Be Your Own Fucking Guru
Beneath the Noise
If you've been feeling stuck and turning the same questions over for longer than you'd like to admit, this is where to start.
You can also have them delivered one a day, with a question to answer after each one.
There's also a free live session on Zoom once a month, for people circling a career decision, at ryanpaulmcguigan.com/circling
If you've spent a significant amount of time turning the same questions over and arriving back where you started, you'll know the frustration and exhaustion of feeling stuck. Most people in that place have already tried to figure it out. The books, the therapy, the coaching. A lot of it helped, up to a point. But something underneath hasn't shifted.
Beneath the Noise is a twelve-episode series for anyone who wants to stop overthinking, feel like themselves again, and get clear on what they actually want and what's important to them. It moves through how this happens and why the thinking alone never resolves it. At a certain point in the series you won't just be listening. You'll be participating. There's a guided practice built in, and it's designed to give you a direct experience of what clarity actually feels like when you stop trying to think your way there.
If any part of that sounds like your life, episode one is there.
Beneath the Noise — Episodes
10 mins
Episode 1: The Answers Aren't Out There
You've been turning the same questions over for a long time. What you actually want. Whether the job still fits. Whether you're on the right path at all.
9 mins
Episode 2: How You Lost Touch With Yourself
You're measuring yourself against a standard you never consciously chose, and you're not sure who you are anymore beyond the roles you fill.
11 mins
Episode 3: What Gets Worn Down When You're Not Looking
The voice telling you you're not quite ready, that you'll probably get it wrong, that other people seem to manage this better than you do.
11 mins
Episode 4: Why Everything Looks Fine But Doesn't Feel Right
You're turning up out of obligation and wishing the days away, and you've been doing it long enough to know it isn't a phase.
11 mins
Episode 5: When Everything Broke
There's a thought you've never said out loud to anyone. For most people carrying this it's some version of having failed at something everyone else appears to have managed.
10 mins
Episode 6: I've Done the Work. Why Am I Still Stuck?
You've done the work. The journalling, the reading, maybe the therapy. Every one of them helped, and none of them moved the thing that actually needed to move.
17 mins
Episode 7: The Discovery and the Shift
You've stopped expecting anything new to make much difference. You've got your own number by now.
14 mins
Episode 8: The Choices You Don't Realise You're Making
You're waiting for the right moment. Better finances, the children a bit older, some external thing to shift before you give yourself permission to start moving.
20 mins
Episode 9: The Practice
The guided practice. You bring one question you've been circling, and you set aside thirty minutes somewhere quiet.
14 mins
Episode 10: What Becomes Possible When You Come Back
Two people who had already tried everything they could think of, and neither of them got what they came for. They got something better.
16 mins
Episode 11: This Is What It's For
The access is always there. What happens when the noise gets loud enough to cover it, and what life looks like once it doesn't.
6 mins
Episode 12: If You've Heard Yourself in This
You're sitting with some version of this sounds right, and I don't know whether it's for me. This is where you find out.
The full series is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Start with Episode 1.
Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts Watch on YouTubeYou can also have them delivered one a day, with a question to answer after each one.
A live guided session
Episode nine is a recorded practice you can do whenever suits you. Once a month I also guide a live session on Zoom, free, for people circling a career decision. No recording and no replay.
Next date and registration at ryanpaulmcguigan.com/circling
As Heard On
Midlife Men with Philip Briscoe
A conversation about what happens when the life you've built on the outside stops matching what's happening on the inside, and the unexpected thing that helped shift it.
Career Change Diaries with Alice Stapleton
A conversation about hitting a breaking point after fifteen years in a career that was wearing my body down, and the unexpected path that led from there to building something entirely new.
My name is Ryan Paul McGuigan.
I spent years knowing something was wrong but managing it instead of resolving it, because everything looked fine from the outside. I was going through the motions and wishing my life away until things broke more acutely. I came out the other side not by thinking my way through it, but by learning to listen at a level the analytical mind can't reach on its own. That's what this series is about.