Rewriting Your Story: Generational Trauma, Body Wisdom & Trusting Your Desires with Meg Calvin

 "We're in a magical time right now."  Revealing personal truths, the impact of generational trauma, the importance of body wisdom, and the influence of purity culture on identity in this week’s conversation with author Meg Calvin.  "Desire is God knocking on the door of your heart."

Teresa and Meg discuss how these elements intertwine with personal growth and spiritual integration, emphasizing the need for women to trust their desires and rewrite inherited narratives. "Trauma compounds, it echoes, it time travels."

Meg shares insights from her journey as an author, connecting her experiences to the characters in her fiction work, and highlights the significance of understanding and embracing one's desires as a divine calling.

Meg Calvin's New Book  There, He Holds Her...available on Amazon.

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Transcript

TNT SpiritWorks (00:01.762)
We're in a magical time right now where a lot of people are having revelations about what's really truth in their life. so Meg, I want to start there with revealing truths and how important is that for you and some of the characters that you go down in the path of your book.

Meg (00:23.614)
Yes.

Meg (00:27.719)
Sometimes we have, we've been living with certain stories about our talents and our identities.

and those were given to us from our parents or grandparents or our religion that we were raised in. And I have noticed those are usually the cause of our biggest blocks professionally and personally is those inherited truths that not only

are no longer serving us, but actually we're never based on reality. And so, and I laugh from a healed place about my own truths that I've had gotten to rewrite over the, four decades in this incarnation.

TNT SpiritWorks (01:10.082)
You know, it's interesting because I didn't grow up in a religion, but being in the Western culture, we all are affected and influenced by Christianity and whatever, you know, whatever type of Christianity we're brought up with our family. And so I know that, you know, in the book, you go back generations or you talk about the generation. So share a little bit about the importance of recognizing, you know, who came before us and what did they kind of go through that is now influencing our lives?

Meg (01:41.009)
yes, yes.

Meg (01:46.658)
I mean sure.

When I heard the book tell me it wanted to be done in dual timelines, a mother's timeline in the 70s and an adult daughter in her mid 30s in the 2018s, when the book told me it wanted to be in dual timelines, I listened and I knew the reason was because trauma, as you know, big T, little T, upside down T trauma, it compounds, it echoes, it time travels and left unhealed. What happened to us?

in is still affecting us in 2018. And there may be things that happened to our parents or our grandparents that were very traumatic, very dark, very heavy. And whether it's through epigenetics or it's through how that affected their fears and anxieties and their parenting style, it affects us. And so I think it's very important to take time.

as long as it's in a safe way, because obviously some parents and grandparents, they're not safe to be around and it's good to have boundaries. But if it is in a safe way to get to know what they were a survivor of, that can help us so much in offering them forgiveness and cleaning that energy and making a conscious choice of, okay, how do I want to move differently now that I know that they survived this, but that was then, this is now. How do I want to move moving forward?

So that's one reason I think it's very important to learn those things.

TNT SpiritWorks (03:20.814)
Yeah, I think it's interesting because a lot of people don't want to talk about things in the past. And I was talking to a gentleman recently who has one, he had something happen to him when he was a child with one ear and he cannot hear out of it. And he's asked his mom who's now much older, what happened? And she just like starts tearing up and can't go there. So, know, recognizing that things that a lot of people just in this lifetime may not be able to even go into. So how challenging was it to

Meg (03:49.089)
Mmm.

TNT SpiritWorks (03:50.115)
go down that path of maybe some of the revelations that you recognize you knew and maybe some that you haven't yet discovered from what's you know from the path of the characters.

Meg (04:10.017)
protagonist, Reverend Hedy Stone, discovers a truth in her family. It's rewritten. And then she doesn't do anything with it. She's numb to it. And I think there's a lesson we can learn from her because...

Meg (04:29.213)
later on in other chapters synchronicity start happening and other little signs start happening telling her it's you you have no choice but to research this now or step into this new reality that this truth has just revealed.

And so I feel, and of course, like every hero's journey, she has these other characters that join her on her search for truth. And so I think there's a lesson in that for us as readers that if we're meant to rewrite an inherited truth, it will have multiple opportunities and affirmations internally. Hedy learns to listen to her body.

through her body wisdom that, okay, I meant, this is a yes for me. So she has intuitive guidance. She has secretive speaks externally. She has community adjoining her. And so all these, in a sense, she has every sense of support and help to, even when it gets hard and sweaty palm conversations have to happen, she has a support she needs to rewrite the inherited truth that rewrites her entire identity.

TNT SpiritWorks (05:43.351)
And so you're talking about the body and how important it is to trust what we're feeling and what and our body holds so much. So share a little bit about the insights you received from that aspect of our journeys, because that's an important part of the whole makeup, right? The mind, body and spirit.

Meg (05:47.019)
Mmm.

Meg (06:03.061)
Right, right, yes, yes. I know with all the deep healing work you've done, you've probably heard this study that there are, that we receive, we make decisions in our stomach before it gets to our brains. There's more neurons in our stomach before the part of our brain puts words to things. And so often I've noticed in people pleasers, as a recovering people pleaser myself, and then servant leaders that are, this happens in men, obviously.

but especially in women that are servant leaders, their body will...

give them a decision. will give them, whether it's an emotion in a certain part of the body, where emotions show up in certain parts of the body, or if it's an intuitive hit that is unique to their person, how their intuition speaks to them, their body will give them guidance. And then instantaneously, a few seconds later, there will be another voice in the part of their brain that puts words to things that usually, from my own experience, the experience of others, is a

a parent, parental figure, a guardian, a pastor, someone that they, there's an unhealthy bond with, that they are living from a place of appeasing or impressing that person to such a degree that that person's opinion has become enmeshed with their own, they've confused it for their own consciousness. And so they hear that person's voice in their head and they instantaneously

Ignore what their body is telling them and then a few weeks later. There's so there's so much obligation there's so much should energy and Why didn't I why didn't I listen and trust myself? It's so I love helping women learn how to listen to where does where does this emotion show up in my body specifically and then how does my Intuition which I know is different than emotion How does my intuition use my body to talk to me and I'm gonna listen to that first before

Meg (08:00.903)
any rational thinking goes into it or anyone else's opinion has time to seep in here.

TNT SpiritWorks (08:06.978)
So I would love for you to share a little bit about your journey. I mean, you've been out here before and because we work together, because you helped me with my amazing book and you've helped other beautiful people that I know with their books. so this is fiction, though. So I would love for you to share a little bit about the parallels of what's in this book. How did it parallel like, you your life and what you wanted to bring forth in a fiction book? Because this is your first fiction. This is your third book you've written.

Meg (08:12.277)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (08:17.323)
Yes.

Meg (08:37.983)
Hmm, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. What comes to my mind is the book Little Women. Do you know that book?

TNT SpiritWorks (08:44.504)
I love that book. Yes.

Meg (08:46.625)
I had a feeling you were a fan, like me. Yes, yes. Yes. So true. Yes, yes, yes. So as you probably know in Little Women, Louise May Alcott has three sisters in real life. And she also had very politically progressive parents in real life. And so part of that is in her book, Little Women.

TNT SpiritWorks (08:48.366)
That little house in the prairie. Hello.

Meg (09:16.693)
However, even though characters are loosely based on people that exist in real life, there's a whole lot of differences. And Luis May Alcott...

parts of her personality that were teased and looked down upon in real life. She made those as qualities that were really loved and beloved in little women. Her father was, in real life, this educator who he was profound in how he believed in the intellect of children. But...

He did some odd tests. Things make you go, like he would leave an app, two apples in the room or something, leave one apple in the room and he would be outside the door watching how his children were, if they would share, they wouldn't share. It was very odd. And so we don't see any of that in Little Women, how weird her dad in real life kind of was. And so I use that as an example as there are some similarities. are...

Reverend Hetty Stone, yes, is loosely based on me. I was a minister. I did leave the ministry. I won't give a spoiler away what Hetty does. that I had this massive, starting in 2018, as you know, this massive, one of my massive spiritual awakenings where I was turned on to everything metaphysical and reincarnation and chakras and started taking into a development, met my spirit guides, and it healed me.

in ways that my Protestant upbringing didn't. And I don't feel could've, to be honest. I needed these metaphysical modalities. So Hetty and I are similar in that. Our character arc is the same, but this is a fictitious world that I've created in these Texas small towns.

TNT SpiritWorks (11:07.918)
Cool. And as I was reading through there was, you know, this is a very juicy fictional book, I'll just say has a lot of good stuff in it. And one thing I wanted you to touch on was purity culture, because as far as for myself, I've never heard of that before. So I'd like you to explain a little bit what purity culture is.

Meg (11:28.491)
Yes, so being raised in Texas myself.

sixth grade to 12th grade in church, in a youth group. And I was basically raised by my missionary grandparents, had wonderful parents, but I spent a lot of time with my missionary grandparents and started preaching when I was 13. So it was very much enmeshed and addicted to the local church. And I was in youth group when the book came out that there's since been a documentary.

that he's apologized for writing the book that shaped a generation of us children that were teenagers in the late 90s and early aughts. And it was called I Kissed Dating Goodbye. And so purity culture, from my experience of it, was I was given a ring, a cross ring, and it was from my mom. She did not say that it was a purity ring, but I took it to youth group. And one of the volunteers told me

could be a purity ring and what that meant was that I was, as you probably know I'm going with this, that I was going to remain abstinent until marriage. So in that culture you only date if you think you're actually going to marry that person and so there was so, I know I can say this on your show, there were so many in my teens and

early 20s, so many guilt-ridden hand jobs, if you will. And I was filled with shame about my body. And there were lots of youth group lessons and retreats I would go on. The chrysalis flight, yes, I'm calling it out, which was an amazing retreat for women. But the talks they would give were really damaging in how they taught women not to trust their bodies, that their desires were selfish and not of God.

Meg (13:20.611)
And when we're taught not to trust our bodies sexually, that means we stop trusting our body, period. And we flee to our brain, as you know, and live from that divine masculine place of rationalizing and organizing and never make time to actually feel what our body is telling us when we shut all that down. so...

Hetty in the book, we see her and this is, yes, this is very much based on me in real life.

She's a pastor and so she preaches afraid that her curves will distract the congregation. So she preaches in very tight sports bras and she puts scarves over her white clerical collar. And she still has her purity ring on in her thirties. And I think one of the lines in the first chapter is like the only thing tighter than her sports bra is her purity ring from eighth grade. And so there is this restriction, this restriction and denial of self for women that we see Reverend Hedy Stone

got from purity culture. I had in the past three years, no, 2021, I was at a spiritual retreat for entrepreneurs and I had this wake up call that rocked me to my core. And the wake up call I had was, I was looking over my dating life in my teenage and twenties and purity culture,

messed me up so much that I, by the way I lived, I've been dated, I believed it was more holy for a man to pleasure me than for me to pleasure myself because self-pleasure is sinful. And even if someone is hearing this and they're thinking, God, she's talking about self-pleasure, that is sinful, even if that's okay if they're thinking that, they can have that opinion. But also, I invite them to just consider

Meg (15:22.369)
But isn't it even more unhealthy that I believed it was more holy for a man to touch my body in an intimate way than for me to do it myself. That I was in my mid-30s, that broke me open that I had that belief. It was so seeped in me like, this is okay. If it was consensual, all the men in my memories were loving and respectful. We had a good time as teenagers or early 20s.

lots of respect, consent, all the things I reciprocated because I was a good, know, all the, it was good, but at the same time at its core, it wasn't, it wasn't good that purity culture messed me up that much, that I did not trust myself to touch myself. And so I'll pause. That is purity culture in a long-winded sermon that Hetty gets to get over and heal throughout the book.

TNT SpiritWorks (16:15.052)
Wow. So that's interesting because, of course I didn't grow up with any religion and you know, but like, like touching myself, that wasn't for like many, like a couple decades down the road. women just don't do that. That was just my, and I wasn't raised in that, but I guess it's just in the culture. Like, yeah, I just, and I never even thought about it, but then you knew guys who talked about jerking off and doing things like that. Right. And so it's so interesting.

Meg (16:30.475)
He

Meg (16:35.157)
Mm-hmm.

Meg (16:41.653)
Yes. Yes, yes. Very, very interesting. And as you know...

And as your listeners know, the chakras, the sacral chakra is not only where sensuality and sexuality live, but also creativity. And so, so often for women, when thanks to purity culture, other elements in our upbringing, when we repress sexuality, we're also repressing creative life force energy, which is our ability to create and make a difference in the world through our unique personality and style. Like we're repressing that power when we don't trust ourselves sexually or sensually.

TNT SpiritWorks (17:20.942)
And I think about the fact too that when we go through opening up and our cycles start, and nowadays it's earlier, but in what the early teens and how much energy is moving through that area and then to repress it like that, that's, gosh, I look back and I think that's really not, that's not a good thing at all, Meg. know? Yeah.

Meg (17:40.705)
No. And when you... Yes. Yes, that's so true. Repressing. Repressing the...

Meg (17:51.061)
the power that comes through our cycles as women. Yes, yeah.

TNT SpiritWorks (17:55.703)
Absolutely. Yeah. Wow. I got chills all over just talking about that because that's, you know, as I was reading some of the comments that people that have already, you know, pre-read your book and some of the openings that they've received from just reading the stories and just, you know, experiencing the different characters that are in the book. And so I'm so excited. I cannot wait to read the book when it comes out. And in June, I'm super, super excited about it.

Meg (18:21.535)
Yes!

TNT SpiritWorks (18:24.596)
And I want to really talk, I'm sorry. I want to talk a little bit about integration and the importance of integrating our desires and things that we really would like to have in our lives. And I know sometimes too, and you mentioned a bit about that, the separation between God and our desires and also the outside controlling. So I'd like you to dive a little bit into

Meg (18:24.907)
Thank you, thank you.

TNT SpiritWorks (18:52.962)
that aspect around integrating spiritually and our own essence and how that works alongside with being a believer of God or understanding that there is a higher source.

Meg (19:13.345)
want to dance with so many questions right now. So I want to make sure I dance with the right one.

TNT SpiritWorks (19:18.734)
Absolutely.

Meg (19:23.135)
So the question we're going to dance with is, what does integration look like spiritually? Is that, awesome, awesome. Thank you, thank you. I want to honor what you said and I heard lots of good ones. It's awesome. Well, I can go off that tangent. I can go off that tangent, yes. What does integration look like? Yes.

TNT SpiritWorks (19:29.464)
Yes, that's a good one.

TNT SpiritWorks (19:39.342)
Yeah.

Meg (19:53.601)
Two?

Cat three.

Meg (20:05.643)
Three thoughts come to me. The first is, of course,

Meg (20:15.061)
becoming integrated in the sense of, as a human, made in God's image, divine masculine, divine feminine energy flow through me. As with divine agency, I get to bring both of those, feel at home in both those energies, do the shadow work in both those energies, and then know when to lead from which. That's the first thought of integrated, divine feminine, divine masculine. The second thought is,

I love the splintered parts theory in trauma healing. talks as I'm sure your listeners have heard about when we...

When something little t, big t happens to us, we don't want to experience it again. So there's a part of our identity that splinters off. And this thing can't happen again. And so I better not be that.

person again. And so we splinter off the six year old version of ourself or the 11 year old version of ourself. And so, as you know, it's so powerful to do deep inner child healing, to go back and reclaim those exiled parts of ourselves and bring them back into, okay, I'm meeting six year old Meg's, 40 year old Meg is meeting six year old Meg's needs. She's reclaimed now she's back home and oh, that six year old Meg was really funny.

that feels good to bring that part. she was a class clown. What is bringing more class clown moments in my life in my 40s look like? So reclaiming the exiled part. So that's the other part of integration. And then the third part is.

Meg (21:50.538)
A lot of, I've gotten some trolls, I've gotten some evangelical trolls on this next point on Facebook and they're welcome. I welcome them. They're welcome to the table, those evangelical trolls. And that is that God is obsessed with your desires. And that makes a lot of Christians want to say, which they do on Facebook, show me what vile passage you got that from.

TNT SpiritWorks (21:55.502)
you

You

Meg (22:14.739)
And so what I mean by that is, goddess, yes, yes, I'm reminded of the woman that brought me back in love with scripture after I left ministry. She was an intuitive metaphysical practitioner in the late 1800s, Dr. H. Emily Cady. Part of the, she kind of started, was a founder of the Unity Church and she says,

TNT SpiritWorks (22:17.422)
To the book.

you

Meg (22:44.257)
Desire is God knocking on the door of your heart. And so anything that we desire is there first and foremost because God put it there. And when we are integrated, when we have done those other things that I just shared, divine feminine, divine masculine, reclaiming the exiled parts of our person in this incarnation, and we have habits in place and support systems in place,

We don't have to ever worry about desiring something that is outside of God or that is being desired from a place of woundedness because we have done the integrating work and we, in the Bible and the Old Testament, Amos, the prophet, speaks of having this plumb line with God. And I love, I think of chakras when I hear that and I think of alignment when I hear the word plumb line from the Hebrew Bible. It's like, are they saying the same thing? Yes, they are. That when we are integrated,

All we can desire is what God desires for us first, because that's who put the desire in our heart. So those are my three thoughts on integration.

TNT SpiritWorks (23:46.777)
So what is your desire Meg for the reader to take away whenever they get this beautiful book in their hand or the audio book or I'm sure the ebook. What is your desire from Meg the author?

Meg (24:00.417)
Mm-hmm. Yes. I want to empower more women to trust their desires as safe. And that is, whether that is professional or personal life, whatever the desire is, that it is safe and that this book is a permission slip to desire it and receive it.

TNT SpiritWorks (24:22.314)
Love it Meg. Well, you know, it has been such a pleasure having you on again today and Reconnecting it's been a couple years. guess I guess it's been three years since you and I've worked together. So You know and so much has happened between those three years, but I'm just so honored and I wish you the very best luck with this book and getting everything out into the world and I will have all the information and all the links down in the show notes for everyone to go and get their copy however, that's going to be and

and take it in and share it freely with the world because I think this book and I'm telling you, as soon as I heard about it, I was filled with chills. I'm filled with chills now, Meg. So there's something really important about this book that I'm just honored to be able to share with my listeners out there.

Meg (24:58.529)
Okay.

Meg (25:08.506)
thank you so much. Thank you for the space you hold and for the light you shine.

TNT SpiritWorks (25:14.424)
Thank you, Meg.