The girl who was afraid of everything

You can conquer your fears as soon as you are aware of them.

Some of you know me as Maggie, Maggie Luna and others know me as Megan - don’t worry you ARE NOT crazy. I do claim both of these names and I will explain why I have two names later. First, I would like to formally introduce myself and share a some of my back story. I, like many others, have experienced many struggles, challenges and hardships throughout my life. My hope is that my story will inspire you to see your personal struggles differently. My wish is that by hearing my journey, you will accept your truth and embrace who you are. It took me a long time to believe in myself and I would love nothing more than to ease that pain for others and help them accept their truth a lot faster than I did myself.

TRIGGER WARNING - some content in this blog can be sensitive and disturbing. This is my story, and I will not edit and dilute the content. The blog contains sexual and physical abuse, abuse of children, neglect, abandonment, drugs, and death. Proceed with caution, awareness and an open heart.

“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” Laurell K. Hamilton

Growing up, I was a beautiful, sensitive and imaginative little girl. I saw the world with love and compassion. I used my vivid imagination frequently. I had “imaginary friends”. I created my own stories, songs and games. I easily kept myself entertained and occupied. I also learned how to soothe, love and comfort myself as well because the home I lived in did not provide that for me. I felt everything so deeply and now as an adult, I understand that I was extremely empathetic and psychic. I don’t want to pretend that I remember all the details of my childhood because I do not, and I truly believe that is for the best. I am sure my inner self is shielding me from accessing some of those memories for a good reason.

Let’s start with my mother, Barbara. Barbara was a free spirit, born in the 50’s and was part of the hippie movement. Honestly, she probably never should have had children, but most people do not realize that until unfortunately it’s too late. Barbara was a very traumatized woman. She suffered many challenges and hardships in her life that caused severe damage to her spirit and mind. She was abandoned by her parents at the age of 7 and was forced to live in foster care with abusive foster parents. After many years, her mother was finally able to get her back but only after she endured so much pain. This created a mother wound that runs deep in my blood. She also was raped and molested by multiple family members. Barbara was physically assaulted by family as well. She got pregnant with my brother at 18 and this is when her biggest addiction became massively destructive- alcohol.

Barbara had a huge heart. She, like me, was very sensitive and empathetic. She was wise beyond her time (could be due to the psychedelics from the 60s & 70s) but she never allowed herself to accept what happened to her. She never tried to heal from her past and this caused her to carry it with her until she died. You see, we all have baggage, we all have things that are heavy to carry around but if we never sort through it and leave it behind, it just gets heavier and heavier and harder to carry. Barbara never learned to let go of her past and instead ran from it. As a matter of fact, she would drown her demons in bottle of rum. This created so many repressed feelings of guilt, shame and self-loathing. Barbara loved me the best way she knew how but we can never fully love others until we learn to love ourselves.

Now we can discuss Dad a bit. My dad’s name was Sam, and he was the typical narcissistic personality type. Unfortunately, my memories and personal relationship with him are limited because he passed away when I was 5. I found out that Sam was physically abused by his stepfather for many years. He was also abandoned by his biological father and only reconnected with him one year prior to his death. Sam was physically abusive to my mother and embodied a deep rage. As far as I know, he was not abusive to me but again I do not know for certain. The reason of my skepticism is because throughout most of life, everyone told me how wonderful Sam was. I was always told that he was an amazing father and that he loved me more than anything in the world. This was so reassuring for me and made me feel loved in the moments of my childhood where I felt the most alone. However, as I got older, I started to hear new stories about Sam that I never heard before. Like how he blacked my mother’s eye, broke her nose and would rage out on pills, alcohol and cocaine. I decided for a long time that I didn’t care about these stories and that my father only did these things to Barbara because she deserved it. She instigated it, she hit him first, she did this or she did that. While all of that may also be true, I was still in denial of his toxic behavior until a few years ago while meditating and connecting to my inner child. I had memories resurface of Sam. Memories of him abusing Barbara in front of and how helpless and scared I felt. I also had a memory of him abusing me as well. I believe Sam, just like Barbara, was simply a product of his own trauma. He allowed his past to control him and because he could not release and heal his pain, he became filled with rage and self-hatred. Anger is an easier emotion to express than anguish.

“There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.” ― Sherman Alexie

Growing up with two emotionally unavailable parents, I easily learned that my needs were not valid. I raised myself. I fed myself. I put myself to bed. I played by myself. I learned how to forge my parent’s signature for school documents. I learned to only depend on me. If I needed something, I had to work for it and I had to find a way to provide it. I craved to be held, to be loved, hugged and tucked in at night. I was also afraid of allowing people to get close to me because If I let myself love them, I would be devastated when they left me like everyone else. Nighttime was the worst for me. I cried myself to sleep a lot. I would cry at first to get attention because eventually my mom would come in and kiss me good night and tuck me in. Pretty sad I had to cry to get a kiss goodnight but at least it worked. I stopped letting them hear me cry after my sister made fun of me and called me names like crybaby and sissy. That is when the walls went up. I never let anyone see me cry after that. I turned off that sensitivity. Barbara was a frequent crier, her sensitive nature combined with alcohol made this happen regularly. I had so much resentment towards my mother that I didn’t want to be anything like her. I associated my sensitivity with Barbara, and this gave me ammo to keep it shut off. It was a long time before I was comfortable expressing my emotions, my feminine nature and nurturing side again and I still struggle with this from time to time. Limiting beliefs are hard to break.

For all of my life, I felt invisible. I was the outcast. No one understood me and worse - no one wanted to. This caused the deepest wound of them all, the wound that I am inherently unworthy. I felt unworthy of love, unworthy of affection and attention. My thoughts, my ideas, opinions and feelings were unimportant. If my own parents couldn’t love me, then why the hell would anyone else?

“You don't know who you are; you just know what they’ve told you about who you are!”
― Maddy Malhotra

The feeling of utter shame followed me for the rest of my childhood, into my teenage years and now even in adulthood. This one limiting belief has impacted my life in so many ways. It has affected my self-esteem, my friendships, partners, my career, my sex life and too many choices to count. That’s the thing about limiting beliefs, even if we are completely unaware of them, they still exist - like a backseat driver telling you where to turn next. This false belief also caused me to inherit other beliefs that helped me feed that narrative - fear of rejection because of course everyone would reject me for who I am. How could I be comfortable being myself and expressing my truth when my own parents couldn’t accept me? It also didn’t help matters that my mother also had this fear. This is a common fear in the southern United States and an ancestral curse within my lineage. I also developed fear of abandonment. I spent a lot of time away from my parents. They would rather spend their time with their friends, drinking, partying and I was often pawned off to other family members. My dad passing when I was five did not make this fear any easier. I felt really close to my sister, but she lived with her biological dad, so I had some abandonment issues from that amongst other things as well. You get the idea.

These three fears would do nothing more but cause me pain, suffering and stunt me from growth and moving forward. Even though I was unaware of these fears, they still ran my life like a power-hungry dictator. Everything was a trauma response. My nervous system was extremely dysregulated and most of my decisions were made from a flight, fight, freeze or fawn response. (SIDE NOTE: I highly recommend education around the nervous system especially for anyone who has experienced trauma.) I was afraid of everything. I was afraid to be myself. I was afraid to be different from the herd. I was afraid of making the wrong decision. I was afraid try new things, to make changes, or do something outside of my normal routine. I was afraid to live.

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”
― John Lennon

I thought I was an introvert and genuinely disliked socializing and being around people until I had my spiritual awakening. I would avoid going places because of a potential large crowd or because I didn’t know who was going to be there. After I experienced my awakening in 2019, I started slowly uncovering many of these smaller limiting beliefs until I eventually discovered the root. It was then that I realized that I wasn’t an introvert. Sure, there are moments when I want to be alone and want space and time to myself, but I used the excuse that I was an introvert to hide the fact that I was actually afraid. I was afraid of judgement, ridicule, and shame. I feared these things the most because I was constantly judging and shaming myself. I couldn’t love and accept myself so I couldn’t see how anyone else would either.

The relationships I have experienced were destructive to say the least, but we attract what we feel and what frequency we vibrate at. I obviously did not know this at the time, or I definitely would have picked up on the patterns a lot sooner. My first serious relationship was with someone who was very physically and mentally abusive. He was without a doubt a narcissist and was deeply engulfed by rage. Does this personality sound familiar? (SIDE NOTE: I am in no way shaming narcissists. I myself have displayed many characteristics and traits throughout my life. Narcissists are not inherently bad. They have their own trauma and wounds that need to be healed.) I stayed with this person for three years even though the relationship was beyond toxic. I was severely mistreated; I was very unhappy, but I continued to stay. I continued to mimic the same relationship my parents had. I allowed him to abuse me because I had been abused my entire life. This was normal. For me, this is what love looked like. This is what I was worthy of.

“We repeat what we don’t repair.” Christine Langley-obaugh

The next serious relationship I had was much better, but it was my safety net. This person was not abusive, did not belittle me, gave me attention and affection but something was missing. I didn’t feel that ‘spark’. Looking back now, I don’t know if this was because I was still suffering from wounds and trauma that kept me in a loop of needing toxic partners or if I loathed myself so deeply that I just wanted someone, anyone that would be there for me in some way. I honestly think it is a little bit of both. This is also a turn in my story where I become the villain for a little while.

I married this person and we had children together. I got pregnant at 16 and honestly felt like marriage was the best choice for both of us and our unborn baby. We were together for seven years and everything, for the most part, was okay. If I had to describe my feelings, I was content with an edge of numbness. I was totally unaware of this at the time though. Again, trauma is tricky. Since I was clearly still holding onto many limiting beliefs and wounds, I portrayed a variety of characteristics. I was constantly in my masculine and in fight mode. I was extremely controlling and hyper-fixated on things. I had to clean my house religiously. I had to control everything in our lives - our schedules, our finances, the kids’ activities. Controlling everything gave me a fake sense of peace. Trauma severely impacts our root chakra. The root chakra is our foundation and represents our feelings of safety, stability, and security. When we do not feel safe, we tend to want to control our external environment in every way possible. This was me in most of my 20s.

Not only was I a control freak, but I was also extremely anxious, irritable and jealous. My self-esteem was non-existent. I was always waiting for the moment, when I would be left, when my husband would tell me he found someone better than me, when he would confess to me my deepest fears - that I am unlovable and unworthy. This continued throughout our marriage until I began the deadliest affair of my life.

Hurt people, hurt people. Traumatized people, traumatize people.

That villain I mentioned earlier, here is where she bloomed. I broke my husband’s heart. I did the worst betrayal that could be done. This was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want to hurt him especially not in this way. I was cheated on by my previous partner many times with many different people. It shattered me but here I was, throwing away my integrity for someone who was going to murder my soul.

We divorced and I instantly jumped into my new relationship. Things were heavy very quickly. I felt this weird connection to this man that I couldn’t explain or understand. It was as if he saw the dark shadowy parts of my soul because his soul mimicked mine. I was able to share the parts of me that I normally suppressed like my depression, my pain and sorrow. The deep levels of agony in my subconscious were acknowledged in this relationship because he was damaged too, only I wasn’t aware of just how damaged he was.

“A whole life can be shaped by an old trauma, remembered or not.” - Lenore Terr

My behavior became very toxic in this relationship. Even though I have always struggled with my self-image and jealousy, I leveled down big time. I was extremely insecure and now knowing what I know, I understand why. Throughout my life, I was always an intuitive person. I was naturally connected to spirit and the world around me. I don’t entirely understand why, though I do have some ideas, but my intuition became completely blocked once I entered this relationship. I was no longer the same person. I didn’t feel connected to anything anymore. I lost faith. I lost trust. I lost everything. It was like a door was slammed into my intuition’s face! I had no idea all of this was happening until it was too late.

In the spring of that following year, I received a phone call from the city police department asking me to come in immediately. I was urged to leave my job, pick up my kids and come to the station. When I pressed for answers, they only told me that it was urgent I come in as soon as possible and bring my kids with me. So, I went to police station in shambles. I couldn’t get my partner to answer the phone. I had a million thoughts, emotions and fears storming through me. I was terrified and completely clueless.

I’m greeted by a female officer and a male detective. I agreed to allow my kids to stay in a waiting area with another officer who would make sure they were occupied and safe, and they led me back to a small room. In the cold, grey room the male officer proceeds to tell me that at my husband’s appointment today with his psychiatrist, he admitted to sexually abusing my seven-year-old daughter. They told me he was arrested following his confession and was currently in the city jail. My soul left my body.

I was completely blind-sided. Now I just want to say this for the record - until someone you love, someone you truly trust and admire like a spouse, parent, or best friend does something so vile and disgusting, you have no idea what it feels like. I can’t even begin to express it to you, but I will try. At first, I wasn’t just in shock, but I was also in denial. I couldn’t fathom what they were telling me. ‘Your husband is in jail for admitting to molesting your daughter.’ I repeated these words in my head, but I couldn’t make them make sense. The words in this sentence, they don’t belong together. I wanted to see him. I wanted to talk to him so he could explain that this was all just a joke. He was confused. He must have been reliving a traumatic experience as a child and had a psychotic episode. He would never do something like this. Would he?

He experienced severe trauma growing up. He was sexually abused by his father and by his grandfather. He was forced to commit unspeakable acts. His father also kidnapped him and took him across the country, and it took his mother over a year to find him. I knew all of this about him. He opened up to me and shared these things with me at different points in our relationship. I just knew he would never do what happened to him to someone else, but I was obviously wrong.

“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.” ― Judith Lewis Herman

Eventually, after the shock wore off, I was able to see the truth. The hardest part was not being able to confront him about what he did however, looking back now, that was probably for the best. I felt so much shame and guilt about what I allowed to happen to my family. I blamed myself. I was the monster, who loved a monster. I felt I deserved what happened and even believed it was some sort of karmic justice for my adulterous affair. I have healed a lot of those wounds, but I do believe there are some karmic lessons in that relationship and what transpired though not for my punishment.

I believe that we choose our lives before we are born on earth. We choose our race so we can learn different cultural perspectives and challenges. We choose where we live. We choose our family, our friends and our relationships. We even choose our parents. Our soul wants to learn and grow so we choose to incarnate in situations and dynamics that will teach us lessons so that we can expand.

Even though, I felt isolated, alone and unworthy growing up, I chose my parents because my soul needs to learn self-love. This is a major life lesson for me during this incarnation. I believe many of traumas and challenges are here to teach us so we can evolve as a soul. Self-love is a main theme of my life, however, there are many other smaller themes surrounding it that I must learn to conquer as well.

For starters, self-abandonment - I learned to abandon my own needs and wants because they were not met when I was a child. I abandoned myself when stayed in an abusive relationship for three years. I abandoned myself when I continued to run back even after he cheated. I abandoned myself when I destroyed my marriage. Something I would like to relate to my story is called attachment styles. Attachment styles are developed by each person, and it is usually based on the relationships you had and experienced in childhood. There are four styles but for now I am going to focus on two: the anxious attachment style and the avoidant attachment style.

The avoidant attachment is the one to flee while the anxious is the chaser. The avoidant wants to avoid everything at all costs to feel safe. They avoid conflict, confrontation, intimacy, and vulnerability. They put up walls to avoid being hurt. The anxious may be clingy and try to push or hold on too tight. They create imaginary issues in the relationship and in order to feel safe, they need constant reassurance. These two opposite styles are a ‘perfect’ toxic match for each other. As long as the avoidant keeps running, the anxious will continue chasing.

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” - Stephen Chbosky

In my story, you may have noticed both of these styles in my relationships. In the first relationship with the abusive partner, I was the anxious style. Even though he treated me terribly, I continued to run back to him, and his avoidance style attracted me on an energetic level. This is because as a child, I had unstable relationships with my parents, and they also had a toxic relationship with each other. I was so insecure and felt unworthy of love. Self-abandonment is a common theme for the anxious attachment style. This caused me to chase love from someone incapable of giving it to me, the same way I did during my childhood, abandoning myself once again. I was afraid of being alone, afraid of never feeling loved and cherished. My fear controlled my relationship. Every now and again my partner and I would swap styles, but this is how it was majority of the time.

After going through that terrible relationship, it would make sense that I would need to switch it up. In my marriage, I became the avoidant, and he was the anxious. This is also rooted in my childhood. I felt so alone that I needed to protect myself and in order to do that, I needed to detach. No one can hurt me if I can’t feel anything, so I became numb. I was afraid of being hurt again. I was afraid to open my heart and be vulnerable. Self-sabotage is common theme for avoidant attachment styles which is exactly what I did when I had the affair.

Obviously, I did not know any of this at the time and it has taken a lot of excavating of trauma and healing to become so aware of my own subconscious patterns. I still have blocks and limiting beliefs that I work through every day but the one thing that has helped me more than anything is understanding that we only operate from two emotions - love and fear.

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” ― Marie Curie

Happiness, compassion, understanding, and empathy are all byproducts of love. Hatred, anger, jealousy, and shame are rooted in fear. In order to heal and transform our trauma, we must become aware of what scares us. I will share some of my personal techniques but first I want to show an example to put this into perspective for you in case you have never heard of this concept. Let’s say my partner doesn’t return my call and it makes me angry. Anger is the triggered emotion that I am going to dig at until I discover the fear because I can promise you at the root, there is not just anger. So, you begin by acknowledging the emotion, then you start the interrogation process. First, ask why. “Why am I angry?” Okay that is simple enough, you are angry because your partner didn’t return your call - but why does that make you so angry? Is it because you feel rejected or neglected? Are you worried that something happened to them? Do you think it is inconsiderate? Does it make you feel like they do not love you and care about you?

So, I know some of these reasons for anger sound extreme and that’s normal. Most of the time, your reasons will be silly because the reason for your fear is truly an illusion. Our subconscious mind sends us thoughts and emotions to keep us safe; it doesn’t care about what is realistic and what isn’t. Our subconscious, our ego, pulls from our past experiences and beliefs and tells us what we can expect. If you have experienced trauma or you grew up in a scary environment or you have many limiting beliefs, your subconscious is constantly sending you things that aren’t logical. When we become aware of our fears and question them, often times we see how untrue they are. We then can quiet the ego and move forward into an empowered, secure state.

Not only is your subconscious mind a culprit in sending you scary false information, but so is your body. Remember earlier when I mentioned the central nervous system, well our body also keeps the score. When we have experienced trauma, our body reacts to this experience, and this can cause us to have a dysregulated nervous system. Most people are so disconnected from their bodies that they have no idea their body is reacting to stress. Before your mind associates a reason to an emotion, your body has felt it first. I believe that one of the most important things to healing and rewiring our minds is to get back in tune with our bodies. There are many different techniques for this, and I will share at another time.

To recap my healing process to conquering our fears, we must first become aware of them. Once you feel triggered, you can begin the interrogation process if you are ready and feel up for it. If not, that is perfectly okay too. If that seems too challenging, start with breathing. When we are triggered, often at times we enter a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. This response is created by the nervous system. When we take deep breaths, we are self-regulating our nervous system and this will instantly cause us to feel calmer and more focused. Try taking at least three deep breaths in through the nose into the belly when you feel a triggering emotion or thought. Healing is a big part of my journey, and I am here to assist others on their own personal healing journey. My coaching and workshops provide the steps and tools to identify your fears and then transmute them into love.

“The days you are the most uncomfortable are the days you learn the most about yourself” Mary L. Bean

Like I mentioned earlier, some know me as Maggie and others Megan. My given birth name is Megan. I created Maggie and I did this from a trauma response. After my awakening, I became very sensitive to toxic behavior. I wanted my social media, my associations, what I consume into my mind and energy to be carefree and full of love. A lot of relationships ended. I unfollowed many people and cut back significantly on social media platforms. When I got the idea for the podcast, I made the decision to change my name for social reasons. My main reason for this, was because I didn’t want anyone to figure out who I am or where I live in case, I inherit a stalker. I enjoyed the TV show, ‘You’, at that time and used that as my excuse. However, this was simply a blanket to mask my true reason.

I was ashamed of the major changes I had made. I was afraid of ridicule and judgment. I am from Alabama where everyone follows one belief system, one closed-minded way of thinking, and one path otherwise you are ostracized and disgraced. I did not want anyone knowing that I was not a Christian. I was not ready to come out of the broom closet and share that I was a practicing witch. I didn’t want anyone to know the see the real me and therefore I disguised my true identity.

I’m not ashamed of needing a false identity because Maggie was my protection. Maggie made me feel safe to open my mind, expand my awareness and be completely authentic for once in my life. I didn’t have to filter my ideas and opinions and fear being cast out for my beliefs. Creating Maggie was a steppingstone and an important piece to my growth. Without her, I wouldn’t know how whole and carefree it feels to be in alignment with your soul and your purpose. I am always uncovering limiting beliefs even after all the work and effort I have put into my healing.

“Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.” ― Leigh Bardugo

Unfortunately, your fears aren’t magically going to go away. We will always have fears and we when think we have moved through some, more will surface. I believe that is part of our purpose. Our soul journey is to learn to choose love over fear as often as we can. It won’t always be easy, but it will be worth it. Our triggers are our road map. They lead us to limiting beliefs, subconscious patterns and where trauma is stored within us. Following the map on the road to awareness, will lead you to the opening of your heart and unconditional love. If you strip away the body and the mind - when all we have left is our soul, we are the pure embodiment of love. Love is your root. Love is your essence, the only thing you must defeat is your fear.