The TELL Approach: Teaching, Experiencing, Learning, and Loving

Megan McDonough shares a powerful philosophy she developed at age 15 that still guides her approach to understanding life's purpose today. Through the TELL acronym (Teach, Experience, Learn, Love), she explores how our souls navigate human existence and fulfill their purpose through meaningful experiences and connections.

• Our souls likely create a "checklist" of lessons to learn before entering human form
• Recurring patterns and challenges are the universe's way of presenting lessons until we learn them
• Five ways to embody the TELL philosophy including staying curious and tracking experiences
• Distinguishing love (connecting, boundless) from fear and lust (separating, finite)
• Being mindful about sharing wisdom only with those who are open to receiving it
• Treating yourself like a "science experiment" to identify patterns and extract lessons

If you like what you're hearing, please subscribe, like, and share—it goes a long way! I'd love to hear if the TELL approach resonates with you or if you have insights to expand on this philosophy. For intuitive readings or to explore my six-week "Ignite Your Life" course, visit magnetizeyourlight.com or find me on all socials @magnetizeyourlight.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Intuitive Insights
• 6:22 The TELL Philosophy Explained
• 11:44 Curiosity as a Path Forward
• 16:03 Love vs. Fear and Attachment
• 20:51 Connect and Course Offerings

Transcript

Speaker 1: 3:11

Hello, welcome to Intuitive Insights. I am your no BS, woo, woo coach, Megan McDonough. I am an intuitive guide and a creativity coach and this podcast, Intuitive Insights, is to do just that share insights that I have found intuitively, experienced intuitively or collectively, through readings or in my own personal experience, so, hopefully, that you can use them for you. My hope is that in this podcast, through interviews that I do and you know, techniques and reflections, meditations, visualizations, practices that I share, that you can find a way to incorporate, flowing with your intuitive self more regularly so you can get and stay unstuck, especially as a creative or, well, just a human, because humans are creative. I mean that's. I really do feel that I believe we are all intuitive, I believe we are all creative and that are creative and intuitive or energetic and are creative, which are kind of one in the same, in a way or aspects of each other. Those are part of our whole self-health. So whenever we're, like you know, showing up and doing the exercise and doing checking all the boxes, eating all the right things, buying all the right furniture at the right stores and the right outfits and going to the right you know activities or whatever, Do you know what I mean when we've done everything right on paper and yet we still feel a little hollow inside or lost or stuck or blocked. Usually, in my experience, it's because the energy, intuitive energy or the energy in general through creativity or lack thereof, is imbalanced or not accessed at all. So today I was actually thinking about so that's my philosophy out the gate. So today what I wanted to share was I have my little stones here when I do.

Speaker 1: 4:54

What I wanted to share was I have my little stones here when I do readings. I do these little. I grab stones for people, crystals, and usually it's I kind of intuit which crystals each person is. Their soul is calling me to pull for them, but it also ends up showing me kind of maybe, what we're going to explore or what might be on their mind, just based on what the healing energy of the crystals do. Anyway, I just had some on my desk so I just grabbed them and yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:27

So what I wanted to talk about today is when I was God, I was in my like. I think I was. I must have. I was in high school, for sure, but what year? That was no idea. Possibly a sophomore, so we're talking like 15, 16 years old, and I was always one of those people that, like super goofy but also super deep thinker when the deep thinker part doesn't even right here would get in my way sometimes. So finding the balance has always been a priority for moi. But I happen to be in one of these deep thinking modes this particular day and this came back around recently. That's why I'm sharing it now.

Speaker 1: 5:59

And what I was contemplating was on the way home from school. My 15 year old brain is what is the purpose of life, Like, what are we here for? Why are we on this earth? And I was trying to solve this problem. And so what I came up with is we are here to tell, as an acronym, and not necessarily in that order. Just that happened to be the acronym that I came up with. And so those tell T-E-L-L.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Obviously hopefully you know how to spell that that acronym stands for is to again, not in this order teach, experience, love and learn, and so I believe the first one would be to experience and through your experience, hopefully you learn, and I'm just going to throw this out there. So have you ever if you? Please let me know if you have, because I love talking about this type of stuff. But and exploring it together, you know, getting the more perspectives you have, the closer of a picture you get to the whole right. So and I've had this happen to me many times If you have a lesson or an experience that keeps coming, if you have a lesson or an experience that keeps coming back, it may have a different shape, it may be different players, but the play, the plot of the play, is still the same. That's an experience and if you don't learn from it, the universe is kind enough to give you an opportunity to learn it right. And as you refuse to learn or are unaware of the lesson or don't quite grasp it yet, the universe continues to get louder and louder and more direct in its experience.

Speaker 1: 7:26

I mean, how many of you had that issue where you're, like I don't know, as a people pleaser? Right, I'm a people pleaser and sometimes that's wonderful and sometimes it's inauthentic. Let's be completely honest, it's inauthentic at times, possibly at all times. You know, kindness and people pleasing get marred and blurred in, especially in the Midwest, as to what they are. I feel like a lot of us Midwesterners confuse people-pleasing with kindness and sometimes I had this conversation with someone recently and I so appreciated it. Sometimes kindness is just being direct and saying no, Instead of saying what somebody wants, or you think somebody wants to hear, or they want you to say, and then it's just taking it's.

Speaker 1: 8:14

You know, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So it's like when you people please and you're saying something that's inauthentic to you or to what they want to hear because it's often your assumption you make that line so much longer and you make twists and turns and it's like you know this could have been over in two seconds. No, thank you. Do you know what I mean? So experience, and once we experience something, we learn, hopefully. And I'm a firm believer that our souls, prior to embodying a human form, have like a checklist of lessons. Like this time around, in human form, I would really love to learn what compassion means for all, right. And so in your life you set up general and specific turning points to help you stay on the track of that life lesson, and maybe there's more than one.

Speaker 1: 9:08

You know, once you accomplish that life lesson, what's next on the checklist, right? So once you experience, then you can move on to learning. And then, once you learn, then it's like you're responsible. I mean, I feel this way. It's almost like you're responsible to share the knowledge. I'm just this idea just came to me. But like, can you imagine, like, if our ancestors who discovered fire, they learned that fire, they had an experience, they learned how to make fire and then they just kept it to themselves? You know what I mean? There's like a responsibility to share knowledge, not to preach, not to be upset if they don't learn the way you learned or if they're not ready to experience your lesson, or not even asking for it, but if someone is asking for it and if someone is open to hearing what it is that you've learned, it's like your soul feels responsible to share, to teach.

Speaker 1: 9:58

And then the last one is to love and to experience that love. And when I say love, I don't mean lust, because lust is contained, meaning it has specific boundaries. My lust looks different than your lust, than somebody else's lust, right? What turns you on is specific and limited, Whereas love, the love that I'm speaking about, is general and boundless, and that love, in my opinion, is what our souls are made of and that, when we experience that love fully, we are incorporating our souls into our personality.

Speaker 1: 10:35

The infinite with the finite. That is the integration that's gone about in several different ways by a lot of religions, and what they're based on is how to integrate the person, which is the finite defined, the individual, with the infinite, the soul. The soul is part of the infinite, and the reason I'm bringing this up today is because my son has been questioning and yes, he can be very dramatic, but he's been questioning what the point of life is. And it brought me back and this is mostly when he's not getting his way, you know. So it brought me back to this tell thing Teach, experience, learn and love. And I thought I'd share it with you today and see if it lights any path forward for you or for others. And so there are five ways that you can infiltrate.

Speaker 1: 11:25

It's not the right word, that's the word I'm looking for Embody, that's the word. Embody, the tell theory, and that is to be and stay curious. And what I mean by that is a curious mind is not closed to new opportunities or experiences or relationships. A curious mind is always wondering and questioning and wanting to know more. A curious mind is kind of fearless and connected. The curious mind looks for connections, and so one way you could do that is.

Speaker 1: 11:57

I mean, it's spring right now while I record this, and in Chicago, where I live, there are my peonies started blooming and then, like last week, the bleeding heart started blooming and the prairie smoke. And I'm always kind of in this, like state of wonder and curiosity when things start to bloom, especially after they looked so dead, you know like, throughout the winter, and they endured so much harshness with the cold and the frozen ground, and yet, like clockwork, the next year they start to bloom again and grow my son's into birds. So another curious thing I've been doing is listening for bird calls, which I would have never done in a million years, right Like it would have never. Birds would have not been on my radar, and my sons and his interest have opened me up to this whole other species on this planet that we're sharing with that is delicate and funny and beautiful, and they all have these gorgeous songs, and so now when I go on walks I'm listening and I'm curious to how many different kinds of bird calls can I hear.

Speaker 1: 12:56

So that's another way you can stay curious, and the hardest way probably is when you're in relationship with someone you have a hard time being harmonious with. Be curious as to why you have a hard time or difficult time, being harmonious for yourself and then curious to for them. What is it about that person and where is it in that person that you can find connections with, where you can find harmony? It was just being in my head. I saw a tree and not saying we have to have harmony with all, it'd be wonderful, right, Sometimes it's harder to find those connections than others. But there is a quote it's Ram Dass who said you know, it's only with the human species that we look at a person and say why can't you be something else? Right, but when you go into nature, you don't look at a elk tree and say why aren't you a pine? You know what I mean. You just go oh, that's a very interesting elk. It's a nice representation of an elk. I haven't seen a representation of an elk like that before. Curious, right.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Another way that you can implement the tell is track your experiences. So being curious helps you open up to the experience, right, Makes you aware that one is happening or is present in your life. The other is to it opens the door. But the other is to accept it and recognize it and then find the patterns. I mean treating yourself as a spiritual person, which, if you're listening to this, hopefully you are, as a creative person, which, if you're listening to this, I know you are right. Those are both. The spiritual path and the creative path are very much interlinked. They both involve risk, vulnerability, struggle, connection, elevation to the next level, seeking and problem solving right. So treat yourself like a science experiment. If this pattern is showing up, am I struggling in the same way in different situations? And what is that? How does that look? So make yourself a science experiment with your experiences to try and extract what's the lesson you're learning. And then the third one is to find the lesson, to treat yourself like the science experiment. Find the lesson what is it? And then implement strategies, Problem solve. Use your creativity. Problem solving is a very creative skill. Use your problem solving creativity to find a new solution with, hopefully, your desired result. Four and this goes along with teaching is to be the embodiment of that experience and lessons to share with others if they want and need it.

Speaker 1: 15:32

I feel like sometimes, when we get an answer, we get really excited about learning something. You know God, my kids do this Like if they're playing a video game and they learn something about the video game. You know, my one kid wants to tell the other one and Kat's so excited to tell her and she's just like I don't, I don't care. She's like can you please, can you please shut up, Because I really don't care about this, but he's so excited he wants to share it. And I feel like that's where a lot of religions go wrong, Because they're like I'm, I feel, wonderful, God is amazing, Jesus, whoever it is, is fantastic, Don't you? And you're like I didn't ask, you know, and you just assumed a lot of me, and that doesn't feel good.

Speaker 1: 16:22

If the person is willing and open to gain from your experiences and your lessons that you've learned, share with grace and detachment from judgment for yourself and for them. It's always nice to ask first and offer. I don't always do that. I try very hard to do that because it's a respect thing, right, A respect of their intelligence, emotionally and intellectually, and a respect of their vulnerability and their capacity for it. At that moment and as somebody who has not done that by accident, not respected those personal boundaries, it feels really crappy because your intention was to help but the result was hurtful and that's not what we want, right? So always ask and detached from the fact that they don't. If they don't, it's not personal, it's just where they're at Right, All right.

Speaker 1: 17:08

Last one is to love and the way to love. Oh, my God, I made that sound like there's only one way, the way to understand. Well, one of the ways let's put it that way One of the ways to understand what is love and what is attachment, what is love and what is fear, what is love and what is lust is by is this connecting myself and the other person or thing, or is this separating myself and the other person or thing or group? Fear separates. Love unites. Fear judges. Love has no judgment. Lust and fear are finite. Love is infinite. That's it. That's what I got. That's my tell. Teach, experience love, learn, learn love. That's my teaching of the tell today. Hopefully you asked for it and if you didn't, thank you for still being here, all right. That's what I got today. That's what I got this week.

Speaker 1: 17:54

If you like what you are hearing, nice, subscribe, like share goes a long way. I heard something this morning about you know, even if I don't have anything to give, I can always give a smile, a compliment or like a hug, if warranted the like, share and subscribe. Is that for this? So I really do appreciate it and I appreciate you being here and listening and just sharing today. I'd love to hear if this resonates with you TEL, if the TEL approach resonates with you. Tell, If the tell approach resonates with you. And or, more importantly, if you have any other insights, anything to add on, expand and grow that philosophy and idea. Again, I was 15 when I came across it. I feel like it still holds up. If you'd like a reading, intuitive reading, from me or with me, you can find me on magnetizeyourlightcom, on all socials at magnetizeyourlight and on my website I have.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Ignite your life. It's a six week do it your own course, do it your own pace. Course that is to ignite creativity and intuition in you, especially if you feel stuck and are looking for some quick, easy, practical tools to liberate your creativity, your intuition and connection to intuition so you can get in, stay in flow in life. And we have workshops quarterly, so the next one is coming up in September. You can find that information on there too, on MYL Connect. All right, have a magical, magical day, week and I will see you soon. Big buckets of love, Make some magic today. Okay, I'm adding this on and I'm leaving in there the big mess up that I had in this episode. How many of you have looked at an elk tree? Because I'm pretty sure that doesn't exist. Elm, it's an elm. Thanks for playing. Make some magic this week.