S1 EP26: Coming home to the body

In this penultimate episode of Walking Between Worlds, Giada turns our attention to one of the most overlooked aspects of the spiritual path: the body.

While many seekers focus on the invisible world, true spiritual practice requires us to be fully present in the physical one. The body is not an obstacle to enlightenment, but the bridge between spirit and matter, the visible and invisible, heaven and earth.

Join as we explore the body's innate wisdom, its role in intuition and healing, the importance of grounding and why learning to listen to the body may be one of the most powerful spiritual practices of all.

Your body is not something to overcome, it is something to come home to.

Connect with Giada Gaslini:

• Website: www.schoolofshamanism.co.uk
• Instagram: @‌schoolofshamanism
• Facebook: School of Shamanism
• Youtube: School of Shamanism

About the Host

Originally hailing from the vibrant city of Milan, I’ve spent the past two decades traversing the globe in a quest for spiritual and personal growth and combined with 25 years of international corporate work experience. From navigating the vast landscapes of Australia in a campervan to finding tranquility living in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, my journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Along the way, I’ve delved deep into Buddhist teachings, yoga, and shamanism, becoming Shamanic Teacher,  Forest Therapy Guide, Esoteric Numerologist, Shamanic and Integral Yoga Teacher and Ikigai Coach. In 2013 I settled in Edinburgh, where  I founded the Art and Spirituality Centre, a social enterprise and the School of Shamanism, where I passionately help others on their own transformative journeys.

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Transcript

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Giada 0:00

So you're not here to escape the body, you are here just to be fully in it, to let spirit move through flesh, to bridge heaven and earth, as the old traditions say, and that's what walking between worlds really means. This is still season one, Walking Between Worlds, our penultimate episode. So we've covered so much bounds together. We have talked about what it means to live between two realities, the visible and invisible, the practical and mystical. We have explored fear, guilt, relationships, intuition, dreams, death. And today I want to bring it back to something very close, something you carry with you everywhere, your body. So because in all this talk of the invisible world of spirit of soul, it's easy to forget that we are also physical beings on planet Earth. We have flesh, bone, and breath and blood. And far from being separate from spirit, the body is actually where the two worlds meet, because the body is a bridge. So many spiritual traditions have not been kind to the body. We've been taught that the body is lower or base or something to transcend in some traditions, to rise above, to escape from the flesh is weak and the spirit is pure. Enlightenment means leaving the body behind. And so many of us on the spiritual path have developed a strange relationship with our physical selves. We might be very connected to the invisible world, to energy, to guides, to subtle realms, but completely disconnected from the body we live in. We ignore its signals all the time. We push through fatigue, we override hunger, pain, discomfort, and we live in our heads, in our visions, in the upper realms while the body waits below, and sometimes it's also neglected. But you cannot truly walk between worlds while abandoning a part of it. And the body is your anchor in the visible world. Without it, you're not bridging, you are floating away. And the body isn't something to transcend, it's something to inhabit fully. And when you do it, it becomes one of your uh greatest uh teachers and allies. Your body knows things, your mind doesn't. Um so, for example, before your conscious mind registers danger, your body has already responded. Your heart rate rises, your muscles tense, your gut tightens, and the body perceives and reacts faster than thought. And this is just not a survival mechanism, it's an intelligence. A difference between intelligence and the rational mind, uh, it's uh just basically more real. Your body knows when something is true and when it is not, it knows when a person is safe or unsafe, it knows when you are aligned and when you are betraying yourself. It speaks constantly through sensations, through tension, through ease. We talked about intuition earlier in this season. And intuition isn't just a mental knowing, it's often a bodily knowing, that gap feeling, that heart pull, sense of expansion, of contraction in the chest. And if you want to develop your intuition, uh develop your relationship with your body, that's what you need to go for. Learn to listen to its subtle signals and uh because it's communicating with you uh is throughout your own life, uh, but just we don't pay attention. So your body is just like an antenna. So in the shamanic understanding, the body uh is your antenna, it picks up energy, it senses presence, it registers shifts in the visible world that the rational mind can't perceive. Have you ever walked, for example, into a room and felt immediately comfortable, even though nothing is visibly wrong? And or have you ever met someone and felt an instant reaction in your body, like attraction, repulsion, or familiarity before you knew something or anything about that? That's your body perceiving the invisible. The body doesn't just exist in the physical world, it extends into the energetic world, it has an energy field. Some traditions call it aura, some traditions luminous body, the subtle body, and this field interacts with other fields, with places, with things, with the energies around you. And when shamans journey to other realms, they often feel it in the body. The drumming shifts something physical, the trance state is a bodily experience, and what they encounter in the invisible world registers in the flash, shivers, heat, pressure, tingling. The body is not left behind in spiritual work. It's the instrument through which spiritual work happens. Modern trauma research has confirmed something that shamanic traditions have always known. Trauma also lives in the body. When something is overwhelming, happens, something too fast or too much, too soon, the body holds it. Not as a memory in the mind, but as a pattern in the nervous system, and as tension in the muscles, and as constrictions in the breath, as a frozen place that never fully releases. You can understand your trauma intellectually, you can talk about it, analyze it, know exactly where it came from. But if the body is still holding it, you're not fully healed. And this is why somatic work, for example, it's very important. Why the movement, the touch, the breath, the shaking, the sounding, all these body-based practices can reach places that talking alone can't. And in shamanic healing, we work with the body directly. So retrieval, extractions, energy cleansing, they are not metaphors, they create shifts in the physical body. So people feel lighter, warmer, uh, more present in their flesh because the body has released something I was carrying. And if you've ever experienced trauma, like everyone has, in some form, uh it's part of your body journey. Uh, it's something that you need to meet, it's something that you need to address. Um, and for example, grounding is one of the elements in order to address that. It means being present in your body, connected to the earth, anchored in physical reality. It's the foundation of all the energetic and spiritual work. Without grounding, you become annoyed, too much time in the upper realms, in vision, in spirit, without enough time in the body, in nature, and the physical sensation, and you just start losing your center. You might feel anxious, overwhelmed, unable to function in daily life. Um, and I've seen people go deep into the spiritual practice without taking care of the basics, because they can journey to other dimensions, but they can't hold the job. They receive profound messages from guides, but they forget to eat or they forget to do something. They are expanded beyond their container, and then contain and the container is the body. And so, some grounding practices, for example, are simple: feet on the earth, press into the belly, feeling uh the weight of your body, uh, touching something physical, uh, um, eating nourishing uh food, dancing, being in nature. Um, they are essential practices because they allow you to go far and come back, come back here, and this is what keeps you sane. So, if you are going to walk between worlds, you need roots, and those roots grow through the body into the earth. Um, so your body is not an obstacle to spiritual growth, your body is sacred, it's a miracle. Actually, trillions of cells probably are working in harmony, systems and organs and processes that keep you alive without any conscious effort. So there is a universe contained in the body, and your body is temporary, it's here for a limited time. So one day it will return to the earth that it came from. And this particular configuration of matter and energy that is you won't last forever. And of course, that makes the body precious, that makes it uh worthy of reverence. And many traditions speak about the body as a temple, as a sacred vessel, the place where spirit and matter meet, where the invisible becomes visible, where the soul uh has a home. So, what would change if you treated your body that way? Not as something to fix, to improve, to control, to punish, but as something sacred, something to honor, nourish, and listen to, love. So, how do you strengthen this bridge? How do you deepen your relationship with your body? But can start with awareness several times a day, for example, pause and feel your body, not thinking about it, just feeling physically, touch it. The sensations, the temperatures, the areas of tension and ease. Just notice. Breathe consciously. The press is the most direct bridge between voluntary and involuntary, between body and spirit, between the mind and the heart. When you breathe consciously, which means slowly, deeply with attention, you are communicating directly with your nervous system. Move, not just exercise for fitness, but movement that lets the body express, dance, shake, stretch. Let the body lead rather than the mind directing. Touch the earth. Literally, barefoot on grass, hands in soil, back against your back against the tree, just become part of nature and listen. When your body says rest, rest. And I'm saying that to myself specifically, when it says no, honor down. Just start treating your body as an ally, not as an obstacle. Uh, because both worlds need you to be embodied. The visible world needs you here, present, grounded, able to act, able to create, able to show up. So if you're floating in the spiritual realms while your life falls apart, you're not serving anyone. An invisible world needs your part to be embodied. Uh, how you bring spirit into matters with your hands are how the uh healing flows, your voice is how wisdom is shared, your presence, your physical embodied presence is how you're anchored the sacred into the world. So you're not here to escape the body, you are here just to be fully in it, to let spirit move through flesh, to bridge heaven and earth, as the old traditions say, and that's what walking between worlds really means. Not leaving one for the other, but standing firmly in both, with your body as the meeting point. So your body is not something to overcome, it's something to come home to. It's your anchor in this world, your antenna for the invisible, your instrument for healing, your sacred vessel for however long you are here. Don't abandon it in pursuit of spirit. Bring spirit into it. Just let them meet in your flesh, your breath, your bones, and that's the bridge. That's how the two worlds uh become one.