How do you stay grounded when life seems determined to pull you in every direction? Between the demands of everyday life, unexpected challenges, and the stories our minds tell us, it’s easy to lose touch with the peace we know is possible. Ryan draws on the imagery of a towering tree and the deep roots that keep it standing through a storm to explore what it means to build a foundation within yourself. A gentle guided visualization invites you to discover a place of safety and stillness you can return to, no matter what the day brings.

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Ryan sits down with spiritual teacher and bestselling author Marianne Williamson for a wide-ranging conversation about A Course in Miracles, the teachings that changed both of their lives, and what decades of spiritual practice actually look like when life gets hard.

Marianne takes Ryan back to the 1970s and the strange series of events that first brought A Course in Miracles into her life, before unpacking its central ideas about fear, love, forgiveness, and the power of the mind. She opens up about emerging from her most recent presidential campaign and spending a year reckoning with what had happened — forgiving others, confronting her own mistakes, and eventually arriving at a much more radical idea of personal responsibility.

They explore why Marianne believes psychic pain should be listened to rather than simply suppressed, why forgiveness isn’t about excusing what someone did, and how carrying old grievances into the present can cause us to miss the very opportunities life is putting in front of us. Marianne shares one painful example from her own past — a lunch she entered carrying a grievance, only to discover afterward that the woman across the table had actually come to her seeking help for her husband.

Along the way, Ryan and Marianne talk about spiritual teachers and ego, fear as the absence of love, the difference between surviving and truly moving beyond what happened to you, and the daily work of choosing differently when life gives you another chance. This is a conversation about what it means to move spiritual wisdom out of the realm of ideas and actually live it.

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Why does spiritual awakening sometimes feel like such an uphill battle? Drawing on a metaphor from spiritual teacher Adyashanti, Ryan compares the journey of awakening to a rocket fighting against gravity. Just as a rocket needs tremendous force to escape Earth’s gravitational pull, we must work against the deeply ingrained beliefs and habits of the ego that keep pulling us back into old ways of thinking. But Ryan explores what happens when that pull begins to loosen, and life’s challenges no longer have the same power over us. A guided practice follows, inviting you to balance the effort of spiritual growth with something equally important: the willingness to soften, surrender, and trust that life is carrying you forward.

Tell Ryan about yourself! https://wakingupwithryan.com/hello

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You can follow Ryan on Instagram (@wakingupwithryan), YouTube (@wakingupwithryanpod), or visit wakingupwithryan.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.