Secondary Gain: Why We Stay Stuck S1E5 (E005)
Oftentimes our subconscious is what blocks us from making gains in our health or in our goals. We are joined today by a dear friend & colleague Megan Blacksmith from ZestyGinger to talk about Secondary Gain. What is it and why should you care? Turns out it’s one of those sneaky ways we get stuck without knowing it. Listen in to find out how to use it to your advantage.
In This Episode
Megan’s introduction (01:48)
Brain’s role in healing (05:23)
Moving away from guilt and shame in health (08:02)
Clearing emotions within the body (11:00)
Secondary gain, what is it? (14:55)
Examining your relationship with yourself (24:28)
Becoming aware of secondary gain (27:04)
Antidotes to secondary gain (31:12)
Quantum model of healing (33:35)
Megan’s outside tip (37:26)
Toréa Rodriguez 0:08
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. I am your host, Toréa Rodriguez. And I'm joined by the lovely co host, Evie Takacs. Both of us our Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioners and we love working with women from all over the world, through our virtual programs, helping women not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves they've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Now, please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you like what you hear today, we would love for you to hit that follow button. Leave a review in Apple podcast, share with your friends, and keep coming back for more. Let's start today's adventure, shall we?
Cool Welcome, everybody. And I'm excited today because in this season of Wildly Optimized Wellness, we've got our first guest, Megan, Megan, Blacksmith of Zesty Ginger. Megan, welcome to the show.
Megan Blacksmith 1:23
Hi, Toréa, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be the first guest yay.
Toréa Rodriguez 1:27
We're very excited. And why don't you tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about you and your background, especially as we're going to talk about one of those sneaky subjects today that one of those things that can definitely keep us from reaching our health goals. So I'm excited to dive in on that.
Megan Blacksmith 1:48
Absolutely. So I am an FDN practitioner like Toréa. And I have fallen in love with the mindset piece of my health journey. Because I had found that I was one of those people who was doing all the things right doing all the labs started with conventional labs that said, everything is normal. And I didn't feel that way and then move to functional lab work. And I found some things to work with. And that shifted. And I kept going down the line. And in the process, I found there was even more and more that was affecting my health. And I landed on this pattern of even people who are working in the functional medicine space weren't necessarily getting better at the rate that I would hope. And we started to find similar beliefs and patterns underlying similar emotions that when shifted and cleared, allowed the person to get better. So I became obsessed with the mind. I call myself a mindset ninja, Toréa, and really addressing the mindset piece with inside group programs and one on one. So I have a business partner, co-founder of Zesty Ginger. And together we run hormone health and brain health programs for women who want to optimize fertility optimize function of their brain, overall, really just want to bring in new habits and new goals and just want to feel amazing. So we love to work with women who are interested in health and interested in kind of the deeper nuances of health.
Toréa Rodriguez 3:20
Perfect, that's exactly what we are focusing on with the show as well as with some of the Optimized Wellness programs, because what I've noticed like you is that while functional medicine is a great tool, it only gets you to a certain level, right. And if you're trying to actually get to back to that 100% vitality level or beyond that level, right and really take it to that place. I've noticed in my journey to that there's been a lot of mindset stuff that I've gotten stuck on. And so I'm fascinated with the mindset piece, because I didn't realize how integrated our biology is with our neuro chemistry of the things that are going on in our brain until I started digging into the PubMed articles about that topic. And recognize that it's not only interrelated, it's kind of required, you know, so we got to pay attention to the whole Mind-Body-Soul aspect, not just the body piece.
Megan Blacksmith 4:20
Yes, I love that you bring this up because, you know, many people are told in their health journey, like or they feel like they're being kind of told like, oh, it's all in your head. Yeah, right. This goal like I don't know what's wrong with you. Here's an antidepressant. I know that happened to Dr. Alex for like 10 different practitioners, right of she had chronic pain and endometriosis and all these different things that were being supported in, you know, beyond that they're just like, I don't know why you're still experiencing this and being told and I had that feeling of it's in my head because my conventional lab work said I was totally fine. My doctor looked at me and was like, your thyroid numbers are good. You're not overweight. I don't know This just can't be postpartum like it's too late. It was over a year. And I, like, I want to break my arm to not go to work, there's something not right and I know it. And then you start to really question yourself and, and your ability to trust yourself. And I think just really addressing the fact that when people say to us now, you know, it's all in your mind, we're like, yeah, it is. Right, like,
Evie Takacs 5:23
Isn't that funny how that works
Megan Blacksmith 5:23
It comes down from the brain. So we find this exciting, and a great empowering way to look at it, is the fact that your neurotransmitters bathe every single cell in your body, anything you think, see, hear, feel, taste, smell, any, any input that's coming in, is translated to every single cell in your body, whether you're conscious of it, or whether you're unconscious, whether you're actively listening to us right now, or whether you're zoning out, this is still getting into every single cell in your body. So there is no, like, it's just in your head. I mean, it literally can't be like it's always interrelated. And and once we recognize the power of what's coming down, what messages are being sent to our brain, whether they're spoken or not, right? This may even just be what you're saying to yourself, then we start to recognize that there is so much power in what we focus on. We'll see women over and over Toréa who will, you know, some of them will just say, you know, no, I'm really not that stressed, right? We're looking at a hormone panel, and it looks to be like, a lot of stress, right? The markers are all kind of pointing towards major, major stress. And the more we dug into it, and the questions we started asking, we started to notice a pattern that will say, Well, do you worry about things like, "Oh, I worry about everything. I can't even let my kid walk to school, I drive behind them in a car, right?" There's the actually this worry. So I think whether you call it stress, or whether you call it worry, or whether it's anxious thoughts, you that message, you know, Dr. Alex, we have a podcast on our podcast for face cycle podcast, your hypothalamus is listening to you worry, like every message that comes down from the brain, whether it's like junk thought, or junk food, the inputs are the same, the brains just like, this is something that we don't want. And we're going to go into survival mode.
Toréa Rodriguez 7:14
Interesting, because you get that doctor that says, Oh, hey, it's all in your head, here's an antidepressant. You don't need the antidepressant necessarily. It's not like you've got a fundamental shortage of whatever that is Xanax or whatever it happens to be right. We need to pay attention to this piece of it. So it is interconnected. And yes, it is in the brain. But we do need to pay attention to it. And I think what's beautiful about the work that the three of us are doing now in our coaching is really paying attention to this mindset stuff is really helping people have like you said, actionable items, and be able to take control over it and be able to do something about it. That isn't just going to the prescription counter and filling in prescription for an antidepressant or an anti anxiety tablet. Right.
Megan Blacksmith 8:02
Yeah. And Toréa I think that we are really empowering the people we work with to just like, look at all the options, right? And, again, there's like this constant guilting and shaming process that's done, right. Like, even if you're in the holistic space, then you're not holistic enough, right? Or, or whatever, you're in the conventional space, and like oh, but you're using oils, right? So there's this whatever. So Dr. Alex and I are, like, why not take the best of everything. Sometimes, you want to use a conventional medicine, sometimes you need that reboot, sometimes whatever. And, to me, it's more detrimental when the thought pattern is like, and I shouldn't have had to do this, it's so shameful that I did this, right? Like, I'm kind of like, if you, whatever decision you make cool, as long as you are all on board and your brains on board for like, this is what I need right now. Great! That's gonna support you, that's gonna lead you the next place, maybe that helps you get up and out of bed, and then you go start making the lifestyle changes, right, because some people are in a place where those seem very, very far away. So whatever process we need, you need to go whichever way you need to do, it's just kind of recognizing that adding the shame and guilt don't really help. And there are all these ways to support yourself in the meantime. So for people, for example, who are on antidepressants, anti anxiety medication, we run neurotransmitter tests in our group programs that we do, and you can totally support yourself while on those. You can support yourself you can for people be like, right, great, you want me to like start meditating or drinking lemon water and I'm exhausted. How am I going to even start? So however you need to start cool, and then know that there is an evolution from there, right? There's tools from there and then it it's not the only answer for sure. And it doesn't need to be something you lean on forever.
Evie Takacs 9:54
Right. I view that as like kind of putting out one fire while working on the rest right like you need a call down a couple things over here, maybe that does mean prescription medication. And that's okay. And maybe that means that you have a conversation of there's a goal of, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to commit to six months of it. But in those six months, I'm also working on the lifestyle things, or the other dietary things that could also help so that way, I can come off of this a lot smoother. So that's kind of the analogy I give to clients. And even with myself, when I am doing things, I'm like, Oh, I don't really want to do this. But like, take care of this fire and then take care of the other while putting out the bigger one, and because I think there is that shame, like you said, and I think if shame and guilt work, then we probably wouldn't be repeating patterns that lead to shame and guilt, right? Like, they're not going to work. We're not going to shame ourselves out of doing these things. Again, there's got to be more to it. So it sounds like you really focus in on that with your programs, which I think is really, really powerful.
Megan Blacksmith 10:47
Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that you added that if shame and guilt worked, then we wouldn't need something else. Right?
Evie Takacs 10:53
We wouldn't be repeating it. Yeah.
Toréa Rodriguez 10:55
We wouldn't need any of this, right? Because I think I've shamed and guilted myself quite a bit.
Megan Blacksmith 11:00
Honestly, what happens, you know, we end up working with women who are very, they're successful, right? They're type A, they're willing to do anything. And the thing that got them to be successful in the first place, right? The thing that gave them the drive was maybe there some imbalances a child, maybe it was childhood trauma, maybe it was something right, that they're pushing through. And then now they're using that same strategy on their bodies, they're using the like, more force, Do it harder, do it more perfect. That's how get how I'll get there. When Yes, this strategy was a survival strategy, and it got them places and it was very, like, Hey, thank you body, right, let's appreciate it for what it was in now the strategy is actually tearing their bodies down, if now it's doing the opposite, and the shame and the guilt, I mean, directly linked to, you know, dis ease in the body with the shame and the guilt. And clearing negative emotions is another big part of the process that we use with clients, because we will see this, that they're physically holding this in their body, and leading to all sorts of things that physical symptoms that they don't want to be experiencing.
Toréa Rodriguez 12:08
Yeah, that's something that Evie and I see a lot is the relationship between the emotions that we're feeling on a regular basis, and something that might be going on with a particular organ system or something in the body some kind of tightness? I know Evie you experienced this last week, right?
Evie Takacs 12:27
Yes, yeah. I feel like I experienced it a lot. But I do I get tightness just, I can even I was more recent examples in my hips, I was doing some stretches this weekend. And my hips were very, very tight. And I know that we as women do tend to hold a lot of emotions in our hips, too. But I do visceral manipulation. So I have, I have a physical therapist who performs visceral manipulation on me, and we got to the sigmoid colon, which, you know, I we haven't really worked on before we've worked on but it hasn't been as tight. And when we got there, it was it was almost painful, where usually it's just like, Oh, that feels tender, or that feels tight. But this was very painful. And that sparked curiosity in me of what am I holding in this organ right now? And what does this really relate to? And so I immediately looked into it. And, you know, there's like feelings of fear and sadness in that. And it was a moment for me where I was like, you know, I probably haven't processed x as fully as I probably should have. And this is showing up physically for me now, because I'm having issues with digestion, I think pain in my stomach having a lot more cramping than normal. And so it was a good moment for me of, we really are holding these things in our body. And we might think that we're handling things well, but your body is going to keep the score and it's going to correct you have like, No, you haven't really worked through that. So that's always eye opening for me. And again, you have to just be open to that as well and realize that it's not all in your head, this stuff really does get stored and manifest in this physical way too. Because, again, from like a physical standpoint, the therapist like I don't see like any issues in terms of like, this doesn't seem to be connected to that like, and so I'm like, it has to be this emotional thing that I'm holding on to and as a kid, I always got those stomach aches when I was scared or really nervous, or, you know, I had anxiety leaving home in the morning, and I didn't ever want to be away from my mom. And, and so I would get those stomach aches. And now as an adult, when I get that feeling I understand what that is. Now, at the time. I didn't know that that was anxiety. And so I just think of all those years of not understanding this emotion, and the anxiety and the fear and just how that's just been clenched up in my midsection all these years. So now I'm just unraveling and undoing all of this work and doing all this emotion. And it's it's not always the prettiest thing to do, but it's really, really fascinating and cool. And then I got to share it with clients and family and friends of like, you seem to have a lot of stomach aches when you start talking about your boyfriend like something's going on here. So it's just really interesting how that stuff is all connected.
Toréa Rodriguez 14:55
So, Megan, I wanted to pick your brain a little bit about this concept. called secondary gain. So can you talk a little bit about? First of all, what is secondary gain? What does that really mean? And can you give us a little bit of insight as to why do we want to be aware of the secondary gain? Because if something is positive, like, shouldn't we hang on to it.
Megan Blacksmith 15:17
So secondary gain will come up, when there's some reason to hold on to something, there's some reason to hold on to something in your life that you're getting more gain out of, then actually, let's say you are thinking that you no longer want to have excess weight. And there's something in your body and your environment and your belief system and your world that actually feel safer keeping it on. So the secondary gain can be this kind of hidden, sneaky, reason or belief that's, that's there that works against you, you think you want something? And then you are like, what, why don't I actually do those things? Or I do do those things towards going towards them. And they're not working, that's even trickier, is the people taking the action. And I experienced this personally. So when we're taking action going towards something, and it's still not lining up, I think that's where we have to really go, Okay, is there possibly a reason where I'm really holding on to this, and I actually feel safer holding on to this, especially if you get to a certain point in your process, like get to a certain point in your health journey. And we kind of have this like thermostat, where we get to a certain point. And then it's not like you personally sabotaging per se, but something always happens, you know, like, you get to maybe it's X number on the scale, or maybe it's a certain level of energy or happiness, and all of a sudden, you're like, right, when I get to that point, that's when you know, the kids need me or there's a pandemic, I don't know, something happens, right? Like all of a sudden, something in your environment, you twist your ankle, and you can't go to the gym anymore, right. And when this is repeatedly happening over time, just really like to look at what the secondary gain could be. And this is a tricky, tricky topic only because I find it really important to make sure everybody knows that. They would never be doing something purposely to harm themselves, we're always doing the best we can with the information we have. And we're always doing something that we believe will protect and preserve our body in the long term. So if we are doing something continuously, then our brain does believe that it's protective. So if you're a smoker, and you've been smoking every day, then that habit over time, the fact that you've been doing something repeatedly and repeatedly, your brain is believing that this is important. This person is doing something every day. There's a reason, right? It's not actually looking at is this healthy for my lungs. It's just this is how it works. And over time, you know, the neural pathways get stronger, and we are wired to be more efficient. So that habits are automatic, our bodies automatically doing this. So it's really us that has to sit and go okay, is this habit that's becomes automatic? Is this actually something I want to be doing? Is this the identity I want to be having? Is this leading towards whatever my goals are optimal health, amazing life. And this is where I just think it's so important to note that, you know, someone will say like, well, what are you saying, I'm causing this because I have some, you know, some other belief, right? Or I'm doing this secondary gain thing. And it's never well, I shouldn't say never, but my, my experience is very, very rarely conscious. And I went through this process with having gone through mold, detoxing my body, but we had mold in our home. And I shared about my whole journey a couple years ago of finding mold in my home and what to do about it and what to do with my body. And
there was a certain point where I was doing all the physical things, I was doing all the detox, I was taking all the charcoal, I had my infrared sauna, right? Like I have the air filters, and I had really researched the physical plane of what to do. And things weren't really shifting, I was stuck in a very fear based place around the situation. And actually, there were a couple different bits of secondary gain that I uncovered way labor later again, because this was not conscious. But one I realized that when I am not doing well, when I am sick, I get a lot more help around the house. My husband makes the dinner he'll drive the kids. My mom's like, what do you need, right? So there's this secondary gain of learning and often we learn this really young because I'm noticing with my own children, it's actually difficult not to train in this belief because when they are sick, you do do a lot more for them. Or at least I do, right? Like, I'll take your view because I can't do it at that level every day, I don't have that in me. So there's just, I think we just picked this up. And it still was still true in my adult life of getting more help. That was part of it. And then there was also a big piece of my relationship. And, like fear actually, fear around this is the first home we'd ever bought together at the time, we were having some trouble in our relationship. And my brain, my subconscious brain was like, ah, actually moving in, like actually buying a home for the first time that's very, very permanent. And I believe I created all sorts of chaos in my body to go against like, what I thought was safe. So these things are like very, very hidden Toréa, and not necessarily just this obvious, like, well, of course, I want of course, I want great clear skin. Skin example actually, is one a client I worked with who finally realized that some acne that she had had started at a certain age and had started when she had made a decision that wasn't safe to show her face because of an incident that had happened, right, let's significant traumatic incident, and everything she did like as far as taking actual protocols, and you know, eating certain foods and hormone testing, and that nothing was shifting, until we actually cleared the emotion and the beliefs around the incident and then her skin shifted, and she had not changed. food, diet. Anything else?
Toréa Rodriguez 21:30
Yep. I think, you know, it was you that I heard this concept around secondary gain. I heard that from you sometime last year, I think so six, eight months ago. And I really started to get curious about Hmm, I wonder if there's any kind of secondary gain stuff going on in my life with any of the things that I still am trying to optimize and resolve and that kind of thing. And what was really fascinating is that one of the things I was really focusing on last year was trying to crack the code in, why do I get these recurring multi day migraines, right? And one of the things that occurred to me in the secondary gain side of things is very similar to you and your mold story is, when I am having a migraine, I get a little bit more attention from people when they know that I'm having one, right? Things that pressure on me to do things is released, relieved, because, you know, it's like, "oh, you've got a headache. Don't worry about doing that thing for me. It's okay." Right. So I would get that kind of release from those kinds of expectations because of it. And I would get out of having to just do things, right? If you've got a migraine, most people know, that pretty much puts you out. And so you're sleeping instead. Right? So I, it was kind of like my Get Out of Jail Free card, in a way. And it's interesting, because I don't intend it to be this, like, "Oh, hey, look at me, I need attention." And I don't intend it to be me skirting responsibilities, but it was a way for me to do that. As painful as it was. Right? And so bringing that awareness forward really allowed me to take a look at, wow, those things that I'm trying to avoid doing, should I have committed to them in the first place? Right? Whoa, maybe not, maybe I'm taking on more than I need to be. Or maybe I'm taking on things that are inappropriate for me to be taken on somebody else should be doing them, you know, those kinds of things, and really caused me to take a look at those kinds of relationships, and interactions with people in the moment, I started to adjust that, and really start to focus on only taking on things that made sense, or that were in alignment with the goals that I was trying to make, instead of like all this extra stuff. Those migraines started happening less frequently, right. And I didn't do anything different with my supplements and I didn't do anything different with my hydration and I didn't do anything different with my food. That was the only shift. And so that's why I think secondary gain is such an interesting one. But it's takes a little bravery to take a look at!
Megan Blacksmith 24:28
Toréa you just hit on something that I think's even more important. And that's this whole idea of secondary gain. Like you know, like I said, I may get help from like my husband or my mom. Even more though, is actually your relationship with yourself. Because so many of us don't actually believe that we're worthy of taking a rest right. Like we don't believe we're worthy of day days off or you know, just not being productive, right like what what would that mean about me if you have linked my productivity as my worth or my productivity is how I receive love. And so we can actually work ourselves to the point of being so tired and have you know, have a migraine to the point that then this is the first time you we actually allow ourselves to stop, right? We're like, Okay, I, I physically can't do it, like I physically have to take a break, right. And this for many people is the only time they actually allow themselves to stop. So for anybody listening, if you are like this, you will not stop, you will not do something for yourself, until your body forces you to your body will keep forcing you too. Right? If you don't decide, your body will decide for you. There's just going to become this pattern over time. And so I think just that this secondary gain is can be you, but it also can be, it can be with people around you, it can also be you with you, and how you relate to you and what you think is okay, as far as just allowing yourself to rest.
Toréa Rodriguez 26:02
Yeah, yeah, it was huge for me. And it's a interesting concept, because like you said, secondary gain is almost operating, subconsciously, almost always. It's really, really rare for us to have that awareness. But once you start having this conversation, or once you start listening to this and start getting curious about, "hmm, I wonder if there's something there for me?" Then all of a sudden, you'll start to see it, right? I don't remember what the psychological phenomenon is when a new model of a car comes out, and you first see it, and it's like, Oh, my God, it's totally rare. I've never seen that before. And then the next week, you see, like, 100 of them, and you're anyway, I'm getting off track, but it's so subconscious. But once you do become aware of it, there are some things that you can do around the secondary game. Do you want to talk about some of the antidotes once you become aware of it? Or even maybe take it a step back? Like how do we become aware of secondary game?
Megan Blacksmith 27:04
Yeah, I do think the awareness of the stepping back of just kind of look, if there's something in your life that's happening over and over and over, and you are saying or thinking I don't want that, right. Like if it's in your environment, and you don't want it, there's some mismatch there. So we can start to look like if you're saying I do not want pain, and you're in pain, right? There's some mismatch. If you're like, I want abundance and lots of money, and you don't have it, there's something there. So we can just start to look at what could be the possible reasons why I feel safer, not having that thing. What could be under this what you know, so significance comes from having a really complicated health journey. I know Dr. Alex, my business partner, went through this is that you after a while you're like nobody can figure me out. And that becomes an identity that becomes significant. And, and without recognizing it, because you believe you're looking for an answer. And after a while, you might might start to take this on and use that as an identity. And now you're a little bit like well, unconsciously, well, I don't want I don't want them to figure me out. Because this is my identity. Nobody can figure me out. I'm complicated. If you figured me out, then that would mean I could have been figured out all a long time ago. And then what does that mean about these eight years, I just went through whatever I went through, right like that we make up these stories about what it will mean? Or if I go all in, and I really try this and it doesn't work, then what does that mean about me? Alright, I've had someone where they thought they wanted to release some weight. And they realized that they had been told early on from one from mother one from a partner that, you know, that was really like you do that you need to lose this weight. And they were like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to release weight because then I will prove them right, that I need to release the weight to actually be loved. And they're like, No, I can be loved as I am and at the same time they didn't want to physically be in the body. They were so these were pushing against each other.
Toréa Rodriguez 29:11
Yeah, very opposing intentions, I think?
Megan Blacksmith 29:16
yes.
Toréa Rodriguez 29:16
So that's kind of the the spookiness about this secondary gain is like, it doesn't make logical sense, because they're so opposed.
Megan Blacksmith 29:24
And I think like what you asked for is kind of how can you look for it, you just start to look for where those things are mismatched in your life, where you just don't actually have what you believe you want. There's something mismatched and we just start to I love people to just start journaling, write things out just like how could I be benefiting from this and not taking that on as you did it? Taking this this was your programming, this was there to protect you. And like maybe there is something my life like we teach in our programs Toréa, as you know, is perception is projection. So like anything you see in your environment is really a reflection of you. So you start to look around and you're like oh "What do I like around here? And what do I not like?" And then you're just like, "how is that? In me? How is that a part of me?" We start to question every single piece of that. I'm a big fan of Byron Katie's for questions like a way of just starting to question, What could these thoughts be about? Or what could I be protecting myself from?
Toréa Rodriguez 30:19
Awesome? Yeah, definitely follows the curiosity path, which is where I love to keep my clients in is in a state of curiosity. Because when we are in that state of curiosity, and journaling, or taking a quiet walk outside by ourselves, or whatever that happens to be, it's literally impossible for us to be in a state of self judgment. So that makes it easier for me to find these answers when I start getting curious and asking these kinds of questions. So what kind of antidotes can we use? We've discovered the secondary gain, or what we think might be the secondary game? What kind of antidotes do you work with? Or give your clients tools to work with for themselves? On how to resolve this inner conflict that's happening now that it's become aware into our consciousness?
Megan Blacksmith 31:12
Yeah. So first step is finding the pathway, the belief that's there and then the second one is to rewire it. So the cool thing about the brain and neuroplasticity is we are always can always change it, we can always create a different pathway, we can always create it to go a different way that we want. So once we recognize common question, you'll hear me say over and over with my clients is what do you want instead? Right, this is what's happening now, what do you want instead? So we're just keep, what do we want to go towards? And then who would you have to be? Like, what would be the identity of the person that would have that that would have the physical things the way they want or would be experiencing the thing, and often we're expecting to think, "Oh, well, like when I have my health, then I'll be the identity of that person." Or like, "when I lose that weight, well, then I'll be happy." Right. And so we're just flipping it around, or like you have to be the thing first. We get to be the feeling we get to be an embody whatever it is first. And just it becomes a matter of actually practicing being that person. That's what we do with habits, right is we're just actually living in and you know, in our groups, we use things like hypnosis. And there's a lot of different techniques for rewiring the subconscious to make it a little bit faster. Although the core concept is repeatedly putting in a new identity and acting that new identity there is always, in my opinion, does need to be some piece of like, physical action, so that you're telling your brain like yes, not only did we discover this subconscious belief, but now we're actually going to do something to rewire to do it differently. And notice, you may feel a little iffy about like, that may be like no starting tomorrow, right? You're gonna have all that pushback from your brain, because it's like, we're happy we do things a certain way. What are you doing? And you just can start to actually live as the person who has the health that they want.
Toréa Rodriguez 33:08
Love it? That's such a classic, like, Are you the person who will believe it when you see it? Or are you the person who will see it when you believe it. I love flipping that around and working with my clients in that way. Because sometimes that's what it takes to rewire the brain is to really focus in on doing that work, to cement in that new belief. That's what it takes to, to get around some of this stuff.
Megan Blacksmith 33:35
I mean this is the new model is the quantum model, right? And this is like Dr. Joe Dispenza's work. And a lot of people are following this model. And Dr. Alex had such chronic pain for so many years that was just really wired into our central nervous system. So the fact that she was able to with hypnosis, with visualization, with tools that don't involve actually putting anything into the body or surgery shift where she just no longer experiences pain. She used to be on six medications, she's down to taking one sometimes, you know, it's, it's physically I personally have seen what this kind of work can do. And what what it means when you embody, she doesn't say I'm a person, I she doesn't even say I had chronic pain, like pain is not in her vocabulary anymore, right? She's maybe a person who used to experience this, but we completely shift the identity, and then the physical body like alright, I can do that, too. Let's go!
Toréa Rodriguez 34:33
Exactly, exactly. Evie, do you have any questions for Megan?
Evie Takacs 34:37
No, I'm just I love hearing this. It's inspiring. And it, I think, an underlying theme because Toréa when you're like well, how can someone become aware of this? I think it's having this radical honesty with yourself and really being open to auditing yourself. I think that a lot of people in our culture, we shy away from that we don't really want to take an honest look at ourselves which I think be part of the reason why we get stuck in this way. Because you do have to look at your self honestly and say, Alright, listen, like, you keep saying you're going to do this and you're not doing it. It takes a lot to look inside and be like, maybe I am the problem, or maybe there's something that I'm doing. And so I think that can be a reason why also people who get held back and I know from experience for myself, that's part of the reason why I have been stuck in some of the habits that I don't really like. So, you know, Megan, when you're talking about asking yourself, well, you know, what is that mismatch? You know, where's that resistance coming from? It's hard to say it's coming from me. Right? So I think that can be a reason why some people get stuck with it. But again, having in, you know, the curiosity aspect that Toréa said, Being curious versus judgmental, I think that's going to change the game. So I think people listening and watching, hopefully, they're encouraged to do this with themselves, because it's not as scary as it probably seems up front. And there's so many good things on the other side of it. And I know for me, personally, this conversation is perfect timing. So I'm thinking like, Alright, I think I'm ready to look into this one for me. So, yeah, yeah.
Toréa Rodriguez 36:06
Love it. Love it. Love it. And I think you bring up something really important, which is, when you do discover this for yourself, right? When you are courageous to look at yourself, honestly. And take that really honest, look, the important thing is, there's nothing wrong with you. It's like all humans do this. This is the way that we learn about our environment, like what you were saying Megan earlier, like, it's really hard not to program this into our kids, right? Because when they're sick, we pay attention to them, right? And we just learn it as part of our environment. But it's one of these things that as an adult, now, we get to unlearn some of this stuff so that we can pave way for new stuff.
Evie Takacs 36:46
Right. One of the things that my therapist says that I love is, when we talk about things like this, he'll say it's not a defect, it's part of the design. And I just think a lot of this has to do with that, too, is you know, you're not defective. Nothing's wrong with you. It's just part of your design. And you can, you can learn to optimize that, right? It doesn't have to feel like such opposing forces, you can actually work with that, and actually get what you want out of your life if you take a look at it.
Toréa Rodriguez 37:10
Cool. Cool. So Megan, one of the things that we'd like to do on this podcast is encourage people to get outside for their health. So I want to ask you like, What's your favorite thing to do outside that, you know, helps support your health goals or endeavors?
Megan Blacksmith 37:26
Well, I'll go along the same theme and lines of what we've been talking about. I absolutely love walking meditations. So Dr. Joe Dispenza has some, there's some other ones but getting outside so experiencing nature and I am lucky to live four blocks from the beach so I can get to water even the winter. And just being by that, but doing the walking meditation as a as a practice, as well as obviously moving my body but that's just such a beautiful way of being in the stillness, but also having like all of your senses aware of right you're having all the inputs from nature, which of course you know, are so important.
Toréa Rodriguez 38:06
Yes, love it. That's awesome. Where can people find out more about you and your programs that you're offering?
Megan Blacksmith 38:13
You can come on over to zestyginger.com or Instagram is really our main spot @zesty_ginger. And then we also have a podcast the Four Phase Cycle Podcast so for people are interested in, we didn't even get into the topic but of the female cycle and how that really affects the different times of the month affect your brain. You go all the way back to season one, episode one for 24 podcast series.
Toréa Rodriguez 38:42
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on and being our guest today. And we hope you have a fantastic week. Yes, thank you.
Megan Blacksmith 38:50
Thank you for having me.
Toréa Rodriguez 38:57
Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're ready to dig deeper into your health, stop playing the whack-a-symptom game, start testing to get better guidance, you can find more about Toréa at torearodriguez.com, and you can find Evie at holisticallyrestored.com. Want a peek into what it's like to work with us? Come join us at our Optimized Wellness Community. You can find the invitation link in the show notes below. And if you have a question for the show, you can submit your question under the podcast section of torearodriguez.com. Finally, if you found something helpful in this episode, don't forget to leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. They're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, see you outside!
