Sense of Soul - The Skeptic Metaphysicians

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Happy Labor Day, sit back, relax and listen to an episode on Sense of Soul podcast! Today we have the hosts of the amazing podcast ‘The Skeptic Metaphysicians,’ hosted by a real-life husband and wife team of story-tellers, Karen Endsley and Will Rodriguez. They are both seasoned communications professionals, having experienced video production from behind and in front of the camera.  Their weekly show is a fun exploration of metaphysics, spiritual awakenings, healing modalities and magical personalities. This Signal Award-winning program brings you interviews with inspirational experts in the fields of enlightenment and expanded consciousness...without making it cringy! Grow and expand your consciousness without sacrificing the fun of exploring with humor!
 They also are the founders of the Ethereal Network, a group of amazing podcasts who share the same passion to awaken the consciousness of humanity. Check out the Ethereal Network shows here https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/ethereal-network Visit their website and follow their journey on social media. Website: https://www.skepticmetaphysician.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/WillRodriguezFl Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkepticMetaphysician Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skepticmetaphysician_podcast/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TrisoltVideo https://www.senseofsoulpodcast.com

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world. Sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes,

monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have the host of the amazing podcast, The Skeptic Metaphysicians, hosted by real-life husband and wife team, Karen Ensley and Will Rodriguez. They are both seasoned communications professionals having experienced video production from behind and in front of the camera. If you want to grow and expand your consciousness without sacrificing the fun and exploring with humor, then you want to check out their Signal award-winning program. It's a fun exploration of metaphysics, spiritual awakenings, healing

modalities, and magical personalities. They are also the founder of the Ethereal Network, which I am a part of, a group of amazing podcasts who share the same passion to awaken the consciousness of humanity. And today on Labor Day, I am hoping that both Will and Karen putting their feet up and taking it easy today because I know as a creator how very hard it is to do as much grading as they do on their podcast. So please welcome Will and Karen. How's it going, guys? Good. How are you doing?

I am good. Thank you both for being here with me. I'm excited to get to know you so much more. And I have through your ethereal network, which has been so fun. And I really appreciate it. We were blessed the day that you said yes to our invitation to join the network. So thank you. And thank you for bringing us on your show. We're really excited to get to talk to you about this. Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't know if you knew, but we actually have similar listeners. I've had people send me episodes and say, Shannon, you have to listen to this. Who are my listeners?

And then I also had someone send me over a text message. Hey, look, I was listening to you on the skeptic metaphysician, which I have listened to a lot of your podcasts. We do talk about similar topics, right? Yeah. Yeah. We seem to be really well aligned, which is part of the mission of ethereal, right? We're all just trying to raise the vibrations of the planet. So in the conversations that we're having, the messages that are coming through with these conversations are super important. So I'm thrilled and I'm super grateful that people are listening and they really resonate with the messages that we're sharing out there. And if we do have cross

pollination on our shows, all the better. That means, yes, that means that they're finding the messages from different directions, but they see value in both of us in different ways. And that's wonderful. Yeah. And I also see that a lot of the same guests also seek us out. I mean, I saw that you had Evan Alexander on, Paul Altman. I know when I first started my podcast and I wonder if you felt this too, there wasn't a whole lot out there. Yeah. When I first started doing the show, I did it really for me. So it wasn't, it wasn't for others, but because these types of conversations were what I was looking for, but I found that the conversations I was hearing in other shows were not

hitting home with me because they were very dry. And it was like listening to two academics talking to each other and it wasn't really what i was looking for so i started having my own conversations in a in a fun engaging way where you know karen and i don't take ourselves that seriously the topics that we cover we take it very seriously but but ourselves we laugh a lot on the show and we love learning that way through fun and and so that's where we decided to make our show like, because it's really the best way to learn, right? To be entertained.

It is. The more you enjoy it, the more you retain. Yeah. And you want more. Oh yeah. That's why I sucked at math when I was in school. Yeah, me too. I still do.

Yeah. I always say I'm mathemagical. Not mathematical. I like that. So. I always say I'm mathemagical. I like that. So let me ask you guys, I know for myself, how I got into this, it was very similar, but you know, of course I have a whole story behind me that led to that. So I wanted to kind of give you guys an opportunity. You know, you're always interviewing other people and I'm sure your listeners have gotten to know you through, you know, the little bit that you've added about yourself and your episodes.

But let's start with you, Karen, ladies first. And who were you before your podcast? Oh, my gosh. I've been so many people. Funny enough, I started out in school studying engineering. And I love math, but I just got kind of bored with it. So I switched to art, which was a really great career choice. Parents were very happy.

Lots of opportunity there. Lots of. And then I stayed two more years and got another degree in anthropology. So you can see I was just like laser focused on that six figure job. Well, still, I mean, I love both of those. So I enjoyed college. And then actually ended up being a teacher for about not quite 10 years. I taught Spanish art and anthropology.

Then I managed a real estate investment company. Then I had a kid and took a break from pretty much everything for a few years. And then Will kind of roped me into the whole TV world. See the lasso. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he roped me in the whole TV world. See the lasso. Yeah, exactly. I mean, he roped me in so much that I recently started my own production company. Wow, you're an overachiever.

I have a few plates spinning. So I also do freelance. I work, when I was talking about turning the phones off, I am a floor director for a lifestyle show. So I sit on the floor and kind of control what's going on in the studio and tell everyone to turn their phones off before we start taping. So fun. Where do you live, by the way? Where do you live?

We're in Virginia. Oh, you are? Okay. There's amazing people in Virginia. I don't know about you guys, but I always find that. Yeah. So Evan Alexander, which you mentioned before, he's in Charlottesville. So he's a few hours away from us. The Monroe Institute is right down the street. Also, the Agri-Casey ARE is literally in our backyard. So yeah, there's a lot going on in Virginia. There's an energy here that's pretty special. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I need to go. I've never been to Virginia. Oh, well, we've got a spare bedroom. So there you go. Invitations open. Just don't bring your guinea pigs. Sorry, inside joke. No, that's great. So what about you, Will? Who were you before?

I was a lost soul. Really, that's the best way to put it. I was someone who I thought I was someone else. And when I had to suddenly face myself in the mirror and realize I was not that guy, it was but some of it fed into my ego. Let's put it that way. I had a very big ego. I was very angry. I had a big sense of self-entitlement, which I certainly was not entitled to, but for some reason I felt I had. And as COVID hit, like everybody else, I suddenly found myself with the need to look within. And I did not like who I was. So now I've been on a journey for now for the past three years of transformation. And this show is part of that for me. You know, it seems like a lot of people have that pain to purpose story. Yes. Unfortunately, I never thought I'd be one of those because you're right. But there are a lot

of us that, you know, when we are growing up and society programs us in certain ways and our parents program us in a certain way, not for any fault of their own, but rather that's all that they know, it launches you on a certain path. And if you're not awake, if you're not conscious of the path that you're walking on, sometimes you get caught up in stuff that you have to work through. And I'm a big proponent of therapy. In fact, that's really what saved me is going to therapy. But it's not easy. It's not something that you go to therapy and you flip a switch and you're all better. It's a lot of work, a lot of work. And a lot of people, but if you put in the work, I can tell you from first hand experience, it really helps. It helps a lot, but you do have to be willing to put in the work. You also have to find the right therapist. Oh, very true.

Oh, I agree there. Yeah. Yeah. Very true. And I was incredibly lucky to find a good therapist right off the bat. We're still looking for some for our daughter, for example, but that's another story. I think that a lot of it is that there's so many conditions that you're dropping along the way, because we've been programmed to believe, you know, certain things and act a certain way. And you know what it looks like to be like the perfect person in America. And it doesn't fit everybody. And so dropping those conditions, I know for myself, I'm recovering Catholic, maybe. You're in good company. We are too. You know, that came with a lot of shedding and rewiring of my brain and how much of what you

believe in, have you been told to believe in? And then up that, how much have you experienced for yourself? But pretty much all of my beliefs and who I was trying to be was based on everyone else's beliefs, which led me to experience, maybe still do sometimes, religious trauma syndrome, which they actually have named a syndrome now. I think a lot of us are experiencing that. How did you guys grow up? What was your spiritual beliefs? I grew up Catholic, sort of. Catholic-ish? Catholic-ish.

Well, I went to Catholic school for 12 years. And so I'm like, well, I had a good experience. I never had, you know, I didn't have the, I had, there was one crazy nun. Everybody has that crazy nun. But I, you know, was never hit with a ruler or at home. We went to church like on the big days. My parents had gotten divorced when I was young. So my mom was working and putting herself through school and she did not want to get

up early on Sundays, understandably. For me, it was good in that it kind of helped me build my morals and to be a good person and to be empathetic and loving. And that was the experience I had. I know that's not the norm necessarily. Well, it wasn't so much for me, you know, hating Catholicism or, you know, being uncomfortable with it and seeking out something else. I guess it wasn't presented to me this way, but the way I took it and I understood it was it's part of who I am, but I can add to it what I want. So in my anthropology studies, I studied many world religions and kind of brought different

pieces of those and kind of have crafted my own belief system. You know, I still say the Our Father. And one of the key reasons I say the Our Father is because one night I woke up with a man in my room with malintent and in my head started saying the Our Father and I got away. Whether it's God or angels or universe or spirit whatever it is like i should have been dead i mean there were knives involved there was a real man yeah no a real man yeah so whoever heard me that way yeah that works for me so i you know so there's some things that i've kept from catholicism that work with me but there's other things i absolutely don't believe in i don't agree with most of what the Bible says. I think that it was written by men and I don't know that they were inspired or

that they were inspired to control. But I've just, you know, kind of took over my own sort of religion ish spirituality and it works for me. Wouldn't work for everybody else, but it works for me. I would have been pleading the blood of Jesus. If there was a man walking, I would have went right back to my beliefs. That's so scary. But yeah, I can relate to that. And you know, what's interesting is that I had an aunt who she was kicked out of church because she got divorced and like 30 years later, they let her back in. And so. How nice of them.

Look at just like Galileo back in recently. I'm like, you're going back. Okay. But it's stuff like that. But really, you know, it's like, wow, you know, that's a man's decision for sure. Or when I say man, not just male, but right. Yeah. But actually that's a really, really good point because, you know, not all men are identified with that type of energy. We're talking about that male colonialism energy because sometimes some of that is women that are keeping the dogma alive, but it's an older energy.

It's an energy of control of fear that takes over and does these things. When you start looking into the topics that we're talking about and you find who we truly are and is love. And it's more of a softer female energy that you allow into your sense of self. And that's why there are so many more women in this industry, in this field than there are men. Thankfully, more and more men are coming now into it because you do have to find a way to let go of that hunter-gatherer, our warrior, and open yourself up to more softer female energies in a sense. See, I have to disagree with you for a moment because I don't feel it as a softer female energy. It's a feminine energy, but I think it's a very strong feminine energy. Well, I would say the feminine energy is strong.

In fact, stronger than male energy. But you're using that word softer. Softer meaning it's not as aggressive. It's not as out there. Oh man, mama bear. That's more of a protective energy, I feel, than it is men attack, whereas women defend. I mean, that's really how I've seen it. And just the fact that you bring life into this planet, into this world, it is a much stronger energy than male. Can you imagine a man having a baby? Well, they'd have six years of maternity leave. Yeah, at least. I forgot who

it was that we were talking to, Karen, but they brought up the fact that when we started, it was the women who led, who were the chieftains. And then somewhere along the lines, men took over and they took over with fear and control. And now we're starting to head back into sanity. And I forget who it was that we talked to, but that was what they were saying. So please understand, this is not my thought process. I'm just. No, I know. I don't think women are soft.

No. You're very much a feminist. I'm still a softie. Yes, that's true. You know what? Here's the bottom line. I mean, we need both. We need a balance of both.

And I think that's the only way it will work. And it's been tipped over on one side for a long time. And maybe that's why the women's energy is coming in so strong, because we're trying to push that plate so we can get that balance. Yeah, that's like our friend once said, it's a pendulum. And we've been on one side of the pendulum for so long that we are now swinging to the other side, the complete opposite side of the pendulum. Eventually, it's going to even itself out. It'll come back to center. But right now, because we're seeing the push to the other side, I think that's what you're feeling. That's what you're seeing everywhere. And you're right. And I think it's a matter of balancing the male and female energies within yourself if you can do that you're in a very good way towards that spiritual awakening you're looking for because women have gotten very masculine as well i mean oh yeah even myself i did look at some of the aspects that i find now that are strong i looked at him as weaknesses yeah very true yeah And it's almost

by necessity, right? That you've had to fight back with the male thought process that are trying to keep you down, but you had to fight back. And now I think people are starting to see how wonderful that other side of things are. So I'm hoping you're having to fight a little bit less. Yeah. It is really interesting. I remember when I was in college, I have loved to cook since I was about seven years old and I would never tell anybody because it was very girly. I didn't wear pink. I didn't, you know, and it wasn't until later, like when cooking shows came up and most of the chefs are men, I'm like, well, you know, now I have a cooking show too. But some of those things, you just didn't want to feel weak or girly or soft because it felt to me like you just can't accomplish anything if you're any of those.

But now, you know, things are things are changing and it's safer to just be. Right. Gosh, I love you guys' dynamic. It's really cool. Thank you. I love I love caring. You are strong. I can tell that you are.

I love it. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I love that Will gives you the space too. Yeah. So yeah, you guys are a really great match. And I think that it's probably one of the reasons why your podcast is so successful is that you have this nice playoff of each other. Do you guys ever disagree on some beliefs? Like a minute i'm definitely not aligned with that and it's absolutely you want to share that are just like oh my gosh maybe aliens or um i don't

know we just did it on your show yeah funny enough i think that karen and i probably disagree on things maybe even more than we agree on but the interesting part is what we've learned i'm sorry what i've learned because i was i was the gestapo for a while when i first started into you know we talk about the the pendulum i was on one side where i was like this is bullcrap right there's no way this stuff is real and then suddenly i was like on the complete opposite like this is reality and i became very militaristic about this stuff well no you can't be that way because this is the answer what what i've learned during the show is that the whole concept of one truth many paths my path is not the same as karen's path and vice versa

and that's got to be perfectly okay because what resonates with me doesn't resonate with her and vice versa and that's okay and what we've learned to do is to support each other in whatever path we choose to go and not be threatened by that. We were just having a conversation right before this about God. We have completely different beliefs on what God is completely. And gosh, remember we had when our daughter was five, we had one of the probably the biggest fights we've ever had because we moved to Virginia and we didn't know anybody.

And it's time to get her into. Well, she was probably three. We're trying to get her into preschool. And like the best one was a Presbyterian preschool, but it had like the best reviews. And I'm like, OK, she's going to the best. And he was like, well, no, it's religious. And they're going to, you know, make her be this Bible beating thing. And I'm like, no, she's going to learn from us.

I mean, this we went back and forth and, you know, finally we, she ended up going there and it ended up being a fantastic thing. And she is not, I don't even, I mean, I don't, she's not, I mean, I don't know what, what is she, she doesn't believe in traditional Christian beliefs. She's questioning things, which is great. Cause that's what we're, that's what I was hoping for. But I should, we should mention the fact that I've had a, I had a really bad experience. Yeah, he did. In Christianity.

I was Catholic. I was raised Catholic and I had the dogma was real, but I mean, I was, I took first communion. I was an usher. I confirmed I was an altar boy. I was saying in the choir. I mean, I was because that's what was expected of me. I hated every part of it. Every time I hate it going on Sundays, it going on Sundays, but it was what I had to do. And then the ugly side of Roman

Catholicism showed itself by going to a retreat. And the typical, I didn't want to be there. My parents dropped me off on a Friday. And an hour later, I'm calling them back saying, please come pick me up. I can't. This is terrible. This is not for me. This is not for me. They refused.

And to the course of from Friday to Sunday, there was a complete transformation in me to the point then on Sunday afternoon when we were graduating from the program, I was wearing a cross and crying and hugging with people and i was then suddenly starting proselytizing roman catholicism because and i'm not saying that that's what the church does to everybody it's just it was it was my experience and i and i want to make sure that i say that if catholicism works for you if that's your path then we support it a hundred percent because it works for you and that's wonderful didn't work for me because i unfortunately encountered people that used uh traditional um brainwashing techniques yes thank you yes keeping us up really late at night waking us up early with uh four in the morning yeah did they not feed you and very little for winter bed and They would bring in on a regular intervals. They would bring in letters from people that we knew back home telling us how much they loved us and all that kind of stuff. And then suddenly we wanted to see them and thank them because we missed them.

We love them. And oh, my God, these notes are incredible. They brought us to the chapel and we're singing this song. We were in the middle. And also all of our loved ones came in and surrounded us all. We were all excited. As soon as the service finished we ran outside to say to give them a hug only to find they were gone right they're keeping us from them just really typical brain washing techniques that they used that that worked that worked and uh it took probably a good six

months it became a click in my school if you didn't have that little wooden cross, you weren't part of the cool kids, which is weird. And it took a long time to suddenly realize, whoa. Well, you were so sucked in. You became one of the brainwashers the next year, right? I did for two years after that. Yeah. Two years. I ended up, yeah. I ended up being part of the team that woke up everybody at four o'clock in the morning with pots and pans screaming and yelling and singing. So weird. Wow. Yes. Yes. But anyway, so I had a bad experience with Catholicism. So when Karen talks the way she, the thing she said that we should clarify. That's why I had a really bad opinion. But I don't even think I knew that at the time. I don't think you had shared that with

me at the time we're having this big argument. I'm like, just trust me. She's going to learn from us. You know, she's, you know. Remember, I mentioned earlier about the condition that we get younger. We don't even realize we're conditioned until we do. And then you go, oh, my gosh. Right. And this side, it went on both sides. I had no idea I was so conditioned.

And that was why I was reacting to Sienna going to a religious school because of that. Until then, everything outside of that is heresy you know this wrong is devil is evil is you know down a dark path you're gonna get sucked in i was even told that when i begin meditation everyone was so worried i'm like really because i'm like really feeling clearer than i've ever felt and better than I've ever felt. Yeah. It's all about control. Yeah. It's control. It's fear. That's the way that the clergy controlled the populace. So then the church loses a little bit of a strong hold. And now we have like governmental systems that are also now as strong and wanting to control and brainwash.

And this is the new, I think, basically the new church. Yeah, they're doing it also under the name of being religious and being, you know, Christians and whatnot, which is really sad because, you know, Catholicism does work for a lot of people. And depending on who you have that's giving that message, the message can be so different. I mean, I guess I had Catholic light. I don't know. But like, I don't believe in hell. And I guess that's an anti-Catholic thing. I don't know. But like, I don't believe in hell. And I guess that's an anti-Catholic thing. But no, no.

The Pope actually admitted that like a few years ago. Oh, did he? Yeah. Yeah. See, I'm smart. I'm like, oh, yeah. It's not where we thought it was. Anyways, it's not below the earth.

It's pretty much right here. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard that this is hell. We come here to try to work off some stuff. This is the hell planet. And a lot of people would agree with that. But you know,

in high school, I wanted to be a pastor. You know, like when you do like your senior project on what you want to be when you grow up. Wow. When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a virgin.

I didn't know what that meant. I just knew Virgin Mary was amazing. So I wanted to be a virgin i didn't know what that meant i just knew virgin mary was amazing so i wanted to be a virgin little did i know but i guess you could look up to worse things right so that's true it's not all bad i think you know there's a lot of good things about being in a community and i think we're missing that part so again i, I like the way that Will, you like to bring people together. And I think that's important. Yeah. A sense of community is so important. If you don't have that, you need to find it, you need to develop it on your own, do what you need to do. Because yeah, we've been looking for that sense of community here for a long time. We've been here now over 10 years and we've not really truly found it. We've got a couple of friends that we call

every once in a while to hang out with and things like that. But in this spiritual space, it's not, and I just mentioned Monroe Institute down the street, Edgar Casey Aries in our backyard, things like that, but it's very fractured. And also where we live, it's a very military area. It's one of the pieces that has all branches of the military. Yeah. So we're trying to bring like-minded people together to help, like I said, raise the vibration of the planet. And I wanted to touch on really quickly the Catholic thing. And we mentioned the fact that it was, if it works for you, wonderful. And we are very accepting of all faiths. In fact, we just had a conversation a couple nights ago with two Israelites, a Hindu and an agnostic and in the same, on the same table. It was the most fun conversation I've ever had. Seriously. I've learned more about Christianity through rabbis. Yes. Yeah. Right.

But where I draw the line is when you say to me that what I believe is wrong. Yeah. That's right. That's where, that's where you just lay down the gloves, man. Yeah. I mean, it is an inner journey, just like you guys started off saying with even your partner, it's an individual thing, even with children. You know, that was a major thing for me to realize, especially when my oldest, who's down 26, had asked me, he's like, yeah, mom, he was like, you just went and just changed all these things. Why did you even teach me all the beliefs that you did growing up?

That was a really valid question. And I sat with them and I said, you know, I think that what I got wrong was that it's not so much that you have to believe in Jesus, but that you should be more like him. And there is no separation. We're all coming from the same cloth. So it was a hard question. That's a hard question. Yeah. Yeah. So when it comes down to Catholicism or Christianity, all I can say is I'll have none of that. Hey, listeners, so sorry for the interruption.

I'd like to tell you about Uncovering the Mysteries of Kabbalah, an amazing opportunity to be mentored by one of Sense of Soul's affiliates, Rabbi Matthew Ponack. If you've listened to my prior episodes with him, then you know he has a ton of wisdom to share and is offering Sense of Soul listeners a special discount to take a deep and personalized dive into Kabbalah and the unfolding of your own personal journey. If you're interested, go to matthewponak.com backslash senseofsoul.

That's M-A-T-T-H-E-W-P-O-N-A-K.com backslash Sons of Soul to learn more and sign up. Now back to our amazing guest. Oh yeah, I like a little bit of everything. And well, I don't know if both of you did it, but it was just you. I know it's in even your intro that you went down the Wiccan path. Tell us about that. I did. I did.

I joined a coven for a while. Yeah, I'm a very experiential guy. I need to feel it, see it, taste it, touch it. I can't just believe something offhand. I've got to be able to find a way to wrap my head around it pragmatically. And back in the day, I was looking into everything. I studied all different religions, world religions, and Wicca is just another religion. It's an earth-based religion, and people don't really realize it, especially when we're talking about Catholicism and

Christianity. Constantine, way back in the whatever century it was, was trying to convert people into the church, and he labeled pagans or country dwellers as evil and created so the wiccans have the the god of the hunt and he has antlers and things like that and he made that the debt into the devil and we talk about being there being no hell and all that kind of stuff this is where he created hell and created the devil and all that kind of stuff so in my search i found that out and i went that that's interesting and i was a time going to this metaphysical bookstore all the time, learning about Reiki, became a Reiki practitioner. And I was always looking for that proof. And when I was attuned to Reiki, that was the first time that I actually

felt something. The energy coming out of my hands was irrefutable. This was the proof I had been looking for. So when I felt that, then I started thinking, well, what else is out there that I don't know? Because I now realize there's more than just this three-dimensional world that we live in. smile and kind of slightly kind of push it across for me. And she's checking out what I was doing. And the more books like that I bought, the more she realized, okay, he's into this stuff. So one day she says, you know, I see that you're interested in Wicca. We have a group of people that are celebrating the solstice coming up next weekend. Would you be interested in coming and partaking in it? Are you kidding me? Of course I would.

This is exactly what I was hoping for. Cause it's not like you can look in the yellow pages to see where the nearest coven, right? They don't advertise themselves. So I didn't know where to start. So she invited me to the solstice event and I was thrilled. So I went there and a little by little. Wait, hold on. I keep on imagining Karen, like looking over and going, what is he reading now? Where are you going? Yeah, no, this, this was before Karen, but. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause, cause she would have given me the, the eye. Like, no, no, that's true. That's true. Yeah. So they would invite me to that solstice and another ceremony, another ritual and others. And then after a while, okay, this guy is really interested in learning about the stuff.

So he said, hey, we have a group that we're missing two members of. Would you be interested in coming on board and joining? Yes, I would. So I took the plunge and there's a lot that goes into it. People don't know it takes you a year and a day, an initiation period that before they really celebrate and they bring you into the inner world. And so, but you learn a lot through that year long initiation. And we sewed our own robes

because we imbued our energies into them. See, that's the most shocking thing. Not that you joined a coven, but you sewed a robe. Okay. So I'm not going to say that I sewed a good robe, but ited a robe okay so sorry i'm not i'm not gonna say that i sewed a good robe but it was a robe something that covered my body when i was doing the rituals right it doesn't say it looked good super glued and taped the tables i did a lot of that both of those yes

absolutely it was a mess but still it was just a robe it was it was meant to imbue my energy into it and then i got the tools right the athame which is a pointed dagger that you use to people think it's for for blood drawing it's not it's to focus your energy there's a lot of misconceptions about witchcraft and and wicca in general paganism that is unfortunate because it is a very it's a beautiful religion it really is rituals are beautiful and it's all about worshiping nature It is being one with nature and the personifications of nature as gods and goddesses. And it was beautiful. It just wasn't for me. So after being initiated, after a while, I realized this experiencing them, but I don't resonate with them as strongly as I should if I'm going to be part of this group. So I ended up bowing out after a few years. That's fine. That's a great story. When I was researching the Gnostic Gospels, how to go down into the secret societies, because that's kind of where it leads you.

But I kind of felt like I'm not going to knock it until I, you know, kind of make my own judgment of it, of each one that, you know, I researched. And so whatever I speak on is from my own experiences. And I must say there was one night that I was researching the Freemasons, but I was trying to find out a connection between the Jesuits and Freemasons. And all of a sudden I get a warning on my phone and it says suspicious search activity. And I'm like, dang, I've been like real deep into some of this stuff. Never got a warning. And about a half an hour later, it was at night. It was like about a year ago.

And my son was letting his friend out the door and there was this huge spider by the door. And I got my phone out to take a picture because I was going to scare my girls. And all of a sudden a dove drops from the sky and falls on my porch and dies right in front of us. Okay. It's unmoved. We're out of here. And the thing is, is that I have a mini series that I was working on, which is why I was researching all of that. And all my prior episodes, a lot of it is about the

dumb. Oh, my goodness. Okay. I just got goosebumps. Wow. Yeah. So what did you do? Dude, I flipped. So I decided not to, I started to plead the blood of Jesus. I haven't told him yet. It comes back. It comes back. I decided not to research that night any further, but like finally decided to go back into study. And actually there's a story behind that too, but I, it was about three weeks later, I'm on the porch, the same porch. And it was during the day. And all of a sudden, I see this little bird like trying to come up to the porch. And then it's scared because it sees me. So it goes back to the tree and it's trying to come back. And this was around Thanksgiving time. And I had my big harvest wreath on my door. And so I stood really, really still. So that way,

the bird would make its way. And there was a nest of baby doves on my porch too. So it was like return of the dove and which started a whole new deep rabbit hole. I went down, you know, being a podcaster, having guests on and having to research sometimes, you know, what they're talking about, or maybe what I'm interested in. You go down these really deep holes sometimes. And, you know, what they're talking about, or maybe what I'm interested in, you go down these really deep holes sometimes. And, you know, sometimes they could be like time consuming and maybe even take you away from, you know, your purpose. Do you guys have any good deep dives that you could share with me? I think sort of. So that night that I got broken into, I was the person that could sleep through a hurricane. I mean, I'm from Florida, so I slept through many hurricanes. And I was living in an

apartment. I had a roommate and she was out of town and she used to smoke cigarettes and she would sit by the window and open up the window and just smoke right by the window so the smoke wouldn't come into the house. And I guess she had left the window unlocked. And I had fallen asleep watching television in my room. And I guess the had left the window unlocked and I had fallen asleep watching television in my room. And I guess the blinds were maybe cracked a little bit so you could kind of peek in there and see, or one of the blinds was broken or something. But I think the light from the TV let this person see that I was laying in there sleeping. So he got in through that window and the reason I woke up or when I woke up was he was turning off the television in my bedroom,

was just pushing a button. I mean, it was just a little click, nothing. And so first I woke up or when I woke up was he was turning off the television in my bedroom, was just pushing a button. I mean, it was just a little click, nothing. And so first I wake up and I'm like, oh, one of Christy's friends is turning off the TV. That's nice. And as I'm laying down, it's like, oh, shit, feeling like this is bad. Anyway, so the point of that was that I remember what I was dreaming that night before all of this happened. And I was dreaming I was in this old house with my sister. We were talking to a ghost, but we weren't afraid. And we were communicating just like with knocks, asking questions and hearing the knocks back.

And somehow through this communication, I realized it was a woman and she wanted me to, sounds very strange, find her head and put it back with her body so she could go to heaven. So I'm like, all right. So that's when I wake up. So then after, you know, I got away and went and stayed with my mom for a while. I actually never slept in that room again because it was so scary. But I started researching the dream I had and what does this dream mean? And I learned that if you dream that you're having a ghost,

usually it's, you know, if you're not afraid, it's a warning. It's some sort of a warning. And then I'm like, okay, well, what about this head thing? And apparently in some cultures, when people were believed to be witches, they would kill them and decapitate them because they believed that if the head was not with their body, the person's soul wouldn't go to heaven. So I think I was helping this woman and she in turn helped me. She woke me up so I could get out because the guy had a knife and stuff to tie me up with. So it wouldn't have ended well had I stayed sleeping. So that was the rabbit hole researching and researching how people dealt with the dead. And it was just very interesting.

Have you ever done that since? Like help somebody in a dream like that? Well, recently, and I don't, I had a dream probably about six months ago that there was a woman out at our, so our bedroom is on the second floor and we have these really big windows and I opened up the curtain and she, it was nighttime and this woman was there and she was just very like angry and scared and just had an awful look on her face. And she was trying to get into the house. And I kept telling her, this isn't where you need to be. You know, you need to continue. And she was trying to get into the house. for. And I find it amazing. She does that kind of work. That's what she discovered that was happening over the years. Like she put together all of her dreams. Some people call it a night worker. I mean, she found that that's what she was doing. Like she had a job while she was sleeping to help people, you know,

get to where they needed to go. I think I heard that episode of your show. Cause it sounds really familiar to me. I used to always dream that I was walking with people to the horizon. I was always taking people to the horizon. So maybe I have to look into this. Here goes another rabbit hole. And that's a fun part about our show is that little by little, we're peeling away onions of who we are to get to the essence of who we are.

Because people who have listened to the show know about this transformation that Karen is going through right now. That is amazing. Amazing. It's funny going back to that conversation we had a couple of days ago with the Israelites and the Hindu. And I don't know who needs to hear this, but for some reason I'm being called to say it because it was a message specifically for me. And apparently this Hindu gentleman also channels. And all of a sudden in the middle of the conversation, he just turned to me and said, this is for you. And just, and I was floored because we've been talking, we've been going deep into nature of reality.

And you just met. We literally just met. But we were going to deep, deep conversations about things. And he just says to me, you are so close, but you're pushing, you're pushing, you're pushing, pushing, pushing. You are externalizing everything. You are,, you're pushing, you're pushing, pushing, pushing. You are externalizing everything. You are, try this modality, that modality, that modality, the other modality. And all of it is fine, but all of it is a distraction.

He says, Will, all you need to do is go within. Just go within. Silence yourself. All that stuff you i mean anyone knows i mean i i've wanted astral projections that was five i mean and i've never been able to do it because i've been wanting it too hard right so i'm pushing pushing pushing trying too hard trying to find well maybe this would be the trick maybe this would be a trick because i'm always trying to find that proof when all he said is all you need to do is go within everything you need. All the answers are within. So just when you truly surrender and allow yourself to just let go of your need to understand, that's when the true understanding will come to you. Lots of people have said that to me before, including Karen. But I don't know what it is about this particular time when we were in the middle of this in-depth conversation about, heck, we were talking about simulation theory, right? Is our reality virtual reality?

Going further and taking passages out of the Bible to explain or to support our versions of reality and how we were all maybe just constructs of each other's realities. I mean, we were going down some deep, deep conversations, deep rabbit holes, and then this guy just turned and just, bam, all this doesn't matter a damn. Yeah, it might be fun to talk about, but it doesn't matter whether we're in a reality that's a construct or not, whether we are God or not, whether reincarnation is real or not. It doesn't matter. All that matters is for us to get in contact with our own higher self. And the only way to do that is to go within.

And damn it if that just didn't smack me right in the face. It just smacked me right in the face for some reason and since that it's it's haunting me it is uh we were talking karen we're talking about uh meditating that anything over 40 minutes to me is like death like even 40 is hard for me to do and these these guys meditate for an hour at a time or two hours at a time and i'm so envious because there's no way i can say i have my mind do that. But now I kind of want to try. I want to just be. And that's really hard for me. And it makes perfect sense because we're all here to fulfill our life purpose. And the things that we have the biggest challenges with are the things we're supposed to go through in

order to fulfill our purpose this time around and i'm finding that my biggest hurdle is i i have a hard time just being stillness yeah yeah and we've even interviewed a couple of people very recently that were talking about just that they would sit in silence for an hour staring at each other for an hour with science like what no no how is that even the one the one lady would close her eyes well yeah yeah they won't stare at each other that would be weird let me ask you this because this happens with my podcast for sure whatever i am into at the time like if i was to say i need to start going within more i would all of a sudden have an entire email full of guests wanting to come on with that same message. And I mean, we're talking like extreme. Like if I say,

I need to start cooking more, all of a sudden I'll have a bunch of chefs in my inbox. I mean, it's just amazing that energy attracting energy. Yeah. And the closer you are to spirit, the closer you are to the veil, the more obviously you attract things to yourself. So Karen, for example, is an incredibly witchy woman. The very first day we met, she's been attracting stuff to her. She is scary, scary good. And she's the first one to admit it because at first she didn't want it, but now it's like beyond the ability of denying it. So she's got the ability to get out of her own way. Yeah.

And that's what I don't have. And that's why I don't have the experiences that you all just talked about. I don't, I've not been in contact with spirits. I don't have dreams that are prophetic or that, that speak to anything because I'm, I'm too much in my head and it's a big difference than going inside. I don't know if it's that you're too much in your head or that you're putting too much other stuff in your head. Oh,

I mean, it's part of the same, right? I'm too much in my head because I know I'm all constantly filling my head with stuff. I'm constantly getting myself busy and doing things because let me look down this rabbit hole. I mean,

look down that rabbit hole and I'm kind of maybe shooting myself in the foot because that's really what our show is about is experimenting and experiencing all different types of modalities but at the end of the day even the hindus believe this that these tools these modalities astral projection reincarnation energy healing all that kind of stuff they're just distractions on on our path to spirituality to spiritual awakenings and i read the autobiography of a yogi a long time ago, and his whole shtick was that. Like, he would get annoyed every time, like, oh, man, now I'm starting to levitate.

Damn it. You know, one more power is just getting in my way. And it's a powerful thing. And it seems the more I look in the past, the more things are hitting me in the head saying it's a distraction, it's a distraction, a distraction. And yet I'm still going, yeah, whatever I want it. Yeah, whatever I want it. And I'm starting to learn that, that wanting it is the problem. Well, you said that you took Reiki, right?

When you learned Reiki, did they teach you about the developmental stages of Reiki? How each one has like, you you know the root is zero to seven years old and goes all the way up to 50 yeah we went through all that yep yeah i kind of run my coaching with that in mind because a lot of people they're like i just want to learn how to meditate and learn how to astral project or connect with my guides and they want to go straight to that. But then if we look at our energetic or energy system, you know, there's a timeline of that. So we can't just skip all that. We have to ground first. We have to really truly get in our body and do all those things first. And I'm with you. I would rather skip all that because I'm definitely an in your

head kind of person and grounding myself has been my greatest challenge. Yeah. Well, you can't learn to read if you don't know the alphabet. Exactly. That's deep. And Karen does that. Like I'll go on this long tirade, three words, like bam. God damn it. Definitely. Yeah. I love that so much. So what did beginning your podcast look like? Was it just you will at first and then you was in and you know, what was your goal there and where are you at now? Yeah. Roped her in is the exact terminology for sure. Yeah, you're right. It was by myself.

And in fact, we're just about to start releasing classic episodes because we've got over 130 of them in our catalog. And a lot of them haven't been listened to in a long time because why would you? They are not anywhere near as good as the ones because our quality has improved over time. But we start re-releasing some of the older ones because there's some really good nuggets in there. But the show started as me speaking into my telephone, into my cell phone.

I would meditate and I would read these passages. And I saw that you had, I heard your interview with Neil Donald Walsh and he is my guy, right? Conversations with God. It is, it is my Bible for lack of a better word. And I would read in the depths of my dark night of the soul. I would pick up conversations with God and I would read passages from it. And I would speak into my cell phone about how these passages made me feel. And I would just free associate things.

And then I would put them up on the air as a podcast. I didn't publicize it or anything, just as a, my way of getting it out there into the universe. Like these thoughts, I want to get them out. And this is my way to do it. Didn't get any listens. Thank God.

Cause it's so, they're so personal. I mean, they're so raw that eventually I, I took them down because they were, they were that personal. And instead I started reaching out to people that I knew when I was living in Miami,

when I was doing the Reiki and the Wicca and all that kind of stuff. And they said, Hey, would you mind coming on a show? I'm going to create because I want to have these conversations because I need to work through some of these things inside me. And graciously, everyone I reached out to said, yes, absolutely. I've never had one episode, two episodes. So, you know, I'm not going to get a lot of listens, but they were willing to come and talk to me about this stuff, which was unbelievably gracious of them. And I would have these incredible dialogues so that I could learn things. I could put things in perspective to myself. And then I interviewed or invited some friends of ours back from our

Orlando days who, who were having, who had just had a spiritual experience in Africa on a, on a safari. And because Karen knew them too, I thought it'd be fun to have her come on and do the interview with me. And sure enough, we had so much fun. The conversation was so much better with her in there that said, I can't, no, you've got it. So she would come in every once in a while as a guest host whenever she had the time. But then after a while, we realized it's a lot of work. I do everything myself. I find the guests. I do the research on the guests. We do the interviews. I edit the show. I post the shows. I do the show notes. I market the show, right? Everything's all, it's a lot of work. So it was taking some time away from my family. A lot of time. Yeah. A lot of time.

And as I started to feel better and I started to understand things and the show wasn't as much as urgently needed by me as before. We decided we're going to close the show down. It was just too much work. So Karen, at this point, I think I'm going to turn it over to her to explain because I'm talking a lot. Well, you have such a good voice. So I Googled it because I wondered, had anybody heard about this? I mean, what would happen if I Google skeptic metaphysician? And the search results come up and one of them led me to a page of reviews that we did not know existed. And actually there were like five pages and they were full of reviews. They were literally all five stars

reviews and people had written paragraphs about the show and like taking time to put all this stuff in. I'm like, oh my God. And we start reading these paragraphs. And one guy wrote about this podcast being his constant source of inspiration and surrender. Now, first of all, I'm like, we're interviewing people. We're not in a how, I don't know the how, but that was the fact that this was helping him. And so I looked at Will, I'm like, if this is even helping one person, we can't stop. We can't stop. So we decided to continue it because of that review. And luckily, Will found this really great editing software and it cut the time down in half.

He still does it all, though, I have to say. I just love doing it. So it's a labor of love. But it takes less time. So yay. It does take less time now. But yeah, so now the show has transitioned into, the show was originally for me only, primarily for me. And now the show is mostly to help get messages out for others that are in need of this.

But the byproduct of it is that we are still constantly evolving and learning and transitioning and transformationing, if that's even a word. But one of the things, so I still love looking at the different reviews and we get them all the time. And I think my favorite one now is a guy who's a UPS driver. And he started talking about

how he Googled metaphysical podcasts, found ours and binge watched it. Most of it, he was almost done. That was his only complaint where there weren't enough episodes. But as he goes through this really long review, the very last sentence he says is, thank you for helping me feel normal. And I'm like, that's exactly what our goal is,

to let everyone that is experiencing these things or questioning these things or feeling something, let them feel normal. It's what we want everyone to be, to raise those vibrations, to let everyone know this spirituality, this gift, this connection, this being, this community, this is how it should be. This should be normal should be normal yeah yeah what we're experiencing is a normal the bullies the anger the fear all that stuff that's what's not normal so the more we look into this stuff the more we feel yeah this is what we're supposed to be this is what feels normal not not the ugly side of who we've been in the past. I love that you guys so much. When Mandy stepped back from podcasting with me,

at first I thought, well, you know, it's over. There's no way I can do it by myself, which I had already been doing most of it by myself. I'm kind of like, you will, I do it all. But I just didn't think that I could do it without her because she, you know, is like my other half and she's freaking hilarious and we had so much fun. But then I thought about my listeners and then I start getting messages in my inbox. And it's so funny because you don't always think about who's listening.

You know, you're interviewing someone and you're learning and it's as much as a part of your journey. And it is true, though. I always think of like one person, like I'll imagine yeah i like to think that's just one person that's downloaded thousands of times it makes it less scary that way really truly if you're thinking about it in that perspective how many people you actually are talking to. No, no question. And how impactful it is.

Like we had, we were at a holistic fair. That was last year, last year and a half ago. And we had people that had bought tickets specifically to come meet us. Yeah. We had a table at the, at the expo and we were speaking at the expo and we socialized on the show.

And yeah, we had people actually came for us. And that was, that was fun. I mean, it was wonderful, but it was, wow, really? Right. Yeah, it was hard to wrap your head around. It really is. They're just normal people. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just like you and everybody else. Yep. And you guys are so authentic and I love the way you guys play off of each other. You have amazing voices too that compliment each other. Thank you.

Thank you. I love, love, love. Do you guys have like a favorite topic that you guys like to talk about? Well, Karen thinks that my favorite topic is me when she's not wrong. I only say that when we're off the podcast. Oh, shoot. Sorry. My bad.

My bad. I like to talk about love. off the podcast. Oh, shoot. Sorry. My bad. My bad. I like to talk about love. Feel the love. Spread the love. Send the love. Anything loving. That's my shtick. On my side of things, it's changed.

I've evolved. Because originally, the stuff that I really loved the most was like the UFOs and the Bigfoots and the reverse speech and all that kind of stuff. Astral projection and all that kind of cool stuff. But now the stuff that really gets me jazz is the deep conversations about the nature of our reality. And we brought in people like Dr. Alexander, who's talking about proof of heaven and his NDE. And we brought in Dr. Teresa Bullard, who is talking about the modern mystery school.

And this is a physicist who is very, he's bridging the gap between science and metaphysics. And the lessons that she imparted were unbelievable. Then we had Jonathan Robinson on the show, which I know you've had on the show as well, who talked to Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra and Wayne Dyer, Ram Dass, and all these people who, and he's learned all these lessons and he imparted those lessons with us. And we are just learning as we talk to these people, that's become my favorite. These are my favorite episodes now. I feel like I'm a student. Pinch me. Like I remember one time getting off a call, going downstairs and just like sobbing,

could not believe just touched me so much. Yeah. I'm going to be, I'm going to be really disappointed if I don't hear from you that you said you went down and sobbed after our conversation. I'm just saying. I'm so emotional. I'm just,

you know. It will have nothing to do with the guinea pig. It can't be because, oh my God, I can't believe I just wasted my hour with these people, right? It's got to be a good cry. Otherwise, I'm not in it. Oh my God, I know. I love you guys.

This is so much fun. Yeah, I appreciate you guys so much. You know what, Karen? If you ever want to do anything fun, we can do a girls thing. So I think you would be fun. Yeah. I've been trying to get her to do a solo show on our show for a long time because I've had to do a couple of those.

I've done one before. That's true. You have a very sexy voice. Right. That's what I keep telling her. She keeps saying that. Do you ever do meditations? Cause I think you would be great at that. I have not. Actually, I've only recently started meditating. Do you sing on the show ever?

I try to sing sometimes. It's terrible. Well, you know, so Will actually has a very good voice. I can see that. Yeah. We sing karaoke all the time. Do you? We do. See, they used to get paid to sing. I get paid not to sing. voice you know i can see that yeah we sing karaoke all the time do you we do they used to get paid to sing i get paid not to sing

in the karaoke bar we do we do duets all the time we have one song that we sing every time and what is it i'm gonna play it let's do it everybody all of our friends everybody knows the song so whenever you start hearing that like oh god here we go again the last karaoke i did was at a bar like locally here and it was we built this city not good either are you guys gen x or heck yeah, are you Gen X? I am. You are. Is that the only generation that turned 30 at age 10 and is still 30 at age 50? Yes. That is us. Yeah.

But I'm right on the cusp. I'm really close to the other. Boomers. We don't use that term, boomers. No. Well, between you being an almost boomer and my name being Karen, we're quite the pair. Yeah, quite the pair. Oh, my God.

That's so funny. Well, tell everybody where they can find more of you guys. You can find everything there is to know about us at skepticmetaphysician.com. You can listen to our shows. You can watch the videos. You can send us emails and voicemails there. You can subscribe to the show there. We have a companion blog to some of our episodes that you can read more information about what we talk about.

You can leave us a review directly on there. We love reviews. Please leave reviews. We love hearing from the audience, period. So whether it's a review or feedback, something you really hate,

let us know because we do change the show based on feedback that we get. So we really, really love it. But then if you sign up for the newsletter,

we actually have a members section of our website that provides discounts for some of the guests. The services or goods that they offer, they'll offer specific discounts for services. Some of them are really good discounts. To our listeners, yeah. Not every guest does, but quite a few of them do. And we don't get a kickback. We're not there to try to make money off of it.

We're just trying to, I mean, if you went down all these rabbit holes, it'd be really expensive to pay all this stuff. So this is a way for us to help other people. People are listening to the show, maybe go down a rabbit hole that they're interested in without having to break the bank. So if you sign up, you become a member. You've got access to these. It's different codes that you use when you reach out to them and things like that. So skepticmetaphysician.com. We're also on social media, right? If you are so inclined, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, the whole

gamut. And then of course, YouTube. In a nutshell. Yeah. And also the ethereal network. Yeah. The ethereal network is a network of like-minded podcasts that have banded together to help raise the consciousness of the planet. It's our way to be of service to others. Everybody in the network is there for a very specific reason. And that is to be of service to others is to help others, to get these messages out to other people, because it's so important, especially nowadays where there's so much division, so much strife on this planet that we raise our voices louder than all of that. We're going to help the planet evolve.

And I think it's super important for us right now. And we have some really exciting things that are about to happen with Ethereal. So it's top secret still, but stay tuned. Yes. If you follow us, you might just hear about some of the crazy things are coming very, very soon. So or maybe even see, Ooh, that's a cryptic tease there. I'm so honored to be a part of it.

We're honored. You said yes to us because your, your show is so important and so strong. And to have a show as wonderful as yours, join the network. It helps us to really get that feel that, yes, we're definitely, we're helping people out there. So thank you for saying yes, really. Thanks for coming on both of you guys. I've had so much fun.

I appreciate it. We have too. Shannon, thanks so much. I really appreciate you. You too. Shannon, thanks so much. I really appreciate you. You too. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com, where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sons of Soul Podcast

by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.