direct experience of space and something here in space, right now. And same as the computer, same as the air between what appears to be here, and the computer screen, and the sound that’s happening. To me, it’s all kind of particled in a way. I can feel that directly.

Rick: Particled means what?

Canela: It’s particles dancing. So it’s quite fluid. And at the same time, I can stop and… I mean, that’s the incredible miracle. I can stop and I can put my hand on my hand, and there’s something that seems to be solid, and guess what? I get to feel my hand with this other hand. And that is so amazing, because simultaneously, there’s also this direct experiencing that it’s not that. And so we get this gift of experiencing ourselves as a human being, in the midst of the dance of everything that is.

“We get this gift of experiencing ourselves as a human being, in the midst of the dance of everything that is.”

Rick: That’s interesting. Well, you know, scientists would tell us that what appears to be solid and discreet and dense is actually anything but that. It is particles dancing, and not even particles, it’s sort of probabilities percolating up out of the vacuum state and dropping back. But most of us don’t experience it that way. Most people experience the world as concrete. And what you’re saying is that your day-to-day life is in tune with what the scientists say, that you’re experiencing the sort of virtuality of things, and yet at the same time, the solidity of things. And paradoxically, both things are enjoyed in one package.

Canela: It’s a delight. It’s just that the foot falls and lands on something. The whole thing, I mean, that the blood is pumping, that there’s air that’s being breathed, that something forms these words even right now. I mean, if I look in that direction, I could be smothered in love. That’s what it feels like. It feels like such an amazing gift that for no reason is happening, and I get to be a part of it as this human being. And it seems to have magnified with really taking care of her and turning around and embracing this woman that I am, and being tender and caring, and all the bits and pieces that were imagined came from someplace else, or from someone else, I’ve bit by bit given to myself, found a way to be creative when any kind of longing came up, how could I gift that to myself in some way?

And did so, and slowly but surely then she, I opened up to more and more relaxing into experiencing love itself, directly, not because of anything, but here all the time. And so then other times I can be thinking, well, I’m hungry and I’ll make some toast. But if I even look at that, if I stop and look at the moment, and then you get used to it, I mean it’s just unbelievable that you get accustomed to living like that, and so it’s nice to speak about it sometimes. If there’s something that I would have loved to be able to do, it’s to give people a taste of what I experience. And the only way, the closest I can come is by being with people.

Rick: Yeah, well that’s always a motivation for me when I’m talking to people like this, is what can be said that would give others a taste of this? We don’t want to just hear people’s stories, how it is for them. We want to tune in to actually enjoying that same level, or same type of experience ourselves if possible and appropriate. And I think there was a lot packed into what you just said that would be helpful for people. I mean, for instance, you were saying that you gradually shifted from a lack of self-sufficiency, being dependent upon external things and people and whatnot for this, that and the other thing, and then learning to discover that what you were seeking externally was actually available internally.

I think you used the word “caring” and some words like that, if you treated yourself with the right TLC or tuned in to what was going on inside with sufficient clarity and subtlety.

Canela: Right, and just being with, “Okay, what does she want now? What is she up to?” And we’ve all been trained to be field-dependent. In other words, everything out here is going to give us what we want. And that’s the falsity. That’s where the suffering comes in. Love resides here with you. You experience it where you are. When somebody loves you, that gets opened in the heart area and you experience love right where you are. You don’t actually experience it over there in the other person. So it’s like that. So if there’s any kind of… It’s beautiful that it rose in me that, okay, to be in this relationship, some sort of relating. I wanted to be in… That’s what kept rising and I was totally irritated by that. Because it’s like, “Oh, this darn thing.” And so then I would see, “Okay, so what is it that she’s looking for in your relationship?

What is it that she feels that she might be missing?” And when I asked that question in the moment of when the thought or the longing would occur, “Oh, if only I was in a relating right now, then I’d be happy.” So in that moment, stopping and seeing, “Okay, what is it that she’s looking for?” So I did find it helpful to sort of be beside myself and see her as a third person. Like when I say I talked about her and this and that.

Rick: Yeah, I was going to say, you refer to yourself in the third person. It’s kind of funny.

Canela: Well, because that’s, you know, as a parent, right? That’s how I am with my sons. I see and tune in, and to the best of my ability, I’m with them when they need me and I stand back when even though I want to meddle in their affairs. And just realize, no, let them follow their way. My thing is to let them know that I’m here with them and I’m available. And all they need to do is say the word and I’ll be with them. And I don’t even know if I can be supportive. All I know is I’m willing to be supportive, if ever.

And so I turned that around on myself and I decided to become the parent that I am to them, to myself. And so it’s almost like awareness and I are this team. And awareness watches the whole play of event and sees when she’s whatever, in her humanness, being human. And then tends to her, you know, how can I meet her? But the I, it’s just this weird thing because it’s actually awareness. And then inviting that, not to, there’s no getting something, there’s only inviting. And then allowing awareness to pick up when the offering comes, whatever that is.

But in some ways it’s been practical, like ridiculously practical. I guess I’m quite logical too, that occurs here, this logic. So if there was a need, I remember feeling that I wanted to be held, right? That that was part of the pull of being with another. As I wanted to be held and just feeling that warmth of that. And so there was some of that that I could give myself and just hugging myself. But what I found is I put pillows and everything on the couch and some blankets. And I cozied myself, made a spot where I felt some pressure behind me and in front of me. And I felt so held and just let myself totally feel that.

Now some people would look at that and say, “Oh, poor woman.” As if, you know, pillows and everything, replace a warm man, you know, or woman. If that’s where people’s interest goes. And it did, it worked to a very large degree. And it came in the moment to feel and recognize that as Buddha’s hand holding me. As if Buddha’s hand was holding me. And then it’s like the covers and the pillows became loving and giving and supportive. And so, you know, it came from me in the moment in how to meet that. And I am guessing that absolutely every person on this earth, if you look at it in a moment, you will find a creative way or fool around with it a bit and find a way to meet your own longings. You know, looking in the moment.

Not as a rule that, “Oh, I’m going to, you know, as some sort of extended beyond the moment idea, I’m going to fulfill all my needs now, you know, and that’s what my life is.” Although that’s a pretty good one, actually. Maybe that would work. I don’t know.

“Love resides here with you. You experience it where you are.”

🕊️ Everyday Life and Spiritual Integration

Rick: Well, you know, it seems that we all have this, we’re all sitting on an ocean of fulfillment, or we are that ocean of fulfillment, and it’s like we’re all millionaires with money in a bank account that we’ve forgotten about, and it’s just a matter of getting to the bank account and, you know, tapping into it, and then there it is.

Canela: Yeah, it’s getting out of the way.

Rick: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Canela: Allowing ourselves to just drop whatever is in the way of that flow of energy.

Rick: Do you find that when things are really put to the test, or either positively or negatively, let’s say you receive, unexpectedly receive a large sum of money, or lose a large sum of money, or, you know, someone cuts you off in traffic, or all these different things, do you understand, do you feel that that is buffered by this sort of sense that everything is, you know, just bubbling particles, and not as substantial as it’s ordinarily taken to be?

Canela: Yeah, well, you know, it’s sudden things, right? Some stuff it just doesn’t, it’s just neutral. So, when we were in Germany, you know, they cancelled our train back to Paris, which meant that we couldn’t get our flight from Paris to London, and so, you know, it really mucked up a lot of stuff, and it was just sort of like, “Okay, well now what?” What happens now, and seeing how can we meet this, and find ourselves to London appropriately to be there for a meeting the next day. And so there’s that, it was just neutral.

Other times, like I like how you say in driving, so what I find is I might come up with, and maybe I’ll even swear, so I don’t know about swearing right here on this interview. Well, sometimes I’ll come up and say, “Oh, what the heck?” Or I’ll say, “What the hell? What the hell are you up to?” And I’ll be saying it to the other drivers, and then I’ll quickly notice that in the moment, and then I’ll say, “Oh, what the heaven are you up to?” And immediately I’m laughing, and the whole thing gets poofed, you know, it’s let go of, or I might send them a little bit of Reiki. It sort of stills the touches there, and then I notice it and I let it go. And that happens very quickly.

But certainly, you know, like when my knee went out of joint as I was running across the road, I was extremely experiencing that as I slowly fell towards the ground and landed on top of it. And there I was lying with the vision from being sideways on the sidewalk, going, “Okay, now what?” You know, can I move my leg and, you know, here I am on a sidewalk. And dealing with it, just being with those details to the best that I could, and being inclusive of the shock to the system and the surprise mixed with disappointment that it happened, because I was just feeling so alive and enjoying that the body worked so well that I could be running across the street and feeling so free, and then pop, out goes my knee, you know, wham, body gets slammed by cement, and so forth, right?

And so, working and being with the moments in that until finding myself, you know, falling, and somebody had to carry me up the stairs.

🩺 Healing, Bliss, and the Unchanging Ground

Rick: Yeah. The reason I ask is that it’s, you know, sometimes it’s easy to be all sort of smooth and go with the flow as long as nothing too serious is happening. But then when something really happens, like your knee going out or something, it’s interesting to see how it holds up under such circumstances. Or like you take extreme examples, like Christ about to be crucified or something, or actually going through that. And it’s, I guess the reason I consider it relevant at all is that we all seem to be on a sliding scale in terms of how solidly grounded we are in this, and sometimes people kind of feel like they haven’t made any progress or whatever if they kind of go to pieces if something serious happens. And maybe it’s good to just sort of be easier on oneself and to…

Canela: Well, also as one expands, right? As one allows more love, then there’s more love, more space for whatever is ready to be healed next or to be with, to be met. Because that is really what healing is. It’s just meeting these parts of ourselves and being with them as they rise. So often people feel the bliss of the opening and the oneness and the no separation and the freedom of all that. And then they mistake that because something rises within that, they think they’ve lost it. Because, “Uh-oh, now I’m angry!” Or, you know, anger happening or whatever that is. And that’s just… I can’t speak in every instance, but it seems to be a mistake that happens quite often. That people feel they’ve lost it because the bliss doesn’t feel blissful particularly.

Rick: Right. Yeah, that helps clarify. I think that’s clearer than the way I was trying to say it. And also, it’s worth pointing out, and many teachers have, that what we’re ultimately talking about here is not something which can come and go or which does come and go. Bliss can come and go. Health can come and go. Having a functioning knee can come and go. All that stuff. But there’s something underlying all that that doesn’t come and go.

Canela: Yeah, underlying, it’s holding on.

Rick: It’s whole containing, we should say.

Canela: Yeah, containing with no container.

Rick: Right, right.

Canela: Because it has no edges and is just the main experience of itself. I don’t know, it’s the solid part that’s not solid.

Rick: And that can be noticed.

Canela: Oh totally, yeah. It’s pervading, it’s encompassing, and it’s in absolutely everything. It’s just like I see you scratch your cheek, and it’s in the felt sense of the fingers touching the cheek, and this felt sense of the scratch, and the movement of the hand, and you know, it’s speaking itself like this in this moment. This vastness is speaking itself as this Rick, as this Canela. And so it’s allowing a person, allowing themselves to relax, open into that. And so that’s where the energy is. It seems, why, I don’t know, it’s not really a why, it’s just sort of how it happened with me.

But I can see looking back that in supporting people to find where energies are locked up inside, supporting them to find that, and then in sitting with it, relaxing open to it, then it becomes part, it’s no longer resistance, it’s not resistance, it’s part of the free flow of what’s happening in this expression of who they are.

✨ Influences and the Path to Awakening

Rick: Let’s explore a little bit more how you became so comfortable with this and so relaxed into it. I mean, you mentioned Isaac Shapiro, and in other talks I heard you mention Paul Lowe, and some influence of Osho, and different things. And obviously everybody’s path is different, and you can’t offer any kind of universal prescription and say that everybody should do what you did. But it’s kind of interesting also to see how, you know, you moved from one thing to the next, and how different things that you engaged in or encountered helped to open this up for you. So maybe you could trace us a little bit over what you feel is significant, or what has been helpful, and particularly things that others might find helpful if those things are still available.

Canela: Well, I was raised Catholic, and I believe it’s available.

Rick: Yeah, it is.

Canela: Now, not the dogma, but I always felt attuned to or enjoyed the scent of the incense, the sound in the church, the quietness that I could find there. I don’t know whether it’s because it’s introspective, or whether everybody is that way or not, but there was definitely something in the church. I at one point wanted to go to a Catholic college, but my parents didn’t want to drive me. It wasn’t a public bus area, so that didn’t happen, and I’m grateful for that now. Maybe, you know, again, sort of protected a little bit from going into rules and regulations, right? So, subtracting that part, there was definitely some of those rules that I did do unto others as you do unto yourself. That’s been huge from before. I mean, I didn’t really know anything about people being able to wake up, or I just knew about Jesus and Buddha, but I didn’t even know that they were in an awakened state.

They were just religions, but that’s one thing from the church. I definitely learned that in church – do unto others as you would do unto yourself. So, I would often just imagine how it would feel if I was the other person.

Now, I don’t know if that’s actually what started this whole thing about actually feeling the other person, right? But certainly, the interest was there in what was happening for them, and a caring about what people feel and how comfortable they are. So, that was there too, but probably so much more caring about other people rather than myself. That’s where I first learned it, and then gradually turned that very same caring towards myself. So, yeah, and then it was through working with my first husband. We opened our relationship to Tantra, from a regular way of being sexual together for the sensations of it. We changed it and grew together towards opening to love, and letting love be the reason to meet in that way, and that the sexual energies can support a deepening of our connection with each other.

👨‍👩‍👧 Motherhood, Emotional Healing, and Reiki

So, I’m just going to let my son know that the microphone isn’t working, so we’re using the room microphone. So, he’s being very quiet there, just in case there’s some sounds. Yeah, I’ve got a few sounds around here too. So, yeah, that’s sort of what we were looking to become closer and closer. And then also I gave birth to my sons. And when my sons were born, I saw that they were innocent and whole. The first one in 1990 was just so obvious, innocent, completely innocent and whole. And that started a whole thing that my head couldn’t quite… It just started with tons of emotions and almost hysterical, and then when my second son came, and he was the same way. So, what it was is that I looked at, well, what happened to me? Why am I not innocent and whole? Why do I not feel innocent and whole?

Because not only one, but then two, I could see from the birth of those two beings that we’re all born innocent and whole. That we all come in that way. And so, what happened? So that became my question, and also I wanted to not throw my anger towards my sons, because they were innocent. I knew that when the anger rose up, it would invoke frustrations in me, and it didn’t have to do with them. And yet there was this feeling to actually yell, as if they were somehow to blame, because they might have triggered something open in me. And so I started looking for a place that would help me, because I felt I was going insane, and actually was on a crisis line.

Rick: Why did you feel you were going insane?

Canela: All this… I was afraid I was going to hurt them, and I couldn’t.

Rick: You mean hurt them physically? I mean, every mother gets angry and so on. Was there anything abnormal about you?

Rick: I mean, it’s a little abnormal in a positive way that the birth of your sons was such a spiritual experience, and that you were so deeply impacted by seeing them as innocent and whole. I mean, I don’t know if other mothers feel that when they give birth, but it seems like it really impacted you more profoundly than normal.

Canela: Because I didn’t believe I was innocent. I was bad, right?

Rick: Oh, that’s some of the old Catholic guilt maybe in there?

Canela: Well, that everything that was good about me was either from my father, from my mother, from my auntie, or from somebody else. And everything that was bad was mine.

Rick: Oh, okay.

Canela: Right? So that’s how I was raised. And that’s a normal way. It’s not to say anything against my mom and dad, and we’re very good friends. And so there’s a hesitancy in speaking a lot about what kind of stuff happened, because they were innocent, and it was just stuff that happened to them as well.

Rick: Yeah, they were doing the best they could.

Canela: They were doing the best they could, and so yeah, anger at times was unleashed towards me as a child. So when I had children, it was a natural modeling that …

Rick: You were starting to do that too.

Canela: I wanted to, but couldn’t. So that created a feeling of, because there was no unleashing, it was just …

Rick: Oh, so you were bottling it up, yeah.

Canela: I was bottling it up because I couldn’t take it there, right?

Rick: Yeah, yeah.

Canela: And so I phoned a crisis line one night, and he said, “Well, in Canada here, you can get help if you’re suicidal.” But I had earlier, at an earlier time, I had attempted suicide, so I knew that I wasn’t suicidal because I, from that experience, I would never, never commit suicide because I know that the life force is just really super strong here. And so I could contemplate that, but it would never … it’s just a fact for me, because I explored that. But in this night that I thought I was going to be swallowed up by this black hole, I felt, okay, I phoned this crisis line, and he said, “What you’re dealing with is …” He just asked a few questions about my upbringing and stuff that had happened. And he said, “Well, you’re just dealing with emotions. You need to get some help,” and suggested I go to ACOA, which is Adult Children of Alcoholics.

And there, I just told people in the group, “I need help,” you know. And somebody recommended this PD seminar place over on Gabriel Island that I started to go to, where they supported me with foam blocks and stuff to be with the anger and let it unfurl, let it … but appropriately with a foam block where other people would hold the blocks.

Rick: You could punch it or something?

Canela: Yeah, and breathing through it, like really allowing the energy to come appropriately. And so then I learned to do that on the futon at home. So if energies rose up, I would just let my kids know, “Okay, I need to go and hit the futon a bit. I’ll be back.” And I would go, right? And that it wasn’t about them. And so things started to really shift, and that’s when I started to have some experiences, and then the Reiki came in. And the Reiki changed my life because the first experience, everything disappeared, and all that was left was this white light. And that’s a fact. That’s here. It’s not … it opened so I could see that it was here, and that’s just a truth for me. So it’s made life quite different, right?

Rick: So when you did the Reiki, it was something that was being done to you, or something you were doing, or what? I don’t know too much about Reiki.

Canela: Yeah, right. My cousin was getting her reflexology registration, so she had to practice on 30 people to get it. So she was practicing on you. Yeah, she asked if I would be a guinea pig.

Rick: And you opened up into white light.

Canela: Yeah, well she did the reflexology, and then at the end …

Rick: Reflexology, is that muscle testing? Is that what it is?

Canela: No, that’s on the feet.

Rick: On the feet. Okay, yeah, massaging the feet.

Canela: Yeah, they do the little acupressure points.

Rick: Yeah, and it corresponds to different parts of the body.

Canela: Yeah, it’s an actual physical pressing.

Rick: Right.

Canela: And at the end of that, she massaged my aura.

Rick: Huh.

Canela: I didn’t even know what an aura was at the time, really.

Rick: Right.

Canela: And when she did that, I just went, “Oh, what is that? I love it. Whatever it is you’re doing, please keep …” And she just said, “Well, I’ll go wash my hands, and I’ll give you some Reiki.” So she came and put one hand on my forehead and one hand on my chest, and we moved some energy. And then I instructed her. It came from my mouth, but there was no thought prior to it to press her palms against my palms. And she did. My body flopped around a bit, and then everything, including me, her, the cable, the world, disappeared. And there was this white light that was all that there was, and sort of some … it wasn’t really time. It was more like three beats of space, I guess. And so then …

Rick: And that was a shift, and it sounds like it was a sort of a permanent … it was a milestone, and things weren’t the same after that, from what you’re saying.

Canela: Yeah, well then I realized that I didn’t have to fight. I didn’t have to struggle so hard. I didn’t understand that those were also what resistance is.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: And so at that time it wasn’t that I was on any kind of spiritual direction, right? I was just wanting to not hurt my children.

Rick: It sounds like the fact that you’re very sensitive and empathic and all this, it sounds like that … I mean, your makeup is such that throughout your life, you have perhaps had a more profound reaction to certain things than many people might have. I mean, you smoke that joint when you’re 15, and all of a sudden there’s this huge change, you know? And you do Reiki, and all of a sudden there’s this huge thing. So you’re kind of a finely tuned instrument, it seems to me. And some people are a little bit more thick-headed, myself included, but you have quite a profound sensitivity that enables you to really … Isaac Shapiro said one word and a big shift happened. That fascinates me, the fact that you could be so maybe malleable is a good word, you know? This influence, this influence evokes huge changes in your makeup and your whole way of being, which apparently are permanent.

Canela: Yes, well, and you know, it’s true. I’m very sensitive and life has been quite different for me, even as a kid, it was just different. I just watched everything because how everybody else was reacting to stuff was totally different than what I was seeing and experiencing. And I didn’t understand it, I just stopped talking and was with it all as best as I could be. Because if I pointed to it, people told me …

Rick: I thought you were an oddball.

Canela: … that I was ridiculous, “Don’t be so stupid, what are you talking about?” And definitely, perhaps when I look back, somewhat threatened by what I would point to. And also, I definitely was very straightforward and just said things, and that wasn’t good as a kid either. Yeah, these days we have what they call the indigo children, who are these sort of special kids, and they’re very psychic or empathic or whatever. But it seems like there have always been people like that, maybe they’re becoming more common.

Well that’s all it is. Reiki, you know, when I … I’ve been practicing Reiki for 18 years now, since that point. And I took the training only to find out what the heck happened to me, because I didn’t understand this white light thing. Except for that I knew that it was bigger than everything that’s appearing here. But I still was looking to understand it as a human being, and that’s what led me into this. So, also I became a Reiki master, so that I can attune people. And all that is, is an opening of the crown chakra to your own listening to yourself, from your seventh chakra here.

Rick: All that is means all Reiki is?

Canela: Well, it’s an attunement. It opens the crown chakra. That’s what Riki initiation is.

Rick: That’s its ultimate purpose.

Canela: No, that’s when you take Reiki level 1 or 2.

Rick: Oh, that’s what happens.

Canela: You have these initiations and you commit to it by paying for it, and then it deliberately opens the crown. And so then people do open to their sensitivities, or however it is they see energies. And the trick is that you will be hearing energies in your own way, so you can’t compare it.

Rick: Does it work that way for everybody?

Canela: Yeah.

Rick: I mean, nobody flunks the class?

Canela: Nobody flunks the class. It’s just basically, are you interested to explore listening to your own intuitive and higher self directly? If you’re interested in that, and then Reiki just gives a container on how to play with it.

Rick: So the training somehow gives you a technique or practice or a way of having that happen.

Canela: Well, there’s the attunement, so that just happens, that’s it. It’s done. So it’s like you opened a door, but you can’t shut it.

Rick: Somebody else enables that to happen, or you yourself have that happen somehow in the practice?

Canela: I actually do the initiation on people.

Rick: And then when you do, then it opens up for them?

Canela: Yep.

Rick: And then they theoretically could become trained and do that for others and so on?

Canela: Yeah. It’s just learning how to do the initiation with others. And then it’s the practicing, so the crown gets opened and the person’s interest is in healing for themselves and others. And so through time and practicing, Reiki, that’s what I mean. So that sensitivity that I was already born with, like the color of my eyes or the shape of my nose, to me it’s not special because it’s just what’s here, it was given. And yet it’s all special, just like the color of my eyes and the shape of my nose, because it’s just happened that way.

Rick: But unlike your eyes and your nose, the fact that you’ve made a practice of it and put attention on it has enabled it to blossom more and more, over 18 years.

Canela: Yeah, and thankfully, because it gave me a direction that finally, my world, I could offer it. I could be with people and people actually wanted it. And so compared to just being by myself with whatever was happening, and apparently nobody really interested in this viewpoint, right?

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: Oh, lovely kitty.

Rick: Yeah, there she is. I think she’s starting to think about lunch, I think. But obviously you didn’t stop there, because you’ve gone on to these other things. And so Reiki became part of your toolkit, it sounds like. But then there were, I’ve heard you mention other things. So there must have still been a sort of a quest or a sense that, well, keep going, there’s more to discover.

Paul Lowe, Radical Exploration, and Letting Go

Canela: Well, what I noticed is that Gabriola, the place, the workshop place that I would go to, this PD seminars, I was taking workshops like on a weekend or whenever I could, because of course I had young children at home. So when things got to be where I was having a hard time handling regular life, I would give myself a weekend over there to be with myself and learn what’s going on, and give myself the space, you know, just to see what’s going on. So I noticed that the people that I was mostly attracted to, to do their workshops, started disappearing. And so each time I would go and I would look for them on the roster to see what are they offering next, they wouldn’t be there. And they were all going to travel with this guy, Paul Lowe. So of course I got curious about that. So it was actually Paul Lowe’s book. He came to Vancouver, I guess it was in 1995, and I bought his book.

I felt drawn to go and see who this was, but I didn’t actually go to a workshop of his for another two years after that. But brought the book with me on this trip to South America. And so my husband and I were reading it together and exploring what he was saying. But one of the things was that the experiment is over, you can wake up. And so this is the first I’m hearing about this waking up stuff. And so I say, “Okay, wake up,” to myself. And I knew it wasn’t it. And so it kind of…

Rick: It wasn’t it, meaning you didn’t wake up.

Canela: That’s right.

Rick: Now this is not, hopefully this is not a diversion, but a couple of weeks ago some guy from Italy emailed me and said, “You got to check out Paul Lowe.” So I looked up Paul Lowe and the first thing I saw was a whole group shot of a bunch of people sitting there naked. And I thought, “Okay, well, this guy is from Italy, you know, the Prime Minister of Italy has bunga bunga sex parties with 17-year-olds, so I guess that makes sense. But it doesn’t seem like something that would be appropriate for my show. But is that the same guy and what’s that all about?”

Canela: Sounds like the same guy. So what Paul… Paul’s space… Now, it was about seeing who you are and what you are afraid of. And he liked to go right out to the edge of everything inclusive of sexuality. So where are you afraid? Are you actually afraid of… Like if you’re a man of other gay men or, you know, do you have a homophobia inside yourself? And then he would invite, “Well, what do you know if you haven’t experienced it directly? How could you be so sure?” And then, “What is this fear about?” Right? So is the fear rising for some reason? How would he have you explore? I mean, would you go and have sex with a man even if you weren’t gay or something like that? If you had a fear around it or a resistance to it, it’s… What Paul would invite is attraction or reaction. So either you’re attracted to something or you’re reacting to something.

Both are invitations to move toward yourself.

Rick: And if you’re neutral about it, then it may not be an area you need to explore, is it?

Canela: It’s not, yeah. It’s not an issue. So all the different, of course, you know, in our Western… In all of the walks of life, there are all sorts of things around sexuality, what’s allowed, what isn’t allowed, what’s taboo, what’s not taboo.

Rick: Yeah. And it’s interesting that so often, you know, some preacher who has been railing against homosexuality will end up having, you know, being caught in some homosexual relationship. You know, he’s the one who’s shouting the loudest against it.

Canela: Right. Yeah, that’s exactly, exactly the sort of thing. So for that, you know, a lot of people would be very uncomfortable and call Paul Lowe wrong. And for sure it did attract some people who were maybe just wanting to mess around with the sensation sexually, you know, be able to be with all these people who are being open.

Rick: But he was trying to be an iconoclast. He was trying to break people’s boundaries and uncover their phobias.

Canela: Supporting them too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rick: Helping them do that. Yeah.

Canela: And he is more of a guru. So he has people, you know, that he’s the one that says stuff, and people believe that. And so that part of, you know, I was sort of there because of his book, but also because the people he attracted were just such high caliber people of interest, and homeopathic doctors, and really, you know, if they’re willing to go exploring on the extreme edge like that, they’re pretty amazing people.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: And also he liked to invite something called a sharing of inner dialogue. So whatever it is that the mind is coming up with, judgments and stuff, to actually just say it out loud instead of keeping it inside to yourself. And so this would create a completely beautiful level of intimacy as we all would practice this sharing of our inner dialogue. It again would open and release tensions around the truth. And being willing to expose that to others in honesty, again has its merits of opening to oneself. So that which is hidden, of course, gets exposed.

Rick: Right.

Canela: And then, you know, how humbling is that. So that kind of work isn’t attractive to a lot of people because they don’t really want to share what they’re truly thinking, what they’re truly feeling.

Rick: Well, in a certain sense though, I mean, you know, there are the encounter groups of the 60s and early 70s where you just spill all your garbage, and some of that was of dubious value. You know, there’s just… sometimes it’s better not to sort of just… I don’t… you can disagree with me, but it seems to me sometimes it’s just bad manners to divulge everything you’re thinking.

Canela: It’s kind of funny because later I did end up going to… Rosebank to Australia and living in a house with a bunch of people who were also with Paul Lowe and practicing sharing their inner dialogue and all that. But the reason I… you know, hindsight again, that what that group gave me was a place to let go of my life. So Paul did say, you know, to the whole group at Harbin Hot Springs, “Well, you know, you have to let go of your life, of the world as you know it, in order to experience this that I’m pointing to.” And when I heard that, I knew it was true for me.

“You have to let go of your life, of the world as you know it, in order to experience this that I’m pointing to.”

Rick: And you actually… yeah, you actually left your husband and your kids at that point, right?

Canela: I stood up in that moment in Harbin and I was ready to just go walking out from Harbin right then and go with nothing. And my knee had gone out of joint then, so I would have had to use crutches. I put my thumb out on the road and just let life take me. And he… Paul said, “Hold it, hold it, hold it. You don’t have to do it like that.” You know, you need to… you know, you can do it with support. And so then that’s… I needed to go home to my children, you know, and husband at the time, and work out what we could arrange so that I could be free to, you know, let go without knowing what was going to happen. I mean, we gave me a six-month period and then we would see what would need to happen from there. But I needed to let go of everything.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: So, went down to like one box of mostly rocks and feathers and books. That’s all I… that’s what I kept of my old life. And of course, all the experience was still with me.

All the connection, everything. It’s just the belongings that I let go of.

Rick: Right. Yeah, I heard you say that you pretty much left your family, maybe only for… I mean, the kids that you’re referring to now, your son who was making noise in the kitchen, are those the same kids that you left then?

Canela: Yes.

Rick: So, you came back to your family, or different husband maybe, but you didn’t like permanently walk away from your children or anything?

Canela: No, but at the time, I didn’t know that I would be going. I honestly did let them go without knowing what was going to happen. What would happen, yeah. And that wasn’t easy.

Rick: Yeah, I can’t imagine, yeah.

Canela: And so that’s what… it’s funny when you’re talking about the benefits of the sharing in your dialogue and all that stuff, and giving each other feedback on where a person… So, then I ended up in this house with all these other Paul Lowe people, right? And I ended up just not saying a lot, because everything I said, if I… you know, none of them had left their children. They had no idea what I was experiencing in that. And so, if I attempted to share something, they would all jump on what I said and say, “Oh, I’m not being present because my children aren’t here right now.” But what was present was a huge upheaval, as I was letting go. What I realized afterwards is that I have to be with my children, that I have to be with them in some way. So, what I actually let go of was the form of it, was the goal.

Rick: Right. You let go of having it define you.

Canela: Right. Yeah, and in some sort of have to.

Rick: Right.

Canela: So, you know, it became very clear prior to doing that, I saw that they were, my husband at the time and my children, were like a chain shackle, a ball and chain around my ankle that I was using as an excuse to not do what I knew I had to do. And so when I saw that, that clearly, I knew I had to let them go and find out what this was that was calling me inside.

Rick: Of course, some people would accuse you of being self-indulgent and irresponsible for doing something like that.

Canela: Like all of my family, yeah.

Rick: Right. Oh yeah, right.

Canela: So, against everybody, nobody wanted me to do what I was doing. A few people could feel it and felt completely drawn. Most people were very threatened. You know, I didn’t just leave my kids, I mean, they were five and six years old. I didn’t leave them in a ditch or something, you know?

Rick: Right.

Canela: I left them with their father willing to be with them.

Rick: Yes.

Canela: But I didn’t know that…

Rick: So you severed the ties in a responsible manner, you didn’t just go walking out and…

Canela: Yeah, and I didn’t really know that. I still felt like I was doing something wrong.

Rick: Yeah, I’m sure it must have been a big, huge… It was both, right? I knew that I had to do what I… I had to step away from everything, 100%.

Yeah.

Canela: And then, at the same time, I felt like I was torturing myself.

Rick: Yeah, well it took a lot of courage. I mean, it was a very bold thing to do.

Canela: It was, and it was necessary. And of course…

Rick: I’m not saying everybody in the world should do it, but you had to.

Canela: I had to. There was no doubt that was the direction for this person. And so that’s why I support people. It’s what’s right for them, and what’s true for them. Not to do what I did, because it… But sometimes people get triggered open and know when they hear these words that, “Oh boy, they can think something about that.” But they’ll find their way, and it’s important that they find their unique way of opening to all that is.

Rick: Yeah, there are no universal prescriptions, but it is interesting to hear what people have gone through, such as yourself, as long as it’s offered with the proviso that you’re not saying everyone should do this. But it’s fascinating to hear the paths that different people have taken. And you can see how it… I’m sorry, go ahead.

Canela: I was just going to say, I didn’t know when Paul Lowe said that at Harbin, and I knew when he said it that that’s what had to happen. I didn’t know that that’s what renunciation was. So I didn’t know until afterwards that that’s what I had done, is renounce my life.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: I didn’t know that. All I knew is that I needed to let go of everything so I could see and feel whatever this was that was calling inside.

Rick: I would say that’s a form of renunciation. There’s also an inner renunciation in which one could have very well renounced to a profound degree while yet appearing to be completely involved in all the normal aspects of life. But I really do think that sometimes an external renunciation, such as you did, can be instrumental in breaking a lot of ties and boundaries, and perhaps leading to the internal renunciation. I think right now I’d say you’re probably in a very renounced state, even though you’re back in the family.

Canela: Right, yeah, those lines of whatever, they were never picked up again.

Rick: Right.

Canela: I met my sons newly and needed to learn how to figure it all out as we went along, to the best of my ability, as equals. So it totally changed how we were together.

Rick: You’re not your average mom. I mean, how are your kids turning out? How old are they now?

Canela: They’re 19 and 21. The reason I live in North Vancouver is that I moved back here from Massachusetts. I am Canadian-born, but I was living in Massachusetts because that’s where, when I left my life, that’s where my ex-husband took the boys.

Rick: I see.

Canela: And so I went there to be with them, and so I lived there for a couple of years, and then brought them back to Canada with me. Because that’s what was true of this part, to be with them was the only direction.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: And so now they’re totally resourceful to their own selves. They don’t come to me for me to show them how to be happy, or as if I’m going to give them their happiness. Right? They’ve learned to access their own self and support themselves, and I can be here and support them if need be. But they’re able to respond. They’re responsible. They’re able to respond to their own scenarios to such a high level that my heart is completely at rest.

Rick: That’s great.

Canela: Of course I love them and I want them to be happy and everything. And when things happen that maybe aren’t so comfy for them, I feel that, and I let them be. Because how do I know what they’re supposed to be going through?

Rick: Were their teenage lives fairly smooth? I mean, didn’t it get too crazy?

Canela: You mean the drugs and alcohol stuff?

Rick: Yeah, all that stuff, the stuff that a lot of us went through.

Canela: Again, I spoke with them long before and shared with them what happened with me with the marijuana and with alcohol. They were part of my life at that time. Maybe three and four years old or something like that. Certainly I shared when I was a teenager what I did. I did go to lots of parties and did all sorts of things that were completely dangerous, drinking and driving, and all the stuff that we did was crazy. But I made it through that, and so I said, “Well, I prefer to know when you start exploring.” So I can be with you in heart. Of course I would love to actually be there too.

Rick: Do the driving.

Canela: Not likely, Mom. And so they explored and shared with me when they were exploring with alcohol and with smoking marijuana, and what that was like for them. Yeah, and so there’s been some bits where you have phone calls late in the night to come and pick them up.

Rick: It’s great.

Canela: Really beautiful, and it’s like we can go through hard times together.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: Being mutually supportive, you know, it’s different.

Rick: Yeah, it seems healthier than the average relationship that kids have with their parents. I mean, I’m sure there are many other good examples, but this is a… It seems like it’s worked out.

Canela: So far, so good.

Rick: Yeah.

Canela: I still imagine that they’re going to need to go through some workshops and deal with whatever I did, and maybe some abandonment stuff when I did lead them to their father. But I don’t know if that’s… I talk openly about that. That’s a workshop right there, just the fact that you’re so communicative with them. I’m sure you’re helping them resolve things that…

Yeah, they’re… they just shake their head. My one son’s come to satsang just so he can see what it is that I do. And his feedback was, “Oh, you’re just being you.”

Rick: Yeah, right.

Canela: And so, you know, it was sort of like, okay, it wasn’t… and it was magnified because of the interest in the container of satsang.

Rick: Right.

Canela: But both of them are amazing people. I’m honored that they’re a part of my life, and their sensitivities are whatever they are. They’re not playing in them directly, but they’re totally aware that they’re part of what’s happening in their own experience in their lives.

✨ Awakening with Isaac Shapiro and the Unshakeable State

Rick: That’s great. So, you had your Paul Lowe phase, and then you alluded to Isaac Shapiro. I mean, was there at any point in your life the big “aha,” grand turnaround? You know, some people refer to that sort of thing like, “When I had my awakening, it was like a watershed moment, night and day difference. Things have never been the same since.” So far you’ve alluded to sort of a number of milestones, but has there… with Isaac, was that what you were referring to there? Just that that was really the big kahuna?

Canela: That was the big kahuna. The kahuna I met, the kahuna. And it’s been a kahuna ever since. So, yeah, that’s… the awareness realized itself. And it’s not… nothing’s been built up since then. There’s been no… it can’t go away. I cannot move out of the moment. I’ve played with this, to test it out and move out of it.

Rick: Seeing if you can move out?

Canela: Yeah, just to see, okay. And it’s like, it just… of course, that playing with it just solidified it even more.

Rick: What would you do to try to move out of the moment?

Canela: Oh, well, I think I shared this in an interview somewhere. But yeah, I got really super drunk to see if I could…

Rick: Make it go away.

Canela: Make it go away, lose it somehow. And no, awareness was aware when double vision was happening. And the response to the alcohol in the body the next day. And thankfully I do have Reiki, right? So even though there’s the feeling of the body attempting to deal with the poison, I can use Reiki to soothe myself as that’s happening.

Rick: Yeah, and presumably that was an experiment you didn’t need to repeat.

Canela: Yeah, no, I didn’t. Then I smoked some marijuana too. To see what would happen. Yeah, and there was some stuff with a shaman who was doing ayahuasca journeys.

Rick: You did that?

Canela: Well, first he invited me, because of the state of awareness, to be with people. And so I was there just with people without taking anything myself. And I would kind of journey with them because of the sensitivities I can.

Rick: Yeah, you’re tuning into…

Canela: Yeah, just being with them completely. So we could travel together with whatever it was that was going on for them. And then it occurred to not be afraid of drugs anymore. To see what it would be like and to trust the shaman and trust awareness. Because I was still giving it some power if I was afraid of it. As if it could have some power over me. And so I tried it and it was beautiful, lovely. Actually, ecstasy was the first one, and then the ayahuasca, and then journeying with people with the ayahuasca. And it was fine. It just opened other doorways of awareness.

Rick: So in the midst of all that, self being aware of itself, and yet this whole thing caused by ayahuasca. In other words, the ground state continuum of self-aware of itself was unperturbed by whatever effect the ayahuasca had.

Canela: Yeah, well the ayahuasca just felt like something was searching around and looking under rocks and nooks and fannies, and searching all through the system to find something, and it didn’t find anything. So that was that. I didn’t need to explore that anymore.

Rick: There was that story from Ramdas, be here now, where he went and saw Neem Karoli Baba in India and had some LSD in his pocket. Neem Karoli Baba said, “You brought the pills? Give them to me.” And he just popped several of them, more than anyone would ordinarily take, and nothing happened.

Canela: Yeah, I heard that. And I had the ecstasy. The first time it was with the fear, and it was just like liquid honey, sort of flowing through, and there was a lot of seeing stuff. The next time it was with people who were doing it recreationally, and I just meditated, and it just was sort of a hum. And then the next time it was nothing at all.

Rick: Yeah. So have you satisfied your curiosity with all that sort of experimentation?

Canela: Yeah. Well, to that degree, I don’t know what else. But certainly there is not a fear of drugs anymore.

Rick: Yeah, but you feel no need to sort of test to see what effect this, that, or the other thing is going to have on your awareness?

Canela: No, it’s been 14 years.

✨ Ongoing Growth and Subtlety After Awakening

Rick: One thing, if you have watched any of my interviews, you may have heard me ask, is that having established Self-Realization, or whatever terminology you want to use, most people that I talk to, even sort of well-known, well-respected teachers, such as Gangaji and Adyashanti, and people like that, they all seem to say that, “Yeah, but that’s not the end of the journey, and it’s not the end of the exploration. There seems to be no end to the unfoldment or refinement.”

Canela: Well, that’s why I say, “I don’t know,” right? When you say, “Is the experimenting over?” “I don’t know.” It seems like the way that the exploring comes up is, is there a fear around it? And so, the only thing that occurs to me in this moment is, I believe there is some fear, yes, around getting laser eye surgery. And so, I’ve been toying with this. All my brothers and sisters have had it. I still wear hard contact lenses at night that reshape my eyes during the day, but I’ve been afraid to… And yet, it would be totally supportive for clear vision.

Rick: Yeah. I know people who have undergone it, and they all say, “It’s great. It made a big difference.”

Canela: Yeah. And so, I feel like maybe that’s going to happen in the spring, and yet, there’s parts of me that still play out the whole Catholic thing, that if I’m looking for clear vision, am I being ungrateful for what I do have?

Rick: Yeah. That’s like saying, “If I’m eating healthy food instead of donuts, am I…” It’s like, you help your body function as well as it can.

Canela: And that’s true, right? It’s all the different things. It’s like treating myself as a woman instead of something that’s neither a man or a woman. Just enjoying her as she is, and doing what’s appropriate. And at the same time, because there’s been so much questioning around this issue, I do get that there is something for me in the learning of that, even if it is just to let go and do it and trust.

Rick: Yeah. In a way, have you found that the learning has accelerated as a result of the self-realization, that somehow lessons are learned more quickly and more appropriate lessons are sort of encountered?

Canela: Yeah, it’s more of a… it’s not so extreme.

Rick: You don’t have to do such radical stuff, you mean, to learn lessons?

Canela: Or the learning doesn’t come in such a radical way.

Rick: It doesn’t have to be so demonstrative or so… yeah.

Canela: Yeah, it’s not extreme, so the results aren’t as extreme. It’s more smooth.

Rick: Subtle.

Canela: Yeah, it’s more smooth and subtle. Well, you know, it’s weird to say, but you get used to it.

Rick: Yeah. And then, you know, sometimes in a moment there can be something like angels holding me close, and it’s beautiful, literally.

Subtle Realms and Angelic Experiences

Literally? You see them or sense their presence or what?

Canela: Absolutely.

Rick: Both?

Canela: Yes.

Rick: Huh.

Canela: So if that’s what comes up, right?

Rick: Yeah, yeah.

Canela: It’s not where I tune in a hundred percent of the time or whatever, but it’s just like this is heaven.

Rick: I’m glad you mentioned it actually, because a lot of people, most people don’t mention that sort of thing. And, you know, I’ve always heard that there is this sort of more celestial realm, and that once Self-Realization has been established, the capacity to tune into that is going to be enhanced. Or maybe enhanced.

Canela: Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s… I don’t know if it’s been more. It’s probably more with the Reiki and stuff.

Rick: Yeah, you are so…

Canela: That, yeah, for a time that, you know, Mikael, the archangel Michael, he was with me in, you know, just for a chunk of time when I was in Massachusetts. Very, very literally.

Rick: Literally meaning almost like as if concrete perception almost, literally.

Canela: But to me it was concrete.

Rick: Yeah, yeah.

Canela: It’s like, you know, walking down the street and having him with his wings around me, walking right beside me.

Rick: Wow.

Canela: And so, yeah, there’s that kind of…

Rick: And you knew it was him for some… somehow.

Canela: Yeah, I knew it was him.

Rick: Yeah. And why was he doing that, do you think?

Canela: In support of me. I guess, you know, living like this, being sensitive, there’s been a… because people haven’t been very caring up until now, perhaps, but, you know, of course over time, that realm has been extremely with me, even as a child, as a support. So, you know, and then there was a time where it was like, “Oh yeah, what the heck with the humanness?” You know, I have this whole other realm of angels and spirits loving me. Who needs humans, right?

Rick: Yeah, yeah.

Canela: And so it’s more about being with other human beings as a joyful encounter, or whatever it is. Sometimes just feeling drawn, like my heart just starts to beat, and then I’m like, “Oh great, okay, now I have to say something.” You know, because my heart is saying, “All right, say something.” And that’s how it tells me sometimes, is it might beat really, really hard, and say, “Okay, now, now, now.” And I guess it’s like the Quakers, right? They get shaken.

Rick: I don’t totally get what you’re saying right now. Your heart literally starts beating hard, and you feel compelled to say something. In what context?

Canela: Sometimes it’s like in participating in a conversation, or like there’s a… We are part owners, my dad and us, are halfers in a condo down in Mexico. And some of the stuff that goes on as far as the rules and regulations, and what people are… without all the owners getting to vote. So a part of me stands up, and so I kind of roll my eyes at myself, and say, “Okay, here she goes.”

Rick: In other words, you just have to play an assertive role sometimes, to deal with situations.

Canela: I mean, that example, it’s like when consciousness calls on me directly. Sometimes it’s stronger, and I may first feel that the part of me would go, “Okay, well I’m not touching this,” right? And then my heart beating strongly, it’s like life says, “Oh yes you are.” And then seeing what happens, what am I going to say with this, and what shows up. All I know is that… I mean, that’s the only thing that’s leading me, is my heart. Besides basic stuff, you know, it’s the body, the stomach might feel hungry, so I’ll feed myself, you know, or thirsty, or whatever. The whole thing is playing itself out, and so the heart is sort of the bigger leader. But in conjunction with the mind, and however the flavor of who I am, it all comes in, it’s all available to come into play in the moment.

Rick: Good. I mean, that’s refreshing in a way, because there are some people who put such strong emphasis on the fact that there is nobody at home, you know.

Canela: But that’s the gorgeousness of it. It is. There’s nobody talking to nobody right now, and yet there’s also this that appears here that could easily be absolutely not here. But it is. There is this, Rick, you know, there is the felt sense of your feet on the floor, you know. There’s this whole play of its own self that’s in the nothing. The nothing is playing itself as nothing. I don’t know. It’s true. And to me the joy is being with the appearance, the play of it all. It’s a dance.

“To me the joy is being with the appearance, the play of it all. It’s a dance.”

Rick: Exactly. And I guess another way of putting it is that the absolute view and the relative view are not mutually exclusive. The two, if they can be seen as two, are part of the whole package. And it sounds like you live a very engaged life in many ways. You’re not beating the drum of impersonality. There’s also a very vibrant personal expression.

Canela: Yes, yes. It’s in dropping into that. That’s the love. So the perspective here is that it’s all love. Absolutely, literally, that’s so… Love doesn’t deny itself. Right? It just doesn’t. Why or whatever, I don’t know. It just doesn’t. It’s not part of… So the character, the… Sure, I’m just a human being. I’m going to say things that people won’t like and other people will. And it’s like, “Oh well, I’m with it the best I can.” And I apologize if that’s what’s necessary. It feels right to me. And usually that just opens another door of being closer with people. So it all seems to just work anyway, even if it is glitchy at times. Yeah, and there’s an enjoyment. Is that what we’re here for? To be in joy. Is that a choice? I’m not sure, but that’s what I like to support for people.

The Divine Expressing Through Humanity

Rick: Yeah, I heard a beautiful quote the other day, and maybe we can close with a brief consideration of this. It was something like, I should write it down, but it was something like, “God became man so man could become God, or could realize God,” or something. It’s sort of like, God didn’t create this beautiful form to just become a colorless blob. It’s more for the full expression of that realization, that can be had, the full channeling or blossoming of…

Canela: The expression of God.

Rick: Of the Divine.

Canela: As you said it.

Rick: In the world, yeah. We’re like tools or instruments through which the Divine can be infused into the world.

Canela: Yeah, it just can be, is being played perfectly. I love that you say that, it touches me. And so that can be looked at as something, “Oh yeah, this is God speaking.” It is, and you’re God speaking, or Goddess. Everyone looks at the universe itself, playing itself just like this, exactly. Nothing more, nothing less than this. As Rick, or as Canela, or as a computer, or as Skype. All of this is occurring here, right now.

“Nothing more, nothing less than this. As Rick, or as Canela, or as a computer, or as Skype. All of this is occurring here, right now.”

Rick: Beautiful. Well, let’s end on that note. We can’t improve upon that. That’s great. And God, in the form of our dogs, are eagerly looking forward to a walk on this lovely day that we’re having here in Iowa.

Canela: Wonderful.

Rick: Yeah, so we’ll do that. Let me just make a couple of concluding remarks, briefly, just in case somebody is tuning in to this interview for the first time, and never heard one of my interviews before. Every week I do one, and I archive it on batgap.com, which is an acronym for Buddha at the Gas Pump. So if you go there, you can find them all. You can sign up for a little email newsletter to be notified when new ones are posted. You can subscribe to a podcast to get this on your iPod. You can participate in the discussion group that takes place there with each interview. People chime in and start discussing points that were mentioned in the interview. Sometimes they’ll post a question to the guest, and I would invite you to come in and answer that if somebody posts it. There’s a donation button there. If your finger happens to drift over in that direction, feel free to give it a click.

That’s about it. I’ve been speaking with Canela Michelle Myers, who lives in Canada but travels around and does satsangs in different places, and has all kinds of videos and so on on the Internet that you can watch. I will link to her site from batgap.com, so you can explore that and get in touch with her if you like. Next week’s interview, if all goes as planned, should be with Greg Good, who is a very interesting fellow and a clear exponent of the direct path, as it’s called. So thank you all for watching and listening. Thank you, Michelle. It’s really been… well, Canella Michelle. It’s been really enjoyable talking to you, and we’ll do it again sometime.

Canela: Thank you, Rick.

Rick: Thanks. [music]