Intuitive Insights: Harnessing the Power of Intuition + Creativity in Everyday Life
Hosted by Meghan McDonough, your No BS “Woo-Woo” Coach: Intuitive Insights is a transformative podcast. Meghan is an Intuitive Life coach who’s passion is to guide you to use your intuition and creativity for a more purpose-filled life. The podcast draws inspiration from various sources such as ancient wisdom texts, yoga, philosophical teachings, intuitive readings, interviews and personal anecdotes. Along with reflections on the intuitive messages, practical tips, exercises, and actionable steps are provided to help listeners incorporate personal growth and mindfulness into their daily lives. The aim is to empower listeners to create a more fulfilling and purposeful life knowing “You.Are.Intuitive!”
Read along https://magnetizeyourlight.blogspot.com/?m=1 @magnetizeyourlight and www.magnetizeyourlight.com
Intuitive Insights: Harnessing the Power of Intuition + Creativity in Everyday Life
From "Gutter Drunk" to Spiritual Seeker and Interview with Tim Lyons
To receive your own personal Intuitive Soul Reading and personalized workbook visit: https://magnetizeyourlight.com/intuition
Hello and welcome to Intuitive Insights. I am your host, your no BS woo-woo coach, megan McDonough. Today we have a special guest. This special guest I've known for a long time and he is launching a new or has launched a new website Sober Awakening and is about to launch the Sober Awakening podcast, which I'm very much looking forward to and I can't wait to share it with you. This week we talk about sobriety, intuition, how to use your intuition in your life, what it means to you, how religion plays a role, how sobriety plays a role in intuition, and a whole bunch of other stuff I hope you enjoy. Welcome, tim Lyons, to Intuitive Insight. So Tim is the president, ceo and founder of Sober Awakenings, which is a nonprofit and as well as an upcoming podcast. So, tim, hi, welcome.
Speaker 2:What's happening. Thank you for having me. I am so looking forward to this. I want to apologize if anybody's watching this and listening to it. I'm just testing out this new setup, new equipment and everything. So if the megan and I were going over the finer points of lighting and everything with her, you know big time acting background and being on set and everything so if anything looks a little off. We're still a work in progress here, but uh yeah, I'm consistently a work in progress, I think it looks great, aren't we all now?
Speaker 1:so, uh, tim and I are, uh, originally from spring tucky, so and, uh, you know, we knew each other briefly back and, you know, I think, probably at parties or something, but we got connected in the intuitive circle through through earth magic academy and vanessa pavernetti. Uh, anyway, tim, I going to ask you a couple of questions that I ask of all my lovely guests, and then let's go from there. So one I would love to know what intuition is to you? How do you define it for yourself?
Speaker 2:Intuition, to me, has become just that quiet inner knowing that we all have. Obviously and I know that's a very generic answer but intuition is such a simple thing for so many people. We all have it. It is so right in front of our face all the time, and it's been talking to me, it talks to everybody, it talks to you all the time, anytime we want to access it.
Speaker 2:The whole trick with intuition, which comes in a variety of forms for a variety of people it might be that clear audience voice. It might be clear, buoyant imaging in your mind. It might be that clear, cognizant, just knowing things. It could be a combination of all of them, but it comes across as that knowing those messages from our higher self, our guides, our angels, the Holy Spirit, whatever you want to call it, based on your own. You know theological flavor, you know it comes across to us. It will tell us what to do in every moment. We tell us what to do In every moment. We always know what to do. All the information is right there for us. The trick with intuition, though, is the tricky part that I am learning at getting better with is how to recognize it, how to interpret it, trust it. That's the hard part Trust it and then act on it.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I was going to say for me the hard part is the last two, and I said the courage to follow through with the message you receive, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so to me it is that quiet inner knowing that comes across in a variety of ways. It's unique to everybody and I think through practice, meditation, whatever it might be, we learn to communicate or recognize it within ourselves. Whatever our unique mechanism of intuition is, but it's that inner knowing that has the answers for you all the time. You're never alone. You always know what to do.
Speaker 1:That's right. It's like I call it like the soul's voice. If the brain is the physical body's, you know, uh, control center, the heart is the soul's control center and intuition is the voice of the heart. Yeah, yeah, okay, so how do you use it and I know this is, it could be a journey, long question but how do you use it in your life, in your work and, and how you know, possibly did it ignite the sober awakening revolution that you're beginning?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Well, on a daily basis right now, I'm getting better and better with with the work I've done, just probably in the last five years, and more intensively through, like the programs I've participated in via Earth Magic Academy and some of the work I've just done on my own the last couple years, you know, I've been getting better at recognizing it. But how I use it in my daily life, when I run into situations where I, you know, have questions or I feel anxious or nervous, I just kind of quiet myself and I try to blank out and go with whatever comes up. And I've learned in time how to, through practice, how to recognize that, and I'm still not great at it. I mean, we have our ego based human self here and we get in our way and it's part of this whole game we incarnate to play. God knows why we choose to do this, but we do Right. Yeah, don't? We hear that all the time? Like what the like? Why did we decide to come here?
Speaker 1:And I know, but there's something satisfying and getting dirty and sloppy and learning and growing and just right fucking up constantly like it's right, fabulous about it you know, I, I, I answer
Speaker 2:that to people like I. I compare it to the roller coaster ride at the theme park right parenthood. Yes, it might make you sick, it might scare the shit shit out of you, and this is the life we incarnate into At times. It's going to be thrilling as hell. It's going to be fun, it's going to be scary. It's going to be everything. You're going to scream. You might cry before you get on it, but at the end of it it always leaves you like shit. I want to do that again 100%.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, why you know that line from Parenthood.
Speaker 1:Remember that line where do you remember that movie Parenthood? Yeah, no, mary Steenburgen and Steve Martin, and and she, the grandma, walks in and says like no-transcript point is. I love that quote and I was like I hate the merry-go-round. Yeah, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Merry-go-round's boring, it's boring, you outgrow it. Yeah, you want the experience, you want the big adventure, you want the thrill ride for all that it comes with. But back to you asking me how I apply it every day. I do have a short, like 30-second, video up on the Sober Awakening website. It's right there, it's me and how I quiet myself, take a few breaths and wait for the first answer that comes in. So if you go to that website anybody who's interested wwwsoberawakening all one word org. For those who are listening and not watching and can't see it up here behind me, you'll see just a common or a pretty quick application that I use daily to kind of just find the answers. They're not always what you want to hear, though, and that's the whole tricky part. You know they're not what your ego wants to hear. They're always the right ones, but trusting and having the courage to follow through, that's the hard part, you know.
Speaker 1:Now. So you said you're in sales, medical sales. Now, to me, I find sales is extraordinarily intuitive. It can be, yes, can access intuition, or you know connection to, you know serving whatever anybody needs. Is that something that you have found applicable in your, like that life?
Speaker 2:The you know where I notice the intuitive aspect coming into the sales that I do in the medical arena right now is really I get a real good sense, for when I'm talking to clients or potential clients of what they're feeling. I can tap into people very well from an empathetic empathetic am I using that word correctly From a, from a clairsentient perspective. Oh, okay, you know, I can kind of feel what they're feeling. I. You know, I I was in a meeting the other day where I had two people to hospital administrators with me and we were talking about some capital equipment purchases that they were considering and I can just feel that one's very into it and I can feel that one is not into it. So I'm kind of tailoring the way I even communicate within that small group dynamic to each one.
Speaker 2:You know, with me right now I'm doing large capital equipment that you would find in hospitals and those quote unquote sales cycles are longer than others. I mean, these are pieces of equipment that these facilities spend major money on, yet they only purchase every three to five to 10 years in a lot of cases. So you know, when you're in sales and you work on commission structures, you kind of you kind of. It helps intuitively when you can kind of feel when things are coming and when they're not, and when they're not, kind of knowing what to do when the desk is clear, you know and how to have that presence and that patience in the moment when the big POs aren't coming in, and then how to you ride that roller coaster we were just talking about. But intuition helps you ride those waves quite a bit, get a sense for when things are dull and what you're supposed to be doing when things are going to. You know what you should be doing when things are hopping, you know. So, yeah, it's very applicable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I. It's like I also feel something that's been coming to me lately, which is intuition, is also it's, it's, it's the premise for trust. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Like, it's how we trust in the universe and ourselves, in our journey, all this stuff, and so that I believe that's that's what I kind of heard you saying is it's also not only is it great when you're in the room and being able to tap into somebody's energetic, emotional, you know wherever they are at, but also you know when you're on your journey and able to just tap into the trust that life is still going. You're still on your journey.
Speaker 2:Which I find really interesting when we really get into our deeper connectivity with spirit. It's very anticlimactic many times. You know it's it I. I say spirit is really. People get into this type of thing because they're looking for answers, they're stressed, they, they want, they want the answers to what's going to come, they want to know the future. And spirit is really just more like the master psychologist who tells you to chill out, who tells you to chill out. Yes, and it's already defined, it's already done, it's just in the process of coming to you.
Speaker 2:My sister has been starting to work with Earth Magic Academy as well, and Vanessa there, yeah, and I just had a conversation with her the other day. She's been really lighting up very quickly and I said to her this the, when you're getting these downloads, these messages, a lot of times it's just more like, like I said, the master psychologist, just chill out. And she said to me she said two months ago, when I started this, I would have found that totally unsatisfying, it would have frustrated me, because you come into it looking for answers, but the more you go down the path and you start to see things happen, it's really best. The other way around, it's a total. It's connection with the divine is a total drug. It is. It is natural Xanax, really.
Speaker 1:Yes, speaking of which, that's a beautiful segue, tim. Thank you you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I see where we're going because?
Speaker 1:uh. So the next question I have for you and this is specific for sober awakening is how your intuitive journey connected to your sobriety, if, if it did. Because mine, 100 did so.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'd love to hear yours okay, so I will try to tackle this from the 30 000 foot perspective, because we have two. We have two pieces to this right right.
Speaker 1:How did this come about? You know? Like what led you here?
Speaker 2:okay, so well. First of all, let me back up to before. I was in my 30s and I was 24-7 gutter, drunk, which I was.
Speaker 2:I was physically addicted to alcohol. I was not just a problem drinker, I wasn't a binge alcoholic, I was somebody who had to have it in their system all the time or I would get physically sick. It was a horrible, horrible existence. I mean, I required medical intervention to detox. Yeah, it's amazing that I still have the life I do. Well, it's not really amazing. I mean, it's amazing and it's it's it all makes sense you know it really is, it's, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It was the biggest challenge I think I've dealt with so far, but it's also the biggest blessing. You know, so far the addiction was a gift and we can get into that, you know, here in the later portion. But originally, intuitively, when I was younger, I very um, I was very kind of dialed into a few things. I had a very natural curiosity toward anything spiritual. I remember watching some old uh 1980s, uh 2020 or one of those shows where they they, they highlighted ramtha by jay-z knight. I don't know if you know. Okay, it's an older school. Did you just say something?
Speaker 1:I couldn't hear you I said I don't know, even know what you're saying yes, ramtha is a being.
Speaker 2:Uh, that was channeled, is channeled, I think, still by a woman named jay-z knight, and it was kind of like um, have you seen Bashar?
Speaker 1:Have you seen yes?
Speaker 2:I totally enjoyed Bashar. I enjoy Bashar.
Speaker 1:He cracks me up and it's like, yeah, he says some amazing things, but also I'm just so intrigued from an actress perspective, I'm so intrigued by, like, studying him. But yes, yes, so it's like that. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes. So it's like that. Is that what you're saying? Yes, yes, exactly. Not to digress on Bashar too much, but from the little bit of acting I've done watching him and you're like, okay, is this guy making this up or not? You got to be pretty damn good. I don't know how you could make all that up.
Speaker 1:I don't think you can.
Speaker 2:And you cannot do that.
Speaker 1:I just would have. So got to be real, it's got to be real. But also, like I don't know, my brain goes to like what was the first time he, you know, he started channeling? And then he was like having this, like third eye on himself, going like what are you doing? Like the process at the beginning, like obviously now he's committed, he's doing it, he's in the zone, he he's got his father. You know what I mean. He's got his people. Oh yeah, at the beginning, like what was that awkward, beautiful stage, like that's where my brain goes to and how hilarious it must have been to watch anyway.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, okay, let's not digress here. We could go down a million rabbit holes. Let's stick to the topic of tim's early intuitive life and then how he became such a luscious gutter drunk guy in his middle age.
Speaker 1:So anyway, so early years I died.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:Said how you've become a sober guide. Yeah, so early on.
Speaker 2:I'll just cut to it. I was always very interested in anything paranormal, the books on ESP, like the Jay-Z Knight Ramtha channeling of the 80s, all that stuff. When I was younger, although it was not recommended for the Catholics, I even tried, I even tried, I even tried, I even tried. I drew out my own little pseudo kind of Ouija board thing on a piece of paper and a TV tray and a shot glass.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:And I tried to use it and I got this real intense ringing in my ears and it was. It was pretty crazy, scared the living crap out of me, and I just, yeah, it was something was pretty crazy, scared the living crap out of me, and I just, yeah, yeah, it was something was starting to happen. Yeah, so that was when I was probably in like eighth grade ish, something like that, and I never really I don't know how many people I've told about that to this point but the real interesting one was when I was about 16. I was taking a nap, it was the middle of the day and I had a spontaneous out of body experience. In the middle of the afternoon I felt this vibration in my heart center chakra system which, as I read about it uh, now there wasn't a lot. You could read about it back then but when your essence, your soul, leaves the body into the astral, a lot of times people will feel vibrations in their chakra areas. I got this like crazy vibration in my chest All of a sudden. I'm like kind of out and I'm up and I'm looking over my body and I'm kind of looking around the room and I knew what was happening without knowing what was happening. But I got real freaked out and I went back in, yeah, and so it happened a few more times.
Speaker 2:And I've got to credit one individual with this, this learning about this early life experience. One of the guys from high school who I played football with a buddy of mine you would never expect him to be interested in anything spiritual At any rate he says to me one day when we were like seniors, maybe freshmen in college, and we were probably drinking at that point or whatever, but we were hanging out Out of the blue he says to me and it's just him and I, he's like man, I got to tell you, out of everybody I hang out with, you are probably the one that is most in touch with the spirit world. I'm like we never talked about this crap before and I'm like no shit. He's like, yeah, like, do you ever like blah, blah, blah? He asked me this question and I remember. So I was like, well, screw it.
Speaker 2:I told him about this spontaneous out of body thing, right, right, and he was so interested in it and so fascinated in it, even to the point where he lived about five blocks from me. He's like, hey, dude, if that ever happens again. Why don't you float down to my house and then tell me what I was doing? He's like I want to see if this crap I want to see about this. He was really interested and in my older life one of the reasons that I have the courage to come out and talk about this crap that a lot of people think is weird especially guys who are in my world, they're going to, what the hell are you talking about? It's because this individual thought it was so interesting back then. If this person who on the outside if you knew him, you're not surprised, but from the outside looking in, you'd be like, oh, that guy's interested in stuff like this. And I'm thinking, hey, if it was okay with that friend of mine back then, think how many people would be interested in this. Now you know. So I was having these experiences, just random.
Speaker 2:The out-of-body thing hasn't really happened much since then. It was something that happened when I was younger and now I've kind of adopted this philosophy through and I agree with our friend Vanessa Passarelli-Tavarnetti on this one one of my gurus from Earth Magic Academy here. You know she's not big on out of body stuff Because we and I agree with her. You know our souls wait in line for a long time to get these bodies, so you know, we kind of want to stay in them. That's kind of the way I look at it. It's nothing I gravitate to now anyway, but so that that those are the experience I had when I was younger. I mean, I was always kind of in touch, dialed in. Something was going on there as we go along in life.
Speaker 2:High school I was a big drinker. College I was a big partier. I was always the guy who out of my friends was that one who and it didn't happen all the time. I wasn't always totally sloppy, drunk or anything like that, but if somebody was going to drink too much it was going to be me. I was always that one.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, in college I was always the guy who was back at my fraternity house and we were cleaning up on a Saturday or Sunday morning from the party the night before and there was still beer in the keg and I didn't care if it was 10am. I was, I was into that bad boys like, hey, it's the weekend, let's, you know, let's get a little loose. I didn't. I was like, you know, I was like one of these 12 o'clock somewhere, guys and I always, I always was a drinker, but in that I always was a drinker, but in that my intuitive self started to shut off. As my addiction started to take hold, my spiritual, intuitive experiences started, my connection just started to go away. And then so when I got, when I was finished with college, I was always a heavy drinker on the weekends.
Speaker 2:But, I could keep my lurking addiction at bay because I had to be in an office on Monday and I would have some real rough hungover Mondays, but because I had to be in the office I could kind of shut it off. I got to a point where I was real heavy on the weekends. I shut it off during the week and then I met my wife and there was partying involved. And you know, that's when, in my later 20s, I started to realize that something was wrong, because these people like like when we were dating, my wife and I go out and party or I'd party with my friends they started to get quote, unquote, normal and not want to go to the bar at noon on a Saturday. And I still did.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, um. So that transitioned into me kind of starting to hide how much I was drinking and I started to not advertise it as much. Um, I sneak a couple of drinks because I just wanted to have that calm, relaxed, buzz feeling. I wouldn't let my wife know about it. We had a little girl who's now 23 at the time and I'm still married. They still love me. They're actually downstairs as we speak. They're right there with me for all this, but anyway. So I was progressively getting worse with the drinking and then I got a job in outside sales 20 years ago when I was 30 and I was not in an office all the time, I worked out of my home and it was real easy to cut out early and get a few drinks. Also, this was a drinking environment. I worked with sales people.
Speaker 1:We go drink and everything like that right.
Speaker 2:So the hangovers would get worse and worse and worse. And then all of a sudden that old mentality of you know well, it's noon somewhere, you know, nobody's gonna know, nobody's gonna know if I have a quick drink, it's called an eye opener. In the world of of aa or alcohol addiction, Eye openers start to become common because what you're doing and they're your mimosas and your Bloody Marys there's a reason people do those Hair of the dog right, it's to kind of self-medicate or tamp down those hangover symptoms that you're having. So it's just a real slippery slope. So I went from that to a point where I needed the alcohol to help me mitigate withdrawal symptoms more and more. And you get to a point where I'm working outside my house, I am driving around all day and I'm constantly in a state where I'm drinking too much and then I'm given myself permission to self-medicate out of it. So I would stop and get drinks here and there. I would stop at the gas station just get a 24 ounce Miller light, whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:And the funny thing is people are like, when you're at that point, how do how did you ever hide it? And the whole thing with somebody who is physically addicted, as I became in my mid to late 30s is you're not sloppy drunk all the time. You wake up at 3 am the alcohol has left your system, but you feel horrible. Your anxiety is bad. It's just crazy, it's crushing. So you do the only thing you know how to do to make yourself better. You take a drink, you know, and it's just all you need is one or two to get through that moment, maybe get back to sleep. Then you wake up. You need another drink. You go a few hours, you need another drink. You're not really accumulating these drinks in your system. It's more so when it's leaving your system. You just need to put a little bit more in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that making sense? So like, if I'm drinking in the morning I might not even get a DUI or anything like that, which, by the grace of God, I never did?
Speaker 1:Um just trying to get back to your.
Speaker 2:You're just keeping that steady state level which is drunk which is which is drunk.
Speaker 2:But you don't necessarily have these excessive amounts in your system, you just need it. You can't function without it. Yes, it's total physical addiction. Outwardly, somebody might smell alcohol on me, but everybody knew I was a drinker so I'd just be like, oh yeah, I had a rough night last night. Right, I wouldn't tell them that I'd been drinking already that day I carried 70 more pounds than I do now. I was, you know. You know you're always kind of looking rough and disheveled and puffy and uncomfortable, um, but it did come to a head when I was 40 years old. Um, I got to a point where I could not hide it anymore. It erodes your physical health to such a point over time, um, where you just can't escape it. My family caught on and I was pretty much given the ultimatum either you get off of this or you know that's it. And so I came clean. It was the most refreshing experience of my life.
Speaker 2:But, interestingly, about a year before I decided to get sober, I was still very interested in anything paranormal or the other side, and I did a meditation to meet my spirit guide. And I came through and I met my primary guide. The name I was given is Ashtal, and he comes to me in a lot of blue, uh, robes and he's kind of like, uh, I guess I'm, I'm I'm hearing 55 right now and he looks kind of like Sir Alec Guinness, obi-wan Kenobi character from star Wars, and um, we met and originally because of my Catholic fear, I, I, I thought about it later and he's I'm getting, he's laughing at me right now. He loves this part of the story.
Speaker 2:So because of my Catholic guilt and my upbringing, I thought that it was something evil at first and in my drunkenness I told him like literally, go away, verbally, yeah. And he thinks it's quite comical because he's like you know, he's like okay, dude, verbally, yeah, and he thinks it's quite comical because he's like you know, he's like okay, dude, yeah, yeah, I'm off, yeah, but they don't go away, they'll honor a request and they just like yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So he's like I'm going away, until somehow in me, I finally came back to it and I embraced it again and I was like, okay, if you're, I'm really struggling here, I'm in hell. I don't know how to exist. I mean, not only was my physical condition bad, but I was having trouble paying the bills. Everything my life was going to come crashing down horribly in very short order If I didn't stop what I was doing. I knew it, and so I didn't know what else to do. I already kicked him out, so I let him back in and so, basically him, my spirit team they came down, they lowered their frequency and came and got me, and then everything crashed. Right, everything crashed, but it was the death. It was the death that I needed before the resurrection. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So I started going to AA and I got my body clean and sober again. And the most interesting thing happened to once I decided to get sober the pharmaceutical job I was with and I had hid this from for the longest time. I got laid off after 10 years, which was the best thing to have happened to me, because I got six months off with an amazing severance package. I lost 70 pounds, I got sober, I got a better job than what I had before. That has transitioned into what I'm doing now, um, which is the second job since then. But anyway, um, everything crashed and then it started rebuilding in the most interesting, miraculous ways. First, I got physically sober after you get physically sober, which is where sober awakening comes in most interesting, miraculous ways. First, I got physically sober After you get physically sober, which is where sober awakening comes in. You know, you get physically sober, but you start looking for something more. I was going to AA meetings, and AA is a very spiritually based program. Um, people, some people love it, some people do not. Um, it's, it's, you know, different in different places and different people have different experiences. But anyway, I was looking for something more.
Speaker 2:So I start going back to Catholic Church, right, and at the same time, though, I am having this budding curiosity because I drive all over the state of Illinois south of I-80, for those of your listeners who are familiar with the Illinois geography so I have a lot of drive time and I start listening to podcasts and I, in conjunction with going back to church, I start listening to all these podcasts and audio books about what goes on on the other side. I'm just interested in it. So I start reading all this stuff or listening to stuff about near death experiences, because I want to hear what's over there. Right, I'm like what really does happen, because there's so many reports of the light and everything like that that are just so common. It's like how can this not be real? So I want to hear what, what this is, and so I'm interested in that, which led me to stumble on to channeled work, and I have a variety of of authors and channels that I really like. I channeled work and I have a variety of authors and channels that I really like I channel for myself. Now I channel higher self. It's pretty cool, but at any rate, I started getting interested more and more in that Catholic Church started not doing it for me Although interestingly, I'm being told I need to get back in there for a lot of reasons lately which I won't get into right now, or we can, if you want, but at any rate, that's a whole side discussion.
Speaker 2:So it wasn't doing it for me. I was to the point where it was during COVID. I was sitting in back of church there and I'm just meditating through mass. I'm not even getting anything out of what's going on on the altar. During the homily slash sermon, whatever people call it, the priest had about 30 seconds to snag me. Or I was closing my eyes behind me, I had my COVID mask going and I'm just like sitting in back, like with my eyes closed, and you know, we'd done the Catholic drill long enough. Right, I can hear when they're kneeling, standing, all that, so I know when to move, but I'm not paying attention to anything.
Speaker 2:And so I'm doing all these meditations on YouTube. I'm not getting anything out of Catholic church. I'm drinking up all this spiritual channel material, which is, I think, where I found Bashar about that time at first, and, anyway, I hit some pretty stressful points and I was like I'm meditating. This isn't working. I want to know the answers. I want to know, you know, back to that, you know we want spirit to give us the lottery tickets. Initially, we want them to tell us what to do, when really they're just going to tell us to chill out.
Speaker 2:It's already worked out, right, but I'm, I'm, I'm over here, I'm looking for the answers because I'm stressed, and so, lo and behold, I see Vanessa from Earth Magic on Facebook advertising their phase one intuitive group and it's do this, do that, have a conversation with your deceased grandma. And so it was pretty cool. I'm like, okay, she's going to get into all the things I'm interested in. So I went to my wife who you know I, she knows I'm, so I've obviously I'm sober at this point and everything she knows I'm, I'm kind of interested in more of the spiritual stuff. And she, I say, what do you think if I take this meditation group? That's how I raised it. Yeah, my meditation group.
Speaker 2:And she's like whatever keeps you sober. I'm like, yeah, okay, great, so we start, I do their phase one. Interestingly enough, I didn't go right into phase two. I was guided not to, and then I was guided to go into phase two after taking what I call a gap year, but I and I was very, very guided to almost press to at that point If I didn't go into that phase two group, I would not have met my two sober awakening board members.
Speaker 2:There's, there's a reason all of this happens. So, through all that, I found, you know, earth Magic Academy and Vanessa and Rhett. And at the same time, though, I'm feeling this need to. Okay, I'm sober, I'm getting spiritually dialed in. I'm feeling this growing need to talk about it. And so I go to my wife because, you know, if I'm going to go out and publicly be like dude, I was so drunk I was gutter drunk that's my term when I was 40, and now I'm doing all this crazy shit, you know I'm going to put it all over and out there. She's fine with it, she's like I think you need to do this, you know. And so first thing I did was I'm going to make a website, and I think you and I had some communication.
Speaker 1:I was about to say when I bought my book and I was like because it's pretty, it's pretty female centric, it's intuitive based, but it's pretty. And I was like, oh, I hope you like it. And then, but it was, you know, it kind of came out of that Earth Magic Academy experience and but then we were talking and I remember saying I'm like I see you, you know, I think I. I was like I see you coach.
Speaker 2:You said I keep hearing coach. Oh, is that what? On those we, we traded some audio messages through facebook yes, yeah, you're like you're supposed to do something like yeah, and so that was very inspirational to me as well.
Speaker 2:So I I like, well, I'm going to put together a website and I'm going to start getting whatever it is out there. And when I went into GoDaddy to make a website, I was looking for domain names and we at first I started with awakening alcoholics and I don't like alcoholic. No see, you don't like that either, because I'm not alcoholic anymore, I'm sober. I am sober right now. That is.
Speaker 1:This is why I don't like it. I actually had this conversation. There was a couple of I have this like artist group that we get to you know, do kind of it's like a call like an actor's gym or an artist's gym once a week and there are several of us in there who are sober and I was talking to one of the guys about his journey and cause. He brought it up and he said we were talking about like you said you did Alcoholics Anonymous. I I'm one of those people who don't have, I'm not a big fan of that organization just because it didn't vibe with me, because for me, in my journey which is different than yours, but I sobriety is an empowering choice, not a default I had to make, and even if it was a default you had to make. It's still an empowering choice and that it's the choice of being responsible. It's the choice of making higher-minded, higher vibrational decisions for yourself.
Speaker 1:You know we all have a shadow side, we all have a light side. It's choosing the light side over the dark side, to quote Star Wars, if we're bringing it back to your spirit guide. But anyway, yeah, that's what I was going to say. And over the dark side, to quote star wars, if we're bringing it back to your spirit guide, but anyway, um. Yeah, that's what I was going to say, and I can't even remember why I started saying it, because my brain is perimenopause doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:It was important for you to say you, so you were inspired to say it, and now it's said, the right person will hear it I don't even know.
Speaker 1:I don't even know. Oh, and that's why I was saying I don't like the word alcoholics, I like the word sobriety, because sobriety is a positive spiritual choice in my opinion yeah and yes, and so it spits out this these like available domain names based on some of the things you put in.
Speaker 2:And I got sober awakening, which I'm like. Oh, I like that dot o r g, not dot com, dot org, which is the typical. I don't even know what you call that little thing there's a word for that like not dot com, dot org, dot whatever.
Speaker 2:There's a word for it. But you know, everybody knows what we're talking about. But I got dot? Org, which is the common suffix used by nonprofits. You don't have to be a nonprofit, but they all use dot? O-r-g and I thought well, hell, I started my professional career. The first seven years I did nonprofit fundraising. Oh, I didn't know that. Uh-huh, I for my old, our old high school. Stop it. Really? Yes, you don't pay attention to the mail you get asking for money, do you?
Speaker 1:Oh God, no, I was. We have a different conversation with the Catholic faith.
Speaker 2:I was yeah Well, you would have gotten tons of mail with my name on it.
Speaker 1:I was kicked out of that school so many times. And I'm glad I didn't, but I was just like I wasn't a fan of the, the, the catholic hypocrisy, not the idea of why it would. Well, okay, that's a different subject. I I find that spirituality and religion are two different things. Spirituality is a? Uh, to me is a responsible, uh, self-responsible journey. Religion, to me, most religions are a fear-based construct in order to take the responsibility away from you on your journey.
Speaker 2:They have been and I think they can change, which is why I think I'm being guided to get more back into the Catholic Church, because, while I'm not a dogmatic Catholic, I still carry the membership card right, and I think that there's a lot of people that, if I start showing my face at mass more often, are going to start asking me about the spiritual aspect and my beliefs in what Jesus really meant and what it is like to be a Christ. We are all Christ's in the making. That's what we don't get. Well, if you look at some of the Gnostic, you know, I mean we haven't got to oh, thank you.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. Like you go to the Gnostic Gospels, you go to, like what happened in that 30 years. You know that he was missing, you know there's, there is, you know, you know ideas about him going to India and you know taking the journey of, basically, you know more of a Buddhist approach, more of a you know you are the light, essentially, and and a more spiritual, self responsible approach than the power based, fear based structure of the religion that came after.
Speaker 2:Anyway, that's my yeah, just to put an aside in on that if you really start getting into which I'm no expert, but I've read enough and learned enough about Buddhism, the Hindu faith and hermeticism from ancient Egypt and through, like the Kabbalion and some of those books and if you learn that and then you look at what Jesus taught, there's a lot of those aspects in his message and they never tell us that growing up. So there's a very unified aspect there and there is a true message of Jesus and it's much simpler than we've made it. So religion could be more than it is now and I think if you feel motivated to get back in there and just speak your truth among the dogmatic people there can be benefit to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't. I'm starting to I really feel like I I prefer I don't know, I think I just prefer the lack of structure in that vein. Yeah, oh, I just that's. But that's mine, that's. You know, some people like that, you know, and they need the bumper car. You know, I'm I like to figure it out as I go, which is my detriment at times, but anyway, I feel like I should be getting back in church, but do it my way If that makes sense.
Speaker 2:But anyway, I digress back to you know, sober awakening. Where were we?
Speaker 1:at that. Oh the the org dot org.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the dot org. Yes, yes. So I was a fundraiser in the beginning for a Catholic high school located in Springfield, illinois, that Megan and I both went to. So I thought well, hell. What if I could put this together as a good product? A lot of people will have no problem donating $10, $25. I've already actually received a $5,000 grant for the startup of the podcast, as well as $5,000 in private donations.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic Congratulations donations.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic, congratulations. Yes, it would not be possible without being a 501c3, tax exempt nonprofit, because people do this stuff because they need to donate to charity. They're going to donate to charity but it needs to be a tax exempt charity because they want the tax benefits. There are grants available. Like I said, there are corporate budgets where you have XYZ Corporation and we have a philanthropy budget and we have a list of organizations that are going to get our grants through our foundation or what it might be. Somebody is, it's money that's going to go out, but you have to be a nonprofit to get it. So I think, why the hell can't I set this up as a nonprofit? So I went through and did all the paperwork. We registered with the state of Illinois and, once that was done, submitted at the federal level to get the 501c3 designation, which allows us to be tax exempt. We got that six months after we were incorporated in Illinois and we're off to the races. We've got to have a board of directors.
Speaker 2:It's a public charity. I don't own sober awakening. We've crafted it to where I run it like a business. I can, you know, draw a reasonable income off of its activities for administering things. Um, but I don't own it.
Speaker 2:So the microphone that was purchased via a grant that you see right now if sober awakening folds next week, which it's not going to the microphone, would have to be liquidated. All the assets would have to go back to a similar charity or the state of Illinois. So I own nothing. Like I said, I can take a modest income off of it that the IRS deems is reasonable for a nonprofit of this type. But other than that, when it's done, nobody owns it. It's a public charity and my two wonderful board members I've told them that it's a big trust thing because bringing them in we're a board of three. We all have equal say in it. Nobody's the owner and although on paper, in the bylaws I'm the managing presence, they could call each other up on the phones and say I think Tim's lost it. Let's call a meeting and vote him out. Legally they can do that anytime they want.
Speaker 1:It's overawakening. You kind of spoke to why it came about, like how it came about, and I feel like it's obvious who it's for, but can you speak a little bit more to who you envision this platform being for?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there are two groups that I want to impact with sober awakening. There are two groups that I want to impact with sober awakening. They're not going to be so much the person that's struggling with alcohol and needs to dry out right now. I'm not the guy that feels called to pull people off the street. Get them in meetings, get them in treatment, get them whatever they need to do. I'm the person through sober awakening. Sober awakening is going to come along when you are established in your physical sobriety, but spiritually, all the old things did not work anymore. So we need to start cultivating new directions to go.
Speaker 2:And with me, what I experienced was, as the alcohol left my system, the intuitive stuff that so many people are turning on to right now, my system, the intuitive stuff that so many people are turning on to right now came rushing back in, and that's why I sought out Earth Magic Academy. I told Vanessa when I got together with her I was like I've been doing all this stuff, but it's time for structure. I need somebody to help mentor me in this. I need people to quote unquote sit in circle with when we do the readings and all that stuff. I'm past doing this by myself and I think that a lot of people are just ready to do this in general in the world right now.
Speaker 2:But when you take that destructive, low vibrational substance, alcohol, out of your life, your natural intuition for so many people is just going to start lighting up. We got so much energy coming into the planet right now and it is going to just take off. People are like what do I do with this? And I know how to talk to people who are coming back from that addictive experience and where to go with that. That's who Sober Awakening is for primarily. There's a secondary group there that Sober Awakening is for as well, and those are the people who might not necessarily be gutter drunk or might not really identify as having a complete alcohol problem. But people, as they become more spiritual, they are going to find that they want alcohol less. Yes.
Speaker 2:And you know, I with me yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you may not have ever been able to stay away from boozing, you may not have been 24, seven drunk or had a quote unquote problem with it, but you're going to find, as you become more spiritual, you just want alcohol less. You don't want it anymore. It becomes totally unattractive. And those type of people I'm hoping are, you know, attracted to sober awakening as well. The people I'm hoping are, you know, attracted to sober awakening as well, people who are in that that state where I hope to find them, where they're looking for something more spiritual, can take from every episode something, an experience that is that they resonate with to some degree, but something practical that they can take and apply in their life right now. With every episode I want them to be able to take something tangible, a practice, an idea, something simple that I can apply right now in my sober life to bring me to a more grounded spiritual state.
Speaker 2:One guy I just connected with via TikTok, who I just found, who was fascinating he has all these really interesting expert perspective at perspectives and techniques for meditation that he learned in the Himalayas recently and he's an ex addict and it's just these people. It's like stuff he makes tick tocks of stuff you can do right now to heal your root chakra, your you know, your sacral chakra. That type of thing, simple practices. His experience is fascinating and he can leave you with something boom that's tangible, that you can take with you. I've been walking the earth for 51 years. Although I say I'm 49. I tell people once I hit 50, I started manifesting the Benjamin Buttons effect.
Speaker 2:So I'm saying well, thank you, I'm saying I'm 49. Once I start telling people like we go a ways and thank you, I'm saying I'm 49. Once I start telling people like we go a ways and I start telling people I'm 40 and it's really been 60.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know people are going to start looking at me like you've been living hard dude. You know we're here for a reason and that's safe. I hope that this can be what I fill it with for the next 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah. And then pass it on to whoever wants to carry that torch Because, like I said, it's a nonprofit, I will not own it.
Speaker 1:Tim, I love your light, I love all there's a. I took a couple of kabbalah courses in la and one of the things I think I've talked about this before is that I one of the messages that I love, because a thing I loved about kabbalah was there were a lot of great, practical, bite-sized things that I could, you know, kind of, like you said, apply in everyday life or a different perspective on a lesson.
Speaker 1:That just helped me see it more clearly. So there's one about I believe it's tikkun, which would be kind of like your karma or your correction. Is what tikkun, I believe, means. So the message that you're working on in life, right, like the reason your soul came on this journey. What did it want to? What was the big thing it wanted to tackle? Right, there's little things you tackle along the way, yeah, and since you are a football player, I will say and I always see this as a football game they talk about, you know, being in a football game, right, or a game right, soccer, football, whatever you want to play, and the game is your tikkun, the game is your correction, the game is that big life lesson that you've come here to learn, right, and when you play the game, the other team the opponent is what they call it is always as strong or stronger than you, so that when you win, you really are growing right. Because if your opponent wasn't as strong as you, right, then the game would be like whatever, who cares?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Now you learn nothing. You did not. You're like. So what that was either done in my sleep, you know, but it's when the opponent is as good or better than you that you really stretch yourself and learn and grow. Awakening journey that it was like your challenge was a big one, because your light is very bright and has to shine for others, you know thank you, like using that lighthouse.
Speaker 1:You know that is. It became so strong and it's like you needed to have uh, almost like you needed to have, almost like you needed to have those massively challenging times to strengthen your life so that you can be a beacon for others.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. And you know, we all have those in our life, and I am a believer that in each carnation, when we put together our soul blueprint and the path we're going to take, we have choice points along the way. The path we're going to take, we have choice points along the way, and if I did not make the choice to dry out, get sober when I did, and embrace the things I have now, I would be dead. I'd be dead. I would be dead. I mean, I would have gotten what I would have out of this incarnation, I would be on to the next.
Speaker 2:But I made that choice then, which has put me on a totally different quote, unquote, timeline, path, whatever, if you will. And here we are, and so I've decided to keep going through my choice to get sober, through my choice to start, you know, sober awakening and all that good stuff, because right now, when I go into, like what my timeline is telling me, I'm, I'm feeling I'm going to be around for quite a while now, whereas before the road I was on, I may may not have been, depending on how I reacted to what I was presented. Again, though, we choose all these battles before we come to fight them. We choose the game that we're going to play and I guess so far I mean I'm playing pretty well. I hope I mean, or I'm choosing to keep it going. You know I must be the higher self is enjoying something here.
Speaker 1:So yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for being on this podcast with me. I cannot wait for the Silver Awakening. I can't wait to hear it and listen to it. Can you tell me when it's starting?
Speaker 2:Well, you can go to the website right now. The podcast is the primary launch. That's when we're going to go live with the more formal aspect of Sober Awakening. That's when people will be able to go on, if they're so inclined, and make a donation if they want to see Sober Awakening grow and support its mission. They'll be able to do that online If anybody's interested. I just concocted something I call the seven day intuitive.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yes, the seven day intuitive yes, which is a very simple. If you've been on the spiritual path for a while, you're going to find it very basic, but it is designed for people who don't have much. You know they may be very spiritually curious. It's seven days of intuitive exercises that start with setting intentions and scanning and basic meditation and end with, on day seven, very simple, open endedended intuitive writing. I don't even call it automatic writing because the Christians out there would be like, Ooh, divination, the devil, you know. I call it intuitive, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But anyway level. Now we're in a different universe speaking to, are not worried about that.
Speaker 2:You know I don't. Yes, that's a whole different topic altogether. But yes, you can go to soberening right now and see the framework, what we're about. You can put your name in there. You'll get your copy of the seven-day intuitive. You know, get email updates, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. I'm so proud of you and happy for you and just it was like a seed of an idea. What like a year ago, two years ago, two years, yeah, into this like I just love watching you grow with this, yeah well, you're you.
Speaker 2:You, you had something to do with it as well I mean I was delivering messages you were, you were. I remember almost feeling like when I you, you, messaged me and asked after phase one if I was going to do phase two and I said no, not right now. And I remember almost feeling like a sense of disappointment, like for me, yeah, Just cause you're like, oh, I want you to say, you know, I wish I'd see you do this.
Speaker 1:You know, like oh well, yes, Well, because I was like I. I mean I in a way, though I felt like I was like oh, he'll come back.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:At first I was like oh, he should continue, yeah. And then I was like well, he will Like that's like the message that I got.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean it was. It was like um, you were following your intuition and divine timing and um, and then you met the right connection Some of my favorite people in the world.
Speaker 2:No, I love all you guys, everybody I've met, everybody I've worked with, everybody, like you, who I've reconnected with.
Speaker 1:You know, Soul contracts are soul contracts.
Speaker 2:Soul contracts are soul contracts. What roles you're supposed to play in each other's life?
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, and I can't wait for Sober Awakening to launch. I'm really excited about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. So thank you, love and blessings to you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:It's awesome.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you're here. This was great. This is really fun. All right, cool, we'll keep it. We'll keep the magic going.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you so much for joining us. And if you are looking for more inspiration, sobriety inspiration, you can find him. You can find him at soberawakeningorg and you can find his new podcast wherever you get your podcast. And if you're just joining us or if you've been listening for a while and you are curious about your own intuitive journey, I have several offerings that can assist you with that. One is a journal right there. It's a coloring workbook journal based on spiritual sketches that have come through readings that kind of guide you on a journey of unveiling your true self, your nature, without all the filters that may or may not be yours or for you, or still for you. It takes you on a spiritual journey to help you really connect with your soul, self and really feel that light magnetizing. That's the name.
Speaker 1:This year I have the 2025 Moon Magic Create. This is a journal, workbook, guide where you go through the phases of the moon, the zodiacal filters that they find themselves in in each phase throughout the year, and you get to journal how that affects you, how you're resonating with it, what to do in each phase of the moon during the eclipses, and I offer not only the prompts of what to do or to release, but also a space for you to create. So how is this feminine energy flowing through you and what is it prompting you to create in your life? And finally, I have Ignite your Life. This is a six-week course roughly based in the Magnetize your Light workbook, but this is a work at your own pace, kind of deep dive into exploring physical movement, breath work, intuitive connection and insight and exploration and coloring and journaling, and just really like a lifelong practice of shifting your perspective, to open yourself up to more connection, coincidence and flow in your life.
Speaker 1:And finally, if you're looking for a reading to figure out how and where you fit into your journey right now in your life, you can always find me at Magnetize your Life. All right, thanks for joining. Make magic today. Big buckets of love. Thank you.
