Speaker 1: Either as well. A little while ago, we asked all
Speaker 1: of you to please send us some of your stories,
Speaker 1: whether it's spiritual awakenings or experiences that you had, and
Speaker 1: we got one that I love and I have to
Speaker 1: share with you. So this is what this episode's all about.
Speaker 1: So sit back, listen into what Chad experienced, and you
Speaker 1: might find yourself going, oh, here we go. Chad writes this,
Speaker 1: When I was a child, I had it in my
Speaker 1: head that I was supposed to have superpowers, Not in
Speaker 1: the way most kids dream about it, but with a deep,
Speaker 1: inexplicable certainty, almost as if I had possessed them before
Speaker 1: and was trying to understand where they'd gone. I was
Speaker 1: convinced I could move things with my mind and communicate
Speaker 1: through telepathy. Society eventually taught me that it was impossible,
Speaker 1: but as life would reveal, the impossible is never impossible.
Speaker 1: Profound stories. Mine begins with a challenging childhood. I was
Speaker 1: a hyperactive kid who struggled with authority. Blessed with a
Speaker 1: mother who, despite her rheumatoid arthritis, embodied kindness and gentleness
Speaker 1: and was a terrific mother. Her boyfriends, however, brought darkness
Speaker 1: into my life, especially after one leveled up and claimed
Speaker 1: the title of stepfather. The mental and physical abuse became
Speaker 1: my unwonted companions, compounded by a traumatic incident with an
Speaker 1: uncle in law that I dare not mention in order
Speaker 1: to not trigger any of your listeners. Living in constant
Speaker 1: fear shapes child in ways that echo through decades. Another uncle,
Speaker 1: one that I respected and loved, unknowingly setting to stage
Speaker 1: for my future, told me at age seven that I'd
Speaker 1: be the first in the family to go to prison.
Speaker 1: Those words would follow me throughout my life, though not
Speaker 1: in the way I imagined. Seeking escape, I found solace
Speaker 1: and alcohol at a young age, trying to stay anywhere
Speaker 1: but home. At sixteen, I found refuge with my best
Speaker 1: friend and his mother. School became an afterthought, and while
Speaker 1: I started running with the wrong crowd, some inexplicable force
Speaker 1: kept me just shy of serious trouble. Unlike many my companions,
Speaker 1: even in those dark times, I maintained this peculiar ability
Speaker 1: to radiate joy and help others. People did often take
Speaker 1: advantage of that giving nature, but the act of helping
Speaker 1: still filled me with purpose. Nonetheless, with alcoholism running through
Speaker 1: my family tree like sap the progression into addiction felt
Speaker 1: almost predetermined. By twenty two, I had transplanted myself far
Speaker 1: away from Michigan, where my past was painted onto every interaction.
Speaker 1: I had to a sunny Florida, where the traumatized seemed
Speaker 1: to shine bright here, as shown an every news headline.
Speaker 1: Here I became a bartender and predictable, a full fledged alcoholic.
Speaker 1: I was lean, then, confident in my appearance in life
Speaker 1: had a way of presenting opportunities, like my first Florida love,
Speaker 1: who convinced me to give education another shot and believed
Speaker 1: that I could do more. Armed with my ged I
Speaker 1: entered art school, beginning an intense four year juggling act
Speaker 1: of bartending, drinking, and education. Unlike my high school days
Speaker 1: of skipping classes, yet somehow still easing the tests, I
Speaker 1: approached college with genuine dedication. That drive led to graduation
Speaker 1: in three and a half years with a nearly perfect
Speaker 1: four point zero, only slightly marred by life's inevitable curve balls.
Speaker 1: My uncle's dismissive prediction kept fueling me. I developed this
Speaker 1: beautiful obsession with proving people wrong about my potential. The
Speaker 1: corporate world of my early thirties brought success tinged with irony.
Speaker 1: While I consistently delivered exceptional work as a graphic in
Speaker 1: motion designer, always the go to person for premium clients,
Speaker 1: my body was silently rebelling. In just three years, drinking
Speaker 1: helped me gain over two hundred pounds. My frame, unaccustomed
Speaker 1: to such weight, felt like a foreign entity. Confidence crumbled,
Speaker 1: self loathing grew, and thoughts turned dark. Little did I
Speaker 1: know this suffering was merely the prelude to a deeper transformation,
Speaker 1: albeit one that would push me to death door, only
Speaker 1: to knock and run away. The journey point came around
Speaker 1: Saint Patrick's day, shared with a friend who was fighting
Speaker 1: similar battles of weight gain from too much consumption of
Speaker 1: the Irish syrup. After one final celebration, I embraced sobriety
Speaker 1: in a modified Kido diet, no sugar, under thirty five
Speaker 1: grams of carbs daily. Fifteen months later, I'd shed two
Speaker 1: hundred pounds through sheer determination. But as my physical burden lifted,
Speaker 1: the emotional weight I'd been drinking to suppress came rushing
Speaker 1: back with a vengeance. My brain, I discovered, had been
Speaker 1: locked in fight or flight mode for decades. The constant anxiety,
Speaker 1: the hypervigilance, always scanning for exits. These weren't just quirks.
Speaker 1: They were survival mechanisms I no longer needed, sobriety meant
Speaker 1: facing these truths head on. But I was still trying
Speaker 1: to ignore my brain's desperate warnings. Do you know what
Speaker 1: happens when you ignore your brain like that? It painfully
Speaker 1: reminds you? Boy? Don't I know that? Chad? Well? The
Speaker 1: pain began as a subtle baseline in my lower back
Speaker 1: before orchestrating a masterpiece of agony throughout my entire body. Chad,
Speaker 1: you are quite the writer. Everything below my chin became
Speaker 1: a battlefield of sensation, from my fingertips to my toes,
Speaker 1: each nerve ending singing its own song of suffering. Arms
Speaker 1: and legs felt as though invisible hands were constantly wringing
Speaker 1: them like wet towels, twisting and opposing directions with relentless force.
Speaker 1: My back, well, that became a special canvas of torment,
Speaker 1: as if dozens of ice picks had taken up permanent residence,
Speaker 1: each one driving deeper with every breath, my heart beat,
Speaker 1: setting the rhythm of my own fading soundtrack. To call
Speaker 1: it extreme, agony would be like calling a hurricane a
Speaker 1: light breeze. The timing of it all seemed especially cruel.
Speaker 1: I just met the love of my life. It was
Speaker 1: building a future filled with promise, where my brain remained
Speaker 1: steadfast in its conviction that danger lurked around every corner
Speaker 1: for that first year that the silent track was stuck
Speaker 1: on repeat, pulling me under His doctors were left scratching
Speaker 1: their heads. Every scan came back clean, every blood test normal,
Speaker 1: a picture of perfect health on paper, while I was
Speaker 1: drowning in a sea of pain. The eventual fibromyalgia diagnosis
Speaker 1: arrived like both a revelation and a sentence. I remember
Speaker 1: thinking rather naively that it couldn't possibly get worse. When
Speaker 1: every inch of your body is already screaming in pain,
Speaker 1: you assume there's nothing left to hurt, no new territory
Speaker 1: for pain to conquer. But I should have known better
Speaker 1: than to underestimate my brain's creative potential. After all, I'd
Speaker 1: built my career on thinking outside the box. Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: my brain be equally innovative in finding new ways to
Speaker 1: command my attention? Have you ever experienced shingles? Imagine that
Speaker 1: heightened skin sensitivity where even a gentle touch feels like assault,
Speaker 1: then expand that sensation across your entire body. My brain,
Speaker 1: in its desperate attempt to be heard, had turned my
Speaker 1: skin into an instrument of torture. My wife's touch wants
Speaker 1: a source of felt like burning matches against my skin,
Speaker 1: turning the thing I desire most to ease my suffering
Speaker 1: into a weapon against me that would break anyone. And
Speaker 1: it did, just not in the way you might expect.
Speaker 1: Instead of surrendering, I found resolve. Having survived so much already,
Speaker 1: I wasn't about to let this be my undoing. I'd
Speaker 1: ended up going to the prestigious Mayo Clinic, but the
Speaker 1: words didn't change, hearing once again that my condition was incurable.
Speaker 1: They did, however, offer behavioral therapy, claiming up to a
Speaker 1: sixty percent pain reduction after four intensive weeks, eight hours
Speaker 1: a day. But as a business owner, I couldn't simply
Speaker 1: disappear for four weeks. That kind of absence would be
Speaker 1: in watching my client base evaporate. Without clients, there'd be
Speaker 1: no business to return to, no income to sustain me
Speaker 1: outside of that, and more importantly, as someone who'd made
Speaker 1: a habit of achieving the impossible. I wasn't just interested
Speaker 1: in managing the pain. I wanted it gone. And if
Speaker 1: that wasn't enough, Life and its hilarious sense of humor
Speaker 1: gave me an addictive personality that had let me down
Speaker 1: the path of pain medication dependency. But even in that darkness,
Speaker 1: there was no way that was going down that path.
Speaker 1: A had nap with how far I had come. Something
Speaker 1: deep within me rejected the incurable labor, and I refused
Speaker 1: to accept this as my new normal. Determined once again,
Speaker 1: I set out to prove them all wrong. After exhausting
Speaker 1: countless conventional approaches in some non conventional ones, I just
Speaker 1: gave up and did something so radical and so crazy
Speaker 1: that I never thought I'd ever be able to do.
Speaker 1: I stopped everything and simply just shut the f up
Speaker 1: and listened. For once. I sat in silence, closed my eyes,
Speaker 1: and gave my brain the attention it had been screaming
Speaker 1: for my entire life. I connected with every part of
Speaker 1: my body, acknowledging our shared trauma while affirming our safety,
Speaker 1: our worthiness of love, our right to peace. Nearly three
Speaker 1: decades of fight or flight conditioning doesn't dissolve overnight, but
Speaker 1: through persistent meditation, mindfulness, and self love. Something miraculous happened.
Speaker 1: The pain stopped within three months. It was just gone.
Speaker 1: I had achieved the impossible, curing my incurable condition. I
Speaker 1: knew getting off pain medicine was going to be hard,
Speaker 1: but I kept telling myself that if I didn't stop
Speaker 1: taking them, my brain would give me a physical reason
Speaker 1: to have to take them. I wasn't about to let
Speaker 1: that happen. So that day, the same day that I
Speaker 1: noticed that the pain was gone, I quit taking the
Speaker 1: pain medication. Well, this might be where you'd think my
Speaker 1: story ends, but it isn't. This is where my story begins.
Speaker 1: Fascination with the mind's potential consumed me. Meditation and paying
Speaker 1: attention to my thoughts had me experiencing precognitive glimpses to
Speaker 1: simple things like knowing who would appear at my door
Speaker 1: even if I didn't know them. This led me to
Speaker 1: a profound realization. See my lifelong ability to instantly read
Speaker 1: people's intentions, detect deception, and know the type of person
Speaker 1: they were wasn't universal. I thought everyone had this ability.
Speaker 1: Discovering I was a psychic EmPATH opened a door I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but walk through easily opening other abilities. Childhood,
Speaker 1: me knew something that I didn't. I did have a superpower.
Speaker 1: My quest for understanding led me down countless fascinating paths,
Speaker 1: delving into ancient knowledge, quantum physics and mechanics, alchemy, evolution, archaeology,
Speaker 1: and the subtle energies that connect all things. I explored
Speaker 1: every religion, studied, ancient alien theories, metaphysics, and anything esoteric
Speaker 1: I could find. This wasn't just casual curiosity. It was
Speaker 1: an insatiable hunger to understand the deeper mysteries of existence.
Speaker 1: I became a certified past life aggression and hypnotherapist using
Speaker 1: the QHHT method, and began taking psychic meadership classes at
Speaker 1: a local spirit shop. Beyond my empathic abilities, I discovered
Speaker 1: I was clar cognizant, possessing a profound knowing that transcends
Speaker 1: ordinary intuition. During medium readings, when I connect with someone
Speaker 1: to understand their essence, their journey, their struggles and triumphs,
Speaker 1: their insights flow with remarkable accuracy. It's not just intuition
Speaker 1: nor educated guessing. It's as if the information simply appears
Speaker 1: in my consciousness, fully formed and precisely detailed. Learning to
Speaker 1: trust this gift, to embrace it with confidence despite its
Speaker 1: unconventional nature, has been one of my greatest challenges. When
Speaker 1: it's just there and there's no woo woo in sparkles,
Speaker 1: I find it difficult to go with it. That is
Speaker 1: where my journey is currently, and the pages for tomorrow
Speaker 1: are still yet to be written, and for once, I
Speaker 1: am truly excited to find out. The Skeptic Meta Physicians
Speaker 1: podcast has taught me some new techniques and insights that
Speaker 1: have helped build my confidence in my gifts. After finding
Speaker 1: particular resonance with one of the episodes, I left a
Speaker 1: comment sharing how it had inspired me with confidence to
Speaker 1: give my first to ROW reading. The opportunity came with
Speaker 1: my wife's friend, someone naturally skeptical, agreed to be my
Speaker 1: first subject. As I conducted the reading, she just sat there,
Speaker 1: nodding and smiling, a response that would typically make me
Speaker 1: second guess myself, Yet I remained grounded in my confidence.
Speaker 1: What I thought was reserved skepticism melted away when she exclaimed, Wow,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what I needed and was really accurate
Speaker 1: for what I'm doing and trying to do in my life.
Speaker 1: That moment of validation, especially coming from someone who approached
Speaker 1: the experience with healthy skepticism, reinforced that my gifts were
Speaker 1: real and meant to be shared. You all helped me
Speaker 1: with that confidence with your recent to Row episode with
Speaker 1: the founder of Biddy to Row. If I could give
Speaker 1: one message to all that are listening, it would be this,
Speaker 1: It's not the struggles and dark times we go through
Speaker 1: that define us. It's how we react to them and
Speaker 1: what we do afterwards that make us who we are.
Speaker 1: Believe it and it shall be. And lastly, weird, well,
Speaker 1: that's the new normal. This is a true story and
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed
Speaker 1: writing it. Chad, I love your story. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for sharing it with us. You don't seem very
Speaker 1: very different than me in a lot of ways. I
Speaker 1: actually am also clear, cognizant, and yet have a very
Speaker 1: difficult time embracing it. You're right, there's no will with
Speaker 1: just kind of just there. And I've actually said to
Speaker 1: Karen a couple of times, I'm getting this like this,
Speaker 1: but I'm not. I don't know if it's real or
Speaker 1: if I'm just making it up. And almost every time
Speaker 1: when we go to verify the facts, they have seemed
Speaker 1: to have come to be true. So keep at it,
Speaker 1: don't lose hope, don't feel like you're making it up.
Speaker 1: The more you use it, the more confident you'll become,
Speaker 1: the better you'll be at it, the more you'll be
Speaker 1: able to help others with this gift that you have, yes,
Speaker 1: your own superpower. All right, chat, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sending us over. This was a wonderful read. And
Speaker 1: if you out there are listening and you have a
Speaker 1: similar story or another story that you feel the audience
Speaker 1: would really benefit from listening, to send it to us.
Speaker 1: Send us an email Skeptic Metaphysician at g dot com.
Speaker 1: You could always reach me at will at Skeptic Metaphysician
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can always reach out to us
Speaker 1: to our contact us page on our website. However, Chad
Speaker 1: alerted us to the fact that you can only send
Speaker 1: so many characters, so if your story takes longer to
Speaker 1: write than what is available on that contact us form,
Speaker 1: email is definitely the way to go, just like Chad did.
Speaker 1: All Right, this was fun. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, Chad. That's all for this episode of The
Speaker 1: Skeptic Metaphysicians. Until next time, I'm will and we'll see
Speaker 1: as soon