The Ibiza-based psychotherapist works alongside her mentor, the acclaimed author and physician Gabor Mat&eacute;.

Ibiza-based Stephanie Long Canavesio is a psychotherapist and meditation teacher who practices Compassionate Inquiry, a healing modality pioneered by the world-renowned addiction expert and trauma specialist <a href="https://drgabormate.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr Gabor Mat&eacute;</a>. A former model, Stephanie quit the fashion industry in order to study contemplative psychotherapy at New York&rsquo;s Nalanda Institute and in doing so healed her own alcohol and drug addictions. Stephanie went on to study beneath Gabor Mat&eacute; and now teaches alongside her mentor at events such as May&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.harvestseries.com/">Harvest Kaplankaya</a> in southern Turkey. Stephanie is the creator of <a href="https://www.presenceembodied.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Presence Embodied</a>, an immersive healing practice that fuses Compassionate Inquiry with the more spiritual elements of meditation and breathing. As Mat&eacute;&rsquo;s latest book, <a href="https://www.amazon.es/Myth-Normal-Illness-Healing-Culture/dp/1785042726">The Myth of Normal</a>, tops global bestseller lists for the sixth month running, we speak to Stephanie about what it means to be at the forefront of a healing revolution.

Compassionate Inquiry allows people to gain insight into their current behaviours and beliefs. How does it differ from other types of psychotherapy?
The main difference is that other types of spoken therapy deal mainly with the intellect, repeating the stories that we tell ourselves and reinforcing self-limiting beliefs that we often hold unconsciously deep within our psyche and somatic memories. Compassionate Inquiry works through the physical body to access these deeper layers, where the repressed emotions actually reside. The reason why talk therapy isn't as effective is because you could talk for 20 years telling your story and confirming your story, but until you're willing to sit and be with the emotional pain and go back into the moments of your childhood where you felt those fears or those anxieties, it&rsquo;s not going to work. We need to revisit that environment where we didn&rsquo;t feel safe, where we disconnected in order to survive. Because what this work is really about is re-finding who we truly are. So many of us have been through childhood trauma and invariably that is how we have lost our sense of authenticity. Somewhere along the line we have had to make a choice to lose our &lsquo;self&rsquo; to save ourselves. That's why so many people are walking around disconnected from their true sense of self. What I do is create the safe space where you feel OK to revisit the trauma. You&rsquo;re not alone, because we&rsquo;ve created the safe space together. You give yourself permission to re-experience those childhood feelings but from the perspective of your adult self and held in a compassionate presence: that which was lacking in the first place. To quote Peter A. Levine: &lsquo;Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.&rsquo;

What was the catalyst for your own healing journey and how did your life begin to change?
I had been living in Paris and modelling for many years when met my husband [the filmmaker <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/ibiza-top-five-podcasts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Giancarlo Canavesio</a>] in Ibiza in 2007. He lived in New York, which is where I&rsquo;m originally from, and I ended up moving back there in 2010 to be with him. Giancarlo had recently switched from being in finance to producing documentary films and Gabor Mat&eacute; was interviewed for one of his documentaries, Neurons to Nirvana. Gabor came and stayed with us in the house and he was the first person that I ever felt really tuned into how I was feeling. The way that he listened, the way that I felt, the questions he asked me. It was the first time that I'd ever experienced somebody so truthful in front of me. At the time I was still drinking alcohol and I wasn&rsquo;t happy. I had been taking part in ayahuasca ceremonies since 1998, but I wasn&rsquo;t on a spiritual journey. I was spiritually bypassing for ten years. This means that I believed I was spiritually evolving but hadn&rsquo;t actually embodied the teachings because I hadn&rsquo;t yet touched my own unresolved emotional pain. So, I went on a retreat with Gabor &ndash; which is beautiful because now I&rsquo;m working alongside him on retreat &ndash; and I realised that I wanted to devote myself to this field of work. I was willing to change, I was willing to be vulnerable, I was so ready to start this journey. Gabor was just launching a study programme and I was one of the first people to enrol. I went through and it changed my life.
&nbsp;
Compassionate Inquiry was developed as a powerful approach for healing anxiety,&nbsp;ADHD and&nbsp; - crucially - addiction. In our over-stimulated and addicted society, how does the process address these issues?
I think initially it&rsquo;s about dismantling the constructs we have around addiction. Addiction is a fact of life and it&rsquo;s nothing to hide from. On a personal level, I was completely lost and was numbing my pain, my anxiety, and my fear with alcohol and drugs. There's nothing wrong with addiction. There&rsquo;s nothing shameful about finding a coping mechanism that works for you. That's why I'm always happy when people begin to notice their addictions in our sessions, because it&rsquo;s just another way of hiding the pain. Once you're willing to notice the ways that you run from your pain, which could be social media, which could be gossiping, which could be judging others &ndash; that&rsquo;s when the work begins. And it&rsquo;s not just physical addictions &ndash; drugs, sex, shopping, gambling &ndash; that count. There are people who may be completely sober but who spend their whole life judging others. It's anything that numbs, that takes you away from feelings you don't want to sit with. And that&rsquo;s hard, because our entire culture is based upon these distractions and ways of disconnection, and that includes seeing faults in others before we recognise them in ourselves

Gabor Mat&eacute; has said that the purpose of the Compassionate Inquiry system is to &lsquo;drill down to the core stories people tell themselves &ndash; to get them to see what story is that they are telling themselves unconsciously; what those beliefs are, where they came from; and guide them to the possibility of letting go of those stories.&rsquo; How are those changes actually facilitated?
Firstly, it&rsquo;s about creating space where all versions of you feel welcome to emerge. To accept who and where you are, especially the parts we dislike and where we abandon ourselves. Those darkest parts are our true essence reaching out. For me, that was first realising I needed to accept that there were parts of me that found soothing in my addictions. To allow myself to see those parts of myself that needed my love and attention. Learning to take responsibility is a pillar of the transformation process. Because on the surface of it, things weren't that bad, but the stories I was telling myself internally were exhausting and I was very ready to leave that chapter. Compassionate Inquiry training is largely about first going through the process yourself and being willing to transform. To do that you have to invite in whatever it is you&rsquo;re afraid of. To befriend it. Because when you befriend your fear from an energetic standpoint, when you own it, when you allow for it to come into your awareness and understand that it's actually a part of you that just needs to be fully seen, it will transform you. It&rsquo;s about being brave enough to look internally with curiosity, courage and compassion. Compassionate Inquiry is a new way of living life and it takes real commitment and practice: the only way you can know these teachings is by putting it to the test. By re-experiencing your trauma fully and creating a container where that trauma is able to move through you and be released. And you will feel it - you&rsquo;ll feel subtle shifts and your life will begin to open up in ways that you can&rsquo;t imagine right now. And it will happen fast: everything to do with awakening and spirit consciousness happens rapidly here in<a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/five-beaches-for-spring-sunshine" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Ibiza</a>. It can be instantaneous and that in itself can feel like a miracle. To have been where I was and in the life that I was living to where I am now? That&rsquo;s a miracle I created and I am profoundly grateful.

In conversation with: Stephanie Long Canavesio

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