Chasing Happiness Podcast, Phoenix, AZ (2026)

05/17/2026

You cannot just show up and take up space. You have to bring something to the room. 🔥
I have been thinking a lot about what it actually takes to build the kind of community and tribe I keep talking about on this channel. 🌪️
And I keep coming back to three things that I have to get right on MY end before I can expect anything from anyone else. 👇
Because here is the truth that most people skip over when they are searching for community...
You cannot just show up and consume. You have to contribute. 💪
1. Have faith that the right people are out there. Stop approaching every new relationship with anxiety and walls and worst case scenarios. Trust that God is already working to connect you with exactly who you need. The right tribe does not happen by accident. It happens by faith. 🙏
2. Be still long enough to actually connect. Stop performing. Stop scanning the room for what you can get out of it. Quiet the noise in your head long enough to be genuinely present with another human being. Real connection cannot happen when your anxiety is louder than the conversation. 😔
3. Be of service. Bring value. Show up for others first. This is the one that changes everything. The people who find their tribe fastest are not the ones looking for what community can do for them. They are the ones walking in asking what they can do for the community. ✝️
You cannot come into a room and just suck up the energy. You have to be a contributor. A listener. A person who makes others feel seen and valued before you ever ask to be seen and valued yourself. ☀️
That is not just community wisdom. That is the way Jesus lived every single day He walked this earth. 🔥
👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 Which one of these three is the hardest for you right now? Drop a 1 for faith, 2 for being still or 3 for being of service in the comments. Let us see where this community is at and let us rally around each other in the struggle. 🙏
💾 SAVE this before your next social event, small group or networking opportunity. Come back and read it. Walk in ready to contribute not just to consume.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We show up for each other first. We bring value. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/16/2026

"Be still." Okay. But what does that actually mean? Because I genuinely do not know. 😔
I hear it all the time.
In church. In devotionals. In the comments of faith based posts all over social media.
Be still and know that He is God. 🙏
And every single time I hear it I nod my head like I know exactly what that means.
But if I am being completely honest with you today? I am still trying to figure it out. 🌪️
Does it mean sit in complete silence and wait for God to speak? Does it mean stop moving and stop strategizing? Does it mean stop worrying even when the storm is loud and the bills are real and the anxiety does not care that you told it to be still? 😔
I am analytical by nature. My brain does not do still very easily. It goes and goes and goes and looks for answers and builds spreadsheets and tries to solve the unsolvable. 💪
And maybe that is exactly why this particular instruction from God feels so foreign to me.
But here is what I know even in the middle of not fully understanding it 👇
1. Being still is not passive. It is one of the most active and disciplined choices a person can make when everything in them is wired to move and fix and control. ✝️
2. Being still is not the absence of the storm. It is the decision to stop fighting the storm long enough to hear the voice of the One who controls it. 🔥
3. Being still is a practice not a personality trait. If it does not come naturally to you that does not mean you are doing faith wrong. It means you are human. And you are honest about it. Which is exactly where God can actually meet you. ☀️
I am still learning what this looks like for me. And I am done pretending I have it figured out. 💛
👇 Here is your question today:
💬 What does "be still" actually mean to YOU in practice? How do you actually do it? Drop your answer in the comments. I am genuinely asking because this community always has wisdom that I do not. Someone reading this needs your answer today. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the moment your analytical brain will not stop running and you cannot figure out how to just be still. Come back. Read the comments. Let the community speak into it with you.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We ask the real questions here. We figure it out TOGETHER. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/15/2026

Here is the fully structured Reel description ready for posting:

Why is trusting God so much harder than it sounds? I genuinely do not have the answer. Do you? 😔

I am going to do something today that I do not do enough.
I am going to ask YOU for help. 👇

Because here is where I am at right now and I am not going to dress it up 🌪️
There is still a part of my mindset that is wired to fix everything. Every problem. Every storm. Every broken thing in front of me. My brain goes straight to solution mode even when the problem is completely outside my control.
And here is what that costs me every single day 👇
1. It is exhausting. Fighting to control things that were never yours to control in the first place drains you in a way that sleep cannot fix. 😔
2. It mentally wears me out. The constant weight of feeling responsible for outcomes that only God can actually determine is one of the heaviest things a human being can carry. 🌪️
3. I still do not fully know why I cannot just trust and have faith. And that is the most honest thing I have said out loud in a long time. I KNOW God can fix what I cannot. I KNOW faith is the answer. And yet here I am. Still trying to fix it myself. Still fighting the process. Every single day. 🙏
Maybe you have walked through this and found your way to the other side of it.
Maybe you have figured out something about trust and surrender that I have not cracked yet.
Maybe God has shown you something in your storm that would help someone else in theirs. ✝️
👇 Here is your moment today and I am genuinely asking:
💬 HOW do you actually get to a place of trusting God completely when your mind keeps fighting the process? Drop your answer in the comments. For real. I am reading every single one. This community might have exactly what someone else needs to hear today including me. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the moment you catch yourself trying to fix something that is not yours to fix. Come back. Read the comments. Let this community speak into your storm today.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We do not have all the answers. But we find them TOGETHER. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/14/2026

I have not fully surrendered yet. And I am saying that out loud on purpose. 😔
Because I think there are a lot of us walking around calling ourselves people of faith while still gripping the steering wheel of our own lives with both hands and white knuckles. 🌪️
And nobody is talking about that gap.
The gap between knowing you need to surrender and actually doing it. 💪
If you are sitting there right now trying to figure out your purpose. Trying to see the bigger picture. Trying to understand why the storm is not lifting and where God is taking you next...
I am right there with you. Today. Not three years ago. RIGHT NOW. ✝️
And here is the most honest thing I can tell you 👇
You cannot think your way to surrender. You have to release your way there.
And releasing is not a one time event. It is a daily. Sometimes hourly. Decision to take your hands off the thing you were never meant to be holding in the first place. 🙏
Here is where I am in my own journey right now 👇
1. I KNOW where it needs to go. Everything. The purpose questions. The bigger picture. The financial storm. The daily anxiety. All of it belongs in God's hands. I know that in my head. 🔥
2. I am still working out how to get it there completely. Knowing and doing are two completely different things. And the distance between them is where most of us are living right now. 😔
3. I am on the journey of finding out what complete surrender actually looks like for me. Not what it looks like in a sermon. Not what it looks like on someone else's highlight reel. What it looks like for Ryan. In this storm. In this season. Right now. ☀️
Full surrender is not a destination you arrive at once. It is a direction you choose every single morning when your feet hit the floor. ✝️
👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 Are you in the gap right now between KNOWING you need to surrender and actually DOING it? Drop a YES in the comments if you are there. No shame. No judgment. Just honesty. Because this might be the most common place every person of faith actually lives and nobody talks about it enough. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the morning you wake up gripping everything again. Come back. Read it. Choose the direction of surrender one more time. That is all it takes today.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We are honest about the gap. We choose surrender together. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/13/2026

What would it feel like to have absolutely zero anxiety because you just completely let go and let God? 😔
I am asking that question today because honestly I cannot fully picture it yet.
A guy I am becoming friends with told me about his wife. And the way he described her faith stopped me cold. 🌪️
Unrelenting faith. No anxiety. Just a complete and total surrender to God directing her path. No white knuckling. No trying to figure it all out. No 3am ceiling stares wondering what the plan is.
Just... let go. And let God. 🙏
And my first honest reaction was not inspiration.
It was conviction. 😔
Because I am still over here asking the question I cannot seem to stop asking 👇
God. What is the plan for me? What is the bigger picture? Why can I not see it yet?
And maybe that is exactly the problem.
Maybe the relentless need to SEE the plan is the very thing standing between me and the peace that comes from trusting the One who holds it. ✝️
Because here is what I am learning through watching someone else's faith from the outside 👇
1. Unrelenting faith is not the absence of questions. It is the decision to trust God WITH the questions instead of demanding answers before you move. 💪
2. Anxiety and surrender cannot fully occupy the same space. The more you release control the less room anxiety has to live. That is not a feeling. That is a practice. 🔥
3. Letting God direct you requires actually getting out of the driver seat. Not just saying it. Not just praying it. Actually moving over and trusting that He knows the road better than you do. ☀️
I am not there yet. But I am closer than I was yesterday. And that woman's faith is part of why. 🙏
👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 Have you ever witnessed someone else's faith and it convicted you about your own? Drop a YES in the comments if that has ever happened to you. And tell us in one sentence what you saw in them that made you want MORE of that in your own life. 🔥
💾 SAVE this for the moment you are gripping the steering wheel of your life so tightly that your hands are shaking. Come back and read it. Move over. Let God drive.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We are all learning to let go. We are all works in progress. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/12/2026

I am not 100% there yet. And I am done pretending otherwise. 😔
It is constantly on my mind.
That feeling that everyone else is moving forward while you are still standing in the same storm you were in six months ago. That quiet voice that whispers you are being left behind. That exhaustion that comes not just from the storm itself but from carrying it in your head every single waking moment. 🌪️
I know that feeling. I am IN that feeling right now.
But here is what I am also learning in the middle of it that I did not expect 👇
1. I am more resilient than I ever knew I was. You do not discover what you are made of on easy street. You discover it in the grind. In the pain. In the moments you thought would break you that somehow did not. 💪
2. I can bounce back. Not instantly. Not without struggle. But I get back up. Every single time. And every time I get back up it gets a little less impossible than the time before. 🔥
3. I am learning to lean on faith in a way I never have before. Not the comfortable Sunday morning kind of faith. The desperate 3am kind. The kind that only gets built when you have absolutely nothing else left to hold onto. 🙏
The pain is teaching me things about myself that nothing else ever could. And that does not make it easier. But it makes it meaningful. ✝️
I am not 100% there yet.
But I am not who I was when this storm started either. And that is everything. ☀️
👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 What is ONE thing your storm has taught you about yourself that you never knew before? Drop it in the comments. Your answer is someone else's hope today. This community needs to hear what the pain is building in you. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the moment you feel like you are being left behind and nothing is changing. Come back and read it. You are not the same person you were. The storm is building something in you whether you can see it yet or not.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We are all works in progress. We bounce back TOGETHER. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/11/2026

Raw and unfiltered today. No polish. No highlights reel. Just the truth. 😔
Right now there is not much relief.
I am going to say that again because I need you to really hear it.
RIGHT NOW. TODAY. There is not much relief. 🌪️
And I do not know if I have fully surrendered everything to God yet because if I had I think He would have moved things further along by now. That is just me being completely honest with you and with myself out loud. ✝️
But here is the thing I am holding onto today and I need you to hold onto it with me 👇
There are MOMENTS of peace. 🙏
Not constant peace. Not the kind of peace that stays all day and makes everything feel manageable. Moments. Brief windows where the anxiety lifts and something quiet and steady shows up for just long enough to remind me that God is still in this.
And then I fall out of it. And the anxiety comes back. And I have to find my way back to that place again. 😔
You know what that is called? 🔥
PROGRESS.
Not perfection. Not arrival. Not a testimony with a clean ending. Just a person who used to be anxious 24 hours a day 7 days a week learning to find moments of peace in the middle of a storm that has not passed yet. 💪
That is progress. And progress is enough. ✝️
If you are in the same place today I need you to hear this 👇
Your moments of peace are not accidents. They are evidence. Evidence that God is working even when the relief has not fully come yet. Evidence that you are further along than you were. Evidence that the storm does not have the final word. ☀️
👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 Are you currently in a season where you are holding onto MOMENTS of peace rather than consistent peace? Drop a YES in the comments if you are there right now. Let this community see you. You are not failing. You are progressing. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the moment you feel like nothing is changing and you are right back where you started. Come back and read it. The moments of peace ARE the progress. Do not dismiss them.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We are honest about where we are. We celebrate the moments. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/10/2026

I stopped asking WHY and started asking WHAT. And everything shifted. 🔥
If you are in a storm right now I already know the question that is running on a loop in your head. 😔
Why is this happening to me?
Why is God allowing this?
Why won't it just end?
I asked that question every single day for longer than I want to admit. And I am going to be completely honest with you right now...
I am anxious on a daily basis. That is the truth. No performance. No polished faith testimony. Just a real human being telling you that peace in the middle of a storm is one of the hardest things I have ever tried to hold onto. 🌪️
But here is the shift that changed everything for me 👇
WHY keeps you stuck. WHAT moves you forward.
Why is a question with no clean answer. It circles back on itself. It feeds the anxiety. It keeps you in the same spot staring at the same wall asking the same question and getting nowhere. 😔
WHAT gives you something to actually do.
What is God trying to change in me right now?
What does He want from my heart in this season?
What does getting to a better place actually look like for me today? 🙏
And almost every time I ask those three questions honestly the answer comes back to the same three things 👇
1. He wants my heart closer to His. Not my performance. Not my productivity. My HEART. ✝️
2. He wants me in service of others. Using my pain as a bridge to help someone else cross the same river I am struggling to get through. 💪
3. He wants me to find peace IN the storm. Not on the other side of it. Not when things get easier. RIGHT NOW. In the mess. In the anxiety. In the uncertainty. ☀️
The WHY may never get answered. But the WHAT? That is something you can act on today. 🔥
👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 Are you currently in a WHY season or have you made the shift to WHAT? Drop a WHY or WHAT in the comments. Let us see where this community is at right now and let us rally around the ones still stuck in the why. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the next time the WHY question starts to take over. Come back. Read it again. Shift to WHAT. That is where the movement starts.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We ask better questions here. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/09/2026

Your tribe exists. You are just looking in the wrong places. 😔
I am not saying that to be harsh. I am saying it because I spent way too long searching for real connection in places that were never designed to give it. 🌪️
And if you are honest with yourself right now you probably already know exactly what I am talking about. 👇
The bar. The nightclub. The late night scroll through social media looking for something that feels like belonging. Those places can fill a Friday night but they cannot fill the hole that real community is supposed to fill. 💪
Here is what nobody tells you about finding your tribe 👇
1. The right people are in the right places. And the right places are usually the ones you have been avoiding or dismissing because of a label or a past experience or a story you told yourself a long time ago.
2. You do not have to be a church member to walk through the door. Most churches have small groups that are completely open to anyone. Believer. Skeptic. Faith curious. Hurting. Searching. It does not matter. You just have to show up. 🙏
3. Showing up is the hardest and most important step. Not the second visit. Not joining. Not committing to anything. Just showing up once and seeing what is actually in that room. ✝️
Your ride or die people are out there. The ones who will meet you where you are without judgment and without conditions. The ones who will sit with you in the storm and refuse to leave. 🔥
But they cannot find you if you are hiding in the wrong places. 💛
👇 Here is your challenge today:
💬 Where did YOU find your tribe? Or are you still searching? Drop a FOUND THEM or STILL SEARCHING in the comments. Let us see where this community is at and let the ones still searching know they are not alone in that search. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the moment you feel like real community does not exist for someone like you. It does. You are just not there yet. Keep going.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. This might be exactly the right place you have been looking for. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/08/2026

We have forgotten how to meet in the middle. And it is tearing us apart. 🌪️
Politics. Faith. Culture. Society.
Pick a topic. ANY topic. And watch how fast people plant their flag on one side and refuse to budge a single inch toward the other. 😔
And somewhere in the middle of all that noise the art of actually LISTENING to another human being has completely disappeared.
Here is what breaks my heart about where we are right now 👇
If you follow God. If you are faith based. If you believe in Jesus and live your life around that truth. You get labeled. Boxed in. Written off before you ever open your mouth. 🔥
And yes. That angers me. Because it is completely wrong.
But here is the part I have to be honest about too...
Anger alone never changed anybody's mind. Ever. 💪
Jesus did not change the world by winning arguments. He changed it by sitting down with people who disagreed with everything He stood for and having a REAL conversation. No contempt. No dismissal. No "how do you not see what I see?" 🙏
He asked questions. He listened. He met people in the tension instead of lobbing truth from a safe distance. ✝️
And if we actually want to be more like Him that means we have to be willing to do the same thing. Even when it is uncomfortable. Even when it makes us angry. Even when the other side says things that make zero sense to us.
The middle is not weakness. The middle is where healing actually happens. 🌪️➡️☀️
👇 Here is your question today:
💬 Do you think it is still possible to have a respectful conversation with someone who sees the world completely differently than you do? Drop a YES or NO in the comments. Let us have that conversation right here in this community the way it was always supposed to be had. With mercy. With honesty. And without judgment. 🙏
💾 SAVE this for the moment you feel yourself shutting down toward someone who thinks differently than you. Come back and read it. The middle is worth fighting for.
👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We disagree well here. We listen. We stay in the tension. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

05/07/2026

If the people around you are judging you instead of showing up for you during your storm, that is the wrong circle. Period. 😔
I am not going to sugarcoat it today. 👇
You are already carrying enough. The storm is already heavy enough. The last thing you need is people in your corner who are piling shame on top of pain instead of sitting WITH you in it.
That is not community. That is not faith. That is not mercy. 🌪️
And here is the thing I have had to learn about myself in this process too...
If I want people to meet me where I am at I have to be willing to meet THEM where they are at. 🙏
That means listening before talking. Asking questions before giving answers. Sitting in the tension with someone instead of rushing to fix them or correct them or hand them a Bible verse and walk away. 💪
Real mercy is not passive. It is ACTIVE. It leans in. It asks hard questions. It triggers thought. It provokes something deeper. It says "I am not going anywhere. Let us figure this out TOGETHER." ✝️

Because here is what I know after walking through my own storm 👇

The people who changed my life were not the ones with the best advice.

They were the ones who stayed. 🔥

👇 Here is your moment today:
💬 Has anyone ever shown you real active mercy during your hardest season? Someone who stayed when everyone else left? Drop a 🙏 in the comments and tell us in one sentence what that meant to you. This community needs more stories of people who stayed today. 🙏

💾 SAVE this for the moment you feel judged instead of supported in your storm. Come back and read it again. The right people will meet you where you are. They exist. Keep looking.

👉 Follow and JOIN this community. We stay. We listen. We lean in. We walk through every storm TOGETHER. ✝️

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Chasing Happiness Podcast

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