My Story : part 1

Earth School Lesson # 2: Vulnerability

My name is Megan Cautilli and I want to share the lessons I’m learning on my journey through Earth School. We all have a story (or two or three), we all have struggles, problems and troubles through which we all learn and grow. Some of us have similar lessons to learn and some of us go down very different paths. Either way, there is always something to learn from another human being’s experiences. I’ve decided to start documenting my lessons and sharing them as they unfold. My hope is that you will be able to learn something that applies to your own life school classes so you may excel as an earth student and we can all elevate this planet, especially now. So, I’m going to start from the beginning and take breaks and add anecdotes and just let the story unfold in the messy, uncontrollable manner that life seems so fond of.

I am a listener. I am an observer. I’m that person in a group that others may think is antisocial or doesn’t have an opinion or just doesn’t care. When in reality, I am listening to everything. I am analyzing and calculating everything. I see it all. I hear what you’re saying and what intentions lie behind your words. I also see how the girl next to you is hearing what you’re saying and how she is misinterpreting it. I can see the way your words make the man on your left uncomfortable and the wheels turning in his head, figuring out how to slip away unnoticed. I see it all, I analyze it all and I don’t articulate any of it unless I feel compelled to do so. My parents thought I may have been mute or a little slow as a child as I really didn’t speak. Then one day, from the back seat of the car, I spit out a full sentence. “Ok, so the girl isn’t mute, and did she really just say that?” She’s actually got a lot going on up in there, but keeping it all to herself (little did they know).

This theme of keeping things to myself is the cliff notes version of Megan ages 0 to 28. So pretty much my whole life. I attribute this mainly to my Scorpio Sun sign. Secretive, dark, mysterious, intense and a little dangerous. If you break my trust or prove your disloyalty there’s little to nothing you can do to come back into my good graces. Like a scorpion with a hard external shell, I’d rather sting then be stung. I rarely allow myself to be stung, but when I am, you can sure as hell bet it’ll never happen again.

You may be thinking, where is this all going and why am I still reading this? The answer may be because you’re related to me and curious about what I’ve been doing this whole year, or maybe you can sense that this is building to something more than just the beginning years in the life of a serial killer. We can only hope.

To say finding solid friends was difficult would be an understatement. I never truly showed myself to other people because I felt it was too exhausting or I didn’t believe most people deserved to see the full me. It was easier to show them the version of me that they wanted me to be or the version of me that they needed. So that’s what I did. I let others lead and I provided ideas and feedback individually curated for that person. Meanwhile, leading speeches and solving my own conflicts inside my head. I was the only assurance I needed. The only soundboard to bounce off ideas, the only problem solver I ever confided in. I had the answers for myself and it was always ok, I was enough for me.

You may begin to see where the obvious Shakespearean tragedy lies. What happens to the self-sufficient, isolated girl when she finally lets someone see all of her for who she is, 100%? Well, in Scorpio fashion she falls in love hard. We love intensely, fiercely. When someone is allowed into my inner circle, they’ve reached the safety net of unbreakable loyalty, the “I would do anything for you, no questions asked” rarely seen protection spell that only Scorpios can provide. But I expect that you would never hurt me, betray me or break my trust, to do so would be futile. SO, what happens to a Scorpio Scorned? They say, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Well, banks have no vaults like a Scorpio Hurt. I shut it down, I shut the whole damn thing down. If this is what happens when I let people in, when I let them have all sides of me, and then they leave, then I won’t be doing that again. I locked down my heart like it was a panic room. Keys were hidden, chains were wrapped and no one was getting in. Nada. And I believed I could live this way. I refused to feel, to show emotions, to cry (another life-long theme: a down right refusal to cry in public, or sometimes at all). I receded back into my little world, full of secrets and meticulously catalogued, incredibly accurate depictions of people around me. I went back to giving people the small parts of me that I deemed worthy of showing. I catered and curated my thoughts and words, never fully letting on how much I saw and knew. An arsenal of information lives inside this brain, I didn’t realize how draining that is until just now. 

Little did she know that these chronic behavior patterns were destructive to her health, and on top of that she was also at the beginning of a 10-year spree of popping little red pills everyday (that’s hormonal contraceptive pills, folks). I know, I know, we were all hoping for an exciting drug addiction story line here, sadly my journey is not so colorful, but oddly this medication can throw quite a large wrench into the body’s internal operating system. The pill removes the feminine hormonal rhythm, pulling me even further away from my yin (feminine) side and sliding me deeper down the yang (masculine) structured and isolating hole, creating an emotionless scorpion with an extremely tough shell run by linear action and logical thinking. Intuition was hog tied and gagged, not to be heard from or trusted.

Interlude: my life wasn’t as dark and somber as this story is coming out, but for effect I wanted to really drive the main points home. I have lived a lovely life filled with some beautiful and wonderful people, and they’ve all helped and contributed to my lessons and growth in some way. But this is about me, and the way I live life inside my head, because we don’t always talk about this, but the world exists inside your head. And the inside of my head is different than the inside of yours, therefore the world is different according to me then it is according to you. Weird, isn’t it?

What I’ve come to discover this year is that I created a toxic cocktail for my body when I mixed the pill with my suppressed emotions, ignored heartbreak, rejection to connection, and misguided ideas about health (exercise and diet). Throw in a splash of alcohol 5 times a week, randomly drop in a parasite, shake vigorously and spit out a DUTCH test with flat lining cortisol levels, low estrogen, extremely high testosterone like androgens, and overall hormone disharmony. Big summary: Currently experiencing a dash of insulin resistance, a quarter cup of gut dysbiosis, 3 pounds of adrenal fatigue and one seriously overworked and underpaid liver.  Who came first the chicken or the egg? The hormone imbalance or the blood sugar dysregulation? Not sure but either way the answer’s the same… that’s one seriously fucked up system. And I need to help her fix herself.

To be continued…