Being In & Out Of The Body | Energy Matters Episode 67

Welcome back to another episode of the Energy Matters podcast with my good friend,

Cody Edner.

I'm David Gandelman.

We are back for a new season after a couple year break.

And this episode is about getting into your body,

Being embodied,

What it means to be in and or out of your body.

And just to start by making fun of me,

Which Cody will love to take a few shots at,

When I was studying in Hawaii,

The Intuitive Arts,

I lived there for about seven years.

My nickname for the first number of years was Cosmic.

Do you remember that,

Cody?

Yes,

I do remember that,

Cosmic.

I didn't even know there was a David,

I just knew there was some guy named Cosmic because he was always out of his body and in the stars and listening to the songs of the universe.

That's true.

And the reason they called me Cosmic was because I was so out there and up there.

I wasn't too,

I don't think I was very trippy.

I was just more interested in the etheric,

The spiritual,

The philosophical,

You know,

I had a degree in philosophy.

Everything was like higher,

Upper,

Higher mind.

And I had,

You know,

To be fair,

I was in my mid 20s,

But I had issues with finding a place to live,

Money,

Holding a steady job,

Partnership,

Anything that had to do with being grounded.

I was like,

Look at Cody Edner,

He's so grounded.

He's grounded like a tree and I'm grounded like a noodle,

Like a spaghetti noodle floating in the wind.

Yeah,

And to be fair,

You had just spent your time traveling through India,

Following kind of the various gurus,

Meditating in a way where you would get really out there into the meditation and into the esoteric side of things and you had this very spiritual minded perspective.

I think you also were very sensitive to energy and aware of energy and didn't quite know how to handle it.

So your one way to handle being overwhelmed with energy in the body is to leave the body and operate from kind of a different perspective.

And you definitely had that going on.

Yeah,

Without a doubt.

And so I could see it in others very quickly and easily when they're that type of person.

I remember I've told the story once in class,

I think,

But I was at like the supermarket in Hawaii.

We're all hanging out,

A bunch of surfer stoners and me,

I'm not a surfer or stoner.

And one of the dudes was pretty high and he tried to tell us something about a relationship he was in,

But all he can get out of his mouth was,

Dude,

Relationships are just like,

Bro,

They're like,

Man,

They're just,

You know,

Relationships.

And he was so floating out of his body,

It was the only words he could get through his mouth.

I was like,

I was remembering going,

Oh God,

Am I that out of my body where I literally can't speak in full sentences?

And so I don't want to say that that's the only way to be out of your body,

But you know,

When we wake up in the morning,

We're kind of out of our bodies.

Maybe we're coming back down from the dream time from the astral plane and so we're groggy and we're only,

You know,

Half here.

That's why people,

They chug coffee,

They want to get here right away,

But there's more,

You know,

Organic ways to get back into your body.

When you wake up and land,

You could lay there and meditate and slowly bring yourself in.

You know,

A body scan is good for that,

Breathing deeply,

Focusing on being in the moment in this realm.

As you start to open your eyes,

You can be out of your body.

If you get triggered,

Right?

If somebody pushes your button,

You get upset in some way.

Some of us,

When we're too sensitive,

Like I was,

You know,

You hit a hard situation,

An argument,

A difficult moment,

And you kind of,

Part of you just takes off and disassociates.

So that's a way to leave the body.

You know,

Drugs,

Obviously,

Alcohol,

Really kick people out of their bodies.

And so I think we could frame it a couple ways,

Being in and out of the body.

One is your awareness can be in or out of your body,

Right?

You can be really up in your head or up in the clouds,

Or you can be very much embodied.

Like I've been in physical therapy for my ankle,

Hurt my ankle,

And my physical therapist is so in her body.

I mean,

She knows every toe,

Every finger,

Every muscle,

Every exercise she does.

She's so aware of every movement of her body.

You'll see that in a lot of yoga teachers,

You know,

Fitness people,

Dancers,

People who they can be very embodied.

And for me,

I'm like,

Trying to get in there more.

So one way is having the awareness in the physical body.

But then from a spiritual perspective,

I want to hear what you have to say about it is that kind of the soul could be in or out of the body or partially in and partially out of the body.

In a lot of traditions,

There's,

You know,

Soul retrieval where you left parts of yourself in different places.

So there's the more practical side of how much of your awareness is really present here and embodied.

And then the more spiritual side of it is like,

Is there a part of your soul?

Maybe it's stuck in a past life or another dimension,

Rick and Morty style,

Or somewhere.

Yeah,

Or even stuck in,

We can get what we might call our energy,

But it often is part of ourselves,

Part of our soul that can be stuck in past traumas,

Past events,

Just in this life that have happened and we get kind of separated from the body or from being able to be comfortably settled within ourselves.

Sometimes it is an interesting question of how to frame what does that even mean to say that you're out of your body?

And we can talk about that in a number of different ways.

I think the simplest way that one might start to think of it when you start to think of meditating and energy is that wherever your attention is,

Is kind of where you are.

Your energy tends to follow your attention.

So if you're off daydreaming and you're not aware of your surroundings or you're not aware of your body,

You might even stop breathing and you're not aware of it.

That's kind of being out of your body.

And that was me when I first came in.

I didn't get a nickname like Cosmic or anything like that.

But I was very much out of my body,

Disconnected in ways that I wasn't aware or paying attention what was going on right here and in the present moment so much as kind of off in some other realm of kind of either daydream or maybe just spacey.

And life can kind of separate us from our body in that way.

And so the first step really is learning to recognize what that is as both a sensation and as a level of awareness that you might be having.

And then starting to practice what it is to come back into the body and what are the effects and benefits of that.

So there's that energetic side that maybe is just found in our immediate attention,

Just noticing what we notice.

I loved your example or a notion of waking up in the morning,

How in our society and maybe this is true anywhere,

There's this real kind of movement of energy to just hit the ground running or jump right into something.

Nowadays you can jump right into your phone and you're suddenly in some feed and you're just lost.

You're never connected with your body.

And you can go from one thing to the next thing to the next thing,

Whether it's thoughts or activities or distractions and go through an entire day and never having taken a moment to really connect with what's going on in your body.

To connect with it at a feeling sensation level,

To connect with it at an emotion level.

We're very often kind of riding just above whatever the current of emotion that's going on in the body and that's affecting us.

It's sometimes driving us,

But we're not conscious of it or aware.

So getting in your body is a way to really get more aware,

More information about what's going on in you,

Both physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally,

Really at all levels.

We could be separate from ourselves in one or more of those awarenesses.

So someone who's out of their body in a real classic sense,

Maybe not very physically aware,

Might be a little bit more apt to trip over something or run into something or not really be aware of their surroundings.

So there's that level.

But then there's the level where we can be out of our body in some thought or some stream of consciousness,

And then we're not relating to the world directly with what's going on in the moment.

So we're relating through a filter.

And then there is the level of where perhaps we got separated from some aspect of our soul or self,

And we're just kind of surviving and dealing with what's coming at us,

But we're missing a part of that deeper connection that can be there when we're fully embodied.

So it's a big topic.

I remember that I had a student who had changed her name from something mundane to something very spiritual,

Which happens often if you lived in LA or Bali or Tulum.

It happened in a.

.

.

I was asking her about it,

Why she did it,

What the energy was behind it.

And she said,

Well,

The original soul in this body just didn't want to be here.

So my name is so-and-so,

And I took this body over.

And then I was like,

Oh,

Shit,

Oh,

We got some.

.

.

Call the spiritual fire department.

That's intense.

And really,

What had really happened is she hit a deep,

Deep level pocket of pain.

And I'm not judging her for what she'd been through.

Maybe it was absolutely terrible,

But for whatever reason,

She really disassociated and decided to create a new personality on a spiritual level.

Maybe she brought in some kind of entity or energy.

That is a thing that I've seen happen as well.

Fundamentally,

That person on some level was still there,

And they were just really out of their body,

Maybe just a little tether left with them.

So they did not want to come back.

And that was kind of the end of that interaction that I had.

And then there's other folks who really want to deepen and embody and be present and live their life.

And one of the reasons they can't create well or all their creations come out like half done or warped is because maybe they're only half in their bodies.

And so they're only creating with half of their energy.

And so meditating is one of the ways that we anchor our awareness deeper into the body.

Healing ourselves,

Healing our trauma and pain,

Making room for more of ourselves here is another way.

Like,

If I'm not worthy of being here,

Then why would I be here?

You know,

If I'm not good enough to be here,

I have to get somewhere else.

Then I'm not going to be here and then I'm not going to create well.

So there's a big arc of healing for a lot of people when it comes to being able to be embodied.

But when I was six years old,

I was in a really bad car accident and I almost died.

I went out,

Flew out the window on the highway.

Not the funnest story.

We were going to Disney World,

Driving overnight to Disney World.

And I was the only one not buckled up at six years old.

I was laying down in the back row of a minivan and I went right out the window,

Drunk driver.

And so part of me didn't want to come back in the body for a while from that physical trauma that got knocked out.

And then there are people who have sexual trauma,

Maybe,

And so they don't want to come back in the body because of that pain.

And emotional trauma,

Maybe somebody got invalidated really hard and they just bounced and they didn't want to come fully back in.

So we've all got our reasons,

But there's a miracle that happens when we get back in and we heal ourselves.

So that's the downside of not being in the body.

The upside actually,

And there is one,

Means you're sensitive and maybe you're a spiritual traveler.

So on the whole other side of this equation is maybe you're really great at traveling on the astral planes.

Maybe you're super creative and you leave your body and then you bring down amazing ideas,

Inventions,

Songs,

You paint.

A lot of very artistic people can move in and out of their bodies quickly and easily.

And so it's also,

I would consider it like a spiritual ability or talent to be in and out of the body if you know how to use it wisely.

And so the more you're able to be in your body,

The more you'll be able to leave and come back in a healthy way and not get hurt in that process.

There's not a lot of places where you learn how to be in the body in a healthy way and how to be out of the body in a healthy way.

I know you teach a lot of mediumship where you do learn how to be out of the body in a healthy way.

But in my experience in life,

Usually one arena,

You're taught how to be in the body,

Fitness class,

Dance,

Yoga,

Meditation,

And another arena is you're taught kind of how to be out there,

But to learn how to master both and to come in and out as you please when you go to sleep,

When you go to be creative,

When you go to do the kind of work you do,

That's a whole nother level of spiritual mastery that I find fascinating.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

One of the things that you just highlighted in the going in and out of the body and where being out is actually an ability that very often when we're knocked out of the body,

Let's say,

Or we leave our body through trauma,

We're kind of unconscious to the part of us that's out of the body.

In other words,

I don't really have access to a lot of that information.

I don't really have access to that broadening experience.

So when we take it into the spiritual practice realm and you learn how to get in the body and then how to consciously go out of the body,

What you've done is taken a step in being able to access that broadening awareness and information in a way that's validating back to you,

The person,

And you can bring that back in.

There is a whole kind of a spiritual notion out there that in order to get enlightened,

It's out there.

So it does take you out of the body.

And maybe part of that journey you had in India was you were looking for this answer of enlightenment in an esoteric sense.

And that takes you out of the body and that being in the body is like a limiting thing and it's trapped and that's not where the real answer is.

But that's not true in the practice that we explore.

You want to learn to be a fully embodied spiritual being.

So the notion that,

Oh,

We're ascending and it's all about ascension is kind of on the other end of the scale from the notion that,

Oh,

I want to fully descend into the body and have my full capabilities and powers to create and experience and explore and my full autonomy as a being in this moment,

In this experience,

Because this experience is the thing that's temporary.

So it's the thing you get to have for a little while.

And then the spiritual part is the thing that's everlasting.

I don't know who coined that phrase that,

You know,

You're really a spiritual being having a human experience,

Not a human trying to have a spiritual experience,

And I maybe said that backwards.

But that's a really insightful little way to look at it is it's very,

Very true.

So if we start to follow the spiritual path but it leads out there,

Then we're never really going to get fully embodied with the real essence of what it is to be spiritual as an experience,

You know,

In the moment.

I prefer the saying,

I prefer spiritual fruits to religious nuts,

But the one you said is good too.

Yeah.

And in a lot of religions,

The out of body,

The ascension,

Maybe like it's heaven,

For example,

It's an out of body thing,

You leave this body,

And you go somewhere better.

This place sucks.

It's painful.

It's full of sinners,

It's temporary,

Whatever it is,

You're going to go to a better place.

Now it's all about,

I'm going to get abducted.

The same deal,

Take me away.

It's the same kind of deal.

I've got to get out of here.

Yeah.

Or in spirituality,

Ascension,

I'm going to the fifth dimension,

I'm going to the Pleiadian galaxy,

Whatever it is.

It's always getting out of here and going somewhere better and less painful.

But the truth is,

This is where it is,

And this is where you've chosen to be on some level.

And I love that quote,

Mark Twain quote,

The two most important days of your life are the day you're born and the day you find out why.

The day you're born hurts,

Usually,

It's pretty ouchy landing on this planet,

Crash landing.

And then you're like,

I got psychic amnesia,

No idea why I'm here,

How I got here,

What I'm doing here,

What my journey is.

And then when you start to find out why,

There's a new level of consciousness that begins to come in.

Oh,

I'm here to heal,

I'm here to grow,

I'm here to learn,

I'm here to be of service.

I'm here to connect and experience love and loss.

You start to embrace that there's a different quality of energy that your life starts to take on.

And,

You know,

In Harry Potter,

There's two types of people.

We all know this,

We've got muggles,

Which are the kind of normie consciousness and normal materialist consciousness,

There's no magic,

There's no other realms.

This is all there is,

Gather as many resources as you can consume them and die.

And then we've got the magical realm,

Right?

We've got the realm of those who can see beyond the physical,

That know that there's more,

You got to go on a special subway track,

Train track that nobody else can see,

And go from muggle consciousness to magic consciousness,

If you want to put it that way.

And part of that,

So when,

You know,

If you've seen Harry Potter and they go,

Is it eight and three quarters?

I don't remember the exact name of the track they're on,

But when you make that transition,

When you're kind of living in between two worlds,

The material world and the spiritual world,

And maybe that's part of being in and out of the body,

And learning how to transition and move between the two is where a lot of the magic is,

But not rejecting one or rejecting the other,

Right?

Not just being materialist or just being a spiritualist and rejecting the other.

And people who are like,

Oh,

Forget the world,

It's just full of pain and unconsciousness.

I'm just going to just,

You know,

Live in my little bubble in a cabin in the woods,

Never bother with anybody again,

And just feel at peace with nature.

But at the moment they go into society,

You see them in enormous pain and loneliness,

You know,

Whatever it is,

And it's because they haven't worked that stuff out and they're just avoiding half of what's happening here.

So I'm very much of the mind that you have to embrace the entire spectrum and be able to move in between those worlds.

I would just add to something you just said there with the notion of,

I've got to get out of here.

That is another,

Like heaven was the one that kind of made me think of this,

That another way that we're out of our body is by being in the future.

So all of these things are set in the future.

It's not just out of here,

It's to some other place that's not now.

And that tends to separate us from our body in many ways,

Where we get very disconnected,

Kind of moving toward the future and never being in the moment.

And certainly part of the practice of meditation brings us into the present moment,

And this being embodied is being aware of this present moment.

If you're watching the video,

I have a set of books,

Old books behind me,

And I bought them last year in Amsterdam,

It's the entire life's work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,

The philosopher,

French philosopher from the 1700s.

And the books from the 1780s,

They're in French,

So I can't read them,

But I did my thesis in college on him,

So I know a little bit.

And he has a great work called The Origins of Inequality,

And he talks about how at the temple at Delphi in Greece,

It says on the top of the temple in Greek,

I think it's in Greek,

Know thyself is essentially what it translates to.

And whether it's from the Indian traditions,

The Greeks,

Anywhere,

Everywhere you go across the world,

When you find the wise ones,

They're always saying the same thing,

Which is know thyself.

And part of knowing yourself is being inside your body and actually being here.

The knowingness is not a concept,

It's an experience of being in the moment,

Feeling and being who you are.

Maybe it's not know thyself,

But knowing thyself.

It might be more of a verb and an endless unfolding and process,

Not just,

I think the mistake I made living in India,

Like you were saying,

I was just looking for this thing called enlightenment,

A one and done.

I was out there,

I was going to grab,

But it's much more of an endless,

Maybe infinite unfoldment of spirit kind of opening up in the body.

So,

I just want to correct the temple at Delphi and fix me,

I'll go just scratch a little knowing thyself.

Pete Yeah,

You can get up there and just maybe change that a little bit.

But that is a common misconception in the spiritual pursuit is that there's some static state that we're going to arrive at versus it is an unfolding of awareness that's happening and it's an emergent thing that's happening.

And to be fully here for that is to really experience what it is to,

Say,

Be part of the creative process as a spiritual being.

And to be a part of that is not only really exciting and satisfying,

It's really validating to have that ability to kind of see what's happening,

Kind of not just in the physical realm,

But in this other aspect of awareness that I call energy awareness.

It was great to do another episode with you,

Cody.

I'm looking forward to doing a few more and sharing them.

It's good to be back in this space with you.

Pete It is.

It's good to be back.

Yeah,

It's been a while.

I'm with you that intuitive training is the most impactful and powerful step because you really start to learn how to see energy.

One of my favorite quotes is Jonathan Swift,

That vision is the art of seeing the invisible.

I love that quote because in many ways,

When we start to work in this arena of awareness,

We start to become visionaries.

We start to be able to see both what is there that's unseen and see more of what's possible.

And that's such a powerful tool to have.

So intuitive training is where we really develop that.

Cody Yeah,

Absolutely.

Actually,

There's a plane flying over me right now.

These pilots,

They go up there.

You have to have perfect vision,

See all the way to the horizon,

Make quick decisions.

But it's their vision that always intrigued me.

And I had bad vision growing up.

I eventually got LASIK.

But I would always think,

God,

I can never be a pilot because my vision isn't very good.

But the analogy,

I guess,

Is in your own life,

Kind of like a pilot,

You're needing to see the next step in front of you.

Or maybe it's like a car with the headlight sign.

You're seeing the next 20 or so feet in front of you.

And you can learn how to see and have vision clearly.

And maybe you don't see all the way around the curvature of the Earth or all the way,

You know,

10 years from now to the curves of space time.

But you might learn to have enough vision to see your next step over and over and over.

And that's a really cool way to live your life.

That's what intuitive training taught me and really helped me create my entire career as a teacher.

That was the foundation of a lot of what I do.

So I'm a huge proponent.

And I hope everybody takes it at some point and they feel ready.

But anyway,

See you in the sky when we're flying fighter jets in our dreams.

Yeah,

On the astro,

Yeah.

I was just in Los Angeles and I got to be on a panel with one of the actors from Top Gun.

It was fun.

It was a cool experience.

Yeah.

Anyway,

Thank you all so much for listening.

I hope your life takes off.

Part of the dad joke.

And we'll see you in the next episode of Energy Matters.

Be well.

Be in your body.

Enjoy being out of it.

Be playful.

Have fun.

Love you.

See you soon.

See you next time,

Everybody.