The Drop the Needle Podcast
The Drop the Needle Podcast is a series of honest, open conversations built around three things that shape how we live: spirituality, mindset, and music. Host Jim Alstott sits down with teachers, healers, doctors, therapists, coaches, and artists to explore the spiritual side of life — and to show that being spiritual isn't "weird," it's human. We get into modalities like meditation, sound healing, and reflective writing, plus traditional and alternative approaches to health and mental health. And because we all carry a soundtrack, every guest shares the songs that shaped them. The goal: take the fear and mystique out of these subjects so you feel free to explore — and show how weaving them into daily life pays off, personally and professionally. New episodes every week. Subscribe and drop the needle with us. Also on YouTube. Guest & business inquiries: jim@dtnpodcast.com
Episodes
Brad Pitzele beat Lyme disease, then autoimmunity, then melanoma. And somewhere in the middle of all that, he stopped just trying to survive and started asking a bigger question: what does the body actually need to heal?
In his thirties Brad developed autoimmune arthritis and ended up on a treadmill of drugs that helped a little less each time, until a known side effect showed up as melanoma. His doctor's answer was another dr...
He drowned in his own pool, woke up on the bottom under a full moon, and came back with an equation for happiness.
For years, Thayne Martin looked like a man who had it all figured out: six-time President's Club, top 10% nationwide, a career built on breaking sales records. Underneath it he was carrying a secret from childhood, abuse that began when he was a boy in Phoenix, and a stack of diagnoses that included dissociative i...
What if you reach the top of your mountain and it turns out to be the wrong one?
In 2000, Matt Ludmer and his partner were named the No. 1 producing team at DLJ. He walked up to collect the award, and his very next thought was, "Where do I go from here?" Earlier that year he had wandered into a matinee of a play called Wrong Mountain, and its question never left him.
Matt grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, the son of a man who sol...
What happens when a guy runs for mayor of Los Angeles on a platform of love?
Helix Wolfson did exactly that. He legally changed his name to Paul E. Amori, put on a three-piece red suit, and ran for mayor on one question: what would love do? He came in last. He also walked off a debate stage with a dozen people telling him he'd earned their vote, and he says it felt like winning.
That's one chapter. Helix grew up in the theater,...
How much of what you're carrying is actually yours?
Connie Smock, Connie Warrior of Light, is back for her third visit, and this time we get practical. Her book, Shift Your Energy, Change Your Life!, is built around one word: fear. After 35 years of readings and energy healings, she says fear is what blocks most people, and a lot of what feeds it is energy they picked up somewhere else and never put down.
We talk about why the ...
What does a child who never spoke a word leave behind?
Mike Gomoll's son Joey died at five. With Butch Vig, he built Joey's Song: $2 million raised for epilepsy research, zero paid staff. Dravet syndrome, Freezing Man, 35 artists playing free.
Joey couldn't speak. When the music came on, he'd find whoever was in the room, grab a finger, and make sure they were dancing. Fifteen years later his dad runs Joey's Song and Freezing M...
Drew McManus learned the word that would become his band's name on a mountain pass in Nepal. It means sitting in the company of truth. He's built ten years and six records on it.
The new one is called Elohim, and he didn't pick the title. He was told to.
We talk about the revelatory experience that preceded it and the illness that followed, about a father who was a preacher and told a skateboarding punk rock kid he had a minist...
What if the sacred and the secular were never two different things to begin with?
Rev. Dr. Rob Zahn is a Lutheran pastor, a theologian, a semiotician, and a musician. He wears Converse under his liturgical robes. He also wrote a book about LSD, a drug smuggling ring, and the birth of contemporary Christian music.
To him, none of that is a contradiction. That is the whole point.
In this episode of The Drop the Needle Podcast, Jim...
What if walking away from the religion you were raised in isn't losing your faith — it's the first honest thing you ever did with it?
Sunshine Witchski was eleven years old when she noticed the contradictions in what she was being taught in Catholic school. She asked. Nobody had an answer she could live with.
What followed was decades of addiction, a rock bottom in Costa Rica, and a long walk back — not to the Churc...
What if the signs you've been asking for are already happening... but you're overlooking them?
Psychic medium Gina Versace, better known as The Inked Medium, believes our loved ones and even our pets, never truly leave us.
From repeating numbers and feathers to dreams and unexpected encounters, Spirit is constantly communicating. The key is learning how to recognize the messages.
Do our loved ones continue communicating after th...
Have you ever wondered if that "gut feeling" was actually Spirit trying to guide you?
In this enlightening episode of The Drop the Needle Podcast, Jim Alstott welcomes intuitive medium Cheryl Bradley for a heartfelt conversation about mediumship, dreams, spirit guides, intuition, and learning to trust your own inner wisdom.
Cheryl explains the difference between being born with intuitive gifts and experiencing a spiritual awake...
What do you do when the excitement is gone, nobody is watching, and you no longer feel motivated?
Dre Baldwin calls that moment “The Third Day.”
It's the point where most people stop and where professionals decide to keep going.
From riding the bench in high school to playing professional basketball for nine years, Dre built his career by learning how to perform regardless of how he felt. In this episode, he reveals ...
What if the very thing you've been avoiding is the reason you came here?
In this powerful episode of Drop the Needle Podcast, Jim Alstott sits down with psychic medium and healer Jennifer Rose to explore what happens when we stop running from our authentic selves.
Jennifer shares her remarkable journey from quietly suppressing her spiritual gifts to embracing mediumship after a life-changing near-death experience during...
Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt the energy change?
In this special panel episode of The Drop the Needle Podcast, Jim Alstott brings together the practitioners behind The Listening Field Retreat for an open conversation about spiritual awakening, group energy, intuitive development, mediumship, manifestation, sound healing, and the power of community.
Featuring Julie Grant, Connie Smock, Carolyn Sid...
What if grief wasn't the end of your story... but the beginning of your greatest transformation?
After losing her soulmate just months after their dream wedding, Carolyn Sidgwick found herself navigating unimaginable pain. Instead of allowing grief to define her, she transformed it into a mission to help others heal through self-love, spirituality, and connection.
This conversation offers hope for anyone who's experienc...
What if healing isn't just about medicine... but about frequency?
In this fascinating conversation, physician, evidential medium, and ancestral healer Dr. Lotte Valentin explores how sound, energy, intuition, and frequencies may influence our emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.
From Hemi-Sync to quantum entanglement, this episode challenges everything you thought you knew about healing.
In this thought-provoking episod...
Can two near-death experiences completely transform your understanding of life, death, and consciousness?
In this powerful episode of Drop the Needle Podcast, Jim Alstott sits down with Dr. Lotte Valentin, a physician, evidential medium, ancestral healer, and former atheist, to explore the extraordinary experiences that changed the course of her life.
Raised with a scientific worldview, Dr. Valentin never believed in God, the a...
What if your greatest crisis became the doorway to your life's purpose?
In this thought-provoking episode of Drop the Needle Podcast, Jim Alstott welcomes certified hypnotherapist Peter McLaughlin to discuss how a leukaemia diagnosis transformed his understanding of healing, consciousness, and what it truly means to be alive.
Peter shares how illness led him toward hypnotherapy, emotional healing, past-life regression, and deca...
What if you don't need to become someone new...
What if your spiritual journey is actually about removing everything that was never truly you?
In this powerful episode, Sue Elliott reveals how limiting beliefs, childhood programming, and self-doubt shape our lives and how angelic guidance can help us reconnect with our authentic selves.
Are your limiting beliefs quietly controlling your life?
In this inspiring episode of Drop the...
What if every spiritual tradition, meditation practice, and awakening experience was part of a much larger map?
In this mind-expanding conversation, spiritual cartographer George Boyd reveals the 73 spiritual paths, explains higher states of consciousness, and uncovers why some spiritual seekers experience kundalini syndrome, spiritual imbalance, and profound awakenings they aren't prepared for.
If you've ever wondered where yo...
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