Waking Up With Ryan

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.

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What if your most important spiritual practice happens after you leave the yoga mat or meditation cushion? Ryan explores why meditation, yoga, and prayer are only preparation for the real work of spiritual growth: how we show up in everyday life. It’s easy to feel peaceful during a morning practice, but what happens when someone pushes your buttons, a relationship becomes difficult, or an old habit takes over? Drawing on A Course in Miracles, Ryan challenges us to see life’s conflicts as opportunities to practice what we’ve learned, take responsibility for our reactions, and choose a more loving response. A short guided meditation follows, preparing you to carry that awareness into the challenges of the day.

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.

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

Follow on Substack (@WakingUpWithRyan)

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the meaning of life isn’t to accomplish anything, but simply to be alive? Drawing on the words of philosopher Alan Watts, Ryan challenges the idea that we’re here to build successful careers, achieve our goals, or make something of ourselves. Instead, he explores the possibility that our deepest purpose is to notice, appreciate, and participate in the extraordinary life already unfolding around us. When we stop treating life as something to conquer, even our ambitions can become expressions of joy and gratitude rather than struggle. A guided practice follows with a simple two-word mantra for remembering the gift of being here: “Thank you.”

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.

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What if you've been praying for the wrong thing? Ryan challenges the way we often approach prayer — asking God or the universe to change our circumstances, solve our problems, or give us what we want. Instead, he suggests a more powerful kind of prayer: asking to be changed ourselves. Rather than praying for an easier life, what if we asked to release the fears, limiting beliefs, and sense of separation that keep us from remembering who we truly are? A guided practice follows, inviting you to surrender those old beliefs and make room for love, abundance, and a deeper sense of possibility.

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

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Not every insight needs to become something you immediately share. Ryan reflects on the early days of his own awakening, when every new realization made him want to tell everyone — and how even that enthusiasm can become another way for the ego to take over. Instead of turning wisdom into a new identity as the “spiritual person,” he invites us to let each insight take root like a seed, giving it time to be tested, lived, and absorbed until it becomes part of who we are. A guided practice follows, trusting that the deepest wisdom doesn’t need to be announced — it reveals itself in how you live.

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.

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When life is good, we want it to stay that way. When life is hard, we’re afraid it will. Ryan explores the one thing we can count on in either case: everything changes. Our bodies, circumstances, relationships, thoughts, and seasons of life are always in motion — and attaching our sense of safety to any of them puts us on shaky ground. Instead, Ryan asks us to look beneath everything that comes and goes and notice what remains. A guided practice follows with a deceptively simple question: “What is always here?”

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

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Sometimes the deeper you go on your spiritual journey, the worse life seems to feel. Ryan compares awakening to anesthesia wearing off after surgery: the pain isn’t suddenly appearing — you’re becoming more able to feel what was already there. Greater awareness can make old relationships, patterns, and situations harder to tolerate, and even leave you wondering why everything seems to be falling apart. Ryan explores why this increased sensitivity is actually part of the journey, and why the answer isn’t another practice to make yourself feel better, but learning to slow down, stop resisting, and trust your capacity to be with whatever arises.

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.

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What if you could use the very mind that distracts you to become more present? Ryan pulls back the curtain on the practice he uses before recording each episode — quieting the mental noise so something deeper than his own thoughts can come through. He explores how an untrained “monkey mind” can cloud our experience like grime on a window, and how intentional language can turn that same mind into a tool for awakening. A guided practice follows with the words Ryan uses himself to become open, available, and receptive: “Dear universe, use me. Let me be a vessel.”

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

Follow on Substack (@WakingUpWithRyan)

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

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.