Hello hello, creative humans, well it’s been a while since of written from bed (I’ll take that as being an encouraging fact!), but the past few days I have battling a growing headache and today it is asking me to rest. And so, writing from bed. I have my notes sitting on the bed next to me, alongside my pen which I snagged from the boutique hotel my partner and I stayed at in New York for my birthday. I have a warm matcha on the nightstand, a hot pack soothing my neck, and my legs are snuggled up under my white and cream quilt. Lastly, but most importantly, my pup is walking around doing his morning routine of bringing his toys from the bedroom into the main rooms of the house. The cutest. 

As I take a moment to pause and notice my surroundings, I encourage you to do the same. Notice any special objects you have, like my sentimental birthday pen which brings me joy. Notice the textures of what is holding you and what is around you. Notice the temperature on your skin, is there a breeze or draft? Notice the light, the shadows, and whatever you find in your space simply allow it. Not judging what you see and are experiencing, simply noticing it. Allowing it. Honor it with your brief attention and presence. This environment scan is a practice of freedom that you can utalize at any time. A practice to attune to your space, and come home to your power.

Today, I am very excited to say it is our 20th episode! I cannot believe we are already 20 episodes in! To celebrate today’s milestone, I want to circle back on why this podcast exists and what we are doing in each episode. For some of you, this may be a review, but I encourage you to stick with me because you never know when a brand new insight may be waiting for you.

Within each episode of this podcast, I take a Dominant cultural narrative and evaluate how it’s keeping you from personal freedom by noticing where it has become Dominant Dogma around you, and within you. Once I have done this, I then speak to the freedom on the other side: Living Your Freedom Now.  

In episode one I set the stage for our time together sharing what Dominant Dogma is and why you should care about it, so let’s take a quick moment to review that. 

Dominant Dogma: Dominant Dogma is a term I coined to encompass all the cultural narratives and beliefs which externally, and subsequently internally as adaptive strategies, tell you who you’re supposed to be, how to do it, and what you need to buy into to live that out. 

Getting more specific Dominant Dogma has likely impacted YOUR life by causing you to feel:

• Overwhelmed
• Insecure
• Not Enough
• Fatigued
• Anxious
• Fearful
• Stuck and Stagnant
• And like your dreams for a better life may just not be possible

The narratives Dominant Dogma upholds result in ideals sharing what it “should” look and feel like to:

• Thrive
• To belong
• To succeed
• To lead and be a leader
• To be healthy and fit
• To be a wife
• To be a husband
• To be a partner
• And overall, a good and normal human

As I share those titles and states of being, you likely have a picture of what they mean to you based on the Dominant Dogma in your world. A vision of what success looks like, an awareness of who you have to be in order to be considered a good human, and a knowing of where you fall short.

These visions and knowings make up your programming, your conditioning, your lens of the world. 

Many of the stories, plans, and beliefs that make up Dominant Dogma are not inherently right, wrong, good or bad. However, it is how dominant culture misuses the stories, beliefs, and virtues that they become toxic tools of manipulation. It’s how we are required to fit into Dominant Dogma to be accepted and safe. It’s how patriarchy, supremacy culture, and those at the top of the capitalist food chain, benefit from your playing small and feeling broken. It’s how the stories and beliefs have become Dogma instead of concepts and perspectives that we can evaluate, contemplate, set healthy boundaries around, and yet still empathize with.

Dogma: 

A belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. – source

And that is why this podcast, and my work as a coach and practitioner exists.

To help you question and peel back the Dominant Dogma that surrounds you and evaluate the subsequent internalized Dominant Dogma that keeps you caged within your own mind. 

We’re here to do the work that Carl Jung speaks of when he stated: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

Not only are we here to make the unconscious dogma conscious, we are living our freedom now.

When you hand back the narratives saying you are unworthy, not enough, and somehow broken, you are reclaiming your wholeness, reclaiming your personal power, your personal sovereignty, and your personal freedom. And around here we not only reclaim our freedom, we live it out.

Not waiting until we are somehow “more healed” or “more whole”, no, true freedom is found in the present. When we can accept and allow where we are, who we are, and what we are experiencing.

I want to share this in more detail through my own story: In the past, I believed that something and everything outside of me was what I needed to be *enough*. On a daily basis I had narratives inside my head and within my world telling me: You need more confidence, but in order to be more confident, you need to look confident with that fancy and expensive new wardrobe. You need to know more, but in order to know more, you need that extra certification, degree, or online course. You need to be saved, but in order to be saved, you need a savior to resque you. You need to belong, but in order to belong, you need to follow the Dominant Dogma of your subculture. I bought into this lack mentality, consistently believing I was not enough, I was broken, I needed to be rescued. I believed in a solution outside of me, a product outside of me, a guru outside of me, a Dominant Dogma outside of me. Now I have come home to me. To my intuition, my ability to choose, and I know I am already enough. Moreover, you are enough too.

This message of personal freedom is a reclamation from the mainstream and often self centered freedom that preserves oppressive ideals. Traditionally, freedom is defined as the quality or state of being free. Living without necessity, coercion, or constraint and liberated from traditional social and sexual roles. However, due to capitalism, colonialism, and other hierarchical systems, freedom has been bastardized into a harmful Dominant Dogma of its own. It’s been made into a mantra for inhumane action and used as an excuse to act without regard. In personal contexts, freedom is often thought of as being able to do whatever one desires, whenever one wants, however one wants, but it is clear this is not the case as we witness our communities and planet face the ramifications of such narcissistic freedom. My desire is to redefine freedom by inviting humanity, regard, and reciprocity back into our personal freedom journeys.

Living my liberation in the present IS my rebellion. 

Living my freedom and my wholeness NOW is my act of  “sticking it to the man”, the harmful systems, and the Dominant Dogmas.

And that is what this podcast is here to offer. 

Live Your Freedom Now is a personal movement to reclaim your wholeness. Reclaim your enoughness. Reclaim your right to be human.

I believe that there is much injustice and harm in the world due to Dominant Dogma, unhealthy patterns, and unhealed trauma, and my goal with this podcast and with my work as a coach is to play a part in collective healing by guiding folks like you back to themselves, back to this wholeness and freedom. I’m here to support you so you can reclaim your soul self, and together we can drop the act and live from a place of sovereignty and wholehearted humanity. We are constantly co-creating with the world around us, and this Freedom Journey is taking ownership of the co-creation.

It’s no longer letting the world happen to us. It’s living our freedom now.

Throughout the month of July I will continue evaluating 3 key Dominant Dogma narratives I have seen and experienced in recent years. Following those three episodes as we step into August, I will transition into episodes walking you through my 5 Practices of Freedom, so you can not only join me in evaluation of the Dominant Dogma, but you can have practical tools to evaluate the unique narratives in your life and so you can Live Your Freedom Now.  

That is what I want to leave you with today. Additionally, if you want support on your Freedom Journey I would love to invite you into a one-on-one coaching series.

Whether you are struggling with anxiety, navigating a life change, or feeling the pressure of intenalized Dominant Dogma, I’m here to facilitate breakthroughs and coach you step-by-step so you can reclaim your wholeness and live your freedom now.

You can learn more about my 1:1 coaching and apply now at megscolleen.com!

All right, I’ll see you next week!

Freedom is yours, 

Megan