Episode 160: From Shark Tank to Seeing Spirits & A different kind of Near-death Experience.

to the sharks. Well. I was surprised that one of the ladies we've seen on TV went from Shark Tank to being able to see deceased children her name is Kirsten Halfcock, and I had a conversation with her this past week.

to go back to work full time. I wanted to still make that income, but try and do something from home. Now I know it's intuition. Then I thought, this is crazy. Why am I thinking I can build furniture and I have no experience with this, And I thought I'll give it a try. My dad used to build furniture in our house, so I'll try it. So I built furniture, specifically kid stuff, and I like the mid century modern style. So I started building that type of toy box back

in two thousand and seven. At that point, I just thought, gosh, this is going to help pay the bills, like I can pay the gas bill with this right, And it exploded in a way that I never thought would happen. So all of a sudden, I'm starting to get orders from New York, from celebrities, from England, from all over

the place. Within four years, it was at the point where I needed manufacturing help, which is what led me to Shark Tank, because at that point I thought, I can't there's no way I can do anything about this. Just doing all this myself in the garage, I'm so overwhelmed. So I applied to Shark Tank. So once I got on Shark Tank, I ended up getting two offers, And there's a whole journey and a whole section of that in my book where I talk about all of that.

But it was actually one of the best things I've ever done because it taught me to trust my intuition more so than I'd ever done. And I was thirty four, I believe at the time when all that happened. You know, I lived a good chunk of life without really knowing a what intuition was, how to trust it. I knew nothing. I get into the Shark Tank years and I'm like this is great. I did it. I've expanded, I'm partnering internationally, I've got a manufacturer, and I thought, okay, this is awesome,

pinnacle of everything. And then of course I shouldn't have thought that, because then everything goes down. Now from there, it's a story that is unbelievable, and I didn't believe it myself, to be honest with you. My first reaction, I'm in the garage and building furniture. I'm hearing mom or I would see a figure walk across the garage like a small figure. What were my kids?

I guess I would say with me. I was reading Facebook one night and I remember seeing a message about two I would say, kids, They're not kids. They were parents at the time, but I went to school with them and they were a couple years older. I didn't know them very well, and I ended up reading about the loss of their son who had passed away. First of all, I didn't even know they had a son, that's how not close we were. So I am reading this Facebook post and all of a sudden, I can

feel him next to me. I had been finally coming to grips with this and understanding that this was real, talking to a few people that were kind of woo woo, quote unquote. In my mind, that was at least the basis of the foundation for me before I got this message from Nate. He is such a force, and I remember thinking, Okay, if this is real, then I'll just write down what he's saying, because he was asking me to reach out to his parents. Could you see him or I could see him? Yes, I could see him,

I could feel him, I could hear him. And it was really strange because how Claire has come in typically one at a time, and that's how it started for me. I would smell things like I would smell smoke, and I would think, nobody's smoking. Why am I smelling smoke? Not recognizing it was my grandfather. So the claars all came in, but they came in so quickly that by the time Nate got to me, which was a couple of months in, it was all at once. Yeah, it

was nuts. So he was telling me that I needed to share information with his family, and I said, okay, I'll write it down. And then after that, I kept looking around, like where did he go? And I thought, I'm just going to put it away for a minute, because first of all, I don't want to reach out to grieving parents. I don't want to hurt them. I was a parent myself, like, I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to be the crazy woman from Defiance, Ohio.

I don't want this to reflect badly on my parents who still lived in Defiance, Ohio. And so I put it away and I went back out into the garage a couple days later, and I was working on the toy box that I had built, about to ship it out, and I had this overwhelming calm. It was almost like I didn't hear it, but I felt like, it's time, it's time, It's okay. And so I had that of okay, I'll try. So I reached out to them on messenger in Facebook and said, I don't know if you remember me,

and my dad was a football coach. They still live in town. They're normal people. They're saying, I promise, I'm saying, but I feel like I've communicated with your son on the other side, and he really wants me to pass these messages. I was very grateful because his mom was already believing that he was on the other side. She was already recognizing signs. His dad was not at that point, so he was very skeptical. Ended up passing that message and even went over to their house when I went

home to visit my family. That's been twelve years ago, I think, so I still passed messages to them, to Denise and John, and they came to my book launch and they've just been like amazing friends because the way I look at it, they helped me, and he helped me as much as I helped them. But I sat with them. I sat with their youngest son, who was their only living son now, and I remember sharing messages

for about an hour and I did that privately. Whatever it was that I shared came to be, and so at that point he said, thank you, this is such a gift. I didn't know they were struggling. I didn't know what they were dealing with at the time, but it really changed their lives. It brought them all back together again as a family. And yeah, it was just it's incredible. Right then and there, I was like, Okay, I'm sold. I can do this. It's scary, but I can do this because it gave them such hope.

was just all this stuff happening all around the same time. Thankfully, she didn't think I was nuts, which a lot of people in my circle were saying, this is crazy, but she didn't. There was a little girl who had been abducted and murdered by a pediflowering that was trying to get my attention, and there was a connection in that area and that's how she found me. That freaked me out because now I'm thinking, what do I do? Am

I really supposed to reach out? I reached out to the mom of the child, and the mom basically said, thank you. What you're telling me is what happened, even though the public reports say otherwise. So she knew that I was really getting the information from the other side. And then I was able to reach out to other

detectives because as we know, it's a ring. When these rings are pretty prevalent unfortunately internationally, and they're intertwined, and so I started to just form relationships with different cops around the country. The first thing I would say is, Hi, I'm curious, din I'm a CEO of a furniture company. I would try it and make it as clear as possible that I wasn't somebody who was trying to do anything, but sheer information that could be helpful.

okay with it, but also very intuitive himself. That partnership came through another case. It was organized crime murder that happened in New York, and I happened to be connected to someone related to the person who had gone missing. Mark had agreed, as a private detective who was retired, that he was going to also volunteer on this case from a different angle, and found out that I was willing to also work on it. So we connected over

the phone. I shared information I was getting from the man on the other side because I knew he was deceased, and he said, okay, we'll see what else you can

get and then let's meet back up again. And I happened to have been in New York This was twenty fourteen, and so we met up at a diner and I took my little folder and he had his folder, and we sat down and they matched and it was information that I couldn't have known only from the man in spirit, and it matched everything that he had been investigating boots on the ground. So it was at that point I

think that our partnership was solidified. And then I just continued to help him on cases he was working on as well, until we found it the nonprofit together.

get over resentment and learning about forgiveness. We'll be right back. You're listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network.

I'd lived in a safe world. But at eight years old, I realized that not everybody has your best intentions at heart, and that's a lot to process for an eight year old kid. So I went to school. I hated school. I was made fun of, and it might have been because I was different. I didn't celebrate any holidays or participate in any extracurricular activities because I was raised as a Jehovah's witness. They have certain spiritual beliefs that are like,

pretty way outside the mainstream. The religion taught me a lot of good morals, and I have a lot of respect for Jehovah's witnesses, but it did make me stand out as different, and maybe that made me an easy target for bullies. So I went to school.

It made me feel comfortable in my own skin, more self confident, and I wasn't feeling those painful emotions of the effects of the sexual abuse and being made fun of. I was able to help me deal with those emotions. So I was diagnosed with those diseases, got hooked on painkillers, and lived that way for most of my life. I dropped out of school in the ninth grade and was headed down a really dark road. Then I was in a fight when I was twenty one. I guess you

could say that was my first near death experience. I was beat to within an inch of my life. This guy, he was a third degree black belt. We'd been drinking and ended up getting in a fight with this guy and he was wearing steeled toed boots and he kicked me three times in the head. And I went to the doctor the next day and he said, if that guy had put three more pounds of pressure behind that last kick, his boot would have gone directly into your

brain and you would be dead. So well, at age twenty one, I was questioning the possibility of my own non existence. I guess you could say at that time, I just experienced a complete blackout, the absence of everything, nothingness, and yet there was still a consciousness there to observe the nothingness. I didn't have a trip to heaven or Hell or all of these amazing experiences that people have at that time. I just experienced a total blackout. Afterwards

that made me question my identity. Up to that point, I believed that I was stupid. I was going nowhere in life and basically it wasn't going to amount to anything. And then I was in that fight. I started like reading and listening to audiobooks about self development and spirituality and things like that. Long story shore. I went back to school, got my ged and then went to a community college, graduated from there, and ended up going into a summer program called Exploring Transfer where I want a

full scholarship to go to Bassar College. Graduated from there with a philosophy degree. But what people didn't know was that while I was in this school, this prestigious school, and throughout this whole educational journey, I was addicted to painkillers. This whole time. Graduate from Vassar, then I'm back. I'm living in a little apartment in Winthrop, Maine, and outside of my apartment, I'm at my mom's place. I'd been

in withdrawals for days without the medication. It's been three days since I've had any opiates, and really, like only people that have been dependent on opiates can really understand what it feels like to be going through withdrawals. I would go through this cycle of running out of my medication early because I would take just a little bit more than I was supposed to, and then my prescription

would run out early and I'd be in withdrawals. And that's one way at school I was introduced to the heroin. I was at a party and withdrawals and somebody brought it out. So I'm waiting for this guy to show up because I can't get my prescription for another few days and I can't function. My mind is totally full of anxiety. I'm thinking about every problem in my life, and every problem is just screaming at the top of my lungs in my mind, uncontrollable, one problem after another

in my mind after another. I'm not happy with my life. I'm not happy with who I am, how I feel, what's happened in the past, and it's all there and it's all raw, and I'm looking at the clock. Is this guy ever going to show up? The minute? Just clicking on the clock, click click, click, every second feels like an eternity waiting for this guy to show up.

Finally he gets there, and like I'm crawling out of my skin, and he brings the stuff he leaves so I do some of it, and finally the nightmare is over. Finally I can just breathe, relax, collect my thoughts, and function normally. All of those thoughts just evaporated and felt really good. After a couple minutes, that pleasure and relief ended, and I realized that I was passing away. My breathing was slow, and things are getting darker and darker, and

then bam, I'm outside of my body. I was shown two things in this near death experience, but you could say that I saw the future. Was shown the future. I saw all of the people that were affected by my death, and it was like the Halo deck from Star Trek that's like a computer simulation where it's this super advanced hologram where you can tell the computer, hey, I want to stand on the moon, and all of a sudden, all of your surroundings change and there you

are on the moon. Or you can be shown any person that you want, any situation that you want, any place that you want. In this star trek Holidack, I was shown image after image, three dimensional like I'm there. I was shown all the people that were affected by my death, and I was shown a future reality where I didn't exist. It was like, this is what your life could have been if you hadn't died. And I was shown image after image. The one that really stands

out is my mother. I was shown how my mother found my dead body on her couch, and I could feel her feelings, the grief that it was just soul crushing grief. I remember. I was shown that she came into her apartment and there I was on her couch, discolored, puss running out of my mouth, and she started screaming my baby. Oh no, my god, Oh my god, no, my baby, my little baby boy, my baby boy, no,

my god, my baby. Pain was just overwhelming. Then I was shown my funeral, all the friends and the family that were affected, and all of the grief, and then the future reality that I would never experience, the woman I would never marry, the children I would never have, the joyful experiences that would never exist, all of the people that I could have helped, all of the potential that I was wasted, and then boom, I'm back in

my body and gasping for breath. But before I was back in my body gasping for breath, I came back into the room after being shown all these images, and I heard a voice say, now your life is over and you wasted it. And then I begged not to die, that I would do whatever was necessary to make it so that this reality doesn't happen, so that I don't die. I need another chance. Please don't let me die. And then bam them back in my body gasping for breath. So that's what happened.

that you have on others, that your life does. But the memory of it and how clear you saw it was it just as clear as we're living life now. How easy is it for you to recall? Does it stay fresh as a memory because it's almost ten years ago?

had been on opiates for over a decade. So anyways, went to detox seven day t talks, then went to intensive outpatient services, so somewhere you go every day to talk about the disease of addiction and different strategies for not returning to the old behavior. And then I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous and went through the twelves steps of AA even though I wasn't an alcoholic, but I still worked those steps to the very best of my ability. Like I went all in because I was desperate. I

needed to find another way to live. Did that and had to confront all of these inner demons, resentments, fears that I had, etc. Etc. I had to deal with that molestation that happened when I was eight years old and other things bullying. So I went through a spiritual

refinement process. Long story short, I went from having false friends, living in a crappy little apartment, no money in the bank, just low self esteem, self confidence issues, to someone who owns their own business, who purchased a house, married the love of their life, has a baby, surrounded by real friends, just on and on. I have a garden. My life is happy, and it took a while I had to

go through that spiritual refinement process. But now I'm in a position where I'm here and I'm able to really serve people, and it's an honor and a privilege to have had this experience. I've been able to take that addiction and turn it into my most powerful asset. So for the listeners out there, if you have addictions or things that you've gone through that you're struggling with, these things can become defining moments in our lives, and we can use them as a kind of rocket fuel really

to become the best versions of ourselves. I'm living in a whole new reality.

i'd worked the steps. I was having a hard time. I prayed and prayed because I was going through a rough time, and this being came through down through my ceiling, and it was invisible, but you could feel its presence. And it was like a light down through the ceiling while I'm taking a shower. I could feel its power. I started having these thoughts like I'm not worthy, like I've done X Y and Z, I have X Y and Z flaws, like I'm not worthy to be visited

by this powerful angelic being. It was like it telepathically sensed my thoughts and I could care less about what I had done. It pierced through those thoughts into my body and it just radiated love and peace and acceptance, non judgment. It did something to my body. It was like penetrated me, like an X ray. And I believe that was the result of going through those steps and doing the spiritual refinement process and prayer and meditation, and

then I had this experience. I started delving into being a sponsor for people and Alcoholics Anonymous, and then from there I enrolled in a course online about creating your own business, and then I became a certified spiritual coach. Now I'm where I am now, where I'm coaching people on a regular basis, and I'm creating a course online called Quantum Forgiveness. It's my ultimate method for creating time and energy so you can quickly accomplish your most important

life goals. So that's where i am now. The course isn't finished, but I'm really passionate about this topic of quantum forgiveness. Why is it called quantum? Right, If you look into the etymology of the word quantum, it's about a particle or quanta, a quantity. Right, it is a particle of forgiveness. And in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, they say that resentment is the number one offender is

basically the number one reason that alcoholics drink. Bam, mind blowing resentment is the number one reason why alcoholics drink. And then in another part of the Big Book, it says, after they've gone through the spiritual steps of alcoholics anonymous, that they've been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence beyond which that ever dreamed. This is quantum forgiveness, the

particle of forgiveness. It's the essence or the spirit of forgiveness that will rocket you into a fourth dimension of existence beyond which you've ever dreamed. Well, the fourth dimension of existence is time, So I'm talking about that forgiveness.

it's not humdrum. It's not your everyday kind of conversation that you have with people. But it's like when you're in resentment, you're like a victim and you're forced to be small. You can't really be of service to the world. It's like Plato's cave. It's a metaphor for the reality

that we experience. Is that there are all these people and they're chained up in a cave for their entire lives, and they're forced to watch a wall with shadows being projected on it, and they believe that's reality because they've never known anything else, and they're in shackles. But one day someone is freed from that kind of entrapment and they follow the cave to the surface and they go out into the fresh air for the first time, and the sun is shining and the sky is blue, and

there's green grass, and now they're really experiencing reality. What they thought they were living before was just a false existence. So that's what forgiveness, when done right and practiced as a lifestyle, does for you.

righteous indignation, judgment of other people, of myself. But let me tell you that going through this process, we don't realize how our resentments affect us and that they really rob us of our time and energy. Yeah.

but it's not really you. There's a higher you that is connected to the spirit of the universe, and you can learn how to embrace that and utilize that in your daily life and put that spirit in charge.

this happen? That's a big question that I hear a lot when dealing with the resentments.

That's a big question that I hear a lot when dealing with the resentments, and that can be a way that will help shift your perspective out of this victim mentality. And like I said, I'm not judging it. There's nothing wrong with it, So you can make the choice to let it go. You can make the choice to move on from it, to come to a place where you're not thinking about it, where it's not bothering you. And again, it's a process, but also a lifestyle of giving up

judgment of other people, judgment of yourself. Like we have a club that we take out and we beat ourselves with and we beat other people with the club, and that club is called judgment. We demonize what we did or what they did, and then we beat ourselves and

we beat other people with this club. But you can put the club down and not spend your time and energy on that anymore and instead figure out why do people do what they do, And there's different perspectives on that, and alcoholics anonymous people do things that are horrible because they're sick. In the case of my molestation, my sponsor

brought this to my attention. I was having a conversation with him in the fifth step about resentments that I had, and the sexual molestation came up, and he said, Brandon, that's terrible that happened to you. That should never have happened. There's nothing you could have done, And then he said, but in the twenty years that you've been alive, did you ever consider why he did what he did? And I said, no, in twenty years, I haven't really thought

about that. Have just condemned him. And he said, well, this guy was sixteen years old that sexually molested me when I was eight. And he said, well, did you consider that maybe he had been sexually molested, that maybe he had learned this behavior somehow? Well, no, I never thought of that. And then he said, well, picture him as a kid, maybe he was sexually molested. If that was the case, could you feel any compassion for him? And it was like this aha moment where it was like, yeah,

I wouldn't want that to happen to anybody. So that's part of how understanding why people do what they do. One reason is that they're sick people, so they've been through trauma themselves, They've had violence happen in their lives, and they have internalized that and are now operating at that level. Can you have compassion for the sick person?

Another why is a common sense why because people do what they do out of a sense of survival, because they think it's going to help them survive through certain things, or because they think it's going to make them happy. So an easy way to let go of a minor anger. I think just understanding that really people are doing things the way that they do because they think it's going to help them survive in the world, or it's going to make them happy or bring them pleasure in some way.

And when you can look at it from that perspective, you can put some distance between you and what they're doing and take a step back. Another reason is innocence. Jesus said, forgive them, for they know not what they do, and this was when he was being tortured and being ready to be put to death. Forgive them for they know not what they do. Do any of us really know what we're doing. We don't have all the answers. We're really, at a core level innocent, like little children

trying to make their way in the world. We don't know what we do. We don't know the effects of what we do that have on other people. And it's just an ignorance the reason why people do what they do, and that people aren't in their right mind when they hurt others or do something that affects our lives. So understanding the why. That's one piece of it I appreciate that people have struggled with in the past.

were talking. We said to each other, Okay, if you ever die, or if I ever die, let's say you die first, you send me a message and let me know if there is life after death, and if I die, I'll do the same for you, and then we won't be afraid of death and we will know that there is existence afterwards. So what ended up happening was she had died from an overdose, but before I knew that she had passed away. One night, I'm in my camper.

I lived in a camper at the time, and one night my friend shows up at the door, comes in sound asleep, just sits at my bed and then crawls into bed and cuddles with me and then just hangs out. It was like one hundred percent real, like in the flesh. And then the next day I found out she had passed away. She was letting me know that there is indeed an after life, and we go on.

Because when we're spending our time and energy and thinking about how we've been wronged or what we've done wrong in the past, When our time and energy is focused on that, we can't accomplish our most important life goals. We can be of service. There's so many people that need help. There's so much good that we can accomplish.

But when we're trapped in this little ego, we're only really concerned about ourselves, what's happened to us and protecting ourselves, and we can't expand and be the kind of help for the world that the world needs. Really and another part is logo therapy. Something that can help people overcome grief but also deal with the resentments is logo therapy. It was developed by this guy, doctor Victor Frankel. He's a Holocaust survivor, went through the most outrageous atrocities that

anybody can ever imagine, and he got through it. And after that he developed this thing called logo therapy, which is basically meaning therapy. So if you have a strong enough meaning in your life, you can get through almost anything. This guy was tortured, this guy was starved and forced to watch other people go through the worst kind of

things you can imagine. He survived, and he survived because he had a crystal clear vision of his wife that he wanted to make it through this experience so that he'd be able to see her again. So what happened in alcoholics anonymous is I acquired a meaning that was powerful, and the meaning was being of service to other people and helping other people. And once I started doing that, I could feel the joy of it. If you can find a meaning in your life, a powerful meaning, you

can get through just about anything. And another thing. If someone has passed in your life, and maybe you have resentments toward them, or you resent yourself for maybe contributing to whatever happened, or you resent yourself for things that you did to them or didn't do. Just honor their name by doing things real world that help other people in some way. I'm going to give this guy on the side of the road ten dollars, and I'm doing it in the name of the person that passed away,

and then keep doing it. It's like that person's is still here and through you is doing good in the world.

Course that I'm developing. The best way to contact me is coach Brandon Densmore. Edging is one good way. You can shoot me an email, or you can find me on Facebook and send me a private message.

gathering with medium demonstration included. I'm Sandra Champlain and from the bottom of my heart, thank you for listening to Shades of the Afterlife on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM Paranormal podcast Network.