In this solo podcast episode, Megan talks deeply about forgiveness. She also shares about how not forgiving someone or even yourself, triggers certain things that would happen and old feelings would come up and would make you feel out of control and there’s just no stopping it. In this episode, Megan also talks about how she knew there was something really deep in the subconscious mind that would be so powerful to get through so that you could be on the other side of this, not just consciously, but also unconsciously. She also explains in this podcast the difference between being in the alpha state and the beta state.
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Megan BlacksmithÂ
Hello there, everybody. And welcome back to the four phase cycle podcast with Megan blacksmith, co founder of Zesty Ginger, holistic health coach FDN and mindset ninja is what I like to call myself. That’s my favorite title of all of them. Welcome, so glad to have you here. We are in the middle of a series. This is me spilling my guts and sharing the deepest parts of my story of how I came to learn all the things I did and how we’ve incorporated so much of this into our model of helping women. So if you’re jumping in right now, I suggest you go back where this all started, as it might be a little jolt to your system if you don’t if you jump in right now. Today, I want to share the part of my journey where I got into neurofeedback. So in the last episode, I talked about how Al Anon was a part of my journey and group programs and actually even about how I was happy that my husband never went to AA. So go check that out if you haven’t yet. Today, I just want to shift into the next part of my journey. So people often say right, like, I’m so grateful for all this horrible things that happened to me because it brought me to where I am. And I am one of those people. It’s really annoying, right. And in the moment, you don’t feel that at all, again, totally hindsight. And at the same time, I know that without me going down as far as I did, given the way I was, I wouldn’t have gotten to all these learnings I wouldn’t have gotten to really dig into who I am and what I believe and what I do and my patterns. Oh my patterns, right? And I never, Yes, right and never would have invested as much as I did in in myself, because at this moment, I’m in crisis, right? I am in full health, relationship life crisis. So I am willing to do anything and I am willing to pay anything. And I know for a fact that I would not have put down as much money as I did to go to the neurofeedback center that I went to not once but twice. If I hadn’t had this extreme experience. Unfortunately, I mean, I now have come to a point where I invest in myself all the time, with nothing bad having happened, just literally for self development, for transformation, for growth. I’m there now. Hopefully, you can be there without the chaos at the at the moment, I needed that chaos to give myself permission to go do things for me. That was what was driven. I was driven by at the moment it was the pain and so I had gone deep into my pain. And now here I am willing, and I actually cashed in part of my 401 K from when I used to work in engineering to go to 40 years of Zen was out in outside of Seattle. And this was such an amazingly cool experience. The first time I went, I went to my whole point of going was to forgive my husband. And as it turns out, that was a lot easier than the second time that I went which was all focused on me. So this is the setup. I’m going to take you, walk you through the house just so you have a little picture of what’s going on. This is a week long. I call it event, retreat. I don’t know. Retreat is not really the correct word because this is a week of being in a sensory deprivation pod. A pod where you’re in these kind of floaty chairs and you have blindfolds on and you have headphones on and you have electrodes all over your head. Yes, the kind that you need the goopy goop stuff to put on and the kind that you need all sorts of junk to pull up. So to go while in the morning to get all hooked up with the electrodes and then you’re going inside of this tank where you don’t have your senses, right? This is sensory deprivation on purpose, which allows you combined with the neurofeedback to get into the alpha state or whatever state actually you’re training for, because you can choose, we were working in the Alpha state. And what happens is inside of these headphones, you get the feedback, there’s the feedback part of it, right? So as your brain goes to a certain state, the state that you’re looking for, in this case, alpha, then you would get the feedback, the feedback in the headphones was this storm, this loud storm, and then it would get louder and there would be certain noises that you would hear when your right and left brain were in coherence. And so you kind of had this not, kind of you had feedback and in the moment, that helped you know if you were in the Alpha state. So I’m going here to help to work on forgiveness. And here I am, at this place, because I had talked through everything at this point, I had gone to a therapist, I had done EMDR, I had worked through the infidelity. And again, if you did not listen to beginning of the series go back. And I understood all the perspectives all at the same time, I didn’t actually feel the forgiveness. I was still holding on to something no matter how hard I tried. And that was when certain triggers would happen, certain things would happen, that old feeling would come up and I would feel out of control and there’s just no stopping it. So I knew there was something really deep in me subconsciously, that would be so powerful to get through so that I could be on the other side of this, not just consciously, but also unconsciously. Okay. So here we are, we’ve got the headphones on and we’re in the in the pods, and we’re all set up and each time so we started off to just kind of go in there and was to just float around and see you would hear when your brain would go to the alpha state. Now the funny thing about this alpha state is that if you try to get to the alpha state, you are not in the alpha state. So the beta state is me right now talking to you. That’s consciously learning that’s actively learning, that’s talking, that’s planning, right? The Alpha state is what we think of as the meditative state. So in order to get to the alpha state, it’s getting to that complex. it’s such a catch 22. Because when you attempt to do this, like, alright, now alpha, now here, you’re, you’re in beta. So of course, they say first day again, in the pods, just go ahead and float around and just see what your brain does. Don’t try to do anything. But you know, all all of us there and myself, were all like, No, you know, we knew we’re doing Alpha training, I want to get into the alpha state, right? Like, I want to do this, and we’re not supposed to be manipulating it. And we’re all going for it. And we had been told and many of you have heard that one of the best ways to get into this state is to is through gratitude. And someone there’s like, all I have to do is really just think of that cute little puppy I have and like it’ll just flood with alpha. So I’m like, okay, easy peasy. I’ve got lots of things in my life I’m grateful for. This is not going to be a problem. So there I am, I’m in this dark sensory pod. And I’m just like, let’s think of some happy thoughts. I’m like, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for my children.
It was like, silence. Total silence. And mind you, remember that the storm and the sound was actually alpha. So the less sound there was, the less alpha there was, there was nothing. And I’m like, Oh, interesting. And I love my kids. And I really do love my kids. And I’m like, this isn’t good. I know. I’m grateful for my kids, right? So I’m thinking like, what the heck? And this is when I realized that this was missing. So often, I would do the gratitude, journaling, right? Writing all the things down or like a statement before bed or just saying these affirmations. And at the same time, I was treating them like a to do list and this was the same thing that was happening right now. When it was like a to do list of this is a conscious thing I should be thinking, the feedback was clear. So what happened was, I realized, and I wasn’t actually feeling it, this was my first cue into the fact that I’m not actually feeling it. This isn’t an intellectual activity. So instead, the next time I went in and I was like, Okay, I’m gonna get really specific, and think of an amazing time with my daughter and something just really, really powerful a very specific image of her at the home at the homebirth I have and the part of it that was really powerful and pleasant and it was total alpha, just total flooding, I needed to get so specific so that I could feel it. It wasn’t just the checklist items. So this was a huge understanding for me. And in the process during this week, we did a lot of different things to help to work on forgiveness. So I like the analogy. And the analogy that was told to us at the time is, you think of like an iPhone, right, or whatever phone you have, and you have all these apps and or your computer, you have all these things open. And even though you’re not using them, they’re just opening, they’re running in the background, and they’re using up your battery, they’re using up your space, they’re your precious space. And so you know, often we go ahead and just like closed down everything and and you notice like, oh, it’s running so much better. And that’s what we were doing there is working through any old resentments or fears or things we wanted to forgive so that they are not running in the background and using up energy. During the process, I went deeply into working on forgiving my husband. And to the point where on the very last day, we did a process I said, Where would you like to test this because I was like, did that you fully forgave. And I was like, Yeah, I’d like to test it. So we had a heart rate monitor on and in the process of testing, we could actually see if your body was having a physiological response to a certain thing. So they created, I told them the scenario that they would feed back to me, and then test to see if my body reacted a very specific image that used to send my cortisol through the roof, I would feel it. And I was able to keep my heart rate totally steady. There was no shifts. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so so so so cool. And I go home from this trip, like all excited, right? And this was another takeaway I’ve had is that I get home and I say to my husband, I’m like, Oh my gosh, like Nate, like I forgive you, like deep in my body like we are good. And then I realized that he hadn’t been at this event with me, he hadn’t been doing this specific work all week, he had been doing the regular thing at home with the kids. And he was not where. I was, he was not on the same page. And he said, great, I’m so glad that you have and I have not dropped the guilt.
I cannot forgive myself. And this was such a huge realization for me that even though you may have worked on something, and even though you may have shifted, and we did definitely shift together and you know, things have drastically changed since then, it was such an eye opening experience to come home and find out that just because I did my side of things did not mean that would change his and allowing him to have space around that. And allowing him to feel what he needed to feel and be working to be. I have since learned that giving him the time in this space, he was able to get to where I am. And he has also done a lot of deep work. So if this is you in any scenario where you go to do something, you know, you’re transforming and the people around you aren’t necessarily there or they didn’t come to the event with you, because they’re watching the children, or whatever it is, just know that a little extra space and time definitely helped in our situation. So this was part of the journey. So I you know that that was the first time that I went to the week long. And then I went a second second time a year later. And I’m sharing this because you may see this pattern in your life where the first time you dig into something, it’s kind of like there’s so much there. It’s just like flowing out because this if you have not really dug into your patterns as a kid, or all the different things in your life, like if you haven’t done the kind of, I hate to call it work on yourself, right, but where you’re digging deep into your stuff, there’s gonna be a lot usually, maybe not for you. But usually there’s a lot and so it just kind of flowed out and like as a float out. It’s like, oh, it’s great to release that, oh, gosh, it’s great to release that. And it was often about other people because I was really ineffective, like they did this thing to me. And now as I had worked through that, the next time I went, it was about me. I could no longer focus on others. And this was so much harder. I actually, you would think it would be the other way around. Or I thought it’d be the other way around that that first week would be hard. And this week was the painful one. I was watching old patterns play out how deep they went. At this point. We had had a mold infestation in our house and if you weren’t around for the mold journey we have I don’t even like to talk about it anymore. But we do have all my archived stuff and podcast, zestyginger.com/moldy so feel free to check that out. And I was able to see that some of the patterns around me, magically finding a home with more than not happening to notice it was so much more than just a coincidence. There was so much to this in that this was the first time my husband and I were buying a home together. And yes, we’re married. And yes, we had kids. And somehow, this whole like, and now we have the financial tie as well sent us both into a little bit of a freakout, right? Because here we are, we’re really working on our marriage and to heal these wounds at the same time, we’re not there. So we purchase a home. And guess what, within you know, that day of moving in, we find out oh, we can’t really move in. So here we are, we’re saved from this thing that was scary to both of us. Magically, we now have to go spend six months, you know, moving around being an Airbnb is in total chaos. And as we started to realize this, there’s so much fear tied to this, like as this was a commitment and this house would mean like we are stuck. And what if we can’t actually work through things, there’s all these beliefs around it. And it became easier, it was actually easier to deal with mold detox in the body, mold in the home mold in the H fac, like, so many details that my brain was like, yeah, we will focus on that. And you can get distracted by that for a long, long, long, long time. If you’re listening to this, and you’re like, wait, what the heck am I going like you had a house with mold? Yes. And I fully believe that things happen in the way they need to happen because of the energy and frequency we are putting out. And I had total fear on moving into this home. And there were signs before we bought the home, that there may be something in this home. And there were things that I overlooked that now looking back, I can see were so obvious and yet they weren’t obvious to me because of the current beliefs I had. And so I played out this role of this is scary, this is not safe so therefore we won’t be able to move in. Yada, yada, yada. You all know how the old story went? And hopefully you’ll never go through that. And if you are, I do want you to look deeply I’m not saying there’s not physical stuff. And we did all the physical stuff and we remediated and I did the physical body stuff. And what really get got me to the other point physically where I felt good was at the end of that emotional work. That was the that was the last piece, those beliefs that it was safe to own a home and to be in the home and that it’s safe to have feelings and that it’s safe to communicate with my husband and that we will be okay. And even if we’re not okay, I will be okay. And all these different things that are underneath this, holy cow. I was able to see so in the sensory deprivation pods and when you’re doing this training, you can actually like see really clear visuals like You’re like you’re there and you can create things and you can recreate you know, the future you want to have and and one of them I got all these learnings about the house and I actually saw myself as if I was just like, burning it up. I was just torching the home and it was like ready to start fresh. And it wasn’t my actual home. But it was torching torching this belief I had around like, what the home meant and what was in the home and how we could be in the home, it was starting fresh. And then I saw all this amazing green grass come up from the bottom and this good soil and then that the house went back up in a way that was stronger and more resilient. And that was the lesson I got is that my body is resilient, very resilient. And so was our home and so was our life and so it was our relationship. And one of the mold takeaways was that, you know, you don’t want to hang out in it. And I don’t want to have to run at any smell smell or scent or whatever.
I’d love to have like, yeah, it’s there and I’m gonna slowly slowly move into a different location. Right? So it’s just yeah, I still not ignoring the science and being in a place where I wouldn’t didn’t have and don’t have and I don’t have any more of that like immediate fight or flight. Right? It’s my body is resilient is my current belief. I can handle small things. I can handle that load, I will be okay. Which was another pattern is that at the time because I believed that my body wasn’t quite as resilient and that I needed all these things. I did believe I needed a very certain amount of sleep and a very certain amount of filtered water and supplements and all the things I had really created this ritual around all the things. So on the last night of the second training, I had the opportunity to hang out with all these amazing humans that I had been with. There were five of us going through each week. And this amazing cool mansion and going into the pods, and then we debrief and have sessions with the practitioners there to really sort through what you had learned and takeaways. And I had the opportunity to hang out with with all of them. And I had a flight at 4am the next morning. So for me, this was unheard of to stay up late when I know I have to get up early, because that didn’t fit my model of the person who needs needs all the sleep and needs things to be a certain way. And what I realized that I was really craving beyond those other needs was connection. And I had an opportunity for connection. And I said, you know what, that’s so clear to me right now, after all the reprogramming have done this week, I’ve so clear to me that connection is my top priority. So I did I stayed, I hung up very, very late, I still had to get up at 4am. And you know what, I was tired. And it was okay. I took an Uber, late at night. And I was tired on the flight home. But it was totally, totally worth it. And the cool thing was, so during the week, there were different times where you would have a certain sign. When you were doing the process, you’d say, Okay, if this is if this is it, and this is if this is the lesson I meant to learn, show me the sign. And mine was I would look up the sky. And if I saw Orion constellations are a big thing for me, my grandmother always took me out to look at all the constellations. And if I saw constant constellation, if I saw Orion, then I would know that that was my sign that that was the message. And so I’m walking out. And last night, I had just had this amazing connection with humans, I just had the realization that like I am resilient. And it is okay if I don’t get all the sleep tonight. And it is okay if I don’t take every supplement, right? I am resilient, and my body is. And I look up at the sky as I’m walking out. And we’re out in the middle of nowhere. So the sky was bright, like all the stars were shining and right there was Orion. And I just burst into tears like it was so so so clear, the messages and that for me to step out into that beautiful sky and look up and see that, it just confirmed that all the things that I had done that week are just completely gelling together and I had a new understanding of the power and resilience of my body and of the importance of connection. So that was where I got my next set of lessons, right? It just keeps going. And in the next podcast, I’m going to share the next part of the puzzle. But see, here I am, I’m like slowly bringing together the different pieces. Each event I would go to. And often it’s not really the event itself, so much as the setup of the event. So other things, you know, like, for example, the fact that I had the opportunity stay out late that wasn’t, that wasn’t exactly a part of like something I was learning during the time. It was just that now there’s an opportunity. So life gives you, you know, opportunities to see what your normal reaction was. And I was able to see my beliefs around my body and what it needed. And that is where I would get most of the lessons is more around the interactions with other humans.
And then the setup, the sleep, the food, the things that are easily triggering to us. So it was so so, so, so powerful. And I don’t necessarily think that you need Neurofeedback or some crazy electrodes on your head to have these kind of realizations. So I thought just sharing the story here hopefully, there’s something that you connect to. Hopefully you can see a little bit of you as I go through the journey and hopefully you’ll see kind of the pieces coming together. The realizations that kept bringing me closer and closer to who I really was and then closer and closer to my husband as I dug deep and so did he. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this if you have anything you’d love to share or any questions please feel free to always email support@zestyginger.com. If you can share this with a friend if you know somebody who would really benefit from what I shared today, please please please send them a text right now, post it on your Instagram, on your story. Anywhere a review all these things help us a ton are so happy to have you here and I will catch you on the next part of my story.