Meagan Maris
Lightworkers Among Us
January 2026

I also grew up Christian. My parents were pastors. My mom is still a pastor. In the beginning,
anything outside the boundaries of organized religion was not exactly welcome in my world. It
caused real tension in my family, until it didn’t. Over time, we found a bridge. We realized we
were speaking different languages for something that wasn’t actually that different.

Around 30, everything accelerated. I had this moment where I realized I wasn’t living the life I
was supposed to be living. It wasn’t one lightning bolt. It was more like a rapid unraveling. I got
divorced. I moved. I quit my job. I started meeting mentors, following breadcrumbs, and having
dreams that felt like signposts.

And then I did what a lot of new, tender-hearted seekers do. I trusted too easily.

I quit my job and cashed out my 401(k), convinced I was going all in. I was naive, but I was
sincere. I wanted to believe the universe would meet me halfway. Then someone approached
me with what sounded like a simple, harmless transaction. A check. A promise. A little extra
money if I helped.

I deposited the check. It bounced. It was a scam. The fees hit. The fallout kept rolling.

I closed accounts. I lost my apartment. I moved back in with my parents. I was starting over from
the ground up, literally sleeping on a mattress in the living room for about a year. I picked up
temp work. I rebuilt my life in small, unglamorous steps.

It was humbling. It was brutal. And it taught me discernment in the hardest possible way. I
learned that having a good heart doesn’t replace boundaries.

Around that same time, I was working with a mentor I deeply respected, and we had planned a
closing ceremony in Mount Shasta, a place that felt sacred to me. When the scam happened, I
couldn’t afford what we’d agreed on. I felt like I’d failed. I felt like I’d let her down.

But instead of ending the mentorship, we shifted it.

She had a background in the arts and design, and she offered to use the rest of our time to
teach me how to build my website. Not the glamorous, on-stage version of spiritual work I
thought I was training for. The behind-the-screen, digital side. The part that helps someone’s
work actually reaches people.

At the time, it felt like a consolation prize. Looking back, it was the assignment.

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Because years later, I can see I wasn’t being trained to be the voice on the stage. I was being
trained to build the stage.

Now I help creators and entrepreneurs translate what they do into something real and visible.
Websites. Brand strategy. Visual storytelling. The practical container that allows someone’s gifts
to land in the world. And I do it as someone who’s lived both sides: the mystical, and the very
real need to make rent.

I still have a spiritual side too. I create and teach through my Mermaid-inspired teachings and an
oracle deck that came through early on: a set of empowerment and mantras I’ve returned to
again and again, especially in the seasons when life felt like it was asking me to start over.
After my awakening, I didn’t just shoot straight into my purpose and stay there. Life moves in
seasons. Sometimes you’re visible. Sometimes you’re integrating. Sometimes you go back into
a “regular job” for stability, for benefits, for family, for healing, for wisdom. That doesn’t mean
you’re off path. Everything is spiritual. The ordinary world is part of the curriculum too.

It took me about ten years to feel like I was truly on the other side of that crash. Ten years to
build a foundation that didn’t depend on a high peak followed by a hard valley. Ten years to
learn that the real progress is often quiet, and you only recognize it when you turn around and
realize how far you’ve come.

I used to think the breakdown meant I was failing.

Now I know it was the beginning of the breakthrough.

Meet other Lightworkers, Like Meagan, on Global Light Workers United