Ryan Sprague | Surreal Synchronicities on a Weird and Wondrous Journey

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]:

Welcome back, everybody, to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am so glad you are here because this episode was an absolute blast to record with the one and only Ryan Sprague. We talk all things from Star wars to energy to how people interact with psychedelics and pretty much anything in between. So I know you're going to have a blast because Ryan and I had a blast recording it. So without further ado, let's get weird folks welcoming Mr. Ryan Sprague to the Weird and Strong podcast. How's it going today, man?

Ryan  [00:00:41]:

Jeremy, I'm so excited to be here with you, man. I just got off hosting a podcast. I got that flow going. I was so excited to see this on my calendar today, and I was so pumped when Mark brought you on stage and asked for people to go on your podcast. I was like, me, dude, let's go. So happy to be here with you, man.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:55]:

That's a. I didn't expect that to happen. And it was really cool because there were a lot of people that raised their hands, and the people who didn't raise their hands, I was like, oh, they've already been on the show. That's why they didn't raise their hands. So I was excited about that one. Yeah. So, as we start every guest on the Weird and strong podcast, I have a weird question. Are you prepared?

Ryan  [00:01:17]:

I am prepared, dude. I got my weird cap put on. I'm ready to go down weird alley. Let's do it. All right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:23]:

This one is one I was thinking about for a while when you said yes to come onto the show. These are my favorite ones when I get to tailor them to the individual. If you were given the opportunity to spend time in any one scene from Star wars, which scene would you like to experience in person?

Ryan  [00:01:47]:

Oh, my goodness. This is a really good question. I feel like it'd be cliche to say the bar scene, but that bar scene does seem really cool. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, it's the iconic scene where, to me, I'm big into aliens, or I think they prefer to be called interdimensional species these days. Right. You got to be careful what you call things. So it's like, I've been fascinated with the pleiadiaN, the Arcturians, the Andromedans, all those kind of beings.

Ryan  [00:02:15]:

And so when I first saw that scene, of course, I didn't know about those beings when I saw the scene as a kid. But as I've gotten older, that scene has resonated more and more, because when I've learned about the Galactic Federation and read the Lar one and all these spiritual texts. It seems as though it's very similar to what that scene portrays, right, in certain areas of the universe. So I think that would be the scene for sure. The other scene, just to make it not as cliche, would be where Luke is with Yoda when he crashes his ship and he learns how to use the force. That's the other scene for sure. That all is homie. But that's what I've always thought about that scene, too.

Ryan  [00:02:52]:

So one of those two scenes, I broke the rule, and I gave you two scenarios.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:56]:

I'll allow it. It's even more hilarious because I was watching a video that came across on my YouTube. There's this guy who does. I don't know if you've ever seen Chad the Bird before.

Ryan  [00:03:10]:

I haven't, but I'm going to write that down because it sounds like a good side quest.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:14]:

So it's a puppet, Chad the Bird, and he makes great social commentary. You talked about the most Eisley scene. Do you know what genre of music is being played by the musicians in most Eisley Cantina? Do you know what that genre of music is called?

Ryan  [00:03:37]:

No, I have no idea, but I've wondered for years. Do you?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:03:42]:

Great. So, with the acquisition of Star wars by Disney, they've made some changes. I don't know if anybody's noticed about Star Wars. So the original name of that music, as created by George Lucas, is called Jizz.

Ryan  [00:04:02]:

Oh, man. George Lucas, a man up from your own heart.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:05]:

And so he had this great commentary. So as Disney took it over, they called it Jats, J-A-T-Z because jizz, for some reason, didn't land with the family friendly nature of Disney.

Ryan  [00:04:18]:

Can't imagine why.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:19]:

Yeah, so he had a great commentary. And the man, the bird, the entity that is Chad the bird, has a great commentary on this, so I couldn't recommend it highly enough, and I know that you will have a great time with this.

Ryan  [00:04:33]:

Dude. That is hilarious, man. You know what's funny, too, is, as you asked me about that scene and know told you about the alien thing, there's a crazy synchronicity that happened in my life, dude, and I'd love to share it if you're open.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:45]:

Absolutely. Yes.

Ryan  [00:04:46]:

All right. Dope. So when I went on Aubrey Marcus, I remember one day I was connecting with cannabis, and a little bit of that thought of, like, is my address out? Like, I should probably Google my name and kind of figure out if my address is out there. So I Google my name, and what pops up? Another Ryan Sprague, who is the host of mysteries decoded and a regular on ancient fucking aliens, right? So I'm like, what are the odds that same one with the same name as me is into the same stuff? So I hit him up, and we're going to do a podcast on this one time on psychedelics and talk about the psychedelic nature of names. Crazy shit, man.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:05:20]:

That's the funniest. So as I was preparing for this podcast, so the jab, the bird thing came up, and then the second one came up where the second question I was going to ask you was, have you ever been confused? Or like, has anybody come to you and thought you were the other Ryan Sprague? Did you know that there's an alien researcher named Ryan Sprague beat me to the punch on my own question?

Ryan  [00:05:41]:

Bro, we're on the same. You know, it's so funny, man, because I made my name on Instagram, the real Ryan Sprague. This is like kind of a joke or whatever. And so I hit him up, and the voice note went something like this. It was like, hey, man, first of all, sorry about the name. You definitely seem real as well. But it's funny that we have the same name and that you're into the same stuff. Like, I watch ancient aliens all the time when I was younger.

Ryan  [00:06:04]:

I have no idea how. I never saw him on there. It's like, so weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:07]:

I'm sure that we've both seen him and just never connected it through, like, oh, that's weird.

Ryan  [00:06:13]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:15]:

Hey, that guy's got the same name as I knew.

Ryan  [00:06:17]:

Yeah, it's like those Easter eggs that if you're not aware when you're looking at them, you don't see them. But maybe it wasn't the right time for me to see it, because back in the day, I would have thought it was cool that he had the same name as me or whatever. But it was funny finding him now because I'm so entrenched in that world. I live my life talking about aliens and spirituality and plant medicines and things like that. So to be able to hit him up and him be like, dude, that is hysterical. Was just really funny, man. I love when the universe throws you weird synchronicities like that that just make you laugh. It's what I live for, man.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:06:48]:

Exactly. And I mean, that was something that I did an Instagram Live with my tattoo artist and good friend of many, many years, multiple decades at this point. And we were talking about that of just how silly just existence is and how great it is to be able to just have those moments, especially when we are getting so serious about things and getting stuck in our own way of being able to take a look and look at the hilarity it is of just being alive.

Ryan  [00:07:18]:

Oh, my God. I mean, dude, it really is hilarious. And I think that's why I'll tell you a funny story. So I was in 2020, I went to a men's retreat hosted by my man Chris down in Austin, Mr. Marheka. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:32]:

Chris Marhefka, previous guest on the podcast. And also, I have attended his retreats as well.

Ryan  [00:07:37]:

Dude, sick, man. Yeah, it's so funny, too, because his retreats are awesome, man. It's where I first started. Like, my first retreat ever was August of 2020. I went to his retreat, and it was only the second thing I had gone to. Mark invited me down to the lake house in August of 2020. I go there, and then Chris is like, hey, man, I'm hosting this men's retreat in a couple of weeks. You should come.

Ryan  [00:07:59]:

So I go there, and that's when I met my business partner for the first time, Alex Morningstar. I met a bunch of people, and from there, it just kept going. Like, Danny Rios was like, hey, man, I'm going to Mexico for six weeks. You should come. So I call Rachel from the retreaT. I'm like, you want to go to Mexico? When we get home? She's like, sure. So this just continued, and it's still continuing today, but the fourth or fifth trip I went on was to Chris's retreat. And at the end of that retreat, we had a, let's just say, medicine ceremony.

Ryan  [00:08:29]:

And I was hosting a cannabis ceremony within this other medicine ceremony. And so it was kind of like one of those inception moments. And so I have, like, 25 people. Mike Salemi is there with his partner, a bunch of people, and we're having this beautiful cannabis ceremony. And at the end of it, everyone's crying, hugging. We're just having this beautiful moment. And at the end, I go, hey, guys, let's finish this off with a couple of rounds of breath work. And I had done breath work plenty of my life at that point, but I had never done it while on medicine.

Ryan  [00:09:00]:

And so my buddy Robbie and I had been practicing this certain style of breath work. I call it DMT breathing. It's not something I don't think I made it of. I'm sure it's not my style, but it's just something I came up. So we've been practicing it all week, but completely sober. And so now I just decide, oh, I'm going to do this close out the circle. It'll be a great kind of like, send off. So we all hold hands and we do this thing.

Ryan  [00:09:22]:

Paul Check taught me this harmonizing ohm exercise, right? So we all harmonize to each other's energy, and then we send it, and we do a round of breath work. And what I thought was going to be just a normal session of, like, that felt good. Launched us all out of our bodies. I'm talking 25 people gone for a matter of maybe a second or two. We come back on our bodies, and everyone's like, what the hell was that? And we all start laughing at the same time. And so then we're like, we better do that about 20 more times to make sure it still works, right, for science. We start diving back in, and we notice that every time we come back, no one has, like, I mean, we're all out there, right? And then we come back, we haven't at any second to think logically about anything, but everyone starts laughing at the same time every single time. So we started to get curious of what's going on there.

Ryan  [00:10:09]:

And our best theory is that we were realizing that death is actually the easiest part of life, right? Because if you understand breath work, you're releasing endogenous DMT. When you're on certain medicines that can create more precursor, more melatonin, like cannabis, things like that. It's like we were realizing the cosmic joke of existence that obviously, like, we hear in every spiritual text, there is no beginning and end. It just keeps going. There's just new chapters. And so, yeah, that hilarity of life, man, is a real funny thing. And there's another story of one of my weirdest synchronicities ever, if you want to hear that one, because this one blew my fucking mind. AnD it'S specific medicine.

Ryan  [00:10:45]:

This happens with. Happens with LSD, right? LSD is like, I think we hear a lot about free will and how God, source, whatever you want to call it, angels, whatever you believe in, they can't really interfere with our life. But I feel like there's some fine print to that. And if you ingest LSD, all of a sudden the gloves come off and they can just mess with you. I think there's some kind of unspoken agreement there. So I was at this music festival one time, and it was like, pretty big festival, 50,000 people there. And we had gotten there, and I had convinced some friends of mine that longtime friends, we grew up next to each other, and my girlfriend at the time that the first day we were there, we should take LSD. And they were all like, I don't know.

Ryan  [00:11:27]:

We've never been here before. We don't really know the environment. Like, we haven't mapped out the area yet to know where we're going. And I'm like, guys, I had done this at a festival I'd gone to previously, and I had done it after doing MDMA. Now, after you do MDMA, your neurotransmitters are a little lower. And so I had mistakenly believed, oh, I guess set and setting was, if you do LSD in this environment, it just hits you totally differently. So I had made a critical error there, right? So we all decided to do LSD, and we find some there. And what we didn't know was that the person who gave it to us gave us double doses.

Ryan  [00:12:03]:

So we take them, and as it starts coming on, they're all looking at me like, dude, this is, like, a lot. Are you sure this is, like, what you experienced? And I'm realizing that, too. I'm like, this was way not what I experienced, not the droid I was looking for. But at the same time, I was like, well, I sent everyone down this path, right? Like, I convinced everyone to go on this journey, so I just got to act like I got my shit together. And this is totally what I planned. So I'm like, yeah, 100% totally what I planned. So we end up just going farther and deeper and deeper in. And at a certain point, some of my friends had kind of just evacuated and just gone their own way and never to be seen again.

Ryan  [00:12:41]:

But about four of us decided, you know what? We're going to go back to camp and regroup. Let's just go back. Reset. Come back. So we go back for a camp? Yeah, exactly. Sit down for a minute. Have a good sit and just come back to this reality. So we go back there, and our cars are parked next to where we're camping, right? They do car camping and stuff.

Ryan  [00:13:01]:

So you can see license plates, things like that. So we come back, and I'm barely able to start forming words at this point, right? I'm like, okay, we're back in our safe space. Things are going to be okay. It's awesome. Sun's setting. I'm like, okay, this is going to be fine. So this guy walks by and he's like, oh, you guys are from Massachusetts, whereabout? And I'm like, oh. And I tell him my town and he goes, oh, I'm from there, too.

Ryan  [00:13:24]:

And I'm like, that's weird, right? Because my town is not a big town. Like, I don't live in Boston, for instance, or something like that. It's like, oh, what part of that town? Because there's like three or four parts of my town. He says, my part of town. And I'm like, all right, that's weird. And I'm like, oh, what street? And then he says, my street. And at this point I'm like, whoa, this is in the middle of the country at a music festival full of 50,000 people, and just happened. One guy walks by, lives on the same street as me.

Ryan  [00:13:51]:

And I was like, okay, this is really weird now. Come to find out, of course, a little bit of paranoia entered my being when that happened. I was like, who followed me here? But come to find out, is this person real even? Yeah, exactly. Are they an NPC? Are they a walk in? Like, what's happening? But come to find know. I used to go to a lot, know, concerts and things like that. So once I had met this guy, I saw him at every show I ever went to after that. So it was like one of those weird things where. That was probably one of the weirdest synchronicities I've ever personally had.

Ryan  [00:14:20]:

I've heard of some even weirder ones, but, yeah, that was definitely a weird one for sure. Very on brand for the show.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:26]:

Yeah, this keys into something. We're on this synchronicities tangent, and this is one that I hadn't quite connected through until just this past early summer when I graduated high school way back in 2003, which seems like ages ago at this point. I actually moved to Germany to go back to high school. Through that, I ended up living with a family. When the father of this family picked me up from the train station, we were having a conversation on the car ride to where they lived. And he's talking about, this is actually in the former East Germany. This is outside of Berlin. This is in that area.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:25]:

So he grew up under communism, and he was discussing, oh, yeah, I've been to the US before. I've been to this place called Bismarck, North Dakota. Do you know it? I was like, it's an hour and a half from where I grew up. He starts talking about it and describing it. I was like, yeah, you've definitely been there. If that's the only place in the United States that you ever have been, it's wild. Had a great time. They're fantastic people, amazing people.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:15:56]:

I'm the oldest of five kids. They have four younger kids than me. My dad is a truck driver. He's a Delivery driver. My mom stayed at home most of the time, especially at the ages of their children. My mom did the same thing. I didn't put any of that together until this May, when I sat with a good friend of mine, also former podcast guest in a family constellation therapy session. One on one, one week to the day to the hour of when we sat together, I discovered a comment on one of my Instagram posts saying, hey, we've been trying to get in touch with you.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:16:39]:

Check your spam folder or whatever. I was like, yeah, that happens. It's usually spammy. But as someone who we know says, curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought him back. Check the account. It was a private account. And the image that they had was like a coloring book.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:00]:

I was like, well, that's not your typical spam account, at least. So checked it out. Had a picture of a cookbook that said Grinsteiner family recipes with a picture of me and my family. I was like, well, there's only one of these cookbooks in the world, and I know who has it, and it's somewhere outside of Berlin. I hadn't talked to them in about 18 years. I moved. They moved. Phone numbers change.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:17:29]:

Things happen. Life goes on. And it was the youngest daughter. They were doing some remodeling, and they had found this cookbook, and they're like, well, we should really try to figure this out. I had tried to contact them digitally before, and I'm assuming the same thing happened. You have no reason to be connected. So the powers that be instantly send the messages or the request to spam. And for whatever reason, one week to the day to the hour, these messages finally connected through.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:02]:

We ended up on a video call, like an hour later, just talking. I hadn't seen her since she was seven years old. Wow, 20 years later. Yeah, it was wild. And then I had the moment after that of like, oh, okay. This family constellation therapy session was actually reconnecting with me, with family I forgot that I had. And their reflection of how similar they were as family to me versus my actual birth family that I see all the time, the reflections back and forth, it was one of the most joyful moments of my life, of reconnecting with them the next day over video calls. Like no time had passed.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:18:48]:

And that was some of the wildest stuff for me.

Ryan  [00:18:53]:

Dude, that is so wild, man. I love hearing these stories because what they do for me is they allow me to realize and recognize the magic that is all around us at all times. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear know. And one of the other weirdest ones I've heard since we're on a synchronicity kick here is. This is from my friend Danny. And he was also dating a girl named Danny. Danny and Danny. And they went to Guatemala to hang out at this place, Lake Ataclan.

Ryan  [00:19:24]:

And I may have pronounced it wrong, but general Gist. And they're both performers. They're both fire spinners. Like, they dance. They do all these things. Danny's been the most creative person I've ever met in my life. When we were kids, he was the kind of guy that would make all of his own clothes, and you'd be like, dude, where'd you get that? Looks sick. And he's like, I made it.

Ryan  [00:19:40]:

And you're like, what? How? And he's like, oh, it's not that hard. He would fix my zippers for me. Like, weird shit like that. So they go there, and once again, they take. They're. They're dancing all day for each other, right? Just like they're at this place called the Crows Nest. It's like a pretty famous Airbnb there and overlooks the lake. So they're dancing there, and they have specific music on that day.

Ryan  [00:20:05]:

They have this artist named Desert dwellers, which they're not like a big group. They are, but they're not. They're not like Taylor Swift or anything, but they're known in the electronic world for. And so they're dancing all day to this music, right? Just desert dwellers. And at the end of the day, they're coming down, and Danny's just looking around the Airbnb, and he's know, like, there's some really cool pictures here. And he's just kind of surveying the Airbnb, and he sees this one picture, and he feels called to pick it up. And when he does, he puts his hands on the back of it and picks it up. And you can tell that there's a part of the picture that on the back kind of where the flaps go or whatever, that's raised a little bit, just enough for him to go, is there something in there? So he turns it around, takes the clips up, right? Takes the back off, and there's a holographic card in there.

Ryan  [00:20:53]:

And he's like, what is that? So he picks it up and turns it around, and it says desert dwellers on it. And he's like, what the. And when he told me he was like, dude, it spooked the shit out of. Cause like, here's this place in Guatemala with this random artist that not many people have heard know in terms of the mainstream. And he just happens to find it. Once again, LSD. I don't know what it is about that. I mean, you weren't on LSD when the family constellation thing happened.

Ryan  [00:21:19]:

So I guess it's not just LSD that you can do it on. But it does happen a strikingly large amount of the time whenever I hear LSD included. There's these really weird things that happen. And so it's fascinating, man. I love sharing these things and hearing other people's. Because like I said, it reminds you of the magic all around you. And it reminds you of childlike, like wonder. And although I'm not a religious person, I know a good line when I hear it.

Ryan  [00:21:44]:

And the Bible states if you want to end the kingdom of heaven, you must first enter the mind of a child. And if you think about what the mind of a child is, it. Is that right? It's just pure magic. It's pure curiosity, imagination, wonder, awe. It's all those things. And so, yeah, I have no idea what all this means. And I don't care to know. Right.

Ryan  [00:22:01]:

Because it's the mystery. Exactly. I've found in my life that it is directly related to the degree of mystery that I am embodying in my life. That my joy is able to be accessed to its full potential. And so I learned a long time ago, like, I don't want to know the answers to everything. I don't really want to know any answers. I want everything to be a mystery. And that's why getting into quantum physics was so fun.

Ryan  [00:22:22]:

Because they're like, oh, there is no objectivity to the world. Everything is subjective. And so in that, what they're saying is there is no knowing. There's only believing and knowing for yourself as an individual. And so that really helped free me from one of the biggest thirst traps I find in society. Which is to know things.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:22:40]:

Because when you think truth.

Ryan  [00:22:42]:

Exactly. And when you think you know something, oftentimes it boxes you in. At one point I knew that cannabis was perfectly fine for me to use unconsciously. Then at one point I knew that I had to take a break. And I didn't know if I was ever going to go back to it. And now I know at this point in my life that cannabis is something I connect with once or twice a week. That allows me to increase awareness. And then my sober periods are during the week.

Ryan  [00:23:06]:

But who knows what I'll know next year? I have no idea. So that's really cool.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:11]:

Yeah. There's a line that you said of having ears to hear and eyes to see, and on the same tangent or the same topic is that I, at one point in my life, became very hardline materialists. Like, show me all the data. Show me. I want to see clinical studies. I want to see all of the things. Prove it to me. Show it to me.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:23:39]:

All of these things. And my first experience of family constellation therapy broke that one wide open. Like, psychedelics apparently didn't do it enough for me. It had to be that for me to go, there's no verbiage, I have to explain what just happened. I saw it happen. I experienced it happen. I felt things that weren't mine, that didn't feel like, but I still experienced them and I felt them. And so that was the major component or major moment for me to go, well, of course you can't understand everything.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:19]:

This physical being that we have, I can't see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. I know that it's there. We can measure it other ways, but I can't see it. Doesn't mean that it's not there. Just because I can't hear 600,000 Hz doesn't mean that frequency doesn't exist.

Ryan  [00:24:39]:

Exactly. DudE, I'm so glad you brought this up because I have a lot of people considering what I do, right, which is pretty esoteric and qualitative in nature, hard to be measured. I have a lot of people that are like, hey, it's not that deep. Show me the science. Things like that. And I remind them, I go, hey, science is great, right? I think science and spirituality are just two sides of the same coin. And I think science really is the investigation of spirituality, which is the totality of life as I see it anyway. And so I love science.

Ryan  [00:25:08]:

I think it's great. But also think about, I remind people, like, you remember when lobotomies were the best thing ever and now they would never be given right? Science has been wrong a lot of times, and that's okay, because that is what the process of science truly is. It's let's make a hypothesis, test it until it breaks, right? And we never trust the science. That whole statement from the last three years was very interesting because I'm like, that's kind of the antithesis of what science is. But not to go down that rabbit hole. But it's interesting because what I found is that even science says we only see 4% of our visible reality. And so I think that being able to talk as we are right now is really just humbling ourselves into realizing that, yes, we may think and our ego may trick us into thinking that we know what life is. And at the same time, though, if we do, when I've really thought I had life figured out, it was a lot less fun.

Ryan  [00:26:03]:

It was way less fun because then you start losing the magic. You start looking at a tree as just wood. You start looking at the ocean as just salt and water, right? And animals in there, right? You forget that there's a consciousness there. There's energy there, and that everything around us is alive at a certain point. I mean, even this computer, this phone, et cetera, it's all energy. It just slowed down enough for us to think it has form. And so why I love psychedelics so much is because they really allowed me to experience that for myself and grounded in my own truth in this lifetime of like, hey, wise is the man who knows. He does not know.

Ryan  [00:26:40]:

Why would philosophers say things like that if knowing was such an important thing right now? Again, you can know something for yourself. Like, hey, right now I know that coffee isn't right for me. Right? I got to take a break from coffee. I know right now that cannabis is not something I want to do every day, right? I know these things for myself, but I also kind of have, like, I don't know if knowing is the right word because I understand they're subject to change. So are they really a knowing or are they just like a static hold in time right now? It gets really interesting.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:10]:

More of an understanding.

Ryan  [00:27:12]:

Yeah, exactly like an understanding. Yeah, I think that's the perfect word for it. Like an under or understanding of who I am at this moment in time. But I could change a moment from now. Who knows? A meteor could come and smash up everything in front of my house right now. I have no idea.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:27]:

Well, and to your point, this is a conclusion that I've come to and had reinforced many times. Even when we put this dogmatic description around science. Science is really just an understanding. It's the body of understanding of what we collectively understand currently or what we can collectively currently observe. To your point about lobotomies, there's going to be so much of what we do currently that fast forward. There could be a time in space 2000 years from now that people look back at us worse than we look back at the Dark ages in Europe of like 100%. Look at how barbaric and backwards they were. How did they ever survive? How did they ever become us? And that's a wild thought to think about, too, of what can be and knowing and freeing yourself from the confines, as you were talking about, of capital T truths.

Ryan  [00:28:27]:

Yeah, 100%. And what I found in my own life, and I won't project it on anyone else, but I have noticed an interesting correlation between clients I work with that have had a similar issue to me, and it sounds maybe similar to you in the past, too, is when I didn't know who I was as what I call God, embodied in human form, just like we all are, just like everything is. When I didn't understand that for myself or understand that I would try to know things to make up for the fear of there being no point to any of this, right? Nihilism. Like, what even is the point? So by knowing things, there was some sort of point or goal of life, which was to know things. But once I started realizing that I would never know anything, I then entered my second phase of, like, oh, my God, what if everything means nothing? And then I had to go back towards faith, right? Not the religious kind. Like, I mean, maybe similar, but not attached to a dogmatic religion, but more of, like, the completely empty canvas of, hey, what is life for me? And what do I get to make it? And also having many psychedelic experiences where I believe I've experienced what happens after you pass on at least as much as you can when you're still alive. I've realized exactly what every spiritual text talks about, and I think that's one of the challenges, too, is that in the modern day and age, we're inundated with information, and information is great. I love intellect.

Ryan  [00:29:49]:

I love reading books. I love things like that. But the analogy I always give for this is that imagine you want to understand an apple. You've never heard of one. You've never seen one. You've never tried one, et cetera. So you start diving into books about apples, right? You start learning about all the varieties. You start learning about the tree structure.

Ryan  [00:30:04]:

You start learning about how they grow, when they grow, what type of environment they need, right? And you really think you know an apple? Well, you don't know anything until you've tried it, right? Like, the best way to understand what an apple is for you and the subjective experience is to try it yourself. And so I think that one of the challenges is that people read spiritual texts. They read about psychedelics and things like that. And that's great, but it's kind of putting the cart before the horse if you don't experience. And that's where religion to me, never really made sense. I always had to have this intermediary that supposedly experienced what God was, but I had to speak to him or her and be able to kind of have. Yeah, exactly. And when I tried psychedelics for the first time and I was like, oh, there you are, whatever that power is, I call it God.

Ryan  [00:30:48]:

But there you are right there all around me. And then I came back and I was like, oh, my goodness, that's still all there around me. I don't even need the substance to access that. That's when things really shifted for me and I started to loosen my grip on life. And by no means is it perfect. I still have my moments for sure, but those are great learning opportunities to realize where else I'm holding on to tightly and where I'm scared of my finiteness. Because I do think that part of the human condition is feeling that fear, is feeling the fear from the ego of disillusion and also coming to an end at a certain point. But the more that you can turn on your soul within you, the more that you can not bypass that and say, oh, I'm God, I'm fine, right? But realize that and also console that part of you that does believe it's going to die at a certain point, and that is the end.

Ryan  [00:31:36]:

And there's nothing else that's been really interesting for me. And that's like, I think a little bit of what my mission here on this lifetime is to remind people to have fun, remind them not to take life too seriously, remind them that nothing you do matters, but it's very important you do it right. Again, it's not that you have to do anything, right? But there is potential within you. And where that leads, who knows, right? It's like a seed. A seed can sit in a fridge. I'm a cannabis grower, right? So it can sit in a fridge for years, right, with all that potential inside of it, right? And if no one ever uses it, it's not like anyone is traumatized because a seed didn't get used. It's not that that seed was bad necessarily or anything like that. It's just it didn't have enacted a potential.

Ryan  [00:32:15]:

But you start putting that in soil with some water and all of a sudden, real quickly, you're going to have a plant, and if you grow it long enough, you're going to have a product that you can consume, right? And so it's interesting looking at my own life as a seedling and where I've watered my plant and what I've grown into and seeing how other people do it and getting inspired by their journeys and whatnot, and it's just so much fun, man. I think life is the coolest experience ever. It definitely has big waves associated with it at times, for sure, and they slap for sure at times. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I think that we all signed up to have this experience, and especially right now in the world. I remind everyone that no matter what you think you're going through, no matter if you haven't done, if you feel like you've done nothing with your life, you still chose to incarnate during one of the wildest times in history. You're still a bad motherfucker. And I think a lot of times, helping people remember that helps them be like, oh, yeah, all right, yeah, I chose this.

Ryan  [00:33:09]:

And that's pretty cool.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:10]:

Yeah, exactly. There was a time period of my life where I was a swoopy haired emo kid.

Ryan  [00:33:17]:

Yes.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:20]:

And this is late teens, early 20s, when that was a reality for me. And it's interesting that I look back now and see that all of these components of choice in the matter, and yet, when you are in the thick of feeling like a victim or feeling sorry for yourself, feeling good and feeling bad, that existential kink that we all have at some point, all of this music and all of these things that I'm experiencing, I'm the only one that feels this Way. As if I'm listening to whichever artist they wrote this song for me, and I'm the only one that ever feels this Way. How arrogant that way of, like, that I'm so special that nobody else could ever have this. It's like, well, you chose to feel this. Yes. The experience is what it is, and you're choosing to keep yourself in this experience as well. And self feeding into this monster that in its own right now especially, is hilarious.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:31]:

And being able to say, oh, I chose that. I can choose something else. I can choose whatever I want.

Ryan  [00:34:37]:

It's amazing, dude. It's funny that you were the superhero emo Kid because I was always the thrash metal kid, right? And when I was in school, I thought I was so different from the emo kids, right? I was like, oh, I wouldn't listen to that kind of music, and blah, blah, blah, right? Which is such a strap, because a lot of the music was really good, right? But also because I was doing the same thing. I was listening to Cradle of filth and him and bands that would put me into this kind of sad state, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:07]:

Music.

Ryan  [00:35:07]:

Yeah, exactly. And I remember when I got out of high school, I was working with my dad for a little while and it was about a 40 minutes drive to his business and then back, and I would just get myself into the saddest mood every day. I would be bummed if it was sunny out. Like, it was really weird, man. I love it when it rains. I didn't live in the right city. I should have moved to Seattle. If I like Brain in Portland.

Ryan  [00:35:31]:

Exactly.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:33]:

I say kid like mine comes from that post punk hardcore days. That post hardcore days. Yeah.

Ryan  [00:35:43]:

Day to remember.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:35:45]:

Yeah. Big into AFI and just even Earth crisis. And a lot of those hardcore bands, too. But even so, there was a lot of that that came through with that, too. I was also really into new metal, too. So it was like just another fad and another thing. But being able to look back on it and hearing those songs now also really loved cradle Filth, too. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:36:13]:

But looking back at those songs and now being entertained by those songs in a very different way than it was when you were first listening to them, is that the same for you, dude?

Ryan  [00:36:24]:

100%, actually. It's really interesting, man. As I've been riding the waves of life and getting more in touch with my emotions and just enjoying all of them, even anger, sadness. I'm not going to say I prefer them, but enjoying them for their place in the experience. And now when I go back and listen to those songs, it can bring me back to that feeling. But I also have the wisdom of age to be like, oh, man, it's kind of cool to feel that way. It's kind of cool to feel like that feeling of like, does the girl like me? Am I ever going to have a relationship? I have a beautiful, loving partner now. It's just fun.

Ryan  [00:37:01]:

It's fun to ride those waves and invoke those emotions because now I know I can easily move myself through them as well. And it's funny too, because every October specifically is when all of a sudden I get so much more into. Back into CKY and him and kill switch, engage and inflames and all the groups that I used to be like, all those groups from that time. And I feel like October is when I really connect to my teenage self. And of course, Rachel's told me all the things about, well, this is what's happening on the planets and whatever, and I'm like, I have no idea. But that sounds awesome. And it's just really cool, man. I remember, last year was the first year I really noticed it was aware enough to be like, oh, wow, this happens every September, October.

Ryan  [00:37:43]:

I'm not sure if it reminds me of going back to school or whatever, but, yeah, it's really interesting.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:37:47]:

Yeah. And that's wild that you bring it up, because I've been noticing that for a long time about myself. There are certain albums that just start to come back on repeat. Whether. I don't know, maybe it's the type of music because there's maybe some spookier angles to it. Your misfits, AFI, like that horror punk type of stuff, maybe.

Ryan  [00:38:10]:

I don't know.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:38:11]:

But there is a layer of that, of that nostalgia and. Yeah, again, to go with the theme of we don't really know. And I'm here for the journey, and I'm here to enjoy it whenever it comes up.

Ryan  [00:38:25]:

Yeah, man, it really is the best part. Last time I was at the Lake house, or two times ago, actually. You know big will, right? You met Will, I imagine. Yep. So, so me and him, dude, that was like a psychedelic experience when I met him, because out of the crew, like, a lot of people enjoy cannabis and things like that. But when we started talking, we realized not only did we both love cannabis to the same degree, but he was like. I mean, we had a very particular friend group growing up, right? Like, my parents house was always the Hangout House had a bunch of kids over. And we were obsessed with CKY, right? We were obsessed with the early jackass stuff.

Ryan  [00:39:04]:

We were all doing the jackass stunts and failing miserably at them and things like that.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:39:09]:

Same.

Ryan  [00:39:10]:

And there was a movie that we used to watch all the mean. We burned the disc out, like, multiple times, which was a movie called Haggard, right? Which is like Bam Margera's movie for anyone who hasn't checked it out. Check it out. It's a fucking classic. But it was funny because when I started talking to Will, he was like, oh, yeah, I grew up in Westchester. Like, I used to go to Bam's parties. He's like, you ever seen Haggard? I'm like, dude, what? I'm like, you know, Haggard. So one night we put it on at the lake house, and it was me, Will, Adam, Mark, a couple other people.

Ryan  [00:39:39]:

And by the end, it was only me and Will watching it because it's like a weird fucking movie. No one's seen it. It's really weird. But, dude, it was just so interesting. I'm like, dude, you were in my friend group. You just weren't there all the same things, man. A lot of the same other movies from that time. It was just so interesting, man.

Ryan  [00:39:57]:

And so Will and I are like this because I'm like, dude, you're literally like the missing compadre from my friend group. It's so funny, man. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:05]:

Will and I were partnered up for the ancestors course.

Ryan  [00:40:08]:

Oh, sick.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:10]:

And we hadn't interacted at all before that point. And when we connected at the event, it was just like, oh, yeah, this is like the Big brother I never like. The Big brother I never had. Cool. Yeah.

Ryan  [00:40:24]:

Will's a man, dude. He's so fucking cool. And he's a kick ass chef, too, man.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:29]:

I didn't know that.

Ryan  [00:40:30]:

Oh, my God.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:31]:

I know all of his other exploits as a fighter, as a lifeguard, like, an incredible fizzle investment and just an incredible presence. No idea about the food, dude.

Ryan  [00:40:42]:

He's built like a brick shithouse, man. Yeah, he's handsome. He's got all the things going, and he cooks the best food at the lake house. I mean, he would cook us just crazy shit. And I remember there's been. Well, maybe I shouldn't share that part, but let's just say he works really well under pressure, put it that way. A lot of different states of mind can be challenging to get, like, normal day things done in. Not for that guy.

Ryan  [00:41:02]:

I mean, he's just a berserker, and he wears it so well. And not only that, but also all the medicines we like. He got me into methylene Blue, actually, but he loves Kratom just like I do, right. For different things, like podcasting, things like that. He's the only one out of the entire enlifted community that knows what a puffco peak is and knows what live like. It's just so finally, like, I wanted to show people what concentrates were right, because a lot of people just. They weren't in the cannabis industry and grew up around cannabis like, I was. So I go down there one time, and he's like, hey, man, you want to hit the peak? I'm like, dude, you brought a peak down here.

Ryan  [00:41:39]:

And I'm like, guys, remember the thing I was telling you about? He's got one. Let's do it. And it was just so funny, man, that guy's awesome.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:45]:

Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. We've had a journey already so far. We got to bypass the usual question that I ask everybody to start off. What makes you unconventional? We're already in aliens conversations. What are some of the ways that others may not expect is unconventional about Ryan's brag.

Ryan  [00:42:12]:

That's a really good question. I don't know if I've ever been asked that question. Know, it's funny, man. Over the last four years, being part of the lifted and Chek's community and Aubrey's community, and people, like, know again, just like you, right? Like, people that ask good questions, I've been able to discover and have a lot of validation, like external validation of myself from people being like, hey, you know that thing you do that's really cool? And I'm like, wait, what? That's just what I think. A couple of the things I really think my entire life is pretty unconventional. Think about it for a second, right? I spent my life growing up being a very mystical person. Of course, we already covered the thrash metal days and things like that, but I found cannabis when I was 16, and that was something that at that age, I'm 32 now, so it wasn't a crazy long time ago, but it was still looked at very stigmatized things like that. So that was a little unconventional, not crazy.

Ryan  [00:43:09]:

I mean, obviously, I'm not the only one that uses cannabis, but then I ended up working at Staples for a hot minute, and it burned a hole in my soul, dude. I started realizing that, man. I don't know if I'm just lazy. I didn't know what it was, but I knew I could not get myself to do anything that I didn't want to do. And so then when I quit staples, I ended up getting hired at a porn store that I worked at for 18 months because I was like, if I'm going to do something, it's got to be something hilarious, right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:40]:

Yeah.

Ryan  [00:43:40]:

So I worked at a porn store. That was really weird. And then when I got into college, I realized that I didn't want to wear khakis the rest of my life. So I was in school for psychology, and I ended up finishing up my degree. But two years into it, I ended up finding out about a cannabis school. And then I went there, which at that time, in 2011, like cannabis school, the only one in existence was Oaksterdam out in California. So the fact one opened up in Quincy, Massachusetts, was, like, the weirdest thing ever. Talk about another weird synchronicity.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:06]:

Yeah.

Ryan  [00:44:06]:

So I went there, and that was really weird. And then I got into holistic health, which was very strange for that time. I started drinking a lot of apple cider vinegar, eating a lot of sprouts, getting into organic food, getting into unconventional exercise, animal flow, things like that, and then things really got interesting. When I entered the cannabis industry, because that's when I was getting much more into psychedelics. I mean, I brought my father through the end of his life with cannabis and plant medicines. That's pretty unconventional. I helped other people treat and cure their cancer with plant medicines, cannabis being the main know. And then I got into the industry, and the dispensary I worked at was very unconventional.

Ryan  [00:44:44]:

We actually got on Conan O'Brien for making medicated bar pizzas. We were making the weirdest shit, dude. We're making corn dogs medicated. Wow. Mac and cheese medicated, like, some of the weirdest shit for 2016. Like, no one was doing that stuff. Personal pies, hot sauce, that was medicated. Mayonnaise, that was medicated.

Ryan  [00:45:04]:

Peanut butter, like, just weird shit stuff.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:07]:

That's a lot more mainstream now of like, hey, what can we put this in?

Ryan  [00:45:10]:

Exactly. But at that time, it was like, why the hell are we medicating mayonnaise? Are people really that obsessed with medicated mayonnaise? Like, what's happening here? I remember on 421 year, we had medicated peanut butter and fluffs. That was like, our deal that day, like, our special thing we were doing. And it was just interesting, man. So through that process, I've kind of found that I've always gone towards more of the weird things. Like, if people are doing weird shit, I want to be a part of it, because I've just known this kind of, like, cookie cutter wear the pants with a belt and everything. It's just not me. I'm just like, I don't take myself that seriously.

Ryan  [00:45:46]:

I don't take life that seriously. I do. I'm passionate about it, but I don't take it seriously. Like, I have to be prim and proper, and then, of course, having long hair. Unconventional, for sure. But I think the biggest thing has been the last four years since I started, highly optimized. That shit has been unconventional as hell. I started the business not knowing anything about business, like, having no idea whatsoever.

Ryan  [00:46:09]:

Just knowing that I wanted to do something. And I knew I wanted to do it with cannabis, but I knew I was also obsessed with personal growth and fitness and health and everything like that. And so I just knew I wanted to mix the two together. But there was no playbook for that. I hadn't seen it done anywhere. I didn't know the people I know now that had already been doing it or something similar, or at least talking about spirituality with cannabis and personal growth and things like that. And so I just started. And what I found out was that during that process, I started giving out my cannabis to people like Paul.

Ryan  [00:46:43]:

Check when I would go to his house, and the second time I did, he was, dude, like, what the hell is going on with this stuff? What are you doing to grow? I've never had stuff like this, and I had not really thought about it because I had been consuming my own cannabis for years at that point, and I had added in biogeometry and a lot of unconventional ways of cultivating it. Copper pyramids, weird stuff like that. And I knew that I liked it, but I just figured I'm like, oh, it's just me and a lot of my friends at that point that before I met and lifted and everything were know people that would probably be able to tell those types of differences. So when I gave that to Paul, and I just grew that way because I knew that it was in my heart, and that's how I wanted to do it. I've always wanted to leave the Garden of Earth greener than I found it. And so growing organically, using sunlight, things like that have been really big for me. But when I gave it to Paul, all of a sudden it just started to blow my life up. I mean, he was like, come on the podcast.

Ryan  [00:47:36]:

And I was like, what the hell? Like, I'm coming on living 4D. Like, are you fucking kidding me? And then after, I think you probably heard the speech and lifted it. Were you at the speeches? Yeah. So this will be a foreshadowing because you already know the end of it. But at the end of the podcast, I was just like, thought I was going to say one thing, totally said a different thing, which was, could you connect me to Aubrey Marcus? And then as soon as it came out of my, like, I felt a lot of stuff come up, like a lot of imposter syndrome, things like that. But I knew when I asked it, and I couldn't put this part in the speech because it would have been too long, but when I asked it, it came from a place in me that knew it was going to happen. And that's what kind of frightened me, because I was like, okay, I had had that on my vision board. I knew it was within the realm of what I wanted to do, but I didn't think I was ready yet.

Ryan  [00:48:19]:

I had a lot of stuff that I still was even. I don't even know what I'm doing yet. And then Aubrey hits me back and is like, dude, I'm so in. Like, oh, my God, this is awesome. And then when he connects to me, he's like, asking me all these questions, like, dude, I'm fascinated by your man. Like, how'd you get into this? And all of a sudden, it started dawning on me. I went back through my whole life, and I'm like, holy shit, dude. It was all preparing me for this.

Ryan  [00:48:41]:

And that was when I realized, like, oh, my God, my unconventionalness is my power zone. Like, this goofy nature, I have this ability to connect with anyone, this ability to just say no to the things I don't want to do and be a heretic and try everything my own way. That I always thought throughout my life, watching people around me, I thought I had really fucked up. I thought that I just kind of wasn't meant for this world. I wasn't suicidal or anything. It was just kind of like, oh, man, I'm just going to be one of those people that's kind of on the fringes of society. But then it all came back.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:09]:

Felt like reality was like an ill fitting shirt.

Ryan  [00:49:12]:

Yeah, exactly, dude. Perfect. Exactly. I was like, did I get put into the wrong universe or the wrong planet or something? And then over the last four years, I've realized, like, wow, my soul had my back the entire time. And that's when I really was able to be humbled by myself and be like, whoa. There are forces at work within me and within everyone that for whatever reason, maybe it's old soul. I have no idea. In this lifetime, even though I had the voice Saying, hey, man, you got to get your shit together.

Ryan  [00:49:41]:

Hey, man, you got to get a real job. Hey, man, blah, blah, blah. I just never listened to it. And I thought that I was, like, lazy. I didn't have a good work ethic, even though I was working out three times a day and cleaning my car every day and doing what I wanted to do. But it was really interesting how when I looked at it, I was like, everything I do is pretty unconventional. But I think out of all of that, I think the biggest thing that would be unconventional, I'm trying to think of funny little things that are kind of, like, just weird. I'm trying to think of things like that, dude.

Ryan  [00:50:11]:

I wake up every day and eat a bunch of methylene blue and sit in front of a red light naked and do Kundalini breathing. Like, any of that is pretty weird until you realize what you're moving around in your cerebral spinal fluid and what Jesus'teachings were all about, supposedly. And things like, I am definitely. I definitely let my freak flag fly high. And I say often that my favorite outfit is just short shorts, and that's it. You know what I mean? I don't like to wear shoes. I don't like to wear a shirt. I think I'm meant for Key west or something where I can be in that outfit all year round, but not.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:50:42]:

Exactly like a Massachusetts friendly weather.

Ryan  [00:50:45]:

Yeah. I think the most unconventional thing is that I live in, so it's so funny to me, man, because it's such a weird dichotomy. I felt like a fish out of water my whole life here. But I enjoy it. I enjoy being in kind of, like, hot stove situations. That's why I enjoy psychedelics. That's why I enjoy very out there comedy and humor. I like things like, I think you should leave.

Ryan  [00:51:11]:

I don't know if you've seen that show, but things that kind of make people go, oh, my God, that's really awkward. Yeah, exactly, man. I love that. And that's why when I met Mark, I'm like, oh, man. After my own heart. Right know. And meeting all you guys and everything has just been so. Yeah.

Ryan  [00:51:28]:

Like, literally everything I think I do is pretty unconventionAl, but being able to teach cannabis for a living and being able to. Like, last night, I had my breathe with cannabis workshop. So think about this Thursday night. Bringing 30 people together to connect with cannabis in a sacred, intentional way. Do some story work, and then get sent on 40 minutes of breath work that people are having, like, straight union with the creator experiences. The fact that that's my work is so unconventional, and I fucking love it, dude. It's so much fun.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:01]:

Yeah. I can definitely identify with on a different level of what you just talked about and also many of the things.

Ryan  [00:52:09]:

That you're going on.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:10]:

I was know I live in North Dakota, like, for the thing. Like, I was.

Ryan  [00:52:20]:

Like, I've never been to North Dakota, but I know, right? Like, you're not the typical, you know, I don't know if that's, like, the plural term, but I just made it a. Like, it's funny, like, seeing these examples of people that just, like, not that they don't make sense. Like, they make sense. They're human being, but they're just so different than the environment they grew up in. It's really interesting. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:39]:

He talked about the walking barefoot thing many times. If you're anywhere around my neighborhood, many times in the snow, you will see bare footprints. And it's like, is there a Bigfoot around here? It's like, oh, no, that's just my weird neighbor who walks around in shorts barefoot in February when it's negative 40.

Ryan  [00:52:58]:

Outside the heat wave.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:01]:

Yeah, exactly. And so I definitely appreciate you as a person and your experience, because it also reflects mine. The major differences is that I felt that same pull of that ill fitting shirt metaphor. I was like, well, maybe I need to conform to the shirt. I need to change something about myself. And going through waves of trying to adopt a more conventional way of living or a more conventional the. At the event in Richmond, when Mark pulled me up to the stage and I was talking about this, and when I was talking with him on a previous episode of the podcast, of hearing some of his experience and realizing, motherfucker, that's what I've wanted forever. I told myself that I wanted to be able to buy a house one day.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:54:03]:

I wanted to do X, Y, and Z, get the person to put in the house or buy all this stuff. These are the things that are going to truly make you feel happy or complete or whatever that sense is. The reality was, I need adventure and I want more adventure. Life is the adventure. The destination is irrelevant, is that at some point, the adventure is going to end. At some point, this physical experience for me will die. I will shuffle off that old shoe and experience what that's like, to take off that old tight shoe for the first time in death. Until that point, why would I continue to do things that are outside of what I want to experience?

Ryan  [00:54:56]:

Dude, 100%. I will take nail on the head for 500, please. I think that's why I love running the podcast, right? I imagine why you love running yours, right? I do a podcast called this one Time on Psychedelics, right? Every story I hear on there is someone living their own path. Like, I talked to this guy yesterday. I'll introduce you to this guy because he would be a great guy to have on. His name is Dragon. He doesn't release his real name, which already tells you enough, but he is like the leading expert in the world on Amanita Mascaria mushrooms. And he lives his life as a forager dude.

Ryan  [00:55:29]:

He just is in the woods all day, every day, sleeping in the truck, using a generator to dehydrate his mushrooms. And we talked a lot about yesterday, which is why I brought it up. He was like, one of my favorite words in the world is adventure. And he's like, I feel like adults lose the ability to tune into what adventure really is. They may travel, they may visit places, but do they go on adventures? And that's one of my favorite words, too, because to me, everything is an adventure, right? This podcast is an adventure. After when I'm hanging out and I'm figuring out what I'm going to do with the rest of my day. That's an adventure, right. And I think that human beings, we're built for adventure.

Ryan  [00:56:08]:

We're built for experience. And I think that's one of the big challenges in the world right now, is that with a lot of the societal standards and societal pressures of, well, you got to get a job, you got to be a productive member of society, which isn't inherently bad, right. But I think the challenging part of it, know, yeah, maybe you want to be a painter or an artist, but you got to make sure you can pay the bills. Right? And I'm not saying that you should go be homeless and not pay your bills, right. But I'm saying that hopefully hearing how weird my life is, right. And again, Jeremy, I'm sure for all your listeners, they've already completely into this world with your stories and the people you've had on, too. Hopefully, it inspires people to realize you really can have whatever you want. Like, guys, I teach cannabis and spirituality, and I blow people out on breath.

Ryan  [00:56:51]:

Work on a Thursday night. Like, if I can do that, anything is possible. And I think that's so important for the world right now, because I really do feel the biggest challenge in the world right now. There's kind of two, and they're kind of linked is lack of connection and lack of meaning. And they're two and the same, because in order to have meaning, you have to have connection to self. Because if you're not connected to yourself, how do you even know what matters? Right? How do you know what means a lot to you? And I think that we've been led so far astray, or many people have, just from listening to other people's voices and things like that. Societal standards of oh, so and so is going to college. Where are you going to college? It's like, I don't even know if I want to go.

Ryan  [00:57:26]:

What? You're not going to college. All these kind of things that go on. It can be really challenging to wake up in your early 30s, which is typically when the dark night of the soul starts happening and you either dive into it or you just start drinking more and numbing yourself out more with whatever insert substance here. But I think one of the most important things you can do is to be that example of, like, hey, you know what? If you want the cushy job and the white picket fence and the typical life, go for it, right? Like, choose your own adventure. Right? But make sure it's your adventure, not just your misery. Because I think when people lack connection, they lack the ability to also connect with anything and everything external to them. Because everything is an internal thing before it's external, right? That's why I love hermetic law, because law of correspondence, I pretty much should have it tattooed to my forehead at this point by how much I talk about it, right? As within, so without, as above, so below. So all that time that I thought that I was messing up, right? There was that voice that thought I was messing up, that voice that thought this, that voice that thought that these people in my life that were telling me, dude, you really got to figure something out.

Ryan  [00:58:29]:

I'm like, no, I'm fine. All that time I was building connection to my true self, I was experimenting with lots of psychedelics. I was having amazing experiences and also some really hellish experiences, and I was finding that both of those experiences are me, right? I have hell and heaven within me. And no tree's branches can reach to heaven unless its roots don't first reach to hell, right? We have the law of polarity as well. And so a big teaching I have with cannabis is like, hey, you can consume cannabis as much as you want. I'm not here to make rules for anyone. But let me ask you this. Can you really know what cannabis is if you don't know what sobriety is? Right? Can you really know it? Right? Because if you don't really understand sobriety, you can't get the other side.

Ryan  [00:59:10]:

It's like the opposite poles, right? Would there be a Luke Skywalker without a Darth Vader? Like, there know? And so being able to understand yourself and really have that time by yourself, with yourself to just do exploration, go on the inner adventure, right? That's an adventure too. Has been pivotal in my life. And I'm just so grateful to my soul for maybe having done this many times or something and being like, we're just not going to give into that shit because there were many times where I almost did. It's crazy.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:36]:

So out of curiosity, just 1 second. I'm going to grab this book quick to see if you've read this as well.

Ryan  [00:59:42]:

I'm excited. I too have the bookshelf that I'm constantly grabbing books. That's why I put it right there.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:49]:

I was like, I need to move this closer. I usually have a pile of them over here somewhere.

Ryan  [00:59:53]:

I have a pile right next to me.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:59:57]:

So part of my enlisted experience into level one was where I went on my first vacation as an adult ever last year. And that came out of this, came out of my experience of being introduced to Mark England and people like you and everybody else that we got to meet just a few weeks ago while I was on this vacation. One of the questions that Mark asked after you checked in, longer story around that the next week of, hey, did you do the steps that you said you were going to in taking this vacation? And yes, I did. I gave myself to the end of the week to get it figured out. I had it all figured out by that evening. He's like, well, what are you going to do? My plan is to go there. I know where I'm going to sleep, and everything else is going to be up to whatever happens. He's like, it's called an adventure.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:04]:

That's it right there. And while I was there exploring things, reconnecting with a place that is very much home to me, I found a book called On Connection.

Ryan  [01:01:18]:

Dude, I've never heard of that book.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:21]:

You may as well have just wrote the book with everything that you talked about.

Ryan  [01:01:25]:

Dude, that's hilarious.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:26]:

There was a moment in this that Kate Tempest is a comedian and it's a very short book, or a poet, writer, playwright, lyricist, performer, and recording artist.

Ryan  [01:01:42]:

Poet that did know it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:43]:

Yeah, exactly. And so there was a line in this. So for me, I got to a point where when I was in this journey of trying to fit into the shirt of reality, of doing a lot of things that were outside of to numb myself, food and alcohol and consuming media and binge watching shows and all of these things that come with our regular expected lifestyles. And one of the things that they talk about in this book is that a lot of those ills come from that lack of connection to self. And there was so much like, for me, that was the first time exposed to that thought process of, oh, well, of course I would go out with friends, spend a bunch of time from happy hour till bar close, drinking and eating and drinking and eating and having time and spending time socially with people. And then I would get home, and what would I do? I would order a pizza and eat until I would pass out. And it didn't come from a place of, oh, I'm having so much fun. It came from a sense of emptiness.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:02:58]:

There was a lack of connection somewhere that I didn't have the understanding or awareness to know what it was. And so I reached for the first thing that could make it feel like it would go away for a little bit. And I was like, and this came on the vacation, even though I had learned the lesson. I hadn't actually contemplated the lesson at that point.

Ryan  [01:03:23]:

And if we don't learn history, we're deemed to repeat it, right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:26]:

Yeah, exactly. Or it'll at least rhyme.

Ryan  [01:03:29]:

Yeah, exactly.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:31]:

So I was curious about that because so much of what you were just talking about is so salient to that.

Ryan  [01:03:39]:

Experience for me, dude, 100%. I kind of stumbled into that realization for myself and it took a while to understand intellectually what was going on. But I remember when my dad got sick, I didn't really know. I've had this kind of challenge my entire life where I'm so good at laughing, even in really hard situations that sometimes I don't cry. And when I got into a lot of the self development world, I started realizing like, oh my God, am I blocked? And I started inventing this problem that I couldn't cry and that I was blocking my emotions and all these things. And so during this time, when my dad got sick, here he was, I was living with my parents. I was still, I was like 23 and he was in the House, right? And I would have my best friends come over that grew up pretty much with my parents. They were like Secondary Sons to my parents.

Ryan  [01:04:32]:

And we would just eat eights of Mushrooms and put on Spongle and some weird Shit and we would just see what would happen. We'd Fuck around and find out. And I remember there were times where I would just connect to something that now I recognize as God. And even at that point I wasn't completely Unaware that it was God. It's just I didn't know what to call it yet. God was still kind of a charged term for me. But I would connect to these Golden Lights and my friends would too. And there would be different Experiences.

Ryan  [01:05:00]:

Some mushrooms we had no idea about strains or psilocybin content. All we would do Is every couple of weeks we would eat an 8th. And I remember there were times where we would just laugh and we'd be totally conscious the whole time. And then another 8th we'd be like out. And we'd all come back in at the same time and kind of look at each other and be like, oh my God. And then out again. And I remember during those times what I was really doing is processing my father's Sickness, Knowing that He was going to pass away and things like that. I was processing a lot of that stuff.

Ryan  [01:05:28]:

And I remember there was One experience in particular where I connected. I was just in this Golden Light for probably like 2 hours and I was Telepathically Communicating with My Nana, My Grandmother, all my deceased Loved ones. And there was just this knowing in that moment, I didn't even have to ask them, Is dad going to be okay? Is this where he's going to go? It was known. It was like a clear Cognizance knowing. And that. I don't know if it was because I sat there so long, like those 2 hours of just really embodying it, but I came out of that. And once my father passed away, yeah, of course it was sad, but I never really went through any Grieving process or anything. And that's where when I got into Training camp for the Soul and lifted, I was like, oh, my God, Am I blocking stuff? Because I went looking for all this trauma that just didn't exist around my father's passing.

Ryan  [01:06:17]:

Because I knew right away when he passed, him and I, we had a ritual. We would go to breakfast all the time. It was one of the many things we did. Car shows, breakfast, things like that. I'm an only child, and I have a stepbrother and stepsister I'm close with, too, but we would just do stuff all the time. When he had me, he was, like, at 40, and he was, like, down to be a dad. He was just, like, excited about it. So we would do all these things together.

Ryan  [01:06:37]:

And I remember when we would go to breakfast, he would always get eggs Benedict. And I was like, ew, that looks gross. Like, I would never like that. And when we got ice cream, he would get a strawberry sundae with chocolate ice cream, whipped cream, and nuts. I always thought that was kind of weird, too. I'd be like, oh, I'm getting with vanilla. Well, almost the second he passed away. I remember maybe within a month after he passed away, I went to breakfast, and all of a sudden, I look at eggs Benedict.

Ryan  [01:07:00]:

I'm like, that looks really good. And I was like, what the hell is happening? Right then? When I started my ice cream, I'm like, oh, my God, I want what my dad got. And it wasn't like, from, oh, I want to do it in his honor. It was like, no, I was craving that shit. And ever since then, it's been really weird how many things my dad used to tell me, like, you'll see. And now, literally, that's my know. When I was a kid, my dad was working at Boston Gas, which is now national grid, and he was a public speaker. He would speak a lot.

Ryan  [01:07:30]:

And I remember I'd see pictures of him as a kid. And when I started to be around 1012, getting into school, and I'd have to start doing these things. I'd be like, dad, I hate it. It's so stupid. I don't want to do it. I'm terrified of it. I'm never going to be out there in the public. And he'd be like, you'll see.

Ryan  [01:07:43]:

You're going to like it a lot. And it was like at the enlisted event, it all came full circle, because I'm likE, holy shit, he's right. He was fucking right. And so this whole time of connecting with psychedelics and being close to My parents and everything and not having the jobs and kind of just, like, pinching pennies to buy ten bags back in the day of cannabis and whatnot, thinking that I was a lazy bum, all of that, in a weird way, was helping me really connect with myself and have some time before I hit into the last four or five years where I've. Well, maybe since I was 26, when I really got into the workforce and I got into the industry, something that was really aligned for me, but then also when it became out of alignment, as you heard in the speech, and unlifted, it didn't take me too long to quit. It took me maybe about six months before I realized I'm keeping myself here. I'm not a victim. I don't have to be here.

Ryan  [01:08:32]:

And so by the time I started getting into the busyness that is now My life, and I'm sure everyone listening knows so many things going on, I have that rooted foundation in my connection to self. And so I'm not perfect at it, but I'm quick to catch it. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer to get it implemented, but I'm quicker to catch it. And I'm very grateful for those experiences because they've really allowed me to be who I am today. It's just interesting, man. So weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:00]:

Yeah, that's such a Beautiful. Just capping to all of this, that connection to yourself, the connection to your father, the connection to everything. And so, yeah, there's so much that can be said of Finding the Connection To Self. And if you haven't Experienced that, I know some Guys talk to One of Them right now that can help you out with that interest of time for the listeners and also for Ourselves. Even though I would love to keep this going for another 2 hours, I'm sure we could uncover so many things. And I was already Queuing up five more stories, and I was Looking at the clock and going, oh, boy, we.

Ryan  [01:09:45]:

Got to get this. Wrapping up Any final time Flies when you're having Fun.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:09:48]:

Exactly. Any Final Thoughts that you want to share with the listeners, any places that you want to direct them to, if they're curious to learn more about you and what you do, anything that you'd like to promote, this is open to you, dude.

Ryan  [01:10:00]:

Thank you, Jeremy. First of all, thank you for having me on the. You know, I do a lot of podcasts, and I love all of them for different reasons, but when I can have this kind of deep connection and this, like, when I can feel my heart open like this, I take note of that. You're a great host, man. You ask great questions. I can tell you prepared for this, and you're just fun to be. And I really enjoy that because I love spending my time with fun people. That is what I prioritize in my life.

Ryan  [01:10:22]:

People that when I start taking life too seriously, because I fall into my stuff, too, they can be like, oh, did you stay in your shirt? And then they flick my nose. I'm like, man, dude, that kind of just keeps me going. Yeah, exactly. And so if there's any final thought I could give to any listener, it's that maybe you're like me. Maybe you listen to stories like this and there's a lot of self conscious thoughts that come up, or you have troubles with self esteem like I did, or anxiety or things like that. Just know that I am no more special than anyone. We all have unique magic. Your unique magic is your unique magic.

Ryan  [01:10:54]:

My unique magic is my unique magic. And at the same time, that is waiting within you, just awaiting to be opened, right? And the best advice I can give anyone way below plant medicines or anything is to follow your heart, right? To have time each day by yourself, with yourself, whether that's meditating, walking, it doesn't need to be anything that you don't enjoy, right? It's got to be something you enjoy. I like meditating. I like breath work. I like walking. But time by yourself, with yourself, to really allow the metaphorical shook enough snow globe that is our life all the time, just so much activity to settle a little bit so we can see the beautiful image within there that is our soul, right. And we can connect to that part. And don't be afraid.

Ryan  [01:11:40]:

Right? Like, the scary part is not realizing that maybe you're out of alignment. The scary part is waking up at 60 and thinking you need to buy a Corvette just to get yourself away from that feeling, right? So again, at the end of the day, there's nothing to be fearful of. And the other part is surround yourself with people that will call you forward, that won't allow you to play small. That's what I found in the Olympic community. That was the first community I joined, and my biggest community I'm still a part of today, because they're goofballs. They're all hilarious people that are extremely dedicated and passionate to what they do. And if you can find people like that, keep them around in your life, people that will call you forward but also allow you to have a ton of fun. And I promise, if you do that right, give yourself some time every day to tune into your heart, go around.

Ryan  [01:12:26]:

Like, once you do that, you'll connect more to yourself, and you'll find the people, places, and things that resonate with you. And then if you put yourself in those scenarios, everything that is meant to happen in your life will just start happening, right? Like, yes, there'll be things you have to. You know, it won't just happen if you sit, right? Like, I had to go see Paul to get on the show. I had to go see Aubrey to get on the show. I had to create a program to do what I do, but that was coming from my heart, so it didn't feel like work. And so if it's the best advice I can give is just to give yourself time every day. Follow your heart, and I promise you, you will end up in exactly the right place with the right people around you and the right things you have in your life, and it will be the most crazy, psychedelic journey of your life. And so, for anyone looking to get in contact with me, you can hop on Instagram at the real Ryan Sprague.

Ryan  [01:13:10]:

No diss on the other Ryan Sprague. That's equally real, but game recognized game to him. You can hit me up there, shoot me a DM. I love chatting and connectiNg. It's my favorite thing in the world. For anyone who knows me personally, you know, I could just talk forever. So I love this stuff. For anyone who's interested in what I do with cannabis and seeing a totally different way to access the true psychedelic powers of cannabis and really access the ability of this plant to be a spiritual aid and ally in your life and start tuning in with the plant rather than tuning out, hit me up about the conscious cannabis collective.

Ryan  [01:13:41]:

We have the lead magnet live right in the link in my bio called the Conscious Cannabis Guide. You can download that, dive through that, and if you're ready to take the plunge, we have a beautiful, year long mastermind, incredible community of people all around the world that are doing this kind of stuff. Even though the main quest or main source, if you will, or main course is cannabis. We talk about everything in there, because how we talk about cannabis is that cannabis is something that can increase self awareness. And, you know, within self awareness, there could be anything from, hey, I need to quit my job, my partner is not the right person for me. Or, hey, I've been actually really mean to my partner recently. Or, hey, what do you do about existential crisis that we're all in, right? Like, sometimes. And we talk about everything in there.

Ryan  [01:14:24]:

We have supporting calls and all those kind of things. We also have the breathe with cannabis workshops. If you just want to get a real big taste of what we do, but you're not sure if you want to dive into the full year, those are live every month. The next one will be November 16. You can find info for that in my profile as well. And then you can check out the podcasts. I have two, technically, one's been on hold for just about a year now called highly Optimized. My first podcast, we have 130 episodes out there.

Ryan  [01:14:47]:

And then this one time on psychedelics. We just released Episode 134 today. So that's where you can plug in, tap in, come hang out. Water is warm, and, yeah, we have the most fun homework on the Internet, bar none.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:00]:

That's amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. This is a blast, to say the least, to understate it. So I appreciate you taking the time to connect and to have this experience with me. So thank you again.

Ryan  [01:15:17]:

Thank you, Jeremy.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:15:18]:

Yeah. Until next time, folks. As always, I'm your host, Jeremy Grinsteiner, and I would like you to invite you to stay strong. And the most important factor is to stay weird.