What happens when your spiritual awakening goes quiet?
 
In this deeply personal solo episode, Will does something different; recording his thoughts while walking, right in the middle of a season where spirituality felt distant, joy felt muted, and life felt heavy. No studio. No script. Just an honest exploration of what happens when modern spirituality collides with real-world challenges.
 
From family health struggles and burnout, to surrender, presence, and an unexpected moment of reconnection, this episode is a reminder that spiritual growth isn’t a straight line...it’s a spiral. And sometimes, feeling disconnected is not failure… it’s part of the process.
 
More importantly, Will doesn’t just share the story, he offers practical, grounded steps you can take to reconnect with:

• Presence
• Joy
• Consciousness
• And your own sense of spiritual awakening

Whether you’re actively exploring intuition development, navigating a spiritual plateau, or simply trying to feel something again, this episode meets you exactly where you are, without pressure, performance, or spiritual bypassing. 

In This Episode, You’ll Explore:

• Why trying to “feel spiritual” often pushes presence further away
• How surrender can unlock healing when control fails
• The role environment and energy play in consciousness and emotional well-being
• Why joy is usually quiet, subtle, and easy to miss
• A powerful reframe for spiritual awakening when life feels heavy
• Simple, realistic practices to reconnect with yourself, even when motivation is low

This is an episode for anyone navigating spiritual growth in real life, not just in theory.

Why This Episode Matters
If you’ve ever questioned your soul purpose, doubted your path, or wondered why intuition and connection suddenly feel muted, this conversation will remind you that nothing has gone wrong.
Sometimes, awakening isn’t about rising higher. Sometimes, it’s about coming back to the moment you’re already in.

Listener Invitation / CTA
How have you been feeling lately? What challenges have shaped your spiritual journey this year?
We’d love to hear from you. Leave a review, send us a message, or share your experience... because this show has always been about community, not perfection. 

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!
 
Subscribe to The Skeptic Metaphysicians on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for more deep dives into spiritual awakening, consciousness, spirituality, metaphysical science, and mind-body evolution.

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician | https://www.instagram.com/skepticmetaphysician

If you’ve been telling yourself you’re stuck...stuck in your career, your relationships, your spiritual growth, or your sense of purpose...this New Year’s Eve episode challenges that assumption head-on. 
In this powerful solo reflection, Will explores a truth many people encounter during spiritual awakening but rarely talk about: that feeling of being stuck often isn’t confusion or lack of clarity, it’s fear of becoming the next version of yourself.
 
This episode dives into the quieter, more uncomfortable side of modern spirituality... the part that doesn’t promise instant manifestation, constant alignment, or easy answers. Instead, it looks at how awakening expands consciousness before it brings peace, why insight without action creates anxiety, and how real transformation begins with release rather than effort.
 
You’ll hear a grounded, honest exploration of:

• Why awareness doesn’t automatically lead to change
• How identity shifts affect intuition development and decision-making
• The hidden emotional cost of staying “almost ready”
• Why growth often feels destabilizing before it feels freeing
• How to recognize when a chapter is truly complete

Rather than offering resolutions or surface-level inspiration, this episode invites deep self-inquiry, the kind that supports genuine spiritual growth, clearer intuition, and alignment with your evolving soul purpose.
 
If you’re navigating awakening, questioning old beliefs, or sensing that something in your life has quietly run its course, this conversation is designed to meet you exactly where you are...without bypassing, platitudes, or pressure to pretend. 

Listen with honesty. Sit with what surfaces. And allow space for what’s ready to begin.

KEY THEMES & TAKEAWAYS

• Spiritual awakening doesn’t always feel peaceful, it often feels unsettling
• Why fear is a signal of expansion, not failure
• The difference between insight and integration
• How intuition strengthens when you stop betraying what you already know
• Why release is often the missing piece in manifestation
• Letting go of outdated roles, identities, and expectations
• Reframing “stuck” as a threshold of consciousness

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!
 
Subscribe to The Skeptic Metaphysicians on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for more deep dives into spiritual awakening, consciousness, spirituality, metaphysical science, and mind-body evolution.

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician | https://www.instagram.com/skepticmetaphysician

This is a standalone crystal bowl sound healing designed to help you slow down, regulate your nervous system, and return to a more balanced internal state.
 
Recorded live during our conversation with sound healer Ryan Stanley, this session uses the resonant tones of crystal alchemy bowls to support deep relaxation, mental clarity, and emotional release,  without effort, belief, or prior experience required.
 
Use this audio when you’re feeling overstimulated, anxious, scattered, or simply need a reset. Listen with headphones or speakers, get comfortable, and allow the sound to do the work. Many listeners return to this session repeatedly as a grounding practice, meditation aid, or stress-calming ritual.

No talking. No analysis. Just sound, vibration, and space to recalibrate.

Enjoy!

Subscribe, Rate & Review!
If you found this episode enlightening, mind-expanding, or even just thought-provoking (see what we did there?), please take a moment to rate and review us. Your feedback helps us bring more transformative guests and topics your way!
 
Subscribe to The Skeptic Metaphysicians on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for more deep dives into spiritual awakening, consciousness, spirituality, metaphysical science, and mind-body evolution.

Connect with Us: 
🌎 Website – SkepticMetaphysician.com
📱 Follow Us on Social Media – https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician | https://www.instagram.com/skepticmetaphysician

What if the key to silencing your overactive mind exists at a specific frequency? In this episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians, hosts Will and Karen dive deep with Ryan Stanley, owner of Sacred Sound of the Soul, to uncover how sound healing moves beyond relaxation fluff into genuine neurobiological transformation.

Ryan, a former corporate executive who pivoted to exploring consciousness expansion through sound, reveals the science-backed mechanisms behind why crystal bowls induce immediate calm, from vagus nerve stimulation to frequency-based entrainment. But here's what makes this conversation different: he refuses to oversell the "woo," instead grounding energy healing in practical, observable results that listeners can replicate at home.

In this episode, you'll discover why stress has become our baseline operating system and how 15 minutes with a crystal bowl can reset your nervous system. You'll learn the neurobiological mechanics of how sound vibrations impact your vagus nerve and central nervous system. Ryan shares how to choose your "bowl mate"; the one that matches YOUR unique energy signature, and demystifies the myth about crystal bowls and chakras. The hosts experience a live sound healing demo and Will even leaves his body, proving online sound healing genuinely works. You'll hear Ryan's personal spiritual awakening story with the "super grade" crystal bowl that triggered samadhi at 3 AM, and discover practical daily-use strategies whether you have 3 minutes or 60+ minutes to dedicate to vibrational medicine.

This is modern spirituality for skeptics, practical tools for spiritual growth, and everything you need to understand why your body responds to vibration even when your mind says BS.

Coupon: Listeners of Skeptic Metaphysicians can use the code SKEPTIC to receive $100 off their first alchemy crystal singing bowl from Sacred Sound of the Soul

Key Topics & Keywords
Sound Healing & Vibrational Medicine: Frequency-based healing, crystal bowls, Tibetan bowls, sonic frequency therapy, vagus nerve stimulation

Consciousness & Spiritual Development: Spiritual awakening, consciousness, consciousness expansion, spiritual growth, frequency entrainment, somatic experiencing

Energy & Metaphysics: Energy healing, energy signature matching, subtle body work, frequency alignment, vibration entrainment, modern spirituality

Intuition & Soul Connection: Intuition development, soul-level resonance, intuitive bowl selection, soul purpose, inner knowing, somatic listening

Personal Transformation: Stress relief, anxiety management, nervous system regulation, emotional reset, rest & digest response, awakening

Spiritual Guidance: Spiritual teacher perspective, consciousness hacking, accessible spiritual practice, practical metaphysics

Timestamps & Deep Dive
[00:00] – Intro: "Stress as our baseline operating system" & the one tool that shuts your brain up faster than a dead iPhone battery

[00:04] – The neurobiology of sound: How your eardrum, neural pathways, and brain interpret vibration into healing

[00:06] – Three theories of how sound healing works: energy entrainment, somatic holding space, and the science we don't fully understand yet

[00:08] – Real talk about tinnitus, frequency sensitivity, and whether sound healing can trigger trauma (and why that might be progress)

[00:10] – Why your nervous system responds to bass differently than Karen's (psychological vs. physical frequency reception)

[00:12] – The yoga studio revelation: How thousands of fidgeting students instantly got still the moment a bowl was...

Welcome to Classic Skeptic Metaphysicians! We're re-releasing some of our back catalog so that these gems can be re-discovered!

This week: Travelers: A Spiritual Quest for Proof of the Metaphysical World

What if the line between mental health, spiritual awakening, and non-ordinary reality is far thinner than we think?
 
In this episode, we sit down with Donald Altman—psychotherapist, former Buddhist monk, internationally known mindfulness teacher, and award-winning author of Travelers: A Spiritual Quest for Healing.

Altman has spent decades at the intersection of consciousness, mindfulness, and the mysteries that modern psychiatry can’t explain. His new novel isn’t just a story—it’s a guided initiation into the deeper layers of the self: grief, fear, synchronicity, healing, and the unseen forces shaping our lives.
Altman doesn’t come to this conversation with vague spirituality or soft-focus platitudes. He brings lived experience, clinical insight, and firsthand encounters with the “impossible” — including a real-life synchronicity mirroring the events in his novel down to the injuries he described months before they happened.
 
This is the kind of conversation that forces you to reevaluate what’s real, what’s possible, and what the human mind is truly capable of.

In This Episode, We Explore:
✔ The real difference between mindfulness and meditation
Why one trains focus, while the other trains perception — and why confusing them sabotages your inner work.
 
✔ Emotional eating, distraction culture, and why most of us are terrified of presence
Altman’s brutally honest account of using food to numb emotions… and the monastery moment that changed everything.
 
✔ A psychotherapist’s take on spiritual awakenings vs. schizophrenia
Where the line really is, what most people get wrong, and why some awakenings mimic mental illness.
 
✔ Quantum consciousness, astral experiences, and non-local events
Including the stunning moment Altman lived out a scene from his own book — in a place he had never visited before writing it.
 
✔ How fear blocks intuition, spiritual growth, and authentic manifestation
And why stepping into the unknown is the true doorway to transformation.
 
✔ The healing power of story, symbolism, and myth
Travelers isn’t entertainment — it’s a mirror, a catalyst, and an invitation to confront the parts of yourself you’ve avoided.
 
✔ Mental health through a spiritual lens
Mindfulness techniques, energetic awareness, and presence-based practices that help reduce anxiety, depression, and emotional overwhelm.

Why This Episode Matters
Because your awakening doesn’t happen in meditation apps. It happens in the moments you’d rather avoid: fear, grief, confusion, uncertainty, longing.
 
Altman shows how spiritual growth and psychological healing aren’t separate journeys — they’re the same road. And Travelers might just be the companion guide you didn’t know you needed.

Who This Episode Is For

• Anyone navigating a spiritual awakening
• Seekers exploring modern spirituality without bypassing reality
• Listeners curious about manifestation, consciousness, or intuition development
• Those healing grief, loss, or emotional trauma
• Anyone fascinated by the edges of science and mysticism — quantum consciousness, synchronicity, and non-ordinary experience
• Readers who loved The Celestine Prophecy, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, or The Alchemist

Links & Resources

• Donald Altman’s books & blog: Show more...