Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren McMonagle.
Lauren, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Hello all. My name is Lauren McMonagle, also known as Ms.McMagic online, Potato by my roommates, and Elliot the ox by others. My story is messy and nonlinear, it holds depth and blandness and pain and grit like most stories do. Nevertheless, let’s take a look at three areas in my life that brought me to Ms.McMagic and the Wondrous World of Misfits and Magic Makers. We will begin with influential experiences whilst living at home before heading off to college, then head on over to the three months where I watched my father die in the palm of my hand, and complete our journey with the many influencers who mentored and changed my life.
As a young girl, I loved to be the life of the party and rule-maker so that no one would double-dip in the veggie platter hummus. I was extremely magnetized to the people in my life and was the MOST curious cat of all cats. One of my notorious question asking moments was when I asked my great grandfather at his wife’s wake, “when he was gonna go?” I was nine. I remember shame around this story as I began to think inwardly how I was being perceived by others and how I hadn’t made the most thoughtful of choices in that moment. It was a wildly epic childhood as I began babysitting at age 12 and was the neighborhood babysitter for many of the families. I was so well-liked that I would be invited to family gatherings and holiday parties. I knew aunties, grandparents, cousins, and many of the dynamics and dramatics within these families. I freaking loved it. Then there came a time where I began to have an interest in dating.
This is where things began to change. I went from a love bug to distanced and fearful and angry. In middle school, I found it challenging to have a guy show interest in me. I was tall and quiet, though my dad would encourage me to make a move on my crushes as he would explain that the nervousness I felt to make a first move, boys feel that way too. So I would make my moves and get rejected. I felt defeated. I went online often to find pleasure and learn subconsciously about what I was attracted to. During my freshman year of high school, I found myself dating my best friend, a woman. We kept it hidden for the rest of high school, except my parents knew. It was like living in separate worlds. A world with my family that I didn’t want to open up to about how I was feeling because I didn’t know how to and a world with my girlfriend that was toxic and manipulative yet thrilling and intoxicating and a world with my friends who I felt like I couldn’t be my truest self because I was hiding such a big part of my life from them. It felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere and my soul was yearning and begging for a new beginning, a fresh start, and a place where I could truly be free to be myself. College. “College would be the ticket,” I thought.
It is 2014, I am in the freshman dorm and I am feeling excited and nervous to begin the next four years of my life. The first year was rocky as I felt extremely afraid to tell people I was gay. Mind you, I look straight and feminine and I was not comfortable with the word lesbian. In the first year of school, I felt like the only way to open up to my new friends was to be drunk and/or high to come out to them and the waterworks always ensued as I would begin to tell my story. All this time as I am becoming more and more comfortable with my sexual orientation, my father was diagnosed with stage four cancer right before heading to college. He went to live with my grandmother in Wisconsin while he overcame the stupid disease.
Fast forward to sophomore year of college he was getting other illnesses while his immune system was severely compromised from the chemotherapy. My sister, brother and I flew to see him while he was in the ICU, winter of 2015. We lived there for three months while my father tirelessly fought the cancer and in March of 2016, he died. I was holding his hand in the hospital as he took his last breath. It was one of the most gut-wrenching, soul-crushing, and pain-inducing experiences of my family and I’s life. It was after his death that I felt his spirit guiding me to say yes to my life and really focus on my own happiness. This gave me a new look at the meaning of life and to spend it living as fully and joyfully as possible. And to take risks in the direction of what truly matters and what truly brings forth meaning and purpose. The last two years of college whiz by and I find myself thinking similar notions as I had in high school, “when can I move onto the next chapter for more freedom and to truly express myself?”
Promptly after college, I moved my butt to San Diego, a place I had no dream or desire to move to. Here I find incredible people who teach, live, believe, and aspire to create a life that is purposeful, meaningful, magical, enlivening, grand, bold, and authentic. It feels like every person I come into contact with has a purpose and gift as I continue the pursuit of fulfilling happiness and understanding. In the first month, I found a meetup group called Girls Who Like Girls Who Like to Hike, where I find 30-60 lesbians hiking, drinking, and playing trivia every week. Instant friend group. I found a newfound confidence to learn how to be myself amongst a group of queer peers, something I had never experienced before. In my own time, I was searching in every corner of the dusty house for my first “real” job out of college and I was struggling to find something that “fit.” I mentored a foreign exchange student for a semester, tutored seniors in high school who were behind in credits to graduate, and advised lower-income parents with employment services.
All the while I was taking courses online on manifestation, learning the nature of our thoughts, and awakening my inner goddess. When really, I was taking courses on empowering myself to show up as the true badass and powerful being that I am. Since these experiences, I have shaved my head, quit my corporate job during a pandemic, started a business, and danced all over the streets of San Diego, unapologetically in a tie-dye fanny pack, mouse ears, and suspenders. In addition, I have come home to my natural gifts and abilities to feel and sense energetic beings, forces of nature, and angels. These gifts allow me to tap into my energetic field and retrieve information from the spiritual realm to provide folks with insights that bring people clarity, understanding, and hopefulness for their life and the world at large. As a psychic medium I guide people to their natural gifts and abilities to live a life of meaning and abundance and to make empowered decisions in their life with fear cruising next to them rather than being the driver of their life.
Ms.McMagic is an evolution, a story of overcoming challenges, an expression of exuberance and pleasure, and a symbol of hope for a brighter, safer, and loving future. The community for misfits and magic makers is a space for folks to find peace within the spaces where they do not feel like they fit in. The community for misfits and magic makers is a space for learning about otherworldly things that expand the heart and mind to think about solutions to problems in exciting new ways. The community for misfits and magic makers is a space for a revolutionary group of souls to unconditionally love one another and themselves to uplift and encourage one another to always be true to themselves no matter what.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Ms.McMagic has experienced many struggles in starting this creation and revolution of self-acceptance, love, and healing. To briefly summarize, there was a bold investment into a shady program, many disheartening conflicts with family members, and bouts of depression and anxiety. In which these challenges have been the building blocks and foundation to a stronger faith in myself and my abilities.
When I first began this journey of entrepreneurship and creating liberation within my life, I was absolutely mind-blowingly opened up to an opportunity that felt too good to be true. I was sitting in this free, three-day conference on discovering your story, learning how to sell your story, and creating a lasting and monumental impact on people’s lives. During the three days, I felt the fire beneath my belly like I had never felt before. At the time, I was unemployed, my mom just moved back to Colorado and I was no longer living with her, and I was actively searching for my calling in life. This felt like a dream, finally, as I never felt like I knew what I was passionate about and what career was for me. Everyone in the room was pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. Some were real estate agents, book writers, freelancers, all different ages and experience levels, but you would never know because we all had our insecurities about our purpose and fulfilling it to the best of our ability.
So I decided to invest. It was an 11-month program at roughly $900 dollars a month, almost ten grand in total because I had convinced myself that I wanted this badly enough that I would be able to create this dream quickly with the help of this program. I tell this because I learned a lot from it. Initially, I was deeply ashamed I had invested in this program so quickly. The program was not what I had expected and I didn’t really know what we were doing in it. The coach was not personally invested in us and I felt like there was so much misinformation about what we were supposed to be doing in the class week to week. I swallowed my pride and asked for a refund. In which this was a whole other ordeal because they were linked to a bigger corporation that did not want to refund me for the following months. But the company that I was receiving the program from showed me the integrity that I believed that they had, which was one of the reasons I signed up. This experience required me to ask for help, which is something that I don’t thoroughly enjoy and it required me to forgive and love myself for taking a chance from the heart.
As I continue into the world of business and the more confident, I have become in offering and selling services, I received feedback from family members who do not agree and do not understand my mission and business. It has created many heated conversations that made it challenging for me to hear my inner voice, higher self, and Spirit that was guiding me on my path. It felt like these moments of testing my strength and faith in myself and learning how to continue forward when the people I deeply love do not support or understand my life. It is something I still struggle with today, though I am determined more than ever to continue onward with or without the support of every person in my life. This is a message for all us as we decide to live out our dreams that do not align with how our parents, siblings, relatives who wouldn’t live their lives the same way we do.
One of the biggest challenges is myself, as I open my mind wider, make my way towards a bigger dream, and learn more about life, I find myself deep into the pits of misunderstandings and not knowing everything. It is humbling each and every time I come out of a maze within my mind, that tells me I am not enough and I do not know enough to be a businesswoman and leader in my community. Why has this been a struggle? Well, it feels like the darkest shadow is following you everywhere you go telling you you’re worthless in which it feels like who am I to say something, do something, lead something. When getting back out there to begin again, it can feel like I am coming out all over again. It requires true intimacy with self and being able to continue to get close to “yucky” parts of myself to love and hold and let go and love and hold and let go of to truly allow myself to be.
The struggles are there to remind us of our strength and resiliency to overcome circumstances that seem to be unbearable at times. Yes, I have invested poorly at times, though I have gained life experience that will last a lifetime, priceless. Yes, I have challenging relationships at times, though I have gained life experience that will last a lifetime, priceless. Yes, I have experienced depressive and anxious episodes, though I have gained life experience that will last a lifetime, priceless.
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
At the Wondrous World of Misfits and Magic Makers, Ms.McMagic guides people to their innermost passions, expressions, and power to live their life unapologetically. We do this by diving deep into where their soul comes from and how to connect with that space of knowing, deep within. This is unique to other coaching programs as we build a new foundation and relationship to money, passions, urges, our self, and the spiritual world. I specialize in calming the nervous system down for clients to listen to their inner selves and come to their own understanding of who they are and what they are here to be. We are known for putting together magical experiences for folks to safely, loving and deeply connect with others, themselves, and the supernatural.
I am proud of how inclusive this company is to expand our understanding of what is possible in the world. This space stands for unconditional love, decolonizing and reprogramming systems that only benefit a minute few, and living life to the fucking fullest. Ms.McMagic is unlike any other as their wardrobe is old-fashioned with vests and bowties, loves space, creates art from the heart, and listens to Kamauu on repeat. Though, for real, it’s about the heart and care and time that Ms.McMagic puts into her work to provide quality services and leave them with a magical gift to open and enjoy at the end of their time working together.
As the Wondrous World of Misfits and Magic Makers grows and evolves Ms.McMagic hopes to work with younger populations, likely high school and middle school-aged. Ms.McMagic’s hope is for folks at a younger age to feel empowered to truly live in their innate power and gracefully lead themselves and others along a path that enlivens and excites them to live their life to the fullest. In order to build the community, Ms.McMagic is creating new videos daily on YouTube as well as creating an online FaceBook group soon to provide folks with an overflowing bounty of content to soak up. We will be having more group programs much like the first cohort of Warthogs School of Misfits and Magic Makers, where we learned about many spiritual understandings and how to connect to their innate wisdom within. As well as some smaller workshops to set intentions during the New Moon and on how to use oracle decks to connect with Spirit. All with the bigger vision that we get to co-create epic relationships with ourselves, friends, family, loved ones, money, purpose, passions, dreams, and goals.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
As a Pisces, I find this question quite difficult as my mind plays with the infinite realm of success stories. When I think about the future of my life as a genderless queer human with a multiple six-figure businesses, impacting thousands of lives by sharing deep truths, spending my days creating art that I love, sharing memories with my friends and family all over the world, and being able to enormously provide resources and money back into the community, I think that that feels like success. It has the space to be able to live life on my terms, create from the heart, and interact and impact the community in large ways.
Success will only be truly reached if I receive and give from my authenticity and that comes from having a strong relationship to the core of who I am. Though in the same breath I have been lead astray from my true North and I still consider myself a success. Success is also being alive and taking responsibility for the actions I take or don’t take every day, every moment. Success is being a lifelong learner, which means for me to humbly admit when I do not know and to never become complacent with what I do know. Throughout the journey, my meter of success also depends on my gentleness, compassion, gratitude, and inner joy throughout each and every day. It requires a daily, sometimes moment to moment check in to tune in to how I am feeling and if I am still being who I came here to be.
Pricing:
- Oracle Readings (donation based $10-$25)
- Magic Gift Boxes ($44)
- One-on-one magical mentorship program for $127 for 4 weeks
Contact Info:
- Address: 2358 University Ave. #2187 San Diego, CA 92104
- Website: msmcmagic.com
- Phone: 8586337588
- Email: laurenmcmonagle@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msmcmagic_222/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lauren.mikkey/
Image Credit:
Pictures taken by Marina Borgonovo
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