#156 My lovely guest this week is Megan Barker. Megan is a Midwife and Child and Family Health Nurse with over 23 years of experience. But in the past few months she has changed her path in life. After a horrible health-scare, she decided that something needed to be changed. She resigned from her job, got a tattoo, and then decided to attend a Liveinflow retreat.

Many of us experience the fear that comes from our responsibilities in life, and sometimes it’s hard to choose ourselves and to choose joy. It can be difficult to take time from our busy lives to go on a journey back to our true selves. So, I hope that this episode, and Megan’s story, can empower you to take a moment and choose yourself over the troubles and responsibilities of life. Take a deep breath, and tune in.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: Coming Full Circle: How To Live With More Abundance & Joy Daily | Chris Volpe

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About Megan:  Megan Barker is a Midwife and Child and Family Health Nurse with over 23 years’ experience caring for women and their families. Her practice and teaching is founded on the philosophy that pregnancy, birth and early parenting are a natural and empowering time in life. Her role and focus are to provide information and support to facilitate the woman’s journey, including respecting and advocating for the decisions she makes.

►Audio Version:

 

Key points with time stamp:

• Megan’s work in her own words (0:14)
• The changes in Megan’s path in the last few months (1:57)
• The inspiration behind Megan’s new tattoo (3:26)
• Why does it take a health-scare for us to change our life? (11:09)
• The Liveinflow retreat as the missing part for Megan (21:32)
• The importance of connection in parenting and in life (23:18)
• Are women feeling empowered through creating life? (26:07)
• Moving forward after the retreat (31:35)
• Attending the retreat and stepping into the unknown (33:31)
• Megan’s advice on attending retreats (36:07)
• What Megan leaves us with (37:43)

Mentioned in this episode:

• Harvard University

Megan’s LinkedIn:
www.linkedin.com/in/megan-barker-8b736746/

 

About me:

My Instagram:
www.instagram.com/guyhlawrence/?hl=en

My website:
www.guylawrence.com.au
www.liveinflow.co

 

TRANSCRIPT

Guy 00:00
Megan, welcome to the podcast.

Megan 00:11
Thank you. I’m really excited to be here.

Guy 00:14
I really appreciate you coming on. I believe this is your first podcast, if I’m not mistaken. Yes, which is awesome. So I know what it’s like stepping into that for the first time. So I assure you an all the listeners will be very grateful that you that you did. And, you know, you’ve been on quite a journey. And I’ve been playing to see, especially as I’ve gotten to know you, as well from our most recent retreat, but I always love to start the show anyway, from if you were sitting at an intimate dinner table right now. And you sat next to a complete stranger, and they asked you what you did for a living? What would you say

Megan 00:49
to a guy right now, this, this moment in time, I would have no idea what to say, two weeks ago, I would say I’m a midwife. I’m a midwifery lecturer. You know, as a midwife, I have this amazing privilege that I get to share in a journey of a woman through her pregnancy and birth and early parenting and her you know, that journey of absolute self discovery. And, as a lecturer, it’s actually really similar, I get to, you know, facilitate with my knowledge and my skills, but I get to mostly sharing the journey with the students as they discover what they know already what they’ve already brought to it, and then what they become throughout the program, and then and then graduate into these wonderful midwives. But that’s me, that’s been me for well, over 20 years as a midwife and my opinions as a midwifery lecturer in different different forms. And, and usually, I’ve maintained both, you know, that there’s a little tiny bit of clinical and a lot of teaching and learning in academia, but

Guy 01:57
[inaudible] What has happened in the last two weeks?

Megan 02:03
Well, you know, over the last couple of months, I started to become quite unwell, you know, six months on become aware of the fact that I was unwell is probably a better way to put that. And then, two weeks ago, I had I came to the retreat really lost I and my health is, was really, really not good. I was on a path that was not going to lead to good places. And I, basically I came, came back from the retreat and speaking at a million miles an hour to my husband, and it ended with, I’m getting a tattoo. I’m leaving my job, and I already drive a sports car. So I think this is a midlife crisis. Are you wanting to come with me on this ride? He’s going to Hell yeah. And he sat there and started looking for images on the internet that I described this tattoo that I wanted. So now, I don’t know, I know, I have to leave that job. Now. I have actually resigned my resignation was accepted yesterday. And I feel sad, but a little bit excited. And mostly this immense sense of relief, that I’m finally listening to whatever I’ve not been listening to, and on the path that I need to be on. So I don’t I don’t know. Perfect. Yeah,

Guy 03:26
amazing. I you know, I’m so glad you mentioned the tattoo, because you shared it in the retreat Facebook. Yes. Yeah. And, and I got to ask you, what did you get? And what was the inspiration behind the tattoo?

Megan 03:40
So I’ll go with the inspiration first. When we when we first started the, you know, on our very first day and going into the retreat, I think, you know, I I know that I’ve mentioned this to you before, but I knew nothing about leaving flow. I knew I practice breath awareness. And I, if you asked me Do I meditate, I would have said no. I didn’t realize that what I did with breath awareness and grounding for women and for students. Actually, before we would start the day that in my mind, I didn’t realize that that was meditation. But I went into it with no knowledge and no expectations at all. I was really unwell. A friend said, Megan, I’m going to this retreat, why don’t you come with me? And I, you know, all I thought was, I have to physically get out of this space that I’m currently in. Why not? And that was really what I went down with. So in the first day, one of the one of the very first processes we did was to ask us what we were there for, and I thought that I was there for I needed a sense of belonging. I felt really lost or I needed to find my health, which is you know, that’s what that’s what I was toying with and then we did meditation, and we were guided, you know, to go through I guess what I saw was rooms and just going further and further into opening these doors, and I kept seeing what I thought looked like a round heart, but I wasn’t sure until I kept getting closer. And I got, I got down into this room that was quite dark. And it wasn’t a frightening dark, which is saying something because I have quite significant had actually, I think, quite significant claustrophobia, and being in confined spaces would usually elicit a panic response from me. But it didn’t it was it was it was dark, but it was comfortable. And I was no longer within me, I was looking at me in this room, and I’m bouncing on this giant red heart just bouncing away on this giant red heart with this ridiculous grin on my face. And you might remember when I arrived at the retreat me bouncing and grinning, just didn’t fit really at all, I don’t think and believe there I am bouncing on this this giant red heart. And, you know, in the in the guiding it was that this this small child was going to come in and and you know, we’d be presented with this word and and so in my, in my visions, I could see this child and I actually I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl, I don’t know, if it was me when I was really little, I have no idea because I was looking at me on this bouncing heart and the back of this child trying to reach up to me with something. And I wouldn’t even get off bouncing to see what was on hand. And the word joy was there was when I finally was able to see it. And I thought, well, that’s ridiculous. I don’t need joy, I need health, you know, but Okay, that’s, that’s what it’s saying. And, and so then I just, you know, continue to watch myself bounce on this heart happily and ponder the word. And so that was the word that that was was my word for the for the retreat. I really didn’t understand it. But that was my word. And, and then through through the other processes I we did. We did the the ice bath and I wasn’t concerned about the ice bath, I you know, it was two minutes, I knew it wouldn’t kill me. So it’s two minutes that I have to breathe through and go into myself. And I do that with and for women as a living. So to not be able to do that I thought no, I can do this, this is no problem at all. I’m not there, it’s no problem. But I knew that I could do it. And I wanted to do it early, because I didn’t want to get in my head, I wanted to just go with that knowing. And I towards the end of it, I had had this this blinding kind of pain in my head. But it was a it was a pain that I I know I associate very much with fear, like a lot of fear. And it wasn’t until after that process and unpacking it. When I recognize that it actually was it was fear. That’s what that’s what I was feeling and, you know, unpacking it with any afterwards and I came to talk to this pain, for lack of a better word to try and understand rather than fear it and hate it trying to understand where it was coming from and any… somewhere in there. And he said, you know, you, you need to you need to think I choose me because all of my fears centered around my responsibilities. You know, it was when I was starting to come to the realization that I couldn’t do this job anymore. But it was the financial pressures and the commitment to the team and the commitment to my work and all of these pressures that I was feeling. And anyway, so I set with the words I choose me as well. And I thought that I had to choose between I choose me and joy because it’s still, you know, all so this or that it was in my brain that I couldn’t, you know, have everything had to be one or the other. But then in more meditations, I kept seeing this image of that same bouncy red heart as a tattoo, very specifically on the inside of my left wrist. Didn’t understand it. But I saw it over and over and over again. And every time I saw it, I felt strength and I felt I don’t know I’m gonna go with strength just this just this certainty, I guess, not certainty that I was getting a tattoo certainty that this image gave me if Yeah, and so as I was kind of thinking about it all it was the the two of them it was the the words I choose me and this this heart tattoo, because I realized through over the process, that I wasn’t going to be able to get to that big red bouncing heart where I was, you know full of joy and love and self worth if I didn’t choose Me. So then I got the tattoo. I mean, it’s on, it’s for me. So it’s very much on the inside of my wrist. I don’t know if you can see it. Yeah, it’s still healing, which I find really interesting and and i think it should be it, you know, that’s fantastic the day that I got it. And then as this is my very first tattoo, so at the age of 44, now 45, I’ve just had a birthday, I got my very first ever tattoo, but they take time to heal. And it was really interesting to begin with, it was so crystal clear. And I loved it. And then it got really unclear and a bit scabby and a bit, you know, uncomfortable, like, really uncomfortable. And he and at that same time I’ve, I’ve been feeling feelings of uncertainty, and you know, this real lack of clarity of where I’m headed, and that having to come back and say, you know, just breathe. It’s not even take one step at a time and just breathe one breath at a time. So, but

Guy 11:02
what a beautiful reminder, to see it everyday as well, yeah.

Megan 11:07
Yeah.

Guy 11:09
Why do you think? Because you said, You’ve been in your career for over 20 years, you know, doing what you do as a midwife, and you’re there helping other people? You’re in the health care industry? Yeah, the supporting people. And I have no doubt, people listening to this will definitely resonate with this. But why do you think it had to take their health and happy if I don’t know if you’re happy to talk about the health condition you had and what we spoke to on the phone? But why do you think it took it to get to that point, before you’ve gone, you know what, I’m going to change because we just for yourself, personally, because there’ll be people listening to this today, knowing that something’s brewing there might not be comfortable with the direction the life is going, or the Korea they’re in, or the things that are but not sure how to process it,

Megan 11:58
I think, I think it’s kind of like, you know, that analogy of the frog sitting in water as it starts to boil. You know, I’m I’m in this part, because I loved midwifery. I loved education, I loved sharing midwifery knowledge, I loved everything about what I did. But, you know, like anything, there’s other aspects to it. So I, you know, I love learning as well. And I’ve done lots of postgraduate work and masters, you know, in in management and furthering my studies in midwifery, and now in research, and the more you do them, the more I did, the more I would come away from what really makes my heart beat. And that’s working with people, you know, working with women. And so that happened in the clinical sense, I, you know, the more I did, and you think that you want it, you think, Oh, this is a promotion, you know, this is great, I’m going to be able to make more of a change, if I’m a manager, I’m going to be able to make more of a change if I’m in education, because there’s so many things that I saw within the healthcare system that, you know, created a real dissonance within me, I find that the the system itself very disempowering. And I feel like my role and what I think all healthcare providers role should be, is actually helping people to have the tools within themselves, to find their own health and be healthy. And that, you know, that and I think that every one of us that go into health, that’s what we want, you know, but the, then we go into this system, that you’re blocked every step of the way, and you see it, you know, and, and so you change, and you move into different positions, because you think maybe I can make a difference here, or I change and I moved, because I think maybe I can make a difference here that instead of, you know, doing it with one one woman in one family, maybe maybe if I’m working at a higher level, I can make more of a difference. And, and then it was, you know, management, and then it was education within the system. And then it was academia. And what I found was that I and I think has happened and you know, this is on a lot of reflection. God, I don’t even know if I would have been able to say this two weeks ago. I think what happened was, I moved away from things that brought me joy and moved into my heart. And I remember saying, for so long that I feel like I’m running on empty. I feel like I’m pouring all of my energy at all of the time. And I’m not getting anything back anymore. And I didn’t know what it was because in theory, I’m in this amazing job with these wonderful team that I work with who I have so much respect and love for. But I was becoming more and more exhausted every day and every day was becoming more and more of a battle and I didn’t want to acknowledge that it could be my work because my work very much defines who I, who I see myself as. So it took a really long time for me to acknowledge that maybe there was a problem there. Actually, it wasn’t time time wouldn’t have done it. Six, I started getting migraines a couple of years ago. And they, you know, they’re significant, and they would wipe me out for a few days. And then I would have a headache for a few weeks afterwards. But I thought I’m older, maybe it’s perimenopause, maybe it could be all sorts of reasons for it. And so I ignored it. And, and then I woke up one morning in June with a migraine that I can’t even begin to describe the pressure in my ears and my eyes and I just remember thinking I can’t possibly have this much pain and pressure in my head. And, and it be okay, it you know, there has to be something wrong. So, my husband took me to hospital and I was there with, you know, the patch you have over your eyes and sunglasses and a pillowcase over my head because the light was just so blinding and so painful for me. And in the investigations, they found that I have a brain aneurysm. And as it turns out, the aneurysm was quite the top of the neurosurgical area up here, because it’s in the

Guy 16:26
Would you mind explaining that is for people?

Guy 16:28
So a brain aneurysm, you know, people, I guess we hear about aneurysms. In other areas, it really is just the the blood vessels that are either arterial or leading off the artery, instead of, you know, being nice and streamlined with everything else. For whatever reason, it has ballooned out in that one little patch, so it’s weakened. And people, you know, people often hear about our experience aortic aneurysms, and you know, in towards the, you know, under the heart and towards the guard or abdominal area, or I should say that, yeah, so mine is a brain aneurysm. And, you know, there’s amazing surgery these days where they can non invasively, put like this little catheter tubing and either put pressure on it or clip it so that it doesn’t burst because that’s the big problem, the you know, the big risk is that it’s going to weaken so much, the vessel will weaken so much that it will start to bleed. And when you bleed onto your brain, that’s a stroke or death, obviously, but they can, they can make it then that’s what they’re looking for. With my migraine. Now we’re looking to see if it was bleeding, and they found the aneurysm and then they had to look to see if it was bleeding, which it wasn’t thankfully. But because of the position of my aneurysm, they can’t do any of those non invasive procedures. It’s, it’s too far away from the main branch of the artery. Actually, if you look at an image of it, it’s it looks to me like it’s just off where the third eye should be, which apparently is a very strange place for an aneurysm. None of them have ever seen one there. And in order to do surgery on it, it would have to be a craniotomy. And because it’s kind of where it is, it carries significant risk of stroke or death, almost the same as its presence on its own. So, you know, it’s told, don’t get diabetes don’t get high blood pressure, and you’ve got to avoid migraines. But we can’t medicate the migraines because it’s contra indicated by the aneurysm. So I came away, and I made massive changes to my diet, I made massive changes to my work routine, I made myself go for a walk every morning, I, you know, had a set time that I’d sit in front of the computer, because I was working from home, I would make sure that when I finished work for the day, I would go for a swim so that I was separating out that role of work to, you know, then coming in and cooking dinner and all of that sort of thing. I put a really, you know, really conscious effort into making changes and strategies to manage this. And but in the meantime, I’m still feeling like every single day was a battle. And every you know, there would be one hour in the evening that I think that I would relax. And it would be after I’d finished work after we’d had dinner and would be sitting, you know, just for that tiny little space before you go to bed. But then I would go to bed and I would be this dread of shit. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and go through this day again, because I can’t get through the work. There’s too much work these deadlines and that was you know, that was every day. So it was just this constant fight. And, and then I had, you know, a stressful day on the Monday before the retreat, and I had another headache and you know, I was I could probably count on one hand how many days I haven’t had a headache, since aneurism diagnosis. You know, that was my new state of normal, which there was no reason for it, you know, talking to the doctors that shouldn’t have been causing headaches. And you know, who knows how long it had been there before. We found it but but that was my new state of being was daily headaches, I’ve changed my glasses and things, but it hadn’t worked. And yeah, I so I had this stressful day, I felt this rise of pressure in my head again, and I thought, Oh, no, he comes another migraine and it didn’t develop into a migraine. But I’d, you know, on the Wednesday, I had an appointment with my GP, just the checkup, you know, every six months because of my my health and my blood pressure, which is always completely normal. And normal is like 120 on 80 or 70, or something, you know, that’s there’s a little range there. But that’s, you know, that’s a blood pressure to be happy with. But my blood pressure is 167 on 104. And, you know, as the doctor so nicely said to me, You don’t get to have a brain aneurysm and a blood pressure like that and continue walking the earth. Something, something has to change here. And, and I can’t be medicated for my blood pressure, because my blood pressure is normal, unless I’m stressed or in pain. So that’s it was that? Wow, what do I do? And I was, you know, in that incredibly panicked state of I’ve made all of these changes, what else can I do what you know, what else could I possibly do? And that’s what,

Guy 21:31
you know, the missing piece was retreat? Yeah. find any way back to your heart or your head?

Megan 21:38
Yeah, there was there was nothing. There was nothing I even I wasn’t even spending time with students anymore. I’ve spent this year of course, writing. So everything was at home in front of my computer. There was no, there was nothing. There was nothing. I wasn’t in that. I wasn’t working with women. I wasn’t working with students. I wasn’t working with people. I was writing courses. And yeah, I think that I think that this all started before this year. I think that when I when I reflect on it, this, this dissonance had started. Because, you know, probably many years ago, because I’ve continued to bounce through different aspects of midwifery to try and find where I belong. And, yeah, but now I’ve come to realize that actually, at the retreat, seeing what you and Matt and Petra do, I realized that it’s so much bigger than the referee, you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been a midwife for all of my adult life and did not occur to me that, you know, there are so many other role areas, that you can help people to find their strength and be their, you know, their, their person, you know, and and, and have that, and move on with that. And that, you know, that just, that was awesome and amazing. Yeah,

Guy 23:02
well, I tell people, when people ask me what I do now, I tell them, I help people remember who they truly are. And once they find that, to learn how to stand in that empowerment, and not let the world push them aroun d to who they think they should be.

Megan 23:16
Absolutely. And yeah,

Guy 23:18
that’s, that’s the game. That’s the change. And, you know, I just want to highlight for everyone, what’s happened with you as well, because it’s really interesting, I’ve been doing this work long enough now to, to realize that what you’ve been through and what I’ve seen hundreds of other people go through, that’s the journey back to self really reconnect back to that self. And once we, once we kind of, I guess, it’s almost like, I was imagine like throwing a ton of work a string through all the different holes and everything till it comes out the other side. But once you once it gets to the other side, you then know the journey and you don’t have to let go, you’ve kind of you’ve made this route. And you can continue to make that route clearer and clearer. And but we have to catch on to it first. You know, and I don’t I don’t care how good your diet is, how much you exercise or what you tell yourself unless you really connect back to that, that that part of yourself the heart that we do not get raised in this culture at all. It’s it’s a really uphill battle. You know, and it’s not that hard once you know how it’s just been able to disassociate themselves with the beliefs. And, you know, I was only listening to a podcast yesterday, finally driving back from Sydney, but it was about parenting. Because we often say that there was a Harvard study that spoke about the number one key to happiness and why people were living longer, healthier, but I’m happy that we’re happy. And the number one key factor was connection. Yes. Now, I was only listening to a podcast yesterday when they were talking about parenting and it’s like, well, how Stop you not stop. But how do you influence your children, your kids as they grow into their teens? So they’re not getting on the drugs or the alcohol or having sex oily? And like, what is the missing piece? And it’s like, connection, connection, not not ordering, not discipline, not telling them or putting them and punishing them it was connection.

Megan 25:21
Do you know guy in in midwifery, and in maternity care, there’s massive massive studies 1000s and 1000s and 1000s 10s of 1000s of women within these studies, and the, you know, one of the number one indicators for positive outcomes, so, you know, term, full term births with healthy babies and healthy women is connection is continuity, you know, with with one person one, and that connection throughout the pregnancy and the birth, and then the note reduces even reduces premature birth by nearly 20%. It’s insane. So it’s that it is it’s that same thing. It’s it’s universal, it’s, you know, yeah,

Guy 26:07
yeah, absolutely. And yeah, the missing piece, the biggest connection role is connection to ourselves. Yes. And we’re trained to look externally to fix the problem. Yeah, constantly. And that’s where things get continue to get worse and worse and worse, you know, is that in your industry, and I’ve kind of brushed with it now myself, because, you know, my wife gave birth to Ava, seven and a half months ago, and I think birth and pregnancy and post pregnancy, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a miracle. That’s how I see it now, like, I’m absolutely blown away in the work and effort goes, do you think within what you’ve seen, with women and in your industry, that this connection, and and these tools are highlighted, in a way to support women to empower themselves into a, into the most sacred thing that you can do? I think

Megan 27:08
it can be, but I’m not sure that it is. Right. I think it can be I think, you know, if if women have access to a known care out, and I’m going to say a known midwife, because even when we’ve looked at other models of care, midwifery, midwifery care that knowing that known care provider, and you know, particularly if care is provided within the community, and especially if it’s within the woman’s home, where she’s, she’s in control, this is her space, and you’re a guest in that space. And so it’s this continuity, where you know, the person you trust the person, so you, you know, you feel you, I think, more able to ask questions, more able to be vulnerable. Because being in your heart space, and connecting is a really vulnerable place. And, you know, when you’re, when you’re, when you’re pregnant, everything’s new, everything’s changing in your body. And so it is, it’s just so easy to defer to the expert, to tell you what’s going on, rather than, you know, sit with it, and connect with it. And as a health professional, it is so easy for me to step into the role of the expert, and tell you what’s happening in your body. And it creates this, this dependency on me, which, you know, instead of being able to be confident and know that everything you’re feeling is good. And so, all the way through the pregnancy, knowing that everything is exactly you know, knowing that you can connect with your baby, knowing that you’re doing the right thing, knowing that the changes are a well, knowing that your baby’s moving and not being dependent on listening to the heart rate of the baby, you know, little things like that. And it’s so easy for the woman to hand that power over to me. But if that power is handed over to me, as a health professional, I’ve taken it from her. And so that then leads into the labor and birth where there’s just so much fear because there’s, you know, and then the fear and anxiety, travel, the same pathways that pain do. So with that fear and anxiety comes pain, and with pain comes fear, you know, and it just builds on itself. Whereas if we can connect, you know, you hear of hypno birthing and you hear of all those sorts of things, and they really they’re connecting with your breath, they’re connecting with yourself, but they’re focused just on the birth and I would so love to see something that that focuses on connection for the woman in her body and her significant other her you know, her partner or whoever is with her through this journey, because it would be it would be so much harder for me as a health professional to step in and take that power from her and I we don’t, it doesn’t happen out of malice it happens out of trying to control Something and minimize risk. But by doing that we’re taking it from the woman. And then there’s a sense of pain. And then there’s a sense of, you know, someone needs to do this for me and everything starts to go pear shaped and interventions happen.

Guy 30:11
Yeah, exactly. And I think we were actually encouraged and taught as a culture.

Megan 30:17
Yes, very much.

Guy 30:19
We give our power away way too easily. These days, we see it going on right now with, with what’s going on in the world, we’re happy to just hand over our power, you know, and nothing for ourselves in some respects, unintentionally, of course, because that’s the way way society is to a degree.

Megan 30:35
It’s interesting I as well as I’ve spent many years working with women home birthing. And I also volunteer and work with a team that, you know, we travel around Australia, it’s called also advanced life support in obstetrics. And it’s actually changed the name now, but it’s, it’s managing maternity emergencies. So teaching doctors, midwives, paramedics, air ambulance to manage maternity emergencies, which seems really different from you know, where my heart is, but it’s actually it’s actually not and, and one of the things that I always say, and one of the things I would say, with midwifery students is the absolute hardest thing that you will ever do is nothing. Just hold space. And yeah, it’s, it’s it I do, I think that for a health professional, often, especially if we’re working within the hospital system, that is the hardest thing for, for someone to do is to say, just hold space, just Yeah, yeah,

Guy 31:35
totally. So you’ve had these experiences, you know, you’ve you’ve survived the retreat, you come out the other side, you’ve got a tattoo on your arm. I choose me. You’re changing, you know, you you’ve hit the bullet you’re ready to, you know, you create a substantial change. It’s not just I’d like to do this as clearly you’re doing it. You know, what’s your views with your brain aneurysm? Because obviously, the stress and tension depression, you said something in the video testimonial that we filmed right at the end about the healing is within me. I know that where before? It wasn’t. So I’m just curious to know, how have you been since the retreat with it all? And and how do you feel about everything moving forward? i?

Megan 32:26
Well, I haven’t had a headache for over a week. And the last headache that I had lasted maybe two days instead of, you know, weeks on end, which is amazing. I can’t. It’s Yeah, I would wake up with a headache every day. It was just part of my, my life was that it was a headache. I hope I would have a headache so and smells and things would really, really get to me. So it’s that in itself is amazing. I am due to have another MRI to measure the size of the aneurism. And I said, I said to my husband, I said, I’m gonna go in there, I’m gonna get this MRI, it’s not gonna be there. It’s gonna be like, I don’t recognize this brain anymore. I’m out. So maybe not this one, but maybe six months down the track. When I have the next one. It’s not going to recognize the brain that it’s in. So it’s going to just pack a

Guy 33:25
bag. Please keep me posted on the results as well. Yes, incredible. Yeah, it

Megan 33:29
will leave.

Guy 33:31
Yeah, yeah. And yeah. For anyone listening to this right now, that might be where you were last year. Or contemplating, because I believe you found out the retreat literally days before because I think then another day, you were coming.

Megan 33:49
Yeah, I found I found out on the Tuesday. So the retreat was Thursday. It started this Thursday. And it was on the Tuesday that that Carolyn called and said, you know, you should you should come and I thought oh, I i’ve i’ve known Carolyn for 20 years and she’s she keeps coming into my life and, and contacting me at times that are really important. I’ve actually I have I have learnt to, to actually to listen or take note even what she says makes no sense to me. I’ve actually learned to sit with it. And and she said you know just call this person and she gave me the number of flowers like beautiful flower and her contact and I don’t actually remember the the conversation with Fleur. I just remember feeling that I needed to go I remember it it reaffirming to me when Carolyn said you should go to this. And I thought if it was anyone else saying that I would have just hung up the phone and not done anything more. And then I really wouldn’t have I wouldn’t have listened to anyone else. And then I contacted for and I as I said I honestly don’t remember the content of the conversation. I remember her telling me the cost and at the time thinking I can’t, it’s incredibly reasonable. In fact, I don’t know how you run that program, and that costs at that price. But for me, I couldn’t come up with that money. You know? And it was like, oh, okay, so maybe it’s not meant to be and then Truly, I get off the phone and my parents call and say, we haven’t got your present, can we send you some money? And, yes, please do. And my husband’s parents had done the same thing, because it was my birthday coming up. And that actually, you know, between, you know, that, that created the gap and there that filled it. And so then it was the doctor’s appointment. That happened that same day that I was having these phone conversations on the Wednesday, where I was told that I wasn’t going to continue walking the earth if I continued on this path. And, and so that was it. I came out of that doctor’s appointment, I mold, Stan, and I said, you know, your parents have given me money. My parents had given me money. We have like this money tucked away. Can I want to use it for this? And he said, Absolutely. And so on Wednesday afternoon, I paid and it was the course was on Thursday, I think I think I put it through at like six o’clock that night.

Guy 36:07
Yeah. And I rang you on the Thursday. So you clearly stepped into the unknown, but obviously, the motivation and the pain was great enough for you to take action. Right. Absolutely. And I guess, for the people listening to this, that are sitting on the fence that are know that they should change, but maybe the pain is not great enough yet, or they’re curious, or what would you say to them now, having been through what you’ve been through and come out the other side?

36:38
Um,

Megan 36:41
I think I would say, you know, I think that, you know, I think that, you know, in your heart, what’s not right, and what needs to change, and I think that, it probably feels like, the one thing in your life that you can’t change, you can’t afford to change. Because you’ve got, you know, so much invested in it, whether it’s, you know, it could be a relationship, it could be a job, it could be something for me, it was my, my job, and, and very much my sense of identity around that. I think you just you have to, you have to try and yeah, you do have to listen to that and trust it before, you know that, that that kind of logical brain comes in and says, but what about the money? What are you going to do, you know, this is what you’ve done all of this time, this is what you know, and you, you know, just slammed with all of these reasons why you shouldn’t make the change that you probably know, in your heart that you need to make.

Guy 37:43
Yeah, beautiful. And just before we wrap it up, is there anything else you’d want to add? For our listeners, for them to ponder on?

37:58
I think, probably

Megan 38:02
just touching back on the the listening to your heart, I think that one of the reasons that it’s challenging, or has been challenging for me is that it’s not clear. It’s not, you know, it’s not as clear as what your thoughts are, when you, you know, if you if you’re not in that space very often, but it’s been that you have to, you know, it might be visions, or it might be images, as opposed to, you know, words or something, and it’s not concrete, and it’s messy, and, you know, it can be really out of focus. And so, you know, it’s hard to listen to it. And I think, maybe one of the other reasons that, that I don’t listen is or didn’t listen, is because that feeling, it comes with a lot of love. And it comes with a lot of self worth. And I think that that might be another reason that I shut it down for so long. Because you, you know, you don’t feel worthy. And so it’s so easy to shut that down. And I guess what I would say is, listen, listen to that love. Listen to that, that or see that image or feel that feeling. You are worth it. We’re all worth it.

Guy 39:20
Totally, totally. And then when you put yourself in an environment with I mean, because obviously you stepped into a room with a bunch of strangers.

Megan 39:28
Yeah, and the best thing I’ve ever done, right,

Guy 39:31
and the friendships made and the heartfelt sincerity, the non judgment, the space that’s held in the place comes it’s it’s a healing place. And I’m,

Megan 39:44
you know, I hear myself speaking to you at the moment guy and it’s almost unrecognizable to me to the person a couple of weeks ago and this is because of the retreat. So you know, this ability to say listen to your heart and You’re worth it. There’s no way I would have said that two weeks ago. Not not, you know, not No way. No way at all. And, you know, there’s just so much that I want to say there’s so much there’s, I remember at the retreat, one of the, and I think that this actually came, I would never have come to this realization if I wasn’t in a group. And so I Yeah, Yeah, we did. We did that. Meditation, that healing meditation, and I was really fortunate to be, you know, the receiver of a lot of love and energy. And being new to meditation, there was times when we would be meditating. And I would be frightened to, to breathe again. Because I would inhale and exhale. And as I sank down into that space between breaths, that’s when I would see visions, that’s when I would feel warmth, that’s when I would, you know, have all of these sensations. And and I would be frightened that when I breathe in, again, it would go away. And when, when we were doing that, that meditation, I just, it just came to me that it wasn’t going to go away, because it was everyone around me what I was seeing and what I was feeling that whoops, that that beautiful, bright glow that I was absolutely encased in wasn’t being generated by me, it wasn’t my vision, it was the energy that was produced by the group around me. And it was running through me and it was part of me, but bigger than me. And that realization that as I said, I would not have come to if I wasn’t in the group, if I wasn’t at the retreat in that group. That was the realization that that this, that this is so much bigger, and that it’s it’s there, always for me, and I don’t I don’t I’m not generating it. I’m just being open to it.

Guy 41:59
And you allowed yourself to feel again, yeah, the main thing

Megan 42:02
Yeah, but that wouldn’t that

Guy 42:05
you’re you’re amazing, Megan. It is amazing. You’re amazing. I’m gonna have to wrap this up, but I just want to just acknowledge you and thank you for coming on. And, and I know how intense it can be stepping into that you stepped into the fire like you know, the retreat isn’t initiation, but all done was love and you put your trust in us you you step through it and you know coming out with a career change and a tattoo on your arm on life. Job done. Amazing. Megan, thank you so much. My lovely, appreciate it.

Megan 42:38
Thank you guys.

Guy 42:39
Thank you.