Choosing The Narrative: Meditation Teacher Megan Monahan on Meeting Health Challenges With Grace, Breathwork for Stress & Unmasking Trauma Responses

What happens when your body, the very thing you've spent nearly two decades teaching others to harmonize with, begins to fail you in a way you never saw coming?

This week on the show, I'm sitting down with meditation teacher, and author Megan Monahan. Megan first appeared on Hurdle back in 2019, and today she returns to share a profoundly personal update. In late 2024, Megan faced a life-altering health hurdle: a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Megan takes us inside the raw moments of her diagnosis—from the sudden loss of vision in her right eye to an eight-hour wait in an UCLA emergency room. We discuss the power of the "meditation muscles" she built over 16 years and how they allowed her to meet this challenge with resilience instead of a victim mindset.

In this episode, we discuss:

The sudden symptoms and 36-hour journey to an MS diagnosis.
How a decade of spiritual practice reframed a "devastating" diagnosis into a "resurgence of purpose".
The 4-7-8 breathwork framework and somatic shaking for navigating high-stress moments.
Unmasking personality traits that are actually trauma responses.
What it truly means to be authentic and "come home to yourself".
Lessons learned from spiritual giants like Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer.

QUOTABLE MOMENTS

"You get to choose how a life-changing moment changes you. We all have the ability to author our story in whatever way we want."

"There is a part of you that can't be diagnosed with MS, that can't be broken up with, that can't be broke, that can't be relocated. That is who you are."

"We mistake the need to enjoy the experience or the process with finding value in it."

"You are not your thoughts. You don't have to believe every thought you have."

SOCIAL
@megmonahan
@emilyabbate
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