Attention shapes everything — what we notice, how we feel, and who we become.

In this far-reaching conversation, Aliceanne and Ryan explore the attentional system — the inner mechanism that determines what we see and what we miss. They move from the everyday (“why am I mad at the mailbox?”) into the sacred: how attention, when trained, becomes a doorway to healing, intimacy, and awakening.

Drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and spiritual tradition, they weave together stories of emotional hijacking, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the blind spots we inherit from childhood, and how awareness transforms pain into wisdom. From Jesus and the Good Samaritan to modern meditation and the science of self-regulation, this is an episode about learning to see again — with the mind, the heart, and the whole of our being.

https://rememberingyou.life

00:00 – Arrival: Welcome back to Remembering You — a pause for presence and breath.

00:36 – Anniversary Reflections: Recording on their wedding anniversary and grounding in gratitude.

01:25 – What Is Attention, Really?: The paradox of something ordinary and sacred; attention as the lens of perception.

02:44 – The Camera of Consciousness: How focus, aperture, and light mirror the way our mind works.

04:11 – A Simple Exercise in Seeing: The “find the green” practice — how attention filters reality.

05:17 – When Attention Gets Hijacked: Emotional storms, angry mailboxes, and the cascade of perception.

08:00 – Turning Toward Pain or Away: Distraction vs. awareness — learning to sit with discomfort or move with intention.

12:05 – Movement as Medicine: Walking, regulation, and how the body teaches the mind to move forward.

14:05 – The Ordinary Made Sacred: Seeing the sunset, the changing forest, and how presence changes everything.

20:00 – Why We Have an Attentional System: Introducing the psychology behind attention — and the needs that drive it.

21:19 – Maslow’s Hierarchy Revisited: Safety, belonging, esteem, meaning — how unmet needs pull our attention.

28:44 – The Systems of the Psyche: Attention, attachment, motivation — the interdependent systems of our inner world.

33:34 – The Story of the Friend Who Never Felt Thirst: A powerful story of physiological blind spots and learned disconnection.

39:00 – Seeing Through the Heart: Ryan reinterprets the Good Samaritan as a training in perception and compassion.

44:00 – Consider the Lilies: Attention as devotion — Jesus’s pointers as mindfulness teachings.

48:49 – Attention, Attachment, and the Heart–Mind Dance: How body, mind, and belonging intertwine — and why modern life pulls us apart.

53:00 – From Atonement to At-Onement: Ryan’s transformation of theology through love and attention.

56:03 – Infinite Doorways to the Divine: Aliceanne’s secular lens on transcendence — awe as a universal access point.

1:01:04 – Attention as Healing Practice: Meditation, psychedelics, and surrender as ways to train perception.

1:13:00 – Turning Toward Pain: The Practice of Sobriety: Aliceanne’s story of recovery and how attention becomes compassion.

1:22:40 – Control vs. Intimacy: Reframing control as resistance to intimacy — learning to be with what is.

1:24:33 – Being vs. Doing: Why surrender is harder than striving — and how “just watching the fish” became a spiritual lesson.

1:33:10 – Love as the Ground of Being: Ryan’s reflection on belonging, unworthiness, and returning to love.

1:37:00 – Attention as Openness: How attention matures from focusing to resting in awareness itself.

1:41:00 – Practical Tools for Training Attention: Reminders, self-checks, and small practices for building awareness muscles.

1:46:00 – Compassion as Gravity: Tracking emotions, apps, and patterns — the quiet discipline of presence.

1:49:00 – Closing Reflections: Resting into wholeness, intimacy, and the quiet act of remembering.

In this intimate and unguarded conversation, Ryan and Aliceanne trace the winding, improbable path that brought them together — through grief, loss, and awakening. What began as a tender love story quickly became an initiation: one that shattered their old identities and opened them both to something larger than themselves.

From first dates and bad eggplant parmesan to the mystical terrain of psychedelics, spiritual unraveling, and rediscovering love through consciousness itself — this episode is a raw, honest, and luminous account of what it means to meet your partner at the edge of transformation.

They talk about falling in love amid grief, the cost of awakening, codependence and boundaries, and what it means to slow down enough to actually live. This is not just a love story; it’s a story about dying to who you were and remembering who you are.

https://rememberingyou.life

00:00 - Opening Invitation: Welcome to Remembering You — grounding in presence and arrival.

00:34 - Setting the Stage: “We kind of blew up each other’s lives” — how their paths collided in the wake of loss.

02:02 – Ryan’s Beginning: Re-entering the world after Bianca’s death and the strange pull to live again.

05:00 – Ryan’s Cautious Heart: The slow thaw — learning to open again after heartbreak.

07:20 – Their First Connection: Recognizing shared language, values, and a depth of being.

09:00 – Falling in Love at Sunday Dinner: The moment Aliceanne fell in love — and the note Ryan wrote that night.

13:00 – The First Dates: Black turtlenecks, bland eggplant parmesan, and the dance of restraint.

18:00 – Holding Loosely: Learning not to grasp, hurry, or repeat old patterns of attachment.

23:00 – Psychedelics Enter the Story: Ryan’s spiritual path meets Aliceanne’s doorway to consciousness.

27:00 – The MDMA Experience: The night that opened everything — love, ego dissolution, and the unfiltered heart.

33:00 – The Aftermath: Ryan’s year-long unraveling — panic, disorientation, and the void.

39:00 – The Dark Night of the Soul: Spiritual crisis, therapy, and learning to live without ground.

45:00 – The Healing Journey: Slow integration, faith, and daily practices for spiritual hygiene.

50:00 – The Role of Psychedelics: Set, setting, and the mirror between heaven and the basement.

55:00 – Leaving the Community: Grief, endings, and the alchemy of beginning anew in the forest.

59:00 – Learning Boundaries & Intimacy: Unraveling codependence and learning to hold themselves and each other.

1:05:00 – Remembering Through Touch: How grounding, attunement, and presence became daily rituals of love.

1:12:00 – Slowing Down & Stripping Away: Aliceanne’s descent — sobriety, stillness, and rebuilding from the inside out.

1:20:00 – The Ocean and the Wave: A poetic exchange of texts that captures the essence of their union.

1:26:00 – Closing Reflections: On saying yes to what is true — and continuing to remember together.

In this intimate episode of Remembering You, Ryan opens the pages of his life — from growing up in a large, homeschooled family shaped by evangelical faith, to the tender threads of love, loss, and rediscovery that have defined his path.

He shares stories of childhood innocence and early spiritual wonder, the pressures of purity culture, and an arranged marriage that began as devotion but unraveled into heartbreak. Along the way, Ryan reveals what it means to live as a highly sensitive person — one who feels the world through an almost electric empathy — and how that sensitivity both shaped and complicated his relationships.

Through betrayal, grief, and the collapse of everything he once believed, Ryan found a new understanding of love as the ground of being — a way to keep his heart open even when life broke it wide apart.

This is a story about awakening — about what remains when faith systems fall away, and how pain can become the doorway to a deeper, truer freedom.

https://rememberingyou.life

00:00 Welcome to Remembering You

00:58 Early life in Columbus, Ohio

03:12 A Jesus-hippie childhood and homeschool beginnings

07:47 Meet Ryan’s parents – love, faith, and hard work

13:10 His mother’s resourcefulness and activism

17:55 Dyslexia, patience, and life inside the homeschool cult

21:35 Childhood faith and the first glimpse of wonder

23:40 The death of his grandfather and learning to feel grief

26:00 Purity culture and the fear of desire

33:00 Growing up as a highly sensitive person

36:00 The energetic bond with his mother and early spirituality

40:50 Gregorian chants, silence, and the search for stillness

46:00 An arranged marriage — “God’s gift” and the pastor’s blessing

52:40 The illusion of doing life “the right way”

59:00 Early marriage, faith, and four children under five years old

01:03:00 When faith fractures — losing God and finding love again

01:09:00 Questioning hell and discovering a new kind of gospel

01:13:00 The unraveling — betrayal, loss, and the breaking open

01:20:00 The night she left and the panic that followed

01:32:00 Keeping the heart open — learning not to numb the pain

01:40:00 Rediscovering love, self, and the courage to begin again

01:46:00 What freedom really means

01:48:00 Closing reflections and gratitude