Retreats are powerful portals for self-discovery. 

My journey started in 2017 with a retreat on the Oregon coast. It was peer-led and mostly focused on business, but what happened for me was deeply personal. 

Without client sessions and piles of laundry competing for my attention, I was able to slow down and meet myself exactly where I was—which, at the time, happened to be neck-deep in burnout. 

Over the years, I’ve attended and facilitated many different types of retreats. There’ve been peer-led masterminds, somatic healing journeys, sacred plant medicine ceremonies, business planning weekends, deep rest retreats, wellness gatherings with friends, and unguided solo adventures.

Regardless of the theme, each retreat gave me exactly what I needed—a sacred space to be fully present with myself. 

When you’re busy being of service, you don’t have time to meet yourself with the same loving presence you reserve for everyone else. The result of all of this over-giving and under-receiving is that you lose touch with yourself. 

When people ask how you’re doing, your immediate response is, “Fine, thanks!” followed by a quick redirect to get them talking about themselves. You know you’re not really fine, but you don’t know what you’re actually feeling…and you’re kind of afraid to find out. 

As your stress increases, it becomes harder to know what you need. 

Out of desperation, you start outsourcing your decisions to other people because you lack the capacity to source your own wisdom about what is right for you. Coaches, therapists, friends, colleagues, priests, pastors, teachers, parents—there are hordes of people willing to give you their opinion, and honestly, you’re relieved for someone to just tell you what to do. 

But here’s the deal… 

Every time you let someone else decide what’s right, you move a little further away from that deep, intuitive, all-knowing being who lives inside of you.

You know the answers to all of your questions. 

If you’ve forgotten how to find those answers or if you want to deepen your relationship with yourself, I’d love for you to join the Deep Rest Retreat in October. 

This retreat will give you the sacred space you need to rest, recharge, and reconnect with yourself. 

You’ll experience a blend of luxurious rest, deep personal exploration, joyful connection with community, and just enough practical business application to keep your CPA from questioning if you should really count this as a business expense.

This is a space for you to meet yourself. 

The portal to self-discovery is opening to you now!

Nothing is off limits—grief, rage, joy, inspiration, creativity. When we welcome all parts of you (and meet each of them with love and curiosity), magical things happen in your life and business. 

If you’re interested, click here to add yourself to the Deep Rest Retreat waitlist. 

We’re gathering from Thursday 10/24 to Monday 10/28. We’ll be staying on a stunning and secluded private property about an hour outside of Portland, OR. 

We’re finalizing pricing this week, but I’m anticipating landing somewhere between $2500-$4000, depending on your room option. That’ll include pre- and post-retreat online workshops and absolutely everything you’ll need while on retreat.  

Join the waitlist for first access to retreat details and registration. 

If you have any specific questions, hit “reply” and send them over.

I can’t wait to be with you in person.

I sat hunched over my laptop, back and hands aching, one heart palpitation away from a panic attack.

My final graduate school paper was due in t-minus 24 hours. This academic assignment was the only thing separating me from my diploma. 

Some would say I finished the paper weeks ago. Those people would be wrong. I finished the first draft weeks ago but had only just begun the process of editing and improving. 

My jaw was so tense you could hear my teeth grinding from across the room. 

“Maegan,” my husband said tentatively, “I think it’s good enough.” 

I cut my eyes at him, a silent warning to tread carefully. 

He took a breath and said, “I just think that, maybe, you’re being too much of a perfectionist about this paper.” 

“I’m not being a perfectionist, Jonathan. I just want it to be RIGHT.” 

Silence filled the space between us as my admission reverberated through the room. Heaving a sigh, I collapsed onto the desk. He lifted an eyebrow and grinned, enjoying the sweet sensation of victory. 

That was the day I admitted that I was, indeed, a perfectionist. 

I dismissed the title for years, reserving it for people who used perfection to hide from vulnerability. This never resonated with me. I wasn’t hiding from vulnerability and wasn’t afraid to be imperfect. 

My ailment was worse than the fear of being imperfect. 

I was paralyzed by the acute awareness that the thing I was creating could always be better. This was accompanied by a deep desire to create something proportionate to my passion and respect for the subject matter. My writing could be more poetic, my sources could be more robust, my hypothesis could be more nuanced. 

It’s the curse of “conscious incompetence,” which is the state of being consciously aware of how much you do not know / how things could always be better.

For example, you might listen to a Beethoven concerto and think, “Oh, wow, that’s what music is supposed to sound like!” Then, you run to the nearest piano, sit down, put your fingers on the keys, and play a rousing rendition of Chopsticks. 

Whomp, whomp. 

You know how good the music can be, and you know that what you’re sharing with the world falls woefully short of dazzling. 

This is my fatal flaw—consciously incompetent perfectionism.

There’s a line in one of my favorite books, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, that captures this perfectly: 

There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities.

Yes, this! You know what you’re trying to create, but everything you do seems to fall short of your expectations. 

So, what do we do? 

How do we overcome this special brand of perfectionism that’s stopping so many of us from sharing our gifts with the world? 

Zevin answers this question in the very next sentence: 

The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway. 

Dammit, Zevin. Why are you calling me out like that? 

As therapists love to say, the only way out is through. 

In this case, the only way out of paralyzing perfectionism is through creating prolifically and sharing our creations with other humans. 

(The “other humans” part is critical. If your inner critic is the only person at the show, you’re destined to get a bad review.) 

This is one of the main reasons I host Express Yourself. 

This free weekly group is a safe space to practice creating prolifically and share your work with a community of supportive people. 

We meet every Thursday at 9am PT / 12pm ET.

During our time together, you will…

Connect → Say hello and settle into our cozy community.
Create → I’ll give you a prompt and time to make something new.
Express → Share your work (if you want) and support others by giving positive, supportive feedback about their self-expression. 

This is a weekly space where you can show up and practice overcoming perfectionism by “making things anyway.” 

You can join the group here.

Drop in and out whenever you want. The door is always open. 

I can’t wait to create with you.

This email is about a free writing workshop my friend Terri Trespicio hosted in March 2024. The workshop has already passed, but you can learn more about Terri here. 

Worried you might not be interested in workshops about writing and creativity, I planned to add an opt-out at the top of this email that said, “Click here if you DO NOT want to receive emails about writing.” 

I sat down three times to write that opt-out message. As soon as I set my fingers on the keys, my body recoiled like a snake suddenly exposed to the sun. I even let out a little hisssss. 

Usually, I’ll give you a chance to tell me when you don’t want to hear about something. But my snake-senses told me this was different, told me you might need to hear about this.

You may think writing is for ‘real’ writers—authors, journalists, anyone who makes a living on writing alone. But that isn’t true. 

Terri says that thinking only writers need to write is like saying only chefs need knives. Not true. Writing is not for grad students; it’s a birthright and a tool that allows us to express our ideas and share our work with the world. 

Writing is a tool for self-discovery, inquiry, and reflection. 

And no one ever created, shared, or sold a thing without first writing it down.

“But I’m bad at it,” you say. Are you? How do you know? I’m bad at fly fishing and lousy at the trapeze. Though I’ll let you guess how much practice I’ve put in. 

The better you get at a thing, the more you will enjoy and benefit from it. And you don’t get good by not doing a thing. 

If you’re dying to push past a creative block or get out of your head, you’re in luck. 

Terri is hosting an open house for The Studio, her drop-in writing program that launched last fall. Next week, you can try her approach for free! 

I’ve been writing with Terri for several years. Her spaces are safe, supportive, and perfect for unlocking your creative genius… or, at the very least, quieting your inner critic long enough to get your ideas out of your head. Come try it for yourself. I’d love to see you there.

Register here for the Open House, Friday, March 1st, 12:00-1:30pm ET. 

The program mentioned in this email has already passed, but you can learn more about Tom O’Brien here.

My favorite class in elementary school was art. 

Ms. Quintin, a middle-aged woman with cropped blond hair and deep brown eyes, struck the perfect balance of warmth, playfulness, and no-nonsense instruction. 

Was art class fun and silly? Yes, of course! But it was also serious business. 

Every year, the 3rd graders would present a still life painting for submission to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo’s annual art competition. This competition pitted young artists against each other in a battle for artistic glory.

I’d count down the minutes until art class, eagerly awaiting my chance to paint a ceramic bowl full of plastic apples and oranges. I can hear my little voice in the recesses of my memory, “Give me a paintbrush and stand back, Ms. Quintin! I’m ready to PAINT!” 

My desire to make art flowed freely through my 8-year-old veins. It was as natural as breathing, a creative outlet that thrived on experimentation and spontaneity! 

That stopped the day my still life submission was DENIED by the Rodeo’s art competition.

The message I received? Your art isn’t good enough because you are a bad artist.  

My inner critic shoved this belief into a Spacesaver vacuum bag and buried it deep in my psyche, where it would quietly haunt me for the rest of my life.

This weekend, I went to a painting class to reclaim my inner artist! 

I had fun painting a mediocre landscape that my husband, Jonathan, said was the best landscape I’ve ever painted! (To be clear, it is the only landscape I’ve ever painted. Bless him.) 

I went to the class to have fun and walked out criticizing my painting, pondering ways to shove it into the trashcan before anyone could see what I’d made.

Why did I care? 

Why was I criticizing the painting I’d made for fun?!

Why was this 3rd grade wound still oozing?!?! 

Because that’s what old wounds do, obviously. 

We all have old wounds that stop us from being our bravest grown-up selves. 

I see this daily with my clients—especially regarding public speaking. 

They have oozing wounds that make speaking to an audience terrifying. They don’t want to seem too bright, too opinionated, too shiny. They’re afraid they’ll be found out as frauds or laughed out of the room for presuming they had something interesting to say. 

Fear of public speaking is the #1 barrier holding my clients back from sharing their message with more people. 

It doesn’t matter if they’re leading a Zoom workshop, introducing themselves at a networking event, or delivering a keynote speech for a live audience—the fear of being seen holds them back from expanding their impact beyond one-on-one client work.

This fear is almost always rooted in something that happened in childhood. 

We all have some version of our painting being denied a place in the Rodeo’s art competition, a moment of vulnerability when something we made or said was rejected, dismissed, or mocked. 

That painful moment transforms into a belief we internalize so deeply that we barely recognize it’s there. 

I’m a lousy artist.
I can’t dance.
I’m not an athlete.
I’m bad at math.
I’m a terrible speller. 

Those are my noisiest beliefs (or “thought garbage”, as my therapist once referred to them), which I’m working hard to reclaim! 

If you have fears of public speaking, I bet a few of these noisy beliefs rattle around in your brain… 

I’m an awkward person.
I’m not good at public speaking.
I’m boring and uninteresting.
I’m foolish and dumb.
I don’t have anything special to say. 

These beliefs are wrong. I say that with complete confidence, even if we’ve never met! 

Public speaking and authentic performance are learnable skills. 

Just like I’m learning how to paint, you can learn how to perform. 

While I’m not the right person to teach you how to dance or do algebra, I have many gifts to share regarding developing unshakeable confidence in your performance abilities.

I’m collaborating with my friend Tom O’Brien (he’s a professional acting coach!) on a new program called Performance Alchemy. We’ve created a 10-week experience to help passionate and empathic professionals transform their fear of public speaking into powerful performance.

We’re opening applications in September. If you want early access to the details, click here to let me know you’re interested, and I’ll send you the information next week. 

If you have something important to say, Tom and I want to help you unravel the old beliefs holding you back from stepping into the spotlight with ease and confidence. 

Click here if you’re interested in learning more about Performance Alchemy. 

Here’s to rewriting old stories and reclaiming lost parts of ourselves!

I pulled the fleece blanket tighter around my shoulders as a gust of ocean breeze caressed my skin. The cold air felt like a melting ice cube slowly slithering down my spine.

We sat cross-legged on yoga mats after a lovely morning meditation on the covered deck, preparing for the final day of our weekend retreat on the Oregon Coast.

The group was discussing the benefits of the “cold plunge” scheduled at the end of the day. 

Cognitively, I totally understood the benefits of cold plunging: regulate your nervous system, release stress, and prove to yourself that you can do hard things. 

I found myself nodding along as the group energy ratcheted up in preparation for the big plunge. 

Yes, yes, I understand what you’re saying! Yes, I believe in myself! Yes, I want a regulated nervous system! Yes, I can do hard things! 

But here’s the thing: I had absolutely zero desire to do the cold plunge. 

Honestly, I thought, you’ve been doing a lot of scary things lately, your nervous system is feeling regulated, and you have zero desire to freeze your ass off today. 

The Maegan of the past would’ve been wracked with FOMO and fear of hurting the group’s feelings. Would it be rude of me to opt out? Am I just getting in my own way? Will I forever regret not having pushed myself to do the plunge?! 

But the Maegan of today surprised me…

She was like, “Hey girl, you don’t want to do it, so just don’t do it.” 

And then, I just didn’t do it!

I simply said, “This all makes so much sense to me, but I’m not feeling called to do a cold plunge today. I’ll come down to cheer you on!” And that was that. 

This experience got me thinking about how FOMO is triggered when we’re pressured to buy things on the internet, specifically coaching programs and online courses. 

If you’re anything like me, your inbox is riddled with helpful emails from well-meaning people who are trying to sell you things. (And yes, I am one of the people trying to sell you things!) 

Unfortunately, most people still rely on coercive, persuasive, and manipulative sales strategies to get you to buy their stuff. These strategies intentionally trigger the FOMO button in our brains. 

For example… 

You NEED this information if you want to succeed!
Translation: If you don’t buy this thing right now, you will fail. You cannot do this on your own. 

This is the ONLY OPPORTUNITY to take advantage of this LIFE-CHANGING offer.
Translation: If you don’t buy this thing right now, you will fail. This is your only chance to get what you need.

If you feel hesitant to buy this offer, it’s because YOU’RE AFRAID OF SUCCESS.
Translation: If you don’t buy this thing right now, you will fail… and it’ll be all your fault.

Online sales strategies are designed to trigger FOMO by activating your fight or flight response. These strategies poke and prod at the parts of you that are already wracked with fear, overwhelm, and self-doubt. Honestly, it’s fucked up. 

I’m actively trying to unlearn these strategies, and when I said no to the cold plunge, an important piece of learning clicked into place for me: 

My only job is to discern what is and is not right for me right now. 

Here’s the truth about most things…

There is always something new to learn. There is always something helpful to buy. There is always someone willing to help me whose support I would truly value. 

But that does not mean that now is the time to learn a new skill, pay for extra support, or buy that super helpful thing. Now is not necessarily the time for action, and the only person who can discern what is and is not right for me right now is ME.

Translation: The only person who can discern what is and is not right for YOU right now is YOU! 

I know, it’s overwhelming! When everyone is telling us what we should be learning, doing, and buying, it can feel impossible to discern what our intuition knows is right for us. 

Those are my thoughts when I’m thinking about this through the lens of a buyer. But as I said earlier, I’m also a seller. If you own a business, you’re a seller too. In this community, we’re all buyers and sellers, which means we need to be thinking about this from both angles. 

For the sake of brevity (haha), here’s where I’m at with this today… 

As a BUYER, it’s my job to discern what is and is not right for me right now. 

As a SELLER, it’s my job to tell you the facts about what I’m selling! 

I’m going to tell you why I believe the thing I’ve created is fabulous and help you understand whether or not you’re a good fit for my offering without doing any of these things… 

Making you think you cannot succeed without my program. That’s bullshit. OF COURSE you can figure this out on your own. You’re brilliant. 

Lying to you about how often I’m going to be selling a particular product or offering. If I know I’m going to launch another group later in the year, I’ll tell you that so you can decide when you want to join. 

Planting seeds of self-doubt by making you question your own intuitive hunches about whether or not this is the right offering (and timing) for you. 

And to think, I figured all of this out without plunging my body into 50° ocean water!

Now, are you ready for a test? 

This feels like the perfect opportunity to announce that it’s time to apply for the Next-Level Therapist summer cohort! 

Over the next 5ish weeks, I’m going to be sending you emails about my program with an invitation to complete an application to join. 

If your intuition is telling you now is not the right time and/or you’re straight-up not interested, you can click here to opt out of future emails about the Next-Level Therapist summer cohort! 

I’m going to hype the shit out of this program because I believe in the work we’re doing, but I’m not going to convince you to join. I’m going to tell you the facts and trust you to decide if you want to work with me. 

The only person who can decide whether or not you do the cold plunge is you. 

Trust yourself. You cannot make the wrong decision.

“Maegan, thank you for being so good with your tongue.” 

Tears streamed down my face as I choked on a laugh. 

He quickly pulled his hand out of my mouth, face flushing crimson as he realized what he’d just said. “Oh my god, I am so sorry. That did not come out the way I intended.” 

“Honestly,” I said from my supine position in the dental chair, “it’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week!”

He’d been working inside of my mouth for the past thirty minutes, affixing plastic attachments to my teeth as part of my Invisalign treatment using an adhesive gel he warned should not make contact with my taste buds, hence my diligence in following his instructions about where to move my tongue as he worked. 

The truth is, I really like compliments. 

Love them, actually! Nothing fills my cup faster than positive feedback. Give me words of affirmation (+ a dose of acts of service, if you’re feeling generous), and I’ll love you forever. 

I used to be ashamed of my desire for praise. 

My inner-critic would whisper, “Don’t be so vain. You shouldn’t care about what other people think. Besides, they’re just being nice, it’s not actually true.” OOF. My inner-critic is insidious.

But over the years, I’ve realized our culture profits on making us feel shitty about ourselves. We’ve literally been conditioned to criticize our natural desire for affirmation. Isn’t that messed up?!

When we’re braced for criticism and judgment, our sense of safety plummets and our ability to be creative evaporates like water on hot asphalt. Positive feedback, on the other hand, helps us see our own strengths and reinforces deep self-trust in our innate ability to be creative.

This is where the magic happens for therapist entrepreneurs! If you’re yearning for a business beyond private practice, you must be able to articulate your unique ideas, which you can only do when you feel safe to express yourself creatively. 

That’s a big part of why I’m reviving the Express Yourself Community Writing Studio—to give you space to begin expressing your creativity without fear of criticism, judgment, or reprimand.

You might come to write secret thoughts in your journal, work on your next blog post, or write about your big vision for the future. Whatever you bring into the room will be honored, and you will be celebrated for showing up and having the courage to let your true self out of that stifling therapist costume you wear in your private practice. 

We’re going to meet (almost) every Thursday at 9am PT / 12pm ET for one hour of connection and expression. The community is free to join. This is not a paid coaching group, it’s a space that I need for myself and want to share with you too. 

We’re starting THIS Thursday! Can’t make it this week? No worries. We’ll be meeting every Thursday morning. You can hop in and out as you’d like! 

All you have to do is click here to add yourself to the Express Yourself email list, and you’ll get an email from me every Thursday morning with the link to join my private Zoom Room. 

I can’t wait to see your faces this Thursday. 

My intention words for this year are connection, collaboration, and creativity (you know I can’t resist a good alliteration), and this feels like the perfect way to bring that all together. 

I recently returned from spending a week with my family of origin in Texas. 

Let’s just say, it wasn’t my favorite family visit. 

There were a few highlights (all of which involved spending time with my niblings) but overall, it was a disappointing reminder that one of these things is not like the other. That thing being me, obviously.

Can you relate? 

I sincerely hope you cannot relate, but there’s a good chance that you do. Many therapists feel like the strange and unusual “black sheep” in their family. 

We grow up feeling afraid to do so many things… 

→ afraid to be too silly or weird
→ afraid to achieve too much or to shine too brightly
→ afraid to say what we really feel and believe 

The consequences for standing out from the pack are terrifying. If you’re too silly, you’ll be mocked. If you’re too shiny, you’ll be criticized. And if you say what you really believe? Oof. You could be rejected from the pack entirely! 

My family does not see who I truly am. They are not curious about my desires. They do not care about my values. I often feel that “Maegan” exists as a caricature in their minds, an idealized version of me they can love and embrace without stretching too far out of their comfort zone. 

As children, we become masters at stuffing our true feelings deep down inside so as not to upset anyone with our deviant views or outlandish personalities. And when childhood is over, we go to graduate school to become therapists!

It’s an obvious career choice. We’ve been training our whole lives to stay silent while caring for other people’s emotional struggles. We tell ourselves it’s a vocational calling. We’ve been preparing for this role since before we could speak! Tiny little emotional sponges turned into professional listeners. 

And now we sit around wondering why we’re so burned out.

First, we blame the obvious culprits—being overwhelmed, overworked, and under-paid. These are legitimate problems, and they need to be addressed. But really, the root cause of our burnout goes way deeper—a lifetime spent suppressing who we truly are so that we can meet the needs of everyone else. 

To be clear, I loved my work as a therapist. I loved my clients. The work we did together was inspiring and magical. I witnessed moments of profound healing that I will forever hold close to my heart. I’m not throwing the therapist baby out with the bathwater! 

But I do think it’s time for therapists to start having a more honest conversation about how this work is holding us back from being fully self-expressed in our lives and businesses. 

If you’re tired of feeling like a shell of yourself, I see you… and I wonder if maybe it’s time to unlock the door that’s keeping your wildest, smartest, quirkiest self trapped inside of you. 

Maybe it’s time to let yourself step into the sunlight to take a big gulp of crisp, fresh air. Maybe it’s time to step out of the therapist facade and into the most fully expressed version of yourself. 

Realistically, I know transformation doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve been working on this for years, and I feel like I’m still at the beginning of the process. 

What I do know is how to help you get started… and starting is half the battle, right? 

Last year, I hosted an experimental community writing studio called Express Yourself. We gathered together every week with the sole purpose of expressing something in writing. We witnessed each other stepping into the sunlight, pulling truths out of our bodies and placing them lovingly on the page. It was magical, and now feels like the perfect time to revive this offering. 

I’m finalizing the details this week, but if you know you want to be part of this community, click here to add yourself to the Express Yourself email list.

It is completely free. We’ll meet once per week for one hour. During our time together, you will do three things: 

1. Show Up—the hardest part!
2. Express Yourself—you’ll write something, doesn’t matter what. 
3. Reflect—pause, notice what’s happening inside of you, celebrate. 

My hope is to create a container where you can show up and practice expressing yourself. That is how you begin to heal from a lifetime of hiding. You practice slowly and gently stepping into the sunlight by expressing yourself—in a safe space, with safe people—one word at a time. 

I’ll encourage you to experiment with different types of writing. You can journal, you can work on a blog post, you can start writing your book. Doesn’t matter what you create, so long as you’re creating. 

Click here if you know you want to be part of this weekly community. I’ll follow-up with you as soon as I have the details finalized. 

I can’t wait to see YOU. I have a feeling you’re going to create something spectacular this year.