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11. Interview: Megan Jones
49 Plays2 years ago
We welcome Megan Jones to the show, Podcaster and Spiritual Seeker, to discuss the spiritual path and much more!
Follow Megan and listen to her Podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5d2yNP8tppZ0SPko9MXLkx
@chasing.spirituality
https://linktr.ee/Chasingspirituality
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Music By Nathan Willis RIP
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Transcript
Introduction & Cross-Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of pursuit of infinity podcast where week by week, we attempt to shed a little more light on our way down the path with a little help from all of you, of course. And with the help of people like our guest today, Maggie Luna.
00:00:16
Speaker
Maggie hosts a podcast called chasing spirituality, which in our conversation on her podcast, she points out that in terms of nomenclature is pretty similar to the name pursuit of infinity. I don't think it's been posted yet, but when it does drop, go check that one out. It was a ton of fun being on her show.
Podcast Support & Upcoming Content
00:00:32
Speaker
Links to all of her stuff will be in the show notes below, including her Instagram, which is chasing dot spirituality.
00:00:39
Speaker
So go show her some support there. But first, if you'd like to support this show, the best way to do that is to subscribe and leave us a five star review on your platform of choice. And if you're feeling extra altruistic, you can visit our Patreon at patreon.com slash pursuit of infinity. We're also on Instagram at pursuit of infinity pod and our YouTube channel is coming soon.
00:01:03
Speaker
We have some exciting episodes to come, so keep up with what we're doing on the socials. And without further delay, I hope you guys enjoy today's conversation and thank you for listening.
Maggie Luna's Background & Spiritual Awakening
00:01:39
Speaker
Hey Maggie, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. So there's a question that I've been pondering as of late that I want to pose to you. But before we get to that, I just want to get a background as to who you are and how you started down this path. Sure. Yeah. So I would really just consider myself. I like to say I'm a spiritual being in a
00:02:09
Speaker
in a human body, having a spiritual experience. I feel like most of us on the spiritual path have similar backgrounds where we grew up in homes or in societies where we didn't feel like we could be ourselves. We didn't feel it was okay to be different and think outside the box. And I know for me personally, that's
00:02:32
Speaker
you know, definitely how I felt. I grew up in the Southern United States, which if anyone is familiar with that, then they know that the beliefs in the South are very strict, very conservative. There is a lot of pressure to fit in and conform and act a certain way. So I grew up thinking that Christianity was the only thing out there.
00:03:01
Speaker
I grew up in a lot of toxic racist unwelcoming environments and I just never fit in with that I I didn't agree with those things, but I was also too afraid to be myself and speak against it until.
00:03:23
Speaker
I got older, I started to rebel and I had a rebellious phase where, you know, I definitely would be more open and vocal about speaking against it. But then I also had this deep fear of rejection and this deep fear of abandonment. So I would always give in to peer pressure and to my people pleasing tendencies to again conform.
00:03:51
Speaker
So when I went through what I call my spiritual awakening or spiritual remembering a few years ago, it was like a light had came on and I realized that I had been a fake person my entire life that I was simply adopting all of these beliefs and all of these morals and viewpoints of
00:04:16
Speaker
everyone around me in my entire life, and I let them go. And a lot of people struggle and they have a hard time letting go of those things that they've adopted.
Inner Child Healing & Trauma
00:04:27
Speaker
But for me, it was it was actually the most freeing experience I ever had. And from there, I started to really get to know myself again, and ask myself, what is important to me? What do I believe? And
00:04:45
Speaker
That led me on a journey of a lot of inner child work, a lot of inner child healing, a lot of deep rooted trauma work and shedding of limiting beliefs. I read a lot of books. Don Miguel Ruiz, his book does a lot for shedding limiting beliefs.
00:05:08
Speaker
some books from Louise Hay about inner child work and healing and letting go of that sort of mindset. And I really just had this journey of rediscovering who I am. And that led me to wanting to share that with other people, which is how I came up with the podcast, Chasing Spirituality. And I really went down that path to let other people know that they can be themselves, they can
00:05:34
Speaker
start over at any age in their life. I'm in my 30s and some people think we have this idea that we have to have it all figured out when we're 18, have to go to college, know who we want to be when we grow up, but we're always growing up. We're always changing and that's part of the journey in my opinion and you can be who you want to be in any moment. And that's kind of my path and what I want to share with the world.
00:06:04
Speaker
You brought up inner child work and I'd like to talk a little bit about that. How important was that on your journey?
00:06:13
Speaker
For me, it was very important. To me, I believe there's two forms of healing. There's the feminine aspect of healing, and then there's the masculine aspect of healing. And feeling is more feminine. So when you are able to feel your emotions and feel the trauma, the things that have happened to you, you're able to release it from your body and release it from your mind.
00:06:42
Speaker
We, most of us are conditioned not to feel we're conditioned not to live in our bodies and to you know hold it in and let it go and push it off so for me. I went more of the masculine route, which is more about awareness being aware of your feelings being aware of why you think this way, why you have these habits, why you have these patterns and how they affect you and how they've shaped you to be.
00:07:11
Speaker
person you are, how your triggers affect you and how you respond. And I just developed this huge awareness around all of my thoughts and all of my feelings and all of my patterns. And I started questioning myself, you know, well, why did that trigger me? Why did that bother me so much? Why am I afraid? Why am
00:07:34
Speaker
I scared to do this or scared to do that. And for me, it led me back to my childhood. It led me back to, well, you're afraid because your mother was afraid. You're afraid because your mother was a people pleaser and she couldn't stand up for herself. So now you're afraid to stand up for yourself. You're afraid of rejection and abandonment because you didn't have the
00:08:00
Speaker
support and the love that you needed as a child because you were different or because you had parents that were just emotionally unavailable. And it led me back to myself and it led me to have more compassion and understanding and love for not only who I am now, because all of those things have shaped me, but of that little girl that didn't feel loved in a home that wasn't supportive.
00:08:31
Speaker
It seems that it's sort of inherent to have childhood trauma when you grow up in the types of quote unquote civilized societies like ours, like that are Western informed. Um, so do you find that there's almost no way to avoid that type of thing? I do. I do. I believe that if you grow up without any childhood trauma in some way,
00:09:01
Speaker
then you probably are already pretty evolved and enlightened as a person. And I believe that a lot of things that we go through, that's the purpose. It shapes us to evolve. It shapes us to grow. And it leads us on a path that if we decide to heal and we decide to be responsible for ourselves and take responsibility instead of
00:09:30
Speaker
falling into that easy victimhood and blaming, but we're able to accept responsibility for our path and our journey. That's when we'll see the huge transformations that will push us to grow. And I believe that many of us experienced these things because we chose
Karma, Childhood Trauma & Spiritual Journey
00:09:50
Speaker
them. We chose that that's what our soul needs. That's what our soul is wanting to integrate in this lifetime.
00:09:58
Speaker
So do you feel that part of the trauma that we endure as children is sort of the beginnings of our calling to something greater? Absolutely. I think that sometimes it's definitely part of our purpose. It's part of this life's trajectory. And sometimes it's even deeper than that. Sometimes it's maybe within your own bloodline, within your own
00:10:26
Speaker
ancestral lineage, I believe we also hold the trauma of our ancestors and the trauma of our bloodlines so for like for me, an example is we have a lot of feminine wounds in my family, we have experienced a lot of trauma when it comes to sexual abuse and things like that and.
00:10:50
Speaker
I feel like sometimes in order to really heal it and heal such a strong wound, it's gonna take multiple incarnations of someone's soul to be strong enough to push through that.
00:11:07
Speaker
I love that you just said incarnations because I tend to use that word quite a bit. Um, it reminds me of the way that Ram Dass talks about spirituality within the Hindu tradition where you have different incarnations and within each incarnation, there's a certain slice of karma that you have, that you have to fulfill. It's sort of like the concept of like the unfinished business of a ghost. Have you heard about that?
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit. Like to me, the karma of each incarnation is sort of a more sophisticated way of saying that like each soul has its own amount of work that it has to do within its own incarnation.
Lessons from Short Lives & Shadow Work
00:11:51
Speaker
And which brings me to the idea that if say like a baby dies or there's like a stillborn or something like that, how do you justify
00:12:05
Speaker
the karma of that particular incarnation? For me, and this is just my belief, I really think that when something happens to a baby or a child, the lesson is more towards the family. The baby soul, I do believe, knew that that was going to happen. The baby soul knew that
00:12:32
Speaker
In some way, its purpose was to help that family, whether it's the mother, the father, someone in that family was impacted by the loss of this child and the soul decided to.
00:12:50
Speaker
come on earth for that brief amount of time to help that mother, that father really learn the lessons of whatever that may be around life and death and loss.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, I've heard, again, I've heard Ram Dass talk about stillborns and babies in that way, where it's almost as if their karma is complete. Or like you said, their karma is to show someone else something or to impact the lives of other people in a certain way. I mean, we don't really have.
00:13:26
Speaker
too accurate of a way of understanding what our karma is, because I mean, if we did, it would almost defeat the whole purpose. But yeah, going back to the inner child, how how do you begin that type of work? Because that seems like some of the most intense type of spiritual work you can do. Absolutely. I think that I like to call it shadow work.
00:13:54
Speaker
because we're accessing the shadow sides of ourselves. And shadow, not to mean shadow as in bad or shadow as in dark, but shadow is also the parts of ourselves that we neglect, the parts of ourselves that we reject or we disowned for some reason. So when we look at the shadow, we're able to really,
00:14:19
Speaker
look into our psyche and see how it works and for me what the way that I started. Was I started paying attention to my emotions and when emotions with surface that would have me triggered really if I was angry or if I was upset or impatient.
00:14:42
Speaker
i'm anxious nervous I would pay attention to those feelings and just be observant and I would start the questioning process. So I would begin Okay, well, what am I feeling right now okay i'm feeling angry Okay, why am I feeling angry usually it's pretty easy to determine what initially made you angry well i'm angry because.
00:15:08
Speaker
this asshole cut me off in traffic. Okay. But why, why did that make me angry? Well, because it's inconsiderate, you know, it's they're, they're being rude. They're being a jerk. Okay. But why, why did that affect me on that kind of level? Most of the time it's projection. Most of the time it's, you know, well, I'm impatient. Well,
00:15:37
Speaker
you know, I want to get where I'm going fast. And sometimes you can take it back further and further to, well, I got cut off and it actually made me angry, but deep down the feeling was fear because I was in a tragic, you know, accident when I was a kid and maybe I was severely injured or maybe it just shook me up.
00:16:04
Speaker
And it brought back those memories and it takes a lot of time because. A lot of the deeper rooted emotions, they are deeply rooted and so it's kind of like to say you're excavating you're digging deeper and deeper and deeper to get to those root emotions which also I like to call them root emotions and root work because a lot of that is stored in our root chakra.
00:16:30
Speaker
Our root chakra is our inner child chakra because it's the first chakra that develops when we're when we're growing up so a lot of times it takes time but.
00:16:42
Speaker
You just have to keep excavating and questioning and digging and journaling is a really good way to find patterns in that behavior, so if you journal about your emotions if you journal about what triggers you you'll start to kind of see patterns well. I was triggered three days this week because of a loud sound I was triggered, you know four times this month because someone didn't call me back.
00:17:07
Speaker
And you're able to say okay well, why does that particular situation affect me as much as it does, and then you can just keep going with it, and it does it takes a lot of time and I feel like it's something that even if we heal certain parts of our inner child there's always going to be more.
00:17:26
Speaker
A valuable tool in this excavation that you're describing is asking why, why, why this, why that really diving deep into the reasons and the motivations behind. Not just every action, but every thought, every emotion. Um, and I love that you brought up shadow work and I think shadow work is often assumed to be negative and dark because obviously shadow work dark, you know, it kind of goes hand in hand in our nomenclature.
00:17:55
Speaker
But I've heard shadow work also refer to as like potential, like your shadow is something that is neglected, ignored most of the time. And usually on the other side of that fear is everything you've ever wanted, but it's so difficult to excavate.
00:18:14
Speaker
Do you have any like philosophies or people that you look to books that you've read that sort of can help you in like to put the batteries in the flashlight of your exploration of the shadow? If you struggle a lot with with, you know, like accepting yourself and you feel like that may be a lot of where your
00:18:43
Speaker
Trouble lies when it comes to embracing those parts of yourself, I like a lot of Louise hey let's work. um she's she's got a book that I read that actually kick started my shadow work journey and it's called you can heal your life and she goes over the. The root emotions that we usually hold within us and the root emotions.
00:19:11
Speaker
Our fear shame guilt these really big emotions that we are usually at they're usually at the surface of every other emotion that we have, so I think that she does a good job of. painting a picture of what some of these root emotions will look like and how they will affect our confidence and our ability to express ourselves.
00:19:41
Speaker
Other than that, I really did a lot of the work myself. So just my other advice would really just be awareness, trying to be aware around every thought and feeling and emotion that you have and being consistent with it and being honest with
Meditation, Ego Disillusionment & Healing
00:20:04
Speaker
yourself.
00:20:04
Speaker
This doesn't mean that you have to shame yourself when you're feeling angry. You don't have to feel guilty when you're mad, but just taking that second to say, I am angry and I am mad, but why? Why am I so angry and why am I so mad? And it's hard to do in the moment. So it may be something that you have to revisit after you've calmed down a little bit, but just having that awareness
00:20:34
Speaker
your mind will start to question it for you. At least my mind did. That's how it happened for me is once I became more aware, I started questioning myself. It then just became natural to question my motives and my actions. Was it spontaneous for you that you sort of just had this aha realization moment one day, or was this like a gradual process of you starting to question little things at a time and then learning more about yourself?
00:21:05
Speaker
I would say it was a little bit of both. I started being more mindful. I started doing more mindful practices. So I started meditating more and meditation is such a great tool for being more mindful and being more aware. And I think that's kind of how it started gradually. But then when I got really consistent with what I was
00:21:31
Speaker
I guess, exposing myself to when I started eating a lot more clean. I started meditating every day, started listening to podcasts and reading books that were more about awareness and consciousness and spirituality. I experienced, and we talked about this in our interview, is I experienced an ego disillusionment. So the
00:21:56
Speaker
That's when I had this big aha moment. And from there, I started really, really being more aware once my ego was like, yeah, this is not who you really are. This is not your soul. You're not in alignment. These are just false beliefs and limiting beliefs that have been passed on to you from family, friends, from generations.
00:22:23
Speaker
And that's when I really just started paying attention to what my beliefs were and when you have an emotion it's usually about a belief that you have. You have a belief, whether you are aware of it or not, that is causing this emotion if I believe that.
00:22:43
Speaker
I'm an unworthy person, then of course I'm going to feel threatened and I'm going to feel unsuccessful and I'm going to feel like I'm not good enough when I communicate. And so my entire life I thought, well, I'm just an introvert. I'm just an awkward person. I don't like being around people. Well, no, it's because I felt unworthy. I felt like my voice wasn't, it wasn't
00:23:10
Speaker
beautiful enough to be heard. I wasn't good enough to express myself because of the way I grew up as a child. My parents, they weren't terrible parents, but they had their own biases. They had their own trauma that they dealt with. So I felt very unseen as a child. I felt very neglected. I didn't get a lot of love and attention.
00:23:36
Speaker
So my entire life, I felt like I wasn't worthy of love and attention. So that resulted in me being an introvert and being afraid to speak up and being afraid to express myself, stand up for myself, say what I believe in. And it took all of this excavating and all of this digging to uncover that as a root cause.
00:24:02
Speaker
Was there a certain point in time where during this excavation process, you reached out to your family and said like, Hey, listen, like I'm doing this, like this may help you. Or maybe if you had an understanding of these types of things, you could like further accept who I am and who I'm becoming. And did you find at any point in time that you gained more support from your family?
00:24:31
Speaker
In, in some ways, um, unfortunately I couldn't really do that with my parents. My parents are both passed away, but I'm so sorry to hear that. Yeah. Um, I would say I did that on a spiritual level with them. You know, I definitely, um, did meditations where I would connect to the inner child and then I was able to connect with them.
00:24:57
Speaker
i'm more on like a mediumistic type of level and there's moments where i've literally felt my my mother rejoice because i've let go of all this this trauma that has affected me that affected her and I can see the patterns in my children that i'm raising that.
00:25:20
Speaker
That they developed for me before I was before I was more healed and. I watch them let go of those as well, because the more I heal I can see that it affects them and my daughter my older daughter she's struggled the most with some of the same things i've struggled with my life and. I would try to help her.
00:25:44
Speaker
and say, you know, you've got to do this and you got to do this and you have to be aware and be aware of your emotions and meditate. And when I would do that, I wouldn't get anywhere. It wouldn't work with her, but when I would focus on myself and then just radiate that around her, I could see a huge difference.
Spiritual Growth & Societal Healing
00:26:03
Speaker
And there were some people that I would be able to talk to, like my husband, for example, when I first started talking about this, I was easily able to see his
00:26:14
Speaker
wounds as well, his inner child wounds and his limiting beliefs, and if he was open to talking about it, I would say you know hey. I think that this pattern may have come from your mom I think that this pattern may have come from you not.
00:26:30
Speaker
knowing who your real dad was growing up and also with some of my other, you know, closer friends and family, I was able to help them uncover limiting beliefs and push through those the same way I did.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah, it seems that universally, this type of work promotes the type of healing that societies with so much trauma like ours have. So, I mean, it might sound like a grandiose statement, but do you feel that going down a spiritual path is like one of the only things that can save us as a society and heal us in the correct ways? Absolutely. I think that
00:27:14
Speaker
For me, it's definitely a spiritual path. I think if, for some reason, you don't resonate with the spiritual concept, you could look at it as more of a growth path, an expansion of consciousness and a growth of consciousness. To me, they're interchangeable. They're the same thing. But I know that some people are still resistant to
00:27:42
Speaker
you know, actually identifying as something being greater than ourselves. So I think that one way or the other, whichever way you resonate with it, in order to really evolve as humanity and expand and transform this work is everything. We need it to evolve and to grow as a collective.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, I happen to agree with you there. When I've had big spiritual experiences, they've come from the use of psychedelics and every time
00:28:27
Speaker
I do a large dose of psychedelics, which is generally the way I like to approach it is, uh, like few experiences, but higher dosage as opposed to like lower doses and doing it frequently. Um, and every time I go into these spaces, there seems to be a relation to death in some way. And I can't accurately put my finger on.
00:28:56
Speaker
What exactly spirituality has to do with death? Because there's something, they're intertwined in some way, shape or form. Have you gotten any insight as to what spirituality, whether it be personally or collectively, like how that relates to death? This is a really good question and it's one that I also ponder a lot.
00:29:26
Speaker
And unfortunately, I don't have an answer. Part of me sometimes thinks that we don't really ever die. Part of me believes that when we think that we're dying or when we think that our, I guess our consciousness is leaving, that we're actually just going into a new incarnation or a new reality.
Consciousness, Reality & God
00:29:57
Speaker
And from what I can tell in ancient philosophy and ancient texts, most of the death that we hear and we talk about to me is more of a death of the ego and overcoming our egoic nature so that we can reunite with our soul and our true spirit.
00:30:27
Speaker
And so if consciousness does die, in my opinion, it would be not a true death. Consciousness will never die. It's more of maybe this body is no longer going to exist and we just return to spirit.
00:30:47
Speaker
But you do feel like the consciousness lives on in some way, shape or form. So are you under the belief that consciousness is sort of primary? Because there are, there's the materialist belief where like the brain creates consciousness. And then there's like a panpsychist view where it sort of tunes into consciousness as if consciousness transcends what we consider time and space. So do you find yourself on either side of that argument?
00:31:18
Speaker
I go back and forth depending on who I'm listening to, but I would say most of the time I believe that consciousness is the source and that consciousness creates our reality. It creates everything physical. I love watching the double slit experiment about how you, you know, the observer effect. So if we observe something,
00:31:48
Speaker
that's when it exists, that's when it's true. So to me, that says that consciousness is the observer. And if we observe something, that's when it's reality, that's when it exists. And we are collectively, I do believe that we collectively have a reality, a physical reality, based off of consciousness as a whole.
00:32:15
Speaker
but we also have our own individual realities that are more so what our current consciousness in this present moment in our reality affect as well.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah. So it seems like what you're saying is like the, the realm of the soul or the realm of the spirit is sort of like an encyclopedia to inform the incarnation currently in order to fulfill its karma. Is that like accurate? Do you think? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's pretty accurate. I would, I say that, um, consciousness for me is like a mirror. If you have a mirror that's whole, you have one whole consciousness.
00:33:00
Speaker
But for us, the mirrors broken, so we have consciousness split into many different pieces of glass and mirror fragments all over the place well. This shape of glass over here is controlling what it is exposed to what's in its reality, but it's still connected to the whole as well, and we can piece it back together if we want to to.
00:33:29
Speaker
have one unity consciousness, but it still is individual as well. So is consciousness God in your view? Like is, because when people do, I love to ask people, um, number one, do you believe in God and like one a, what is God? So it seems to me that what you're alluding to is that consciousness is sort of God. Is that safe to say?
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think that consciousness is life force. Consciousness is light. It is light energy that is in everything. It's what gives everything energy. It's what gives everything life. I do consider myself to have a more pantheistic view. We're all one. We're all connected to each other. And I believe that we all are God.
00:34:26
Speaker
God is us. God is our consciousness. We're just unaware of that connection. And I believe we're unaware of that connection because of our ego. Our ego is what separates us from knowing that we are God. And when we are able to develop that relationship with the ego, that's when we're able to connect with that divine consciousness and that true part of our nature and realize that we're all one and we're all
00:34:56
Speaker
God. So do you think that there's a problem when people concreticize God as a human who is like up in the sky in some infinite height, who's looking down on you and judging every action that you're doing? Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. Because in my opinion, God is, is everyone God is, is
00:35:22
Speaker
is in everything, so that means that, yes, God is the noble person that helps the old lady across the street, but God is also the man who robs the gas station up the same street, because God is all emotions, God is all polarities, God is positive and negative, and the balance of the universe is what's important.
00:35:48
Speaker
And we have to maintain these balances and these polarities. It's all within ancient philosophy and how important there's balance in everything. The yin and the yang, the masculine, the feminine, you know, as above so below, it's always about balance. And I believe that that's because God is both and God is expressing itself through us, through consciousness.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah, it seems that reality is some sort of unity of dualities. And it brings me to an idea that my brother and I had talked about in a previous podcast, which was that one of the hardest ways to look at this is if you look at Hitler.
00:36:33
Speaker
And you can say that everything that Hitler did was in the name of love. His love for Germany, his love for his beliefs, because hate is sort of an evil. There's sort of like temporary responses to like a lack of love. And I think it's very important.
00:36:52
Speaker
to notice, like you were saying, like the dualities of, you know, you can't have something without nothing. You can't have love without hate because they contextualize one another. And I think that's one of the most important ideas that you can come across because it also allows you to have compassion for someone that you would normally react in an angry or a negative way toward. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that we usually have two ways.
00:37:21
Speaker
to approach things. And this is actually a concept of the raw material, or some people call it the law of one. And that's something, a philosophy that I really resonate with. And the concept is that everything is on a polarity spectrum of positive and negative.
Compassion, Unity & Political Polarization
00:37:44
Speaker
And positive polarity is service to others. Negative polarity is service to self.
00:37:51
Speaker
So if you approach any situation as we're all connected, we're all one. I can use these connections with everyone I encounter with you, with my friends, my family. I can look at them as another version of myself and say, okay, well, they are me. So how can I give them love, support and compassion to help them evolve
00:38:21
Speaker
So when we return as one, they are evolved as much as I have evolved, we're evolved together. Or service to self, you can say, well, how can I use them? Because they're me too. How can I use them, another version of myself, to help myself evolve? And most of our actions are going to fall under one or the other. And I think that the Hitler, the Hitler,
00:38:51
Speaker
idea it it's very eye opening because every every good villain you know in any story made up or real has a good motive you know you don't see you know Darth Vader wasn't bad because he just liked to be evil you know he had a he had a story he thought what he was doing was to help
00:39:15
Speaker
you know, himself and to help his, you know, his love. It was more of a service to self type of act because he was helping himself, but it was coming from a place of love. Every villain, every bad guy, every person in our lives, whether real or made up, they have a motivation that goes beyond just I want to be evil.
00:39:40
Speaker
And I think also along with that, it's important to understand that if you grew up in Nazi Germany or, you know, if you grew up in the Star Wars world and you were, you know, you will use Germany for an example, you know, if you grew up in Nazi Germany and you know, you were just a regular person who grew up with a regular life, um, you could very well.
00:40:03
Speaker
be recruited and be enthusiastically recruited as like a prison guard for like a Jewish internment camp and I think realizing that
00:40:17
Speaker
Those people are just the same as you, and you could fall into a situation where you're vulnerable to commit evil acts just in the same way is also a very important part of realizing that everyone is you and you, you know, we all are one. So I highly, highly agree with what you said.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I try to stay out of politics, to be honest, but politics is a really good example. I mean, you see, especially in the United States, you see two completely different sides. But if you get to the core of what each side really believes, they have, in their opinion, intentions that are to help themselves, but usually others and the collective.
00:41:05
Speaker
Well, at least that's what they claim. It's crazy too because over time you see the parties flip flop on their core issues as well. So it just goes to show that they're just willing to say whatever they want. I swear I want to like form the mushroom party and like have a third party and just like campaign on, you know, love and compassion or something because
00:41:27
Speaker
I mean, you just don't see that in the political sphere. You don't see any of it. And I think that's what we need. We need some sort of a change in consciousness when it comes to how we run our societies. But yeah, without getting too far into politics, just to sort of broaden it, how does your spirituality inform your overall personal philosophy on life and how you conduct yourself in your day to day?
00:41:57
Speaker
I try to really see things the way that we've been talking. I try to see myself in each person that I interact with. And some days that's a lot harder than other days, depending on my mood and what they've done. But I really try to give everything
00:42:22
Speaker
in life and every person that I encounter the compassion that I wish that I had given myself when I began this journey. I realized that I was so hard on myself. I didn't believe in myself. I didn't believe that I deserved compassion, that I deserved
00:42:45
Speaker
You know, to be forgiven to have this unconditional love so when I encounter other people, even if I don't agree with them and don't see where they're coming from. I try to remind myself that they are just a projection of myself they're another they're an extension of me.
00:43:06
Speaker
And they are only a compilation of the limiting beliefs that they have adopted and that have been forced upon them and. I would say I would use to.
00:43:23
Speaker
bite my tongue and not express how I feel because, again, I had a lot of confidence issues, I was afraid to speak my mind, but now I've gotten to where I'll challenge them on those beliefs as well. If I feel like they're open to conversations, then I'll say, you know, well, why do you feel that way? You know, I disagree with you, but I can still hold space for you and and see that we can
00:43:48
Speaker
still respect each other and have compassion for each other and disagree. Yeah, I love it. It's all done through compassion. That seems to be like the permeating theme throughout this entire conversation. It's been about having compassion for yourself as well as others. And through having compassion and serving others, you serve yourself and you further evolve in yourself.
00:44:15
Speaker
Right. Absolutely. And I've learned the hard way that in order to really have true unconditional love and compassion for others, you have to have that for yourself.
Magic, Manifestation & Energy Practices
00:44:25
Speaker
And for me, that's been my biggest journey. This incarnation is learning to have that for myself. And the more that I'm able to hold that space for myself, the more I am able to hold it for others. Absolutely. Yep.
00:44:40
Speaker
So I think now might be a good time. I want to go back to the original question that I've been pondering as of late. So.
00:44:49
Speaker
Um, I have a very good friend of mine, um, who actually started down this journey with me. Um, he's my soul brother and, uh, we each have like cattle dogs and we love to go out and take him for hikes. One of my favorite things to do, especially in the snow around this time. Uh, cause I live in Pennsylvania. So, uh, around this time there's snow everywhere. And we're the last time we went, we were just.
00:45:14
Speaker
Chilling, walking, having a little conversation and he had brought along his son and his stepson.
00:45:20
Speaker
So they were lagging behind us. They each had, uh, these retractable lightsaber toys and they were playing Star Wars and they were, uh, they were shooting dinosaurs that were coming at us and attacking us with the energy beams coming from their hands. And, you know, they were doing their kid thing and it was great. Um, so at one point they started to lag behind and as they're doing their thing, uh, my friend's son yells out to us and he says, he asks us the question, he says, is magic real? And.
00:45:49
Speaker
Of course, when a nine year old asks you if magic is real, you tell them yes, it's real. And you tell them that if anybody ever tries to tell you otherwise, that they're wrong, which is what I said to him. And it's funny, like the day after one of my favorite podcasts started to
00:46:08
Speaker
explore this idea too, which I thought was sort of synchronistic. So I wanted to pose this question to you, like, is magic real? Because I think it's a, it's a deep philosophical question, because again, it's like the God thing, you have to define like, what is magic? So Maggie, is magic real? I talk a lot about this on my podcast. And for me, yes, absolutely. Magic is real.
00:46:36
Speaker
And for me magic is not it's not Harry Potter magic it's you know i'm not going to be able to shoot fire from my fingers or do anything crazy like that magic is learning to manipulate energy and realizing that we have control and we have.
00:47:01
Speaker
more power than we give ourselves credit for. And for me, we can tap into that magic and we can use that magic when we embrace that we are powerful and that we can access this infinite energy and manipulate it and work with the divine, work with divine consciousness to create
00:47:30
Speaker
the life and the reality that we want. Yeah. It's like the thing that they told you could never exist really does exist. And sometimes you just have to close your eyes and breathe to connect yourself to it. Right. Yeah. For me. And, you know, a lot of people know this concept, especially if they're listening to, you know, spiritual teachings, manifestation to me, manifestation and magic are the same thing.
00:48:00
Speaker
When you manifest something, when you create something, I know Dr. Joe Dispenza talks about quantum creating, that's magic. That's what magic is. It looks different, but with different philosophies and different cultures and different people that tap into it. But it's really what works for you, right?
00:48:26
Speaker
You meditate and incense or essential oils get you in the right headspace or, if you like to you know do breath work or yoga that gets you in the right. headspace that's just your magic modality that's just the tool that you use to access the magic and you know so like if you're talking about actual you know witchcraft in the occult.
00:48:53
Speaker
it's the same thing they just have different tools that they use to access this magic, whether that be a crystal or a candle or. Any of anything, but it still comes from our own energy and our energy that is connected to the infinite energy.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah, the infinite energy. Yeah. That's seems to be the, I mean, if there is, because there's no end point, there's no goal, but there's an intention. I feel like maybe that would be the right word. Um, instead of gold, use intention because an intention will help guide you, but it'll also widen your perspective for you to understand that there is no end point. It's, it really is all about the journey. And that is a cliche for a reason. I feel.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah, and when I talk about, I actually started a segment on my podcast that is dedicated to learning more about these occult practices and which type of magic. And it's something new that I started in season two. And I said in my first episode that the key to magic and the key to accessing this magic is two things, belief,
00:50:09
Speaker
believing in yourself, believing in your power and intention. Yeah. It seems to be what it's, what it's all about. And whether it be through psychedelics or through meditation or through yoga, it all seems to be pointing in, um, in the same direction.
Spiritual Experiences & Symbolism
00:50:27
Speaker
I think, um, when we talked on your podcast,
00:50:31
Speaker
Um, I had mentioned I was, I was listening to Ram Dass and he had talked about, uh, spirituality being like this big giant mountain. And everyone starts at a different position around the huge endless base of the mountain. And as you work your way up the mountain.
00:50:50
Speaker
Um, you know, each path may converge a little bit, but regardless, each path is going to the top. And when you get to the top of the mountain, there's no distinguishing between who used what method or what mode of belief to get there. And they all intermingle because everything seems to be leading to the same spot. And that's another thing I think is really important to understand is that just because you're on a spiritual path that say.
00:51:18
Speaker
connects you directly to what you feel is God. It's not better or worse than someone who goes to church every Sunday and listens to a pastor direct them on how to believe. So I think that's a very important point in this path.
00:51:35
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And me and my husband talk about that a lot because he was a very devout Christian before we both started really developing this more spiritual or more spiritual ideas. And he said that there were many times when he was going to church, you know, very regularly that he felt so connected to
00:52:01
Speaker
This divine consciousness this divine energy to God that he connects to now when he meditates and when he you know actual travels it's the same he said it's the same source um it's just we get there a little bit differently.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I remember not long ago, I had gone to a wedding and it was in just the most traditional Catholic church you can ever think of. And it's the last place I thought that I could ever have like a spiritual experience because I don't connect myself to any sort of organized religions. But when I heard the pastor like start to speak.
00:52:45
Speaker
He was talking about all of the things word for word that I experienced in my spiritual practice. And I got high, you know, just from listening to him, you know, I felt inflated and I felt like spiritually full. I never ever thought that I could feel that in the presence of a church. And I've also had experiences on psychedelics where I've seen Christian iconography.
00:53:14
Speaker
And you can see Egyptian iconography and you can see all these types of things. So it, it makes me wonder if like, what came first, the idea of religion and the iconography that goes with it, or was that extracted from spiritual experience that was actually like experienced by people? Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. And.
00:53:42
Speaker
I know in some, in some situations I believe that we, when we have spiritual or mystical experiences, sometimes we see what we're comfortable with or we, we see what we've seen before. I know I definitely also do not follow any organized religion, but there have been many, many times when I've had mystical experiences where I have encountered Jesus and
00:54:12
Speaker
Um, in fact, I actually had a Reiki attunement, um, couple of weeks ago. And when he attuned my left hand, I saw angel wings open. And every time I do self Reiki on myself and I touch my feet, I get this just inner knowing of that Jesus Christ consciousness and unconditional love. And I, I don't consider myself a Christian at all.
00:54:42
Speaker
So it's, it is, I'm curious to know, you know, what did come first? Was it something that we just started identifying with because it's what we saw, what we were comfortable with? So I know I've heard many people say that, you know, consciousness that source can appear the way that we want. So maybe that has something to do with it.
Balancing Energies & Self-Acceptance
00:55:09
Speaker
seeing things that we're comfortable with, that resonate with us.
00:55:16
Speaker
Yeah, Jesus, he seems to be like a very reliable spirit guide and the Mother Mary as well. I've had some Mother Mary experiences and it's odd that like we were talking about the balance between the masculine and the feminine and you had brought up that you had a direct experience with the masculine, which would be Jesus and I have direct experience with Mother Mary, which would be the feminine. So do you find that there is sort of a correlation between
00:55:45
Speaker
balancing it out, like a man may need more guidance from like the female power, and maybe a female might need some more guidance from the male power, just because within our societies, we are so divided, and we don't really have a cohesive, like partnership relationship with other genders. Yeah, I think that's definitely, that's a good concept and something that
00:56:14
Speaker
probably does come true. I would say even though I identify as a female, I lean more towards the masculine. So it would make sense that I would be more comfortable with a masculine energy and a masculine presence.
00:56:37
Speaker
And I would think that when it comes to, if we're needing balance, it would make a lot of sense that those gods would appear to us to say, to give us the messages that we need to help us find that balance for sure. Um, so to take it back just a little bit on your path, uh, what are some of the things that you've struggled with along the way and some of the challenges that you've had?
00:57:07
Speaker
Probably one of my biggest struggles is self-acceptance for sure, especially in the beginning. I've came a long way and I've grown a lot since this, but in the beginning, I hid a lot of my spiritual side. I didn't want anyone to know that I had this awakening and that I was
00:57:34
Speaker
A completely different person, because I really did change, you know you talk about.
00:57:39
Speaker
You hear people say that they have a spiritual awakening and they are wake up a completely different person. That's how I was. I went from, you know, partying every weekend, drinking all the time, listening to depressing heavy rock music, which I still like sometimes, but, um, you know, wearing black thinking that I hated the world, um, to just completely different having so much
00:58:08
Speaker
compassion and love for myself and for others and not. resonating with alcohol at all I hardly ever drink anymore um and I hit that I didn't want.
00:58:22
Speaker
my family and my friends to judge me. I was so afraid of being judged and ridiculed and ostracized. So I became very reclusive. I deleted a lot of social media. I created new social media that had no one on it so that they wouldn't see what I was sharing and they wouldn't see what I was liking. And like I said, I've came a long way and I've grown out of that.
00:58:52
Speaker
For the most part now, I still struggle with some of that, but my advice for for anyone going through that at the beginning of their awakening.
00:59:03
Speaker
would really just be to hold space for yourself and understand that you're meant to change. We are meant to evolve and we're meant to grow. And it's okay if yesterday you absolutely hated the world and today you wake up and are completely different. That's what you're meant to do. Energy is always moving. Energy is always flowing and we are energy.
00:59:30
Speaker
we're meant to change we're not meant to stay still we're not meant to be stagnant and that's how we become depressed when we stop trying to evolve and we stop trying to change so. embrace who you are embrace yourself and when you're ready share that with the people that that you really love and the people that are important to you and give them the chance to come around to this to this new side of you because they'll surprise you.
Mindfulness, Open-Mindedness & Promotion
00:59:59
Speaker
the people who are meant to be there, they'll stay around and it will eventually play out the way it needs to. That's definitely one thing I struggled with in the beginning.
01:00:11
Speaker
The next thing would be about balance, trying to balance my human needs with my spiritual needs, my masculine with my feminine, my spiritual mind versus my egoic mind. And I still struggle with that. I actually went through, I call it my spiritual depression because I was very resistant to my human needs and to my human self. And I was pulling away from it and it caused me to
01:00:43
Speaker
fall into a deep depression and I was very out of alignment for several months. So for that, I would say if you feel yourself getting frustrated and you feel yourself being resistant to the now, just stop, take some deep breaths and focus on what you do enjoy about the now. It may be small, but there's always something in the present moment that we can be grateful for, that we can be thankful for.
01:01:13
Speaker
And it'll pull you out of the future, which causes us to have anxiety when we're in the future. And it'll pull you out of the past. If you're going back to the past, which causes depression. So try to do any kind of mindful practice that will bring you back to that present moment so that you can be here and now and present. And that that's really helped me. Yes. Some wise words, very wise words.
01:01:43
Speaker
Um, so as we wrap up here, uh, is there anything else that you'd like to get out there to the listeners? Just to, um, really be open-minded. The more that we're open-minded, the more our perspective can change and the more that we can grow. And I think, I think you actually said this once on one of your episodes is we don't know everything. And.
01:02:10
Speaker
When we're able to listen to other ideas and listen to someone else's point of view and their perspective, we're able to grow and expand our consciousness. And that also allows us to learn more, but also hold space for people that are different from us and be more compassionate to everyone and even ourselves. Yeah.
01:02:34
Speaker
So we mentioned your podcast chasing spirituality, which is fantastic. You do a great job, whether it's your solo episodes or your interviews. I think they're very informative. Um, but where else can people find you? I'm on all the, all the social media platforms, uh, probably the most active on Instagram that's chasing dot spirituality.
01:02:56
Speaker
I do have tick tock that's more of funny spiritual videos I like to kind of keep it light on there but i'll post some more serious things on there, sometimes chasing spirituality. And i'm also on Facebook that was probably the one i'm the most least active on, but it does have a direct link to my website which I have. A small line of intention products that I make so that's a chasing spirituality as well.
01:03:24
Speaker
Oh, cool. Uh, what kind of, uh, products? I have, um, my biggest one is the oils there. I call them intention oils and they have, I, when I create them, I use, um, herbs and kind of use corresponding herbs with. So like, if I'm doing something for love, I'll use Rose and vanilla and use those to create.
01:03:54
Speaker
An energetic oil, so i've infused my own energy with it with intention to say that this is what I want this product to help someone manifest and. When you use it, I usually put them like on myself, I actually have some for men immense line that's. beard oils as well, because one of my friends was like I need a new beard oil and I was like okay i'll make a couple that are strictly for beard.
01:04:23
Speaker
Um, but they also have crystal chunks in them as well. And I just, um, focus my attention and my energy on what it is that I'm trying to bring in. So I have some for like abundance, divine connection, third eye, things like that. I also have bath bombs and bath salts. Um, and I had candles, but I took them off because I sold all of them. Well, that's good. That's a good thing, right?
01:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but it's just something fun that I really liked to do when I felt a lot of that creative energy bubbling up. And I use a lot of different modalities that I resonate with. So like the crystals and the herbs and the energy. And I find that it's really good to use when, you know, you just need that quick, that quick intention to help you get into a certain mindset.
01:05:22
Speaker
Well, Maggie, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate you coming on and hopefully you can do it again soon. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.