Today, 8am Pacific. Live on Substack. Free. A conversation on fear, how to take action even though you’re afraid, and a real practice together.

The live happens in the Substack app, so if you don’t have it yet, download it now and turn on notifications, that way you’ll get pinged the second we begin. If you already have the app, you’re all set. Just open it at 8am and you’ll find us.

Come sit with us.

And then, whenever you’re ready…

Today’s episode is called How to Stop Judging Yourself. That voice that judges you isn’t telling you the truth. It’s an old wound asking for love. I get into where the judgement comes from, and why the way through isn’t correcting yourself…it’s compassion. Learning to meet those judgments the way you’d comfort a hurting child.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

Do you know how powerful you truly are? When do you stop holding yourself back from what you came here for?

It’s hard to take risks. Because as soon as you know what you need to do, and try to take the action, fear explodes in your core, and in your mind. And fear is like a wall. It stops you from moving forward. But what if fear isn’t really a wall, but more of a doorway?

What is fear from a deeply spiritual perspective?

Fear is simply a sign that you’re forgetting who you are. That you’ve started relying on your own strength alone. In this way, fear is a symbol to remember who you are and Who is here to support you. And when you remember, you open to a strength far bigger than you, one that can push you right through the walls that have blocked you.

I know this because, like you, I’ve lived at the effect of fear’s influence.

I look back at the moments I was so riddled with fear that I stayed put, because I doubted I could change what needed changing.

Not taking the leap because it felt too risky.

Holding back from speaking up, afraid my truth would hurt someone.

Staying in a job, or a relationship, long past its expiration.

Afraid to rock the boat.

But something in me knew to use fear as a sign of pending transformation.

And what I found, and continue to find, time and time again, is that you can live each moment as a limited person, left to your own abilities. Or you can remember that you are connected to the very source that brought you here.

You can take the leap into the unknown as if to say, “God, I am willing to know who You are, and who I am. I trust I’ll be caught… because I want to know how loved I am.”

And you can let the breaking of old, expired patterns be the very thing that wakes you up.

That’s what we’re doing together tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning, Monday, August 31st, 8am Pacific. Live on Substack. Free. A conversation on fear, a chance to ask any questions you have and a real practice together. Come as you are.

Make a note in your calendar, set an alarm to remind you to join us live.

Come sit with us.

Loving you from here, Ryan

We lost the miraculous Dolly Parton this week. Considering she was such an angel on earth, she must be God’s head angel in heaven. Dolly’s life here is a lesson for us all. She said many times, “Find out who you are…and do it on purpose.” PREACH Dolly!

Today’s episode is a tribute to her… and to the one thing she knew from the time she was a poor little girl in the Smoky Mountains: how to feel rich in love no matter how much stuff you have.

If you’ve been feeling like you’re not enough, like something is missing, this one’s for you.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here,

Ryan

P.S. This Monday, August 31st at 8am Pacific, I’m going live on Substack for a free session on fear and how it stops you from manifesting whatever it is you most want. Come sit with me.

This Monday morning I’m going live on Substack for the first time, and I’d love for you to be there. It’s free, and it’s open to everyone.

You shared with me that the topic you want a deeper dive into is fear and the specific ways it talks you out of manifesting what you want, stops you from taking risks, and leaves you stuck in the discomfort of your comfort zone. We will explore where fear comes from, why it feels so big, how to tell it apart from intuition and how to stop letting fear run the show. Then we’ll drop into a deep practice together, the kind you can’t get in a ten minute episode.

I will save some time for you to share your questions and answer as many as we can.

When: Monday, August 31st, 8:00am Pacific - Mark your calendar!

Where: Right here, live on Substack

Just show up. Coffee in hand, still in your robe, wherever you are. No one’s watching but us.

And if you can’t join us live, you will receive an email with the video to watch when you can.

See you Monday morning.

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. Today’s episode is called “Stop Pushing So Hard”. Why? Because what if the life your’e forcing to happen is smaller than the one trying to unfold through you. In the episode we shift from asking, “What do I want?”, to “What does Life want through me?”. Take a listen here.

Waking up, choosing this path of betterment, can feel incredibly lonely…like you’re often the only one choosing love, forgiveness, self care. You look at the people around you and think, “Come on y’all, can’t you see how much better all our lives could be if everyone just chose to be more loving?”

It can be crazy making. Yet, it is also reality.

What is real is that most humans choose what is normal. And what is normal is stress, rushing, overwhelm, judgement, competition, fear, and over-thinking. What is normal is believing that you are your body, separate from everything else, separate from God.

What you need to remember is, what is normal is not necessarily right for you. What is normal isn’t optimal. And life feels lonely because you choose optimal as often as you can.

In today’s Waking Up With Ryan episode, we gather as a crew of abnormal humans and celebrate our willingness to chart a new path. It’s vital to remember that you aren’t alone on this path that can feel so isolating.

Come take a listen here.

Loving you from here,

Ryan

P.S. Join this crew of abnormally loving humans in the Morning Circle. Launching September 4. Switch your subscription to join us. Let me know if you have any questions.

The mind is that which vacillates…

That’s the best definition of the mind I’ve ever heard. And that’s what the mind does. It swings back and forth. Past to future, good to bad, success to failure. It never sits still.

It’s no wonder most of us feel crazy a lot of the time. We follow the mind wherever it goes, and we treat every thought like it’s the truth.

But here’s the thing. If you can watch your mind moving, then there is a you who is doing the watching. And that you never moves at all.

Today, let’s pause for long enough to notice it.

That’s what today’s episode focuses on. Recognizing the choice that’s always available to you. You can live today from the vacillation and insanity of the mind. Or you can begin today connected to the you who is deeply rooted and eternally still.

One of those is exhausting. The other is home.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. Today’s concept holds the power to transform your entire life. It certainly has for me. And something this important deserves more than a few minutes, it deserves to be sat with, practiced, and integrated into how you actually live. That’s exactly what we’ll do in the Morning Circle. It’s our chance to go much deeper, and to solidify concepts and practices like this one so they truly shape your life. Our first gathering is Friday, September 4th. Read all about it here and come join us.

Think about what happens when you cut your hand.

You don’t have to do anything. Your body just knows how to heal it. The skin closes, the wound mends, all on its own. Unless you keep picking at it. Every time you pick, you break it open again, and the healing has to start over.

Your emotional world works the same way.

You have a natural ability to heal from the things that hurt you. It’s built in, just like it is for your body. But most of us pick at our emotional wounds without even realizing it. We do it by thinking. Turning the same thing over and over in our heads. Replaying it. Analyzing it. Reliving the hurt again and again.

And every time you do that, you reopen the wound and interrupt the very healing that was already trying to happen.

So today, we try something different. Instead of picking at it, we hand it over. We turn our wounds over to the Universe and invite It in to do what it already knows how to do.

In today’s episode, I take you through exactly how. It’s a relief, honestly. You were never meant to heal it all by force.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. If you missed Friday’s episode with Jamie Lynn Sigler, take a listen. I’ve been hearing from many of you about how deeply supported they feel by this episode.

Happy Friday to you. Few people speak as raw and honestly about their personal lives publicly. But Jamie Lynn Sigler has this courage and willingness to expose herself so that we can all feel less alone in our journey.

In today’s episode, Jamie Lynn shares with us about the heart breaking and miraculous moments in her life, the effects of finding fame at a very young age, living with multiple sclerosis, and the terrifying experience of nearly losing her young son. It’s inspiring. You will laugh and you will probably cry…I did. She holds nothing back, and it’s beautiful.

We also talk about how we came into each other’s lives at a moment when we both really needed each other. In fact, Jamie-Lynn is where my entire coaching path began, about seventeen years ago. So this conversation is woven through with seventeen years of love and history.

I don’t want to say too much, because I really want you to experience it for yourself. I’ll just say this: it’s a deeply healing conversation.

LISTEN on Apple Podcasts

LISTEN on Spotify

WATCH on YouTube

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. The Morning Circle is here. Once a month, we gather live to go deeper than ten minutes a day allows, a talk and a full guided meditation on the things that matter most. Our first session is Friday, September 4th. Read all about it here and upgrade your subscription to join us.

Here’s a spiritual truth I keep coming back to.

Love is everywhere. It’s what everything is made of. So if you’re not feeling much of it in your life right now, it’s not because love is missing or far away, even though it seems like it. It’s because something is standing between you and your awareness of it.

So today’s invitation is to stop looking for love.

Because if love is already here, then your job isn’t to chase more of it. Your job is to find what’s blocking you from the love that’s right in front of you.

In today’s episode, I take you through a practice to surrender the blocks, so you can experience the love that’s always right here.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. The Morning Circle is here. Once a month, we gather live to go deeper together, a talk and a full guided meditation on the things that matter most. You can sign up now. Read all about it here and upgrade your subscription. Our first session is Friday, September 4th, so be sure to sign up soon.

What’s the thing you keep almost doing?

You know the one. The change you want to make. The scary leap you keep circling. The something that could stretch you into a bigger life. You get close, and then this wave of fear and worry comes right up, and you back away, and tell yourself now isn’t the time…maybe later.

Here’s what I want you to consider today: Fear isn’t a stop sign. It’s a sign you’re standing at the edge of something important. An expansion is coming.

Because anything meaningful, anything new, means stepping into the unknown. And the smaller part of you hates the unknown. It wants everything to stay exactly the same, safe, familiar, predictable, even when “the same” is costing you joy and excitement. So the small you sends up fear to keep you in place.

But the bigger you, the truest part of you, is built for growth. For expansion. For more. And that part has been trying to get your attention for a while now.

In today’s episode, I get into how to tell the difference between the fear that protects you and the fear that’s actually pointing the way, so the next time it rises up, you know what to do with it. I may also tell a story about Liza Minnelli.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. Speaking of stepping into something new, I’ve been building a place for us to go deeper together than ten minutes a day allows. It’s called the Morning Circle, and our first gathering is the first Friday of September. Come see what it’s about HERE.

Today’s episode is a new kind of one. It’s called Ask Ryan.

Today, a woman shared something I know a lot of you will recognize. She recently left a narcissistic marriage, and no matter what she does, she can’t seem to get her life back on track.

What she’s really wrestling with is how to detach. From him. From the codependency that held the whole thing together. From the abandonment wound, the one that made leaving feel unbearable for years.

If you’ve ever tried to pull away from someone who wasn’t good for you and found you couldn’t quite do it, you know this struggle. It isn’t weakness. It’s that your foundation, your sense of who you are without them, got destroyed.

That’s what we get into today - how to rebuild a solid foundation within yourself.

If you’re trying to detach from something or someone right now, or you’re trying to rebuild in the aftermath, I think this one is for you.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. If you have a question or something you’re moving through, send me a voice note. It might be the next episode. And it might be exactly what someone else needs to hear.

P.P.S. Something new is coming. In the next few days I’ll be sharing about the Morning Circle, a place for us to go deeper together than ten minutes a day allows. Keep an eye on your inbox.

There’s a person in your life right now who is hard to deal with.

Maybe they hurt you. Maybe they let you down, or they keep showing up in exactly the way that gets under your skin. And so you do what almost all of us do. You hold the resentment. You wish they were different. You replay what they did, and you wait for them to change.

I understand it. It’s so human. But I want to offer you a different way to see them, and it’s the single idea that changed my life more than any other.

What if every single person in your life, even the ones who have hurt you, is an assignment? What if they showed up, on purpose, for a very specific reason? What if, on the highest level, this was chosen?

I know that might land as a lot. But if you build your life around this one idea, it changes everything. It moves you out of blame and resentment, which drain you and keep you stuck, and into a kind of power over your own life that most people never find.

If you’ve never listened to this show before, this is the episode to start with.

In today’s episode, I show you what it actually means to treat every relationship as an assignment, and how it frees you.

Listen Now - this link lets you listen or watch wherever is best for you.

Loving you from here, Ryan

It’s highly likely that something is going to happen today that you don’t want.

A plan will fall through. Someone will let you down. A door you were counting on will close. It’s not negative to know this, rather, it’s powerful to embrace reality.

And there’s something that determines how your day moves from those tough moments: do you allow your mind to hijack your healing? Because your mind kicks in fast with a story. “I wish this wasn’t happening. This is proof it never works out for me. This must mean something is wrong with me.”

And the moment you get pulled into those thoughts, you miss what the hard thing actually showed up to give you.

Because how much you grow, and how much you actually heal, comes down to one skill most of us were never taught. It’s not positive thinking, and it’s not pretending you’re fine.

In today’s episode, I show you what it is, and how to turn the thing you didn’t want into the opening you needed.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

From the beginning of your life, you were taught that thinking highly of yourself is arrogant. So you learned to shrink. To doubt. And to call that humility.

I want to turn that whole idea over this morning.

Because here’s what I’ve come to know. There’s one problem sitting underneath every other problem you face. Every fear, every insecurity, every moment you feel small or not enough.

In today’s Waking Up With Ryan episode, I share what that problem is, and the practice to transform it, so you can remember who you really are and experience the miracles in store for you.

Come remember with me.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

If you’re like me, you hear a consistent thought that where you are right now is just a stop on the way to somewhere better. That the good part is always up ahead. Once you fix yourself. Once you hit the goal. Once you become the person you keep chasing. So you spend your days waiting for some future that never actually arrives.

But what if you’re not behind? What if there’s nowhere else you’re supposed to be?

Today, exactly as it is, isn’t a rough draft of your life. It’s your life. The real thing, already happening, while you wait for the better version to show up. And it’s probably more okay than the striving part of you will let you feel.

In today’s episode, I get into why the chasing keeps you stuck, and what happens when you stop trying to arrive somewhere and start living from where you already are. It’s a good one to begin the week with.

So take a breath with me before the world rushes in. Where you are right now is okay. It’s real, it’s yours, and it’s exactly where everything is happening.

Press play. It’s a good place to start this new week.

Loving you from here, Ryan

On July 4, I was given a profound privilege. I sat with Jennifer Grey’s family to conduct a ceremony in the final hour of her mother’s life.

In her last moments, Jennifer’s mother looked at her whole family gathered around her and said, “All is forgiven, and I feel free.”

I have not stopped thinking about it since.

Afterward, Jennifer asked if we might record a conversation about that experience, about her mother, about what it means to be present for someone as they leave this world. And today, I get to share it with you.

It’s one of the warmest, most honest conversations I’ve had. About what it means to give yourself a dignified life, and a dignified death. And about how bringing death a little closer, instead of pushing it away, can help us live with so much more intention and freedom.

Because that’s the thing I keep coming back to. Her mother didn’t find that peace by avoiding the end. She found it by meeting it, open, at peace, forgiving, and free.

I wish that kind of peace and surrender for all of us. And I think the way we get there is by making today matter more.

In today’s episode, Jennifer opens her heart, opens a window into one of the most profound moments of her life.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

The link above takes you to my linktree where you can select your preferred listening platform.

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. I got word yesterday that, out of the 18,000 podcasts that launched in July, Waking Up With Ryan is number 4, with 246,000 listens. I share this to say THANK YOU to you, for tuning in, sharing it with your people. I’m blown away. This means I get to keep creating more, reach more people and keep waking up together, which is all I’ve ever wanted.

Not long ago, I almost let my ego keep me from showing up somewhere. I went anyway, and I walked in feeling small. Not enough. Like I didn’t really belong.

And then the person leading the experience stood up and told the room a story. It was about something I had done over twenty years ago, something I’d long forgotten, that had planted a seed for who he would become.

I sat there stunned.

In today’s episode, I tell you the whole story.

Because it’s so easy to believe you don’t matter. Maybe you’re not a public figure. Maybe you don’t have a big title, or a loud voice. So it’s easy to assume your impact is small, and that the people who really shape lives are the ones out there doing bigger things than you.

I want to challenge that this morning, because I don’t think the size of your life is what matters at all. What matters is that you meet this moment with presence, and with love. That’s the thing that reaches people. And that’s what makes your life most meaningful.

Come find out what I mean.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

You were taught that a boundary is a wall. Like a line you draw to keep out what you don’t want. The difficult person. The bad energy. The thing that drains you.

But if boundaries are really working, why do they so often leave us feeling more guarded, and more alone?

I want to offer you a completely different way to see this.

What if a boundary isn’t a wall you build to keep things out, but a space you draw around yourself, and then get to decide what fills it? Not “who do I keep out,” but “what am I committed to having in here?” Respect. Love. Emotional honesty. Compassion. The kind of choices that you actually want more of.

It’s a small flip, but it changes everything about how you move through your relationships. And what happens to the people who can’t meet you in that space? That part is gentler than you’d think.

In today’s episode, I show you how to build a boundary this way, how to communicate it without the guilt, and I take you through a meditation to start filling your space with exactly what you want.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

Maya Angelou said it best. “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

How you make people feel is the actual legacy you leave. Not what you accomplished. Not what you built or earned. When people think of you, years from now, they won’t replay what you did. They’ll remember how it felt to be with you.

So the question worth asking today is, how do people really want to feel?

We think we want to feel happy. Successful. Impressive. And sure, we want those. But underneath all of it, in the deepest part of every single person you’ll meet today, is the need to feel loved. To feel safe enough, in your presence, to be all of who they are without needing to perform or hide.

That’s the gift. When someone feels that with you, they learn to love themselves.

But here’s the part we often skip. You can’t offer someone a safety you haven’t given yourself. You can’t make room for another person’s full humanity if you’re still at war with your own. It starts inside you first.

In today’s episode, I take you through how to do exactly that. How to develop that love and safety for yourself, so you can carry it into the lives of everyone you touch today, the people who matter most, and help them feel loved exactly as they are.

That’s the thing they’ll remember. Long after everything else fades.

LISTEN or WATCH HERE

Loving you from here, Ryan

P.S. Send today’s episode to one person who you want to feel loved exactly as they are. Send them a note reminding them that you care deeply about them and want them to feel safe in your presence.