096 Trauma is Our Teacher

Daydreamers! An artists path can take unexpected turns. The vision we have of our life and career when we start out can lead us to a life purpose we could not have imagined. We kick off our first conversation of season 5 with Charlie's former student Tara Magalski. Sixteen years ago, Tara was fully pursuing her acting career, having success and moving forward in exciting ways. The sudden death of her mother lead her on a path toward a completely new way of living and working. Tara is now the founder and director of Divine Lifestyles, a global wellness collective dedicated to holistic health and healing. Charlie and Tara talk about grief, the understanding that trauma is our teacher, and the importance of getting out of the victim mentality. It's a deep conversation with a truly special human. You can follow CBP on Instagram @creatingbehavior, and Charlie's NYC acting conservatory, the Maggie Flanigan Studio @maggieflaniganstudio. Theme music by  https://www.thelawrencetrailer.com. Check out Divine Lifestyles at https://www.divinelifestyles.comTo leave a voicemail on SpeakPipe, or contact Charlie for private coaching, check out https://www.creatingbehaviorpodcast.com and his NYC acting studio  https://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com.

Transcript

Charlie Sandlan:

So I wonder how many of you can relate to this. You're going about your life, you have a passion, you have some drive, you're on this trajectory, you're living an artistic, creative life, you see progress and all of a sudden something happens. You're leveled by a tragedy. We're going to talk a lot today about grief. It is an unavoidable human emotion, right? We're all leveled by it numerous times over the course of our life. What happens when a tragedy like that flips the script on you and sends you down in a completely different life path?

We're going to talk today with one of my former students, Tara Magalski. This happened to her. She was on that acting road, and then her mother dies tragically suddenly, accidentally, the depression, the suicidal ideation, the complete sense of loss that happened to her. Well, she came through that and created something incredibly special. She is now the owner and director of Divine Lifestyles. This is a global wellness collective dedicated to holistic health and healing. We're going to talk about her journey and hopefully help you if you are struggling still with some grief. So put the phone back in your pocket. Creating behavior starts now.

Well, hello, my fellow daydreamers. Grief, unavoidable, unavoidable. It is part of life's package, especially if you're lucky enough to live a long life, you're going to experience a lot of it. I think we know right off the bat when we're old enough to comprehend death that your parents are going to die, your grandparents are going to die. And depending on your personality and who you are, you can get preoccupied with that, worried about it, and it can affect your decision making and how you go about your life, honestly.

I remember when my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He was 53, so a year younger than I am now, diagnosed with kidney cancer, and he survived for almost eight years. He took a very holistic approach to his health, and I think it gave him some extra time, but from that diagnosis all the way up through his death, there's this impending doom. It's this idea that my father's time on the earth is short and the fear of death and what's going to happen to our family and my mother, and all of these things that you dread and you fear.

And then what I have found in my experience with death is that the actual event itself doesn't play out the way you thought. And I've experienced death, I mean, real searing emotionally just like devastating loss twice in my life. My father, I was 40 when I lost him, and my really good friend, Victoria [inaudible 00:03:50], one of my very, very, very best friends. She was a mentor to me. She impacted my life in so many profound ways. I was fortunate enough to be with her when she died. I cared for her about the last four or five days of her life. She died of ovarian cancer, and I held her in my arms as she died. It was an extraordinary event. It was devastating.

But man, I feel very lucky and very fortunate as a human being to have experienced that, but also as an artist and as an actor and now as an acting teacher to have had those experiences to call upon. So I'm glad that I lived through them, but everybody handles death in different ways. Some of us can be really debilitated by it, and for some, it can change the course of your life, cause you to reevaluate some things and understand some things maybe about yourself and about the kind of life you want to live that were unavailable to you before the tragedy.

So that's why I'm really happy to share this conversation with you today, Tara Magalski. Now, this is very talented actor. She was in the program at the Maggie Flanigan Studio. I know this is 2007, 2008. You could just tell she was going to go places. She had a great personality. She had a great look. She was outgoing. She was a kind person. She was someone you would want to collaborate and work with. She lit up a room when she walked into it, and all of a sudden, she has a tragedy. Her mother dies, and we're going to talk about this. It was accidental. It was tragic. It was one of those deaths that come out of the blue, which, honestly, I think are the worst. There's ones that you're not prepared for at all.

And out of that, her whole life purpose changed the trajectory of her life, and she created Divine Lifestyles. And like I said in the open, it's a global wellness collective that's really dedicated to helping people, helping women, helping men navigate through trauma, tragedy, in a very holistic and healthy way. And over the years, I've talked to so many former students who have gone on to do other things. They realized at some point that, "Acting just wasn't quite the right path for me," but the work that they did on themselves at the studio, that work of becoming really present, of being open and empathic, sensitized to the human condition, being more open to the pain and suffering of the human beings because that's what you have to do as an actor, you have to be able to step into the shoes of another human being.

That empathy, that presence, that ability to really listen has served them well, and Tara already had so many great qualities to begin with, but when you add that kind of training, the work she's doing now, she is having a profound impact. So let's get to the conversation, shall we? Here at the top of the conversation, I asked Tara about that time, 2007, 2008, coming out of school, things are going well, and what happened to you to bring you to the place that you are as a today? So here is my friend and my former student, Tara Magalski.

Tara Magalski:

I was doing movies. I was in two movies that were in theaters, and I was like, "I'm moving to LA." I'm striking while the iron's hot. I was so in the audition mode and so fresh from school that I was feeling really jazzed about my amazing career that was ahead of me. So 2008 in May, my mother passes away from a combination of pills that was super sudden to the family, much of a surprise. It was accidental, but at that time, I was going through a lot of emotions and I was due to move in September of that year.

So when I tell you, the studio, the acting, all that was such a big part of it because it was at that very time in my life, I was 27, when my life just turned upside down and I did not go to LA to pursue. I had agent opportunities, so I just stayed with my agent in New York. But really, 2008, 2009 was a big spiritual awakening for me. So that is actually when I left the industry. I was dabbling a little bit a couple years later, but that was around the time when my life's path completely changed. That's when I went back to school for nutrition and wellness because I was struggling with my nutrition and on mental health. So that is kind of when everything just went, "You're no longer going this way, you're going that way."

Charlie Sandlan:

But what's the spiritual awakening? I mean, what happens? Because I know you have this idea that, "I'm an actor. I'm going to live an actor's life," and then you have a spiritual awakening. What was it? What happened to you?

Tara Magalski:

Yeah. Well, I was super depressed. I was super suicidal at the time. I was really having a hard time navigating the circumstance, and I was having a really hard time navigating who I was. I thought I was flying high. I was a young woman. I was kind of in the prime. You knew me back then. I was flying high. Life was great. Career was going great. I had agents interested in me in LA, movies and theaters. So I'm like, "Life is going like this." So when my mother passed away, right before I was moving to LA, it was a huge wake-up call. It was, "Whoa, what are you doing with your life? You can't leave your family now." That was one of the major reasons that I didn't go because I really wanted to stay back with my sister and my father. I started asking myself those bigger questions, "What is it that I'm here to do? Why am I here on this earth? What is the purpose of this tragedy?"

Charlie Sandlan:

Those are big questions, Tara. Jesus.

Tara Magalski:

Yeah, at 27, I'm not even 30. It was wild because I was at such a different ... You would talk to me that Monday before and it was completely different person. And then the next Monday, I was starting to really contemplate some really deep questions for myself.

Charlie Sandlan:

I mean, were you thinking that the life of an actor was somehow became not petty, but not as important as you thought it was a week before your mom dies?

Tara Magalski:

Yeah. That's what ultimately did happen, and I'm not saying that is truth because I don't believe it is truth now, but then it was my truth because remember, I don't know, it was superficial to me at that point. It seemed very led by my ego. It seemed that it was maybe I wasn't grounded enough at that point in my life. So when this tragedy happened, this trauma, I really couldn't ... It wasn't for me at that time about the craft of acting. For me, it was about the craft of finding out who I was, what I was here to do in the world and what was I supposed to bring forth, why was I born, what was my purpose.

And I'll tell you, acting was such a big part of that journey, doing all of the work with you. I mean, I can get emotional just even thinking about it. With the Maggie Flanigan Studio and with you was a real, I look back now, it was really finding out who I was. It was just the beginning of my journey to ask myself those deeper questions like we do with the work that you teach.

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, that first year work, especially. I mean, you are mining yourself and the things that have meaning for you and who the fuck are you, right?

Tara Magalski:

Yeah. So I mean, I was primed by the time I stepped into this trauma to use all of the tools. I mean, it was a struggle, but I was really, really using a lot of the tools that I learned to start asking myself, "What is it that I really want to do?" And I'll tell you, Charlie, it's so crazy looking back.

There was a period where I was, and I could just cry thinking about this. You knew me then. So when I say this, you're going to go, "Okay. I get it." There was a time after my mother died where I didn't want people looking at me. I think I was in so much pain, so much trauma, I didn't want to be seen. I think that is ultimately why I got out of the public eye. It's still emotional to me, so emotional. There was a period where I wanted to be a hermit. I wanted to kind of go back into myself.

Charlie Sandlan:

When you were going through a depression too, I would assume, was part of it.

Tara Magalski:

Yeah, I had a lot of depression after the time and I-

Charlie Sandlan:

Especially if you had suicidal ideation, that's a dark, dark place to be.

Tara Magalski:

Yes. For that first year, 2008 to 2009, I was struggling a lot with my mental health. And so auditioning, being rejected, doing that, oh no, no, no, no, that just wasn't something that I could do at the time.

Charlie Sandlan:

And you were in New York City still? ?You were in Manhattan living?

Tara Magalski:

Yes. I stayed in Manhattan until 2020.

Charlie Sandlan:

Okay. Shit. Okay.

Tara Magalski:

Gosh, it was so much to catch up on. I ended up going to Australia. I actually did like an Eat, Pray, Love moment during that time and taking a one-way ticket across the world going to Australia.

Charlie Sandlan:

You bought a one-way ticket and just said, "I don't know how long it's going to be. I don't know how long I'm going to be gone. I'm just leaving."

Tara Magalski:

Yes.

Charlie Sandlan:

How long were you gone?

Tara Magalski:

Three months, about three months. Charlie, to this day, that's how I travel. I still buy a one-way ticket.

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, what is it about buying a one-way ticket? What is the appeal?

Tara Magalski:

The flexibility, the freedom because I find that when I do one-way tickets of some places make you get, like I'm going to Costa Rica, I really want to go on a one-way ticket next week, and they're like, "You need a return flight," and I'm so stressed about it. I'm like, "I don't know where I'm going to be. I don't know what part of Costa Rica I'm going to be flying out of. I could get in a car and drive for three hours." I love the flexibility of being in flow, and that really is what I've embodied now with the work that I'm doing with Divine Lifestyles is really listening and co-creating with God and Spirit and allowing myself to just be led.

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, what did that three months do for you?

Tara Magalski:

Oh, gosh. Three months in Australia, that was a wild time, helped me to really get clear on just myself. Being with yourself and traveling solo is a really beautiful, especially all the way across the world.

Charlie Sandlan:

It's the best. I love it.

Tara Magalski:

It's one of the best experiences, I think, that we can have. I think everyone should do it, of course, very safely. But I had friends there so I can dip in and out as needed. I actually met a wonderful woman. We're friends to this day. We're working together on retreats at her property to this very day, and we went traveling together. She was a solo traveler. I was a solo traveler. So we linked up and we just went traveling together. And it just showed me, for me, it gave me the confidence that I needed during that time in my life that like, "Hey, you're safe. Everything's going to be okay." Got me really in touch with my spirituality, my intuition, trusting myself, knowing that I'm always protected. And it was just a lot of growth, a lot of growth for me to just go off on my own. Of course, my family was a disaster.

Charlie Sandlan:

What do you understand now about grief? You've lost both of your parents, and that's such a ... I lost my father, so I have that experience. My mother's still alive, but I think there's something that really happens to you when both parents are gone, and I'm just wondering how you see grief now?

Tara Magalski:

Yeah. Now that my father passed at the beginning of the year, gosh, grief is such a large topic. I can sum it up like this. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is not. You don't have to suffer. You can ebb and flow. We're all going to feel pain. We're all going to move through. That's part of the human condition. It's part of the human experience, and it's part of why we're here. But suffering, you don't have to suffer. Suffering is a mindset. Suffering is when you get caught in that loop and pain ebbs and flows just like every other emotion. And I've just learned that you can really transcend the suffering by changing your mindset, by doing daily practices and tools that can really support your growth. Suffering is not mandatory.

Charlie Sandlan:

No, that's true, but you need, I don't know, a certain skillset, I think, to even know the difference between pain and suffering and being able to eliminate the suffering part because there's just something unending about that. When you hear suffering, it's just this ongoing despair that you can't get out of.

Tara Magalski:

Yeah. Well, when I was 27, I certainly didn't have the tools that I have now. It took me 16, gosh, it was like 16, 17 years now to create a practice to dive my journey of healing. This is my work now, my life's work that I share with other people. It's ever-evolving. It's ever-growing and deepening. It's an ever-listening to really what it is that my soul needs to heal, what ancestral patterns. I'm now doing a lot of work on ancestral healing, stuff that's not part of even this lifetime, this lifetime stuff or moving on to past lives and-

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, it's interesting that you use the phrase ever-listening, considering that was one of the big things that you learn in acting is how to listen. What has that art? Because I think it's an art, the art of listening. How has that shaped the way you work and the way you approach things?

Tara Magalski:

Yeah, listening. Listening was a tool that I learned with you and Maggie Flanigan, and it is something that has helped me in every area of my life. It is now a tool that I use to listen to my body. What is it that my body needs? No one was teaching these listening tools. You don't get taught these tools in school. And I really found that the program that we did together was deeply enlightening and extremely spiritual when I look back. And so it's so interesting how now I can see how my journey is weaving together, but using those listening tools just to listen to yourself on a daily basis and also to listen to your highest self, and a lot of the practices that we were doing was really a lot about the ... I'm telling you, it's so intertwined with the work I do with coming into the power of presence. How much do you guys talk about that?

Charlie Sandlan:

Yeah, being in the moment and fully present.

Tara Magalski:

Being in the moment. It's all about ... It's such a spiritual Buddhist way of looking at life, being in the now, putting your ... A lot of things that I learned through the program was put your attention on the other person. It's not about what's going on with you. I do that so much in my work, in my coaching, in my healing sessions, in my medicine circles. It's all about the other people. And the focus is never about ... It's like removing your ego and coming right to that present moment. I just did my Kundalini teacher training two weeks ago, and there's a beautiful prayer that we do before we go into our sadhanas in the morning about it's not about me, it's not about my ego, and it's all about removing that and being purely in the moment and being there in service. So I learned those foundational tools from the program.

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, okay, you come back from Australia, you have this epic journey, this trip. How do you get from that to where you are now with Divine Lifestyles and a practice and a way of just giving back to the world and helping and healing people? How do you get there?

Tara Magalski:

Oh, gosh. You go on a deep dive of all sorts of things for many years, but what happened, I don't know if you know this, I do share this on my website, but when I was at my lowest moment in 2008, I was home in my Lower East Side apartment. I was literally crying out to God, "What am I here to do? I need to know what my purpose is. Otherwise, I don't really want to do this. I'm not moving to LA. I'm not doing this act." This is me having conversation with God. "I'm not doing this acting thing. It's bullshit. I'm here for more than that. Show me what I'm here to do. Otherwise, I'm just going to sit in this room or walk in front of the next bus."

I mean, this is what I was doing. I was negotiating with Spirit, with God, saying these things. That was the mental space I was in. And I was on my hands and knees crying on all fours and I actually felt ... First, I heard. This was the beginning of me being able to really tune in. I heard Divine Lifestyles, and it was like in my spirit, in my soul. It was like a whisper, and I did one of these, "Okay. What's that?" And I felt in that moment like Spirit, God, unconditional love surrounding me, and I felt this wave of love wash over me, and it was like an outer body experience. I was like, "Okay." It was like Spirit showed up and I actually felt ... I actually got myself off the floor, I went into my bed, and at that time, I was reading the Bible and I was like, "What does this mean? What does Divine Lifestyles mean? God, Jesus, what is this? Is this you?"

I was raised Christian and Catholic my whole life. I'd never had any experience like this before. So I was like, "Okay. Spirit guides, angels, what is this?" So that was kind of the beginning of the spiritual awakening journey and had no idea what Divine Lifestyles meant. Just know that I got this intuition, this divine download I call it now. And so I was like, "Okay. I'm going to clearly start a business called Divine Lifestyles. I have no idea what I'm going to do." And about six months to a year later, I'm in nutrition school. That was about a year. I was at IIN when they were in-person. I got my nutrition degree. And then I think in 2012, I started nutritional coaching.

I started working in my corporate wellness, and I was toying with being an entrepreneur and all of that. And I was still doing all my event stuff on the side because even when I was in acting school, I was still working in hospitality, working in events. So I was kind of doing both of that for a while, and it was a journey. It was a journey. It was a journey of 10 years. I was doing Divine Lifestyles on one side and still doing, I had IPA International, which was my other business where I was doing events. So I was doing the VMAs. My background was in television prior when I first started. So I was kind of dipping around and doing all of that. Still building Divine Lifestyles, but it was more so in nutrition and weight loss and life coaching.

And I'll tell you, throughout the years, and especially living in New York City, it was very expensive. So I'm building my business, and so I'm split between both worlds. I'm doing the stuff that's paying me, the events, running around, the networking, all the stuff I love to do, planning, producing. And ultimately, what happened was I decided that I was going to do a pod, had my first iteration of the Divine Lifestyles podcast. I had my YouTube channel. I was starting to do speaking engagements, and now I did this for about six years.

I met my husband, and I was doing a lot of deep work on myself at that time. So I was kind of doing a lot of things at that time, but that's what we do in New York City when we're single and we're running around. Divine Lifestyles wasn't really making a ton of money at the time, but it was having huge impact through the YouTube videos, through my speaking engagements.

Charlie Sandlan:

See, that's interesting. When you know you're making an impact, but you're not making the money off of it, it's like, fuck, how do you reconcile the two of those?

Tara Magalski:

Yeah. So that's what it was. So I ended up working a lot because I was working my IPA International events business that was taking up a lot of my time, and every free moment that I had, I was sewing into the podcast, editing, newsletters-

Charlie Sandlan:

It's a lot of work. It's a lot, right?

Tara Magalski:

... doing events with women, but what ultimately happened is that I was having a really hard time scaling the business online, and this was like this isn't really my generation. The online thing is after me, sorry to age myself, but it's just not my generation. So Instagram wasn't even around then. It was just Facebook. So I was just having a hard time with that. I met my husband, my husband's in finance, and at that time, he was really encouraging me to sew into the business that was making money, which was my events business, and he was like, "This is great, but let's focus on what's actually making money."

So I got a little bit discouraged. I got a bit burnt out. I didn't take anything down. I just put it on pause. I just said, "Okay. I'm coming back to this. I know I'm coming back to this, but for right now, we're getting married, we have all these things. I'm going to focus over here." I ended up working, having such amazing highlights in my career. I did Super Bowl LI. I was living on site for three months working with Taylor Swift's camp. I was working with the NFL. I was like, "This is amazing." Then I was working at a hedge fund as a project manager, and then I ended up working at Goldman Sachs for two years right before COVID hit.

Charlie Sandlan:

What were you doing at Goldman? Sachs?

Tara Magalski:

So I ended up at Goldman Sachs in the Accelerate division, which is the small business division because I think international was a 1099. I would come in and I'd be a project manager, but everything was through my company. So I was brought in to the Accelerate division because it's all the same skillset. I was like a chief of staff office manager helping onboarding, helping plan events. It was an incubator bubble inside Goldman Sachs. So all of my background really helped me to land that job working with the NFL and all of this, working with the hedge fund, and again, this was a creative incubator. This wasn't like strict finance. This was basically a small portion called the Accelerate division that if you had some sort of solution to the firm's problem, you can come in and pitch your idea, and then if they like it, they'll fund you for a year and you'll workshop it.

So using all my producing coordinating skills, did that, then COVID hit. So I was on a whole nother trajectory. I'm on a trajectory of being a actress going to LA, and this is why my business is so important to me now because it's like if you're born to do something, spirit is never going to let you stray. So there I am, going to LA. Boom. Nope, mom dies, change course, redirect. Then here I go, I get discouraged, I put it to the side, I go down this other path, I end up in finance, Goldman Sachs. Boom, COVID happens, another wildly life-changing thing.

COVID happens. We all get sent home. I'm working remotely for about a good year, also trying to get pregnant simultaneously. Goldman Sachs is saying, "You need to come back to the office and you need to get vaccinated to come back." And I'm like, "Hmm." I was having a hard time getting pregnant, had a few miscarriages. So I was like, "Hmm. Again, this just doesn't feel right." I looked at my husband and I said, "I want to go back to Divine Lifestyles and really go back because this is what I want to do. I want to leave Goldman Sachs. I'm not getting vaccinated. I don't know what people's opinions are on that, but this is my opinion. It's my body. I'm not doing that. I want to get pregnant, and I want to relaunch Divine Lifestyles. Now's the time." And he was like, "Okay. You're crazy, but I support you." He is like, "Okay. It just took you six months to get that job, but sure."

I was like, "Listen, I'm never moving back to New York City. I know that." And he was like, "Okay. Okay. If this is what you want." I'm like, "I'm staying in nature. I'm never moving back." So that is how, but all these years, I've been working on myself, developing tools, studying, but that's my professional career path, and then that was it. I just decided that I was going back into relaunching Divine Lifestyles in 2021 into 2022, and then I just went all in. Here we are. It is a lifestyle, but what we offer is really, really curated sacred experiences for women and men to journey back to themselves, and I do that through my retreats. I do that through wellness festivals and events that I'm brought on to do. I do that through one-on-one, through group coaching, medicine circles.

Charlie Sandlan:

What does it mean to return to yourself?

Tara Magalski:

Journey back to who we truly are returning. It's really I feel that life is the journey back to oneself, and it's about removing all of the emotions, the traumas, the ideologies, the identities, all of the things that we accumulate over the lifetime, our limiting beliefs, and really coming back into a place of stillness and a place of just remembrance, remembering. It's a remembrance, and I feel like that has been my journey.

Who is Tara, really? Why have I been identified with my career? Why have I been identified with all of these accolades, all of these things that I've been trying to possess my whole life? And who is it that I really truly am and what is it that truly needs to move through me in this season, in this lifetime, in this form now? And that has been my journey of really slowing down and really reconnecting.

For me, it's been reconnecting with nature. That's a tool that I've used. I've removed myself from Manhattan, and I said, "I'm going to connect back with Mother Earth and really get into ... Let me listen to the birds. Let me listen to the wind. Let me listen to the whispers and let me get back to where we were really born." When we were born. We were these beautiful, beautiful, pure beings. And I feel that I was given a lot of traumas in this particular lifetime that I've needed to overcome. And I was always asking why, why, why, why, why, why did this happen? Why did this happen? The why me happened when I didn't have the tools in 2000, probably 2008 to 2011, and then really getting the tools to switch out of the victim mentality and say, "I know now that trauma is our teacher. All of our traumas are here in lessons for us to learn so our soul can make its way on this journey."

The soul needs to ascend, the soul needs to raise its frequency, raise its vibration. We have free will. We have the choice whether or not we're going to allow our circumstances to completely defeat us or use it as a way to transcend. And that's what I teach people now is I teach people all of the tools that I've used to soar past the limitations that I feel I've been dealt.

I've been going to Tulum. I started doing retreats there in 2012. It was my first retreat. It's so magical. The lands are very magical. I just came from doing a women's retreat in CNCOM, which is in the biosphere, which is super protected land. So it's not overbuilt, there's no partying, there's no cartel, there's no drugs. Unfortunately, what's happening in Tulum is that it was this gem, it was this paradise that people found out about. And during COVID, it started even in 2019 because we got married there, 2019, it started to get built up, but as soon as COVID hit, investors from all over the world started to come in and put money into Tulum, which I think that's a good thing for the local economy, but what's happening is now is that there is not a lot of infrastructure to support all of the people that are there.

I live there. I go there every year for three to five months, usually from February to May. There's the capitalism side where people are coming in and they're making a lot of money, and investors are coming and blah, blah, blah. They're ruining a bit of the lands. They're adding in an airport. They're now adding in a train, and it's really causing some issues with all of the cenotes and all of the beautiful, natural, magical waters that Tulum has, which is why it's a portal and a vortex, and why so much healing is happening there. It's always going to be a special place for me and my husband.

Charlie Sandlan:

Yeah, of course. Is there anything that's a common thread that you think is a collective sort of struggle or something that is a thread that binds everybody together that's relatable?

Tara Magalski:

Oh, yeah. I mean, we all have some sort of trauma, whether that's a small T or a big T, right? First of all, we all have imprints that have cellular imprints. All of us have ancestral trauma. All of us have this lifetime trauma, and all of us have some sort of inherited emotional DNA that has been passed down, limiting beliefs, you name it. So all of us have that in some form or another. So what I like to do at these retreats is really tap into that, get to the healing on a much deeper level.

This particular retreat that I did was on trauma, and it was called Transcendence: Remembering Your True Essence. There was a lot of women there that had physical trauma, a lot of sexual trauma, womb trauma. So it just happened to be that was the through line for this one, and I think that it makes sense because I have womb trauma. Of course, I would bring in that frequency. I'm a vibrational match to that. I've been healing that on my own. So of course, I would call in women who also need that healing. So it was very much this retreat on women's wellness, healing the womb space.

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, what do you mean by that? Because I find that fascinating, womb trauma, womb cleansing. What is that?

Tara Magalski:

So us as women, we are born with all of the eggs that we will ever have, and those are the eggs that were in our mother, and those eggs were then in our mother's mother, in our grandmother. So there can be trauma that happens that is in a cellular DNA imprint that has come from generations before us because we, me, I was in my grandmother. My egg was in her womb, my mother's egg, and then you can go back, back, back. We are all feeling these imprints, these DNA imprints that are part of us.

So let me give you an example. When my mother died in 2008, I was with John D'Appolito, who was my boyfriend at the time, and we were in his apartment, and I got the news. And my body, I don't remember because I kind of blacked out, but he told me, he said, "I witnessed this." I had a physical traumatic ... He said I started wailing, throwing myself like this back and forth. And he said that he didn't get in the way, he was just watching and witnessing. And what I've learned is that that was how my body needed to move the trauma. It was actually best, I've worked with healers that said that that was actually really good for you to do that, some sort of somatic movement. Otherwise, it could have really gotten trapped even more in your heart chakra, led to ... These are the things that could lead to cancers and lead to other. So they said the fact that you had such a visceral physical response was a really good thing, but that experience did leave trauma in my heart and in my lungs.

Just to give you an idea, if I happened to be pregnant at that time and I had moved through that trauma, that could have imprinted the baby. And actually at the beginning of this year when my father passed, I found out I was pregnant, and I didn't know I was pregnant until after he passed. It was just about three days after his wake because he was very sick and I didn't even know I missed my period. He was sick, was diagnosed with stage four cancer. I moved him in to my house one month to the day he passed. Found out that I was pregnant, I had a miscarriage.

And what I've learned now is that it was probably the best thing to happen. It was a silver lining because all of those emotions, grief and trauma that I was having from my father's death, it was bringing up some stuff from my mother's death, would've been imprinted on this little soul in my womb. So it wasn't the right time. So what I needed to do is I needed to go do some more healing. And of course, after suffering the miscarriage and everything, I had to do my own womb healing. So I just wanted to paint that picture for you so you can see how it's all related, and our body keeps the score, and all of our issues are in our tissues.

I was so depressed, and I remember John saying to me, "You're feeling something different. Whatever you're feeling, this isn't yours. The depth of pain and suffering that you're feeling ..." It was as if I was an intercession. That makes sense. It was as if I was interceding and I was feeling my mother's pain, and I was feeling her mother's pain, and it was wild. There's no other way for me to explain it. Then I just experienced it and I was like, "How could I be feeling this much pain?" It was like a black hole of despair. That's when I started to realize that I was an empath, that I was able to pick up on other people's energies. I was able to intercede for certain people. There was certain things I could do with prayer. So yeah, it all went-

Charlie Sandlan:

But now, was those gifts that you have, those didn't just appear, you've had those. And looking back in your teens, in your childhood, do you see how that manifests itself in ways that you just weren't even cognizant of or aware that that's what was a part of you?

Tara Magalski:

When I was a child, my mother said that I was always talking to spirits or invisible people or I was sensing things, and when her mother passed, I would say really weird things. So I do remember that because I think that we're all born with gifts of being like a channel and clairvoyant. I think though as a child, I can pick up and I can feel energies in the room. So I think that I had a lot of fear as a child. If something didn't feel good, I was like, "No, no, no. I don't want to know what that is," like ghosts, no, I don't want ghosts. So I think I shut it down because I was in fear.

And then I think after my mother passed, I was wide open again, and then I was shutting it down a little bit because I had a lot of fear and depression and I was at a lower point. But as the years went on, I started to cultivate the gifts with more awareness, with more tools, with understanding, with more understanding that it was totally safe, that nothing ever bad was going to happen.

People tell you certain things and then you get nervous, and so I'm always just was very cautious when I was working in the spiritual realm to just make sure it was the highest good of all, of God, of the highest frequency. So I had to learn that. I had to work with healers that had gone before me, that showed me how to protect yourself, what are some prayers, what are some things that you can do.

I have a friend now who's a real clairvoyant and she's like, "Sometimes I have dreams and I can't sleep." And I always told my spirit guides and God, I was like, "Listen, that's not for me." I believe that you can have these conversations with your angels and spirit guides and God, whatever that is to you, and you can be like, "Listen, I want to learn these gifts, but for my nervous system, I would like it to be a little bit more like this like no boogeyman in the middle of the night, spirit coming up to me while I'm sleeping. That's not going to fly."

Charlie Sandlan:

I'm curious, given what you've gone through and what you know now, your relationship to and your view of death.

Tara Magalski:

Whoa, whoa. That's a good one. Well, I was initiated this past January. I feel like it was an initiation for me to be there with my father. What I realized is that you can't take anything with you. You cannot take all of the limiting beliefs, all of the trauma, the grief, the anger, the bitterness, the resentment, all of that, and you certainly can't take any of the materialistic things. And what I learned watching my father gripping onto life, really, really having a hard time accepting, one, accepting his diagnosis, and number two, accepting that he was dying and that he was transitioning and it was time to really let go and release. He had a lot of fear. My husband said something to me. He was like, "We have to die while we're alive," and I'm like, "Okay."

Charlie Sandlan:

Jesus. Okay, yeah, chew on that for a second.

Tara Magalski:

And so that's really what I'm trying to get to myself. I've had the opportunity to do some really beautiful plant medicine journeys that have brought me to a place where I have less fear of death, where I have a better understanding of where we all go, I think. Who knows? But for me, I have a little bit of safety and knowing like, "Oh, okay. That experience was pretty amazing."

Charlie Sandlan:

And I know you've talked a lot about your own journey to try to conceive and have children, and I'm just wondering, you have an idea of what that is, and being a mother and wanting to be a mother, and then you're faced with these realities, how have you dealt with the whole idea of motherhood and conceiving children and miscarriages. I think that's something that so many women deal with and deal with privately and carry that. What's that journey been like for you?

Tara Magalski:

The journey has been definitely a very intense one. It has brought, again, it's another great teacher for me. This one in particular has been, ooh, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply powerful. One, I've had to look at my relationship with my mother. What is this karmic thing happening here? What exactly, what is the lesson here that I need to transmute into light? Is there fear? A lot of looking at, is there unsafety in my upbringing? So I've had to look really deep at where this core issue is lying and the feeling unsafe, feeling fear. Fear and safety, two things smack in my face because on a conscious level, I don't feel that, right? Also, a lot of womb trauma. What went on in the womb for me? Did a lot of that in my Kundalini training. It was a prenatal training that I just went through that was, gosh, so divinely orchestrated.

I was literally asking, "Okay. What do I need to know? What is it that I need to know about becoming a mother that I am not getting?" and I want to do Kundalini. Before you know it, I'm at the teacher training in Chichén Itzá, having the most beautiful time with women, learning so much about all of the things that I guess I would've had fear about, and in just a beautiful, safe space coming together. Got certified as a prenatal yoga teacher and got to learn a lot about myself.

There's just some fear there that is mirroring and showing up that's of a lower vibrational frequency. So that's what I've realized that I need to look at, and that's what I've been looking at trusting, trusting myself and trusting in divine timing a bit more.

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, I mean, we've already talked an hour, so I'm shocked that that has flown by. I could talk to you for another hour easily. It all makes perfect sense when I see you here, and it's been a few years since we've seen each other. You have a glow about you. You have a light about. You exude kindness, and that's what I get from you.

Tara Magalski:

Oh, thank you.

Charlie Sandlan:

And it's so clear that you have found your life's purpose, and I'm very happy for you, and you're helping people and changing people's lives and contributing something of real value into the world. So it's just great to see you, and let's get out on this. What would you like to say to anybody that is listening here and is struggling and having doubts and kind of where you were 15 years ago? What would you like to say to them?

Tara Magalski:

That we're all born for a specific, unique purpose, and a lot of time, it's going to take our struggles and our traumas and all of the hardships and suffering that we go through to get to the silver lining. So one thing that I would love people to take away is that try and shift the mind for, "Why is this happening to me and how is this happening for me? What can I do with the information?" It's just that simple shift. It's not the victim, "How could this be formed? What is it that I'm going to learn?"

Again, it's not going to happen overnight, but if you can change your mindset, life comes a lot easier, and life is filled with trials and tribulations. I think that's kind of why we're put on earth. I think that's why. No person in human existence has not had suffering, but it's really how you respond to the suffering that will determine your character and determine the quality of life that you're going to have. How do I get back into my mind-heart coherence? How do I not allow life to pull me down? How do I take everything that's happening to me and try and figure out the why? Why is this happening and how could this be used for me rather than against me?

Charlie Sandlan:

Well, my fellow daydreamers, thank you for sticking around and keeping that phone in your pocket. If you are interested in working with Tara, please go to https://www.divinelifestyles.com. Follow her on the Gram, @taramagalski. If you have a few seconds, go to iTunes. Leave a written review for the show. Spread the word. Tell your friends about creating behavior. You can also go to https://www.creatingbehaviorpodcast.com. You can go to that Contact page, hit the red button, speak pipe. You can leave me a message, ask me a question. I will get back to you. You can also go to https://www.magggieflaniganstudio.com if you are interested in training with me at my New York City studio, and you can follow me on Instagram, @maggieflaniganstudio, @creatingbehavior. Lawrence Trailer, thank you for the song, my man. My friends, as always, stay resilient, play full out with yourself, and don't ever settle for your second best. My name is Charlie Sandlan. Peace.