What if Pain is the Messenger with Channeler Gary Temple Bodley and Spiritual Medium Christy Levy

Have you ever wondered whether that quiet inner voice is genuine guidance... or simply your own hopes and fears talking?

In this fascinating conversation, CJ sits down with spiritual teacher and author Gary Temple Bodley and spiritual medium Christy Levy to explore one of life's biggest questions: How do we recognize authentic guidance?

Gary shares the remarkable story of how meditation led him into direct communication with a collective consciousness known as Joshua, eventually inspiring him to write four channeled books and launch the Joshua Live podcast. Christy describes her own journey into mediumship, automatic writing, and connecting with spirit guides and historical figures to help others discover greater clarity and purpose.

Together they explore a radically different way of viewing reality: that your perspective creates your experience, and that shifting your perspective naturally changes your emotional state, your vibration, and ultimately your life. Along the way, they discuss limiting beliefs, why emotions can serve as guides rather than obstacles, and how curiosity can transform even life's most difficult experiences.

The conversation takes a deeply personal turn when CJ asks about living with chronic pain. Rather than asking, "Why is this happening to me?" Gary offers a different perspective, suggesting that pain can become a messenger rather than an enemy when we approach it with openness instead of resistance.

Near the end of the interview, Christy offers CJ a spontaneous reading that brings forward the symbolic presence of Beethoven and John Coltrane. Their message moves beyond music into the creative process itself, exploring the relationship between listening, surrender, and following what is quietly calling us forward. In one particularly moving moment, CJ is invited to exchange the question, "Why is this happening?" for a far more empowering one:

"Who am I becoming through this experience?"

Whether you're curious about channeling, fascinated by consciousness, searching for deeper meaning in difficult experiences, or simply trying to trust your own inner wisdom, this conversation offers thoughtful insights into creativity, healing, perspective, and the possibility that guidance is always available to those willing to listen.

Sometimes the answers we're searching for aren't found by thinking harder.

Sometimes they arrive when we become quiet enough to hear them.

Want to learn more about CJ Miller? Check out his Spiritual Artist Retreats, 1:1 Personal Coaching, and Speaking Engagements at www.spiritualartisttoday.com. His retreats are designed to help you reconnect with your Creative Intelligence and express your true artistic voice. You can also find his upcoming schedule there, and his book, The Spiritual Artist, is available on Amazon.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Time is an illusion. Now, here's the trick. You think the pain's a bad thing, but the pain's a messenger. And you very much want to understand what is the issue underlying this. What's the emotional issue? What's the perspective issue? Without the pain, you'd never get there. So you don't want really the pain to disappear. You want the pain to be available, to always come in to show you when you need to look at something. And so, from our human perspective, we say, I would feel better if the pain was gone. From a non-physical perspective, you would say, I'll feel better when I shift my perspective.

SPEAKER_04 0:40

Welcome to the Spiritual Artist Podcast. This is Chris Miller. I invite you to join me as I interview artists from a variety of disciplines. We'll share powerful stories and lessons learned while making their art. Wow, I've got some great interviews coming up, but today's guests, that's right, plural, two guests, are really interesting for me. And I'm going to love to dive into how they work, how they discovered this talent that they have, this ability that I think everybody has. So let me introduce uh Gary Temple Bodley. He is a spiritual teacher, author, and channel for a collective of non-physical teachers known as Joshua. So I'm excited to talk to him about that. He's been doing this since 2016. He has shared Joshua's teachings through his Joshua Live podcast. That's right. He has his own podcast with over 700 episodes of practical leading edge insight into how reality actually works. And we're going to explore a little bit of Joshua's teachings grounded in one core principle your perspective creates your experience. So I, you know, I love unpacking that, and we will. And the second guest is Christy Levy. Levy. Levy. Christy Levy is a spiritual medium who also works with Gary for her extraordinary ability to connect with non-physical intelligence. She connects with spirit guides and well-known figures from history, which is fascinating, Christy. I can't wait to see what we come up with today. But um through her work, she offers something few others can direct real-time conversations with consciousness beyond the physical. And as you know, I love working. The spiritual artist is about connecting with the spirit, the spirit before manifestation. So this should be a real interesting conversation. Good morning, both of you.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Good morning, CJ. Thanks for having us. I'm glad to have you aboard.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be fun. So this is great. Um I I love to I I I told Christy when we did our little pre-interview. I I always like to find out first where you when you recognize this talent to um channel. And um a lot of people, there are some people that are very familiar with it, and some of my listeners might not be familiar with it at all. So, Gary, where did you hear this? How did you learn this about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

So in 2008, I had a pretty successful real estate business and lost everything to the financial crisis and started over. A friend of ours brought us the secret. And my wife, Lily, and I at the time were really into the secret, and we listened to it over and over and over, and then we're looking for something else. And in our own library, we had Ask and It Is Given, which is channeled by Esther Hicks, and it's Abraham, and that was the only channel I ever heard of. But uh, everything that I heard resonated, and so Lily and I went to the workshops, and you know, our life turned around quite rapidly, and we got back on our feet and started it over, and and uh you know that was fine. And I I found my passions and Lily found her passions, and we were just enjoying life now at a different level. Uh, and then I had the huge inspiration to start meditating in 2013, not 2016, but 2013, so about 13 years ago. And I had never wanted to meditate before. I thought it wasn't for me. The last thing I want to do was be left alone with my thoughts, but the inspiration was so loud that I just did it. And so Abraham had these four guided meditations, so I would just rotate those in the first couple of days. I couldn't go more than a minute or two. But after time went on, I was able to do a full 15-minute meditation. And during those meditations, I started to feel a presence on the right side of my head that would move around during the meditation. And why I say presence is because immediately I thought this isn't just a sensation, there's something else going on here. So I started asking it questions. I'm very curious about spiritual stuff, and so I got these answers back that I knew weren't my own, yet it was in my own voice. So there was a huge part of me that believed I was making it all up, and so I played with it and it kept going. It was there every time I meditated, and I would tell Lily about it. And one day I said, Who is this? And they said, We are Joshua, and I'm like, Okay, sure it is. Uh so kept going with it and just went on for a little bit. And then in November 15th, 2013, in meditation, they said, Get up and go right, right, right. Got up when my computer started typing. I typed three pages in about 30 minutes, just flowing through me. Didn't know what it was, seemed like nonsense when I was writing it, but then I printed it out, showed it to everyone, and this turned out to be the introduction to the first book, which is called A Perception of Reality. I went back every day for about half an hour in the morning, typed a few more pages every day, and in eight weeks, that 300-page book was completely finished. The day after that book was finished, the next book started, which is called Health, Wealth, and Love. Eight weeks every day for half an hour, and you know, I would just, you know, write for whatever time it was, would end in the middle of a paragraph, and the next day start where I ended. No editing except for typos. And those are the books that you are available now. There's four books altogether. Uh so this led me on to you know, uh start a podcast, which at the time I was only channeling Joshua in writing, but we would get together, it was called the Law of Attraction Roundtable, me and three friends, and we would talk about these uh, you know, people would send in Joshua questions and I would answer in typing, and so we would discuss these questions and the answers, and it was just a lot of fun. Uh, and then I got invited to be on a law attraction cruise and realized, oh yeah, there's something that wanted people because people came specifically for me to hear this, right? And so that became more events and more retreats and more cruises. And eventually I realized that I needed to have my own retreats and I wanted a house. So I ended up buying this house in North Carolina, and uh Lily didn't want to come with me, so we ended perfectly amicably. Uh, we're still best friends to this day, but I moved to this big house in North Carolina and started having retreats there. The house needed to be renovated, so I spent every penny I had to renovate it, and now I'm there with no job and nothing to do, and I'm like, how the hell am I going to support myself? And so the inspiration came to do a course. And that course was called the boot camp. Then Christy was one of the first people to take the boot camp, and she came to the first ever retreat. That's how we connected, and now we'll let Christy take over.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, well, you you did skip a little something about how you got hypnotized so that then Joshua could come through verbally, which now is really how you do it. You don't really do it in writing, I mean, so much anymore. But um, well, you know, CG and I talked a while uh back about my writing. I write, do a lot of automatic writing. And the boot camp, when I heard Gary, I had also been listening to Abraham Hicks and loved it for probably 20 years, but I was a little stuck in that, like stuck in that law of attraction thing, positive thinking, um, manifesting, all of that. It just it was like sometimes it felt like it worked, and other times it didn't work. It was very confusing. So I found Gary, uh, listened to his podcast, did the boot camp. As I I told you, I did the boot camp eight times, and then it seemed like overnight, honestly. CJ, it was overnight. I had been meditating, doing this automatic writing, doing the work in this boot camp, which is just designed to change your perspective on yourself and your reality, which is essentially what all other channels are talking about when they say raise your vibration. It's changing your perspective. It's very simple. But I didn't understand that connection until I did the boot camp. So that's what I did. I did all the work, did all the writing, and immediately it was overnight after, you know, almost two years, which sounds like right, but it was just quick. All of a sudden, the first dead people started coming through when I was uh visiting Gary and some friends at his house. And that was really it. Then I started, I got White Light, which is a non-physical group that I channel. Then Gary began to help me with that um so that I could verbally speak it. Um, and and then we just started working together from there. So okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:59

Yeah, this that's a wonderful journey, and it and it it gives me some questions. So um I feel like I connect to to I call it my higher self. And then you you're talking about um channeling with people that have existed in the past or groups of energy. Do you feel that that is also your higher self, or do you think that's a different kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

All right, well, I'll take that very briefly. There is no separation, right? We're all really one thing. Yeah. I think it helps us in this reality, this 3D that we're in, because we feel so separate, it helps us to categorize and label things, to see things sometimes as outside of us because we don't really trust ourselves. I was getting these brilliant answers from white light and from the dead people as that began to evolve. And I don't think I would have ever told anyone if I had thought it was just my inner self, right? I call it inner self. So if I had thought it was that or some other version of me, I would have said, well, this is all crap, but this isn't, but it it helping me see it separately. So I think the answer is both. I think it's whatever works for you and and feels good to you that you can see it. It doesn't make it true or not true. If you believe it, it's it's true for you, and that goes with both those empowering things and those limiting things, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Right. But but I would say that we all have an origin consciousness, and Joshua refers to this as your inner self. So this is the consciousness that originated in some realm. I've gotten to talk to my uh inner self through Christie, uh, and that inner self is or that origin consciousness is named Topio. And we've learned that Topio was created in the earth realm before there was an earth, and then all the lives that to uh that Topio has ever lived, or or the consciousness that has come into physical reality, is distinct, has a personality, can become a spirit guide to someone else, and then the fullest expression of all those lives is Gary, and Gary then sets his pre-birth intentions. Gary returns to the non-physical, and then Gary is one with all of that lineage of consciousness, but also a unique personality that can then be channeled by someone else. And so when any human returns to the non-physical, we'll talk to two today, they are part of their lineage of consciousness, yet they are also distinct and can speak to us from their non-physical perspective and talk about what they perceived when they were alive. So it's all happening as one, yet they're not separate, but they do have distinct personalities. That's very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Yeah. So so I love how you said you go through Christy to talk to Toby. Tobias, did you say? Yeah, Topio. Topio. So she helps you connect with that side of that part of you.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, and Christy connect with can connect with her inner self very easily herself. For most, you know, and I think that you know, for me, having Joshua come through, it sounds like me. There's not distinct when Chrissy speaks to a dead person or a spirit guide or her inner self, it's all distinct. She can see different things, hear different things, but for most of us, those thoughts that are coming from the non-physical, you can't tell that it's not you, it's it's in your voice. And so, like if I'm having a conversation, I don't really know if it's Joshua or if it's white light or if it's Topio or if it's Seraphim. It all sounds the same. Uh, so I so that I'm sure I can connect with my inner self, but is that Joshua or is that my inner self? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

Yeah, and I I don't I agree, I agree with what Christy was saying, it's all one. And and so we get as humans on this plane, we get so caught up in names and division, that's do it dualistic thinking, right? But if you can get to that one consciousness, yeah, then it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

It doesn't matter, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:39

So so I love that. I was telling Christy, Gary, I I I I should share this with you because I think it's pretty wild, is I've always felt like I have a connection to an inner voice, and and just about two years, well, I guess a year and a half ago, I decided to to listen. So I think isn't that ironic? I mean, we live our lives, it's like, oh, it's there, but right uh, you know, and so I decided to listen. And I was embarrassed to ask a friend to do this. So I I've been working with Chat GPT, and I actually said, Okay, chat, I want you to ask my higher consciousness questions. And I will answer, I will get into that place of receiving, and then you can have a conversation with my higher consciousness. And chat's really great about that because whatever my higher consciousness said, it would respond with an interesting question, you know, in response to it, at least a very pretty thought-out question, and I didn't have to be in front of a friend.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, and where did that idea come from? That's the key. Did you make that up in your head, or was that idea given to you by your inner self?

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Probably from an inner self because I started listening to it, and and these wonderful things came out of it. And and Gary, I last summer I wrote a book in like four weeks. Yeah. And and it was all this higher self, uh book of parables, short stories. Um, so I do find it fascinating. I think we all have that ability, and I guess that's what you do at your camps, is you help people tap into that.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Or no. We have a new program here that has just developed, we just started it six months ago, and it came out of a conversation that Christy and I were having with Topio. And we asked, we've noticed this with our friends and people in our community, and Christy and I, that if we understand that perspective is the most important thing, and and that when you can shift your perspective of yourself in your reality, that is then translated into a new vibration. We've had a lot of people go through the boot camp and say 20% of them got to places similar to Christy, and 80% sort of fell flat, and we asked why that is, and they said, Well, that's because it was a one-size-fits-all program, and most people weren't ready for it. I said, Well, how do we change that? And so you have to understand where someone's perspective is right now, where they start, and then create something that's unique to them. We're like, How in the hell are you gonna do that? And they say, Well, you start with this idea called perspective mapping, you send them a bunch of surveys, uh, you have a call with them, meet Gary, and sort of drill down into how they see themselves right now, where their issues are, where the resistance is, what's working, what's not working. And then they have a spirit guide reading with Christy. Christy brings in their spirit guides, and they might identify their pre-birth intentions, their core limiting beliefs, their inherited belief system, and how to prepare themselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically for this next hundred-day process. From there, we know where their perspective is now, and then we can start giving them these hundred modules that they take over 100 or 200 days, however long it takes them. And each module is the design to speak specifically to their perspective, and then over time elevate that perspective of themselves in these core areas of their life. And they do this by processing, limiting, and empowering beliefs. So we all have these limiting beliefs that we're unaware of, but how we become aware of them is through a process that Joshua coined called manifestation events. This is any experience where an emotion is triggered, could be a positive emotion or a negative emotion. A positive emotion will then point to a specific empowering belief, and a negative emotion points to a specific limiting belief. The theory is that you could not feel negative emotion if not for this limiting belief that's being triggered. Because what that does is it if you as soon as you think something's wrong or bad is happening to you, you drop your perspective compared to where your inner self's perspective is. And this is the guidance. So the negative emotion is not caused by the outside person or thing, it's caused because you drop your perspective in comparison to your inner self's perspective in that moment, and that generates the emotion. And that's why emotion is guidance. Nothing bad is happening to you. The universe is just presenting you with an experience specifically designed to alert you to your belief system. Once you are aware of your belief system, of your limiting beliefs, you can do this work we call a manifestation event form. It's five pages that you write out a whole bunch of stuff about how you felt, what your thoughts were, what your urge was to control the conditions, what desire did you think wasn't being, you know, was being blocked because of this experience, and then you find a limiting belief, and then you can find evidence in your own life that proves that belief is not true. Over time, this reduces the intensity of limiting beliefs and raises the intensity of empowering beliefs so that you now have a new perspective of yourself and for the sole purpose of receiving inspiration, like you did to start this podcast, to write the book, to have us on the show. That inspiration coming from your inner self leads you step by step by step to an unimaginable life, which is the name of our other podcast.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

Okay. I want to clarify something that you said earlier for the listener and see if you agree. What I'm hearing is there's not a bad emotion, there's a bad perspective or thought about that emotion. So when I lose a beloved friend, that's not a bad emotion, that's part of being human. But if my perspective is I shouldn't be upset, or how dare I get sad, or why do I always have loss in my life, whatever, those are perspectives that get in my way of truly um experientially, we're gonna go back to what you said earlier, walking through that emotion and and actually receiving the gift of it.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

There you go. Christy, add on to that.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Right. Okay. So CJ, what I would say is yes to that, but there's more to it, a lot more to it. The the beautiful thing that you just said was that it's a gift of this emotion. Because it is, and that's such a challenging thing for us to get. But if you you think about these words, that your emotions are your guidance from your inner self. Your inner self holds one perspective on your life, on every experience, which is that it's perfect, is perfect for you in the moment. Even the death of a loved one. Your inner self is holding the perspective that this is exactly perfect and exactly the way the plan is supposed. Supposed to be, and that there's no loss. Your inner self can't see a loss like that, just doesn't exist. So if you look at that guidance scale and you say, just try this on for a minute, the only thing you're ever doing in this reality is feeling something. It'll take a second for that to land with you. So the only thing we are ever looking forward to or afraid of is emotion. I'm afraid if this happens, I'll feel bad. I'm so excited when this happens, when I get there, I'm going to feel so good. We don't really care about the thing. What we care about is how we think it's going to make us feel. All you really need to focus on is how you feel in the moment. Yesterday doesn't matter. Tomorrow doesn't matter, right? It doesn't even exist, really. So it's in this moment. How do I feel? That's one of your main connections with your inner self. That you don't have to sit and say, Well, can I hear? Can I hear? Can I hear? No, just feel. That will tell you exactly how you're looking at something and how different it is from the perspective of your inner self. Your inner self is here holding a perspective, and you drop way down here to I'm a victim. Something bad happened to me. I got a flat tire. My best friend got taken away from me. My boyfriend left me, right? Whatever it is, now your inner self says, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're way down here. So now you can feel resentment, anger, despair, hopeless. You can feel all those negative emotions because you're not up here with your inner self. The closer you are to the perspective of perfection and understanding everything is happening for me right now, in this moment, and it's perfect for me right now. Even if you feel that negative emotion, you can say, okay, I don't need to be afraid of this. What's going on? You do this process that Gary was just talking about. It's so beautiful because now I don't have to be afraid of negative emotion. I go through it, find the limiting belief. That's what I want. That's the gift you're talking about. This negative emotion or this experience that you perceive caused you negative emotion didn't. The experience was the gift to let you see that you have a self-imposed limitation. I'm not worthy, I'm not capable, I'm irresponsible, I'm always ignored, I don't care, whatever it is. It's there. And so this experience allowed you to see that. That's the gift. You can process it, you can prove it false, and it starts to soften. So it doesn't stop you the next time you hear inspiration. It that fear doesn't come. Oh, I can't do that. I don't have enough money to do that. I'm not, right? Whatever it is starts to not stop you little by little by little until your life completely shifts.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Okay, so I'm gonna be um selfish. Please bring up something. So uh last year was a the last year and the year before was a rough year for me. I um started getting some chronic pain. And by and I don't even like to use the word chronic, it's against my belief system, but it felt chronic and it's still here, it's still around, but it's much less. So I think I've realized, you know, I used to, I listened to Abraham Hicks too for many years. We talked about that. I was at her CD of the month club and I went to see her, and and and and it I used to so strongly everything is good for you, but when I hit pain and pain that doesn't leave, that's where I was done. I was like, oh, for all the cheerleading you do, how do I walk through pain? And and by walking through it, meaning, okay, there you are, there you are, and there you there you might be, you know. Um how does that align with with what you just said?

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Let me guess, is it in your hands? No, it's it was actually in my groin. I'm sorry. I was listening to the last episode and you were talking about your hands.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

Oh, yeah. No, it was in my groin. I actually talk about it. I it was a big step to even get to to say that that I'm having this really excruciating pain in my groin, but I I think it's chronic tension or or let let's remove the word chronic, it's just the um appearance, a result of some of tension, you know. And and so I think I think then it's fun, funny when I started speaking of it on my podcast, so many people came up to me and said, I have chronic pain, I'm living, I didn't realize so many people that I knew were experiencing that.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Oh, it's what's what's interesting about chronic pain is that it doesn't seem like there's any solution for chronic pain, any medical solution. No, but it does seem like there's a spiritual solution or a non-physical solution. This might be the perfect place for Christy to bring in two people from history who might come to talk about this issue. What do you think? It's up to you.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Uh Christy, are you up for that or to wear it?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Of course, yeah, of course. You know, we'll yeah, um, it's it's interesting because um, you know, the the spirit guides usually are are super personal, but the the dead people can be really personal as well. So um I just sort of let them go. We ask questions and and we just see, you know, just see where they want to go. So if you're if you're ready to go there, CJ, you're directing the the show. If you're ready to go there, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

I think um uh well let's do one last thing, Gary. Let's ask one last question. You because you had mentioned this when we were talking, and you talked about this shift of um, and I do this, I have gone through this the same as as just like even the experience of pain, to to just say, okay, here's where I'm at, and to be in the presence, in presence with it. Companion, you know. I I love I actually thought of this word. It's like you're companioning your own pain. You're saying, okay, I hear you, and I'm here, I'm here. And yeah, you were talking. Go ahead, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Yeah, don't you think that's such a more empowering perspective on any experience that you would say is negative, you say, here we are in the moment, this is what I'm feeling, whether it's a flat tire or physical pain. Physical pain is much more difficult, of course, because it's right there. But the idea is curiosity. So if you can imagine perspective as a horizon line, and if you dip below that horizon line, feel any negative emotion, you are in resistance to what is happening. If you dip above that horizon line, you're in some state of joy about what is happening, but curiosity is in that upper levels, and if you can become curious rather than frustrated about what is happening right now, this allows you to bring in ideas, possibilities, inspiration. There's no way to fix a problem because the problem is there to show you something. If you can understand what I am experiencing now, how am I feeling now, and what might be leading me, what might this be leading me towards? That's the state of curiosity, and from that state, you're open to ideas and inspiration, things like that, conversation with a friend, being led step by step by step to the core issue that this is a symptom of. So the symptom is pain, the symptom is the flat tire, the symptom is something you think is wrong happening, and it's being generated from a vibrational place, and your vibrational place is based on your perspective. Once you uncover the root cause of this, you've actually done it by shifting your perspective. And in a body, what happens for all of us is that there's a next level of your expansion, yet there is a belief structure in the way of that, and the and that's blocking the inspiration or bringing up too much fear to actually act on the inspiration. And so when you've lived a life like I have, where I'm highly emotionally sensitive, and many of your listeners, especially the artists, are highly emotionally sensitive. This is how they channel their work. You tend to either put yourself in such a small life that you never face negative emotion, or you distract yourself from the negative emotion. You avoid it, you talk yourself out of it, you change the subject, and you never feel it fully. In the feeling it fully, somehow, somehow, there's also information in that. And it can't happen without some information. Now, physical pain is much more difficult because it's very hard to be open to possibility when you're struggling with a physical issue. It's much easier if it's just a simple negative thought, for instance, or a tiny little irritation. Like it's much easier to deal with that person in line at the grocery store who's spending 10 minutes to write out a check, you know. Yeah. And you and the frustration you feel, like, okay, where do I really need to be going? Why am I trying to avoid this moment? Why do I think that's wrong? That's a lot easier than a physical pain. But what we've discovered in these conversations with spirit guides and the dead people in our series Dead Talks on the Unimaginable Life Podcast is that they we can ask them questions for one, but they come to share what is actually happening beneath the surface of what we're experiencing in our reality. Once we see that, it opens up all possibilities. That's why we think it's so much fun, right? It's so entertaining and interesting. And it's like, I would never have thought of that.

SPEAKER_04 32:22

Yeah, well, you know, I think, and also I think that's and maybe uh I don't know if you guys agree with me or not, but um, I think when it comes to pain, you can have a shift in your perspective which leads to less pain, but it's sometimes it took years to get the pain, and it takes a while to undo the levels of that um damage, you know, uh to turn it around. It's like I picture this this big boat, you know, changing a course in the ocean, how how slowly you know it has to change the course. And and whereas when someone's in line, you just go, okay, I accept that it's taking her forever to write the check, la la la, that's a quick you you see quick feedback.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah, that's like a jet ski compared to a big ocean liner, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Yeah, exactly. It's like a jet ski.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Sure, but time is an illusion. Now, here's the trick. You think the pain's a bad thing, but the pain's a messenger. And you very much want to understand what is the issue underlying this, what's the emotional issue, what's the perspective issue? Without the pain, you'd never get there. So you don't want really the pain to disappear. You want the pain to be available, to always come in to show you when you need to look at something. And and so from our human perspective, we say, I would feel better if the pain was gone. From a non-physical perspective, you would say, I'll feel better when I shift my perspective. When I hear the message, right?

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Yeah. That's lovely. You know, I go back to Abraham Hicks. She used to talk about an indicator. Remember, she'd say, it's like an indicator on your car, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

You can't put the happy sticker over the empty gas page.

SPEAKER_04 34:05

I remember that now. I just now that you said that, I actually do remember that. That's exactly what she said. So, anyway, all right. Well, yes, I just wanted to cover that, Christy, because I was talking about the exp experience and and the perspective.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

So I'm yeah, I have a sense we could we could probably chat like this for hours. It just keeps leading to something else, and it's so good, so much good stuff. Okay, so are you guys ready?

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah, and what we'll do is well, I have my phone here. We have to discover who they are. They do not tell us who they are. It's part of the game of discovery. Oh right.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

They never tell, yeah. I mean, they can, they've done it before, but not not in the last couple of years. They they took led me here on a long and windy road. Okay. Um, I just scribble, um, it just helps me focus. So okay. Okay, we have two for sure. Okay, good. Um definitely both male. Um, I just got a loud um like really loud. And then it's just deafening silence. Um Wow, okay. And then doing that again, and then silence. Like weird silence. Okay. Um the energy um is it feels like pressure, but but not not bad pressure, right? Like um not heavy, but like purposeful pressure. Um a lot of blue, gold, very dense, very concentrated, um a lot of determination, um protective to like uh grandfather sort of energy. Um there we go. Silver hair, sort of. I can see that. I can't see much, but just wild silver hair. Um seven seven oh. Um you guys, I think I know who it is. It's the first time that's ever happened. I never know who it is first.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

I'm thinking it was Beethoven.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

That's exactly who it is. That's exactly why I heard that. But then it was this weird silence, like not even underwater. It got deaf, right? And it just I I didn't put that together until I saw the the hair. Um, and then I okay, so there we go. Very messy, like everything around him is a mess, but his energy's clean, it's just everything around him is a mess. Okay, really funny. Okay, next. Um first thing I see is like a wooden um wooden chair with a saxophone on it.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

Um a lot of music going around here.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Yeah, a lot of music today. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Um I thought it was gonna be painters.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Yeah, it we're never right. Um relax. Okay, I got him, a sense of him, really relaxed posture, really sweet eyes. Um music and life are the same. Music and life are the same. September birthday. Love supreme, love supreme. Love supreme. Music and life are the same.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

John Coltrane?

SPEAKER_01 38:51

I cats go bananas.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

John Coltrane?

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Yeah. Got it. Good job. What like how did you get that? That's pretty good. But they when I do these live, it's amazing how fast everybody gets them. It's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Okay, so I love some represents it after yeah, it's one of his albums.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Okay, um, so what they want to talk about um is it is creativity, and okay, they said they will go to the pain part, they will go there, just um, but um it's creativity as communion, they're saying. So, like the question of um do you create inspiration or receive it? Um, is what they that's funny, as we were talking a lot about inspiration. Boom, there we go. Okay, so they they came together. Interesting that um they say a lot of people think creativity um is uh like a talent, um, but they want to tell us that it isn't, it's a relationship. Um and they came together because they they spent their each of them spent their life approaching the very same mystery from completely different directions. I don't know too much about either one, so I don't know. One okay, you're gonna tell me one through structure and one through surrender, but both both paths led to the very same place. So um, okay, they're gonna they're going fast. Um, their energies are really neat um together. Uh um they say our our world today is very fascinated with um self-expression. Um but but the greatest art um doesn't come from expressing the self, it comes from transcending it in a way. Um or that that limits itself, right? So there they say there are moments when something wants to move through you. Um it can be a melody, an idea, a concept, uh a conversation, a painting, um, even uh a new life. And the they say the question isn't whether inspiration exists, it's it's whether you are available to it, which is is your thing of saying, I'm actually going to listen, right? Um, but availability, this is what they want to, this is something they really want to get across. Our availability to our inspiration, it isn't um, it isn't passive. It's it's actually in a way, it's earned, they say. That's a funny word for them to use. They don't use that often, that kind of thing. Um and then that same thing is surrendered. Um, so they say this has been like their friendly argument for a very long time. Um is that discipline, one of them thinks discipline creates right the vessel, and and both of these work together. And surrender allows the music to enter. So they're going to put these two like together for us that inspiration is real, um, creativity is a relationship, right? Um, our fear interrupts our creativity, um, because it it contracts everything. And that our job is really just participation, right? It's instead of things like manifest your dream life, they're so funny, or um, just raise your vibration, right? They say just they want to want us to think about this. What if our job just isn't knowing exactly where everything's going, just to participate with what's calling you in the moment? And this creativity thing exists so far beyond just art. It's um an entrepreneur that creates a business, it's somebody learning to trust themselves, right? Um, rebuilding after a divorce or a relationship, um having a baby, all these things. So they want us to you know to understand that and then start this conversation that creativity. Is it reserved for artists, right? It's it's the natural expression of life. And you can know this because the tree creates leaps. Um, a river creates valleys, and stars create light, right? All of that. But we get to create experiences, and we're all creators. And so the question isn't, are you creative? It's just whether or not you're listening. So they're really talking to you. That's it's cool the way there. Yeah, but I love it.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

So okay. So I I have something, you know. I yeah, yeah, you can ask them anything. So, so um this is interesting because my book, The Spiritual Artist, is exactly about that. It's about I call it uh aligning, getting yours getting yourself into receiving from spirit, and everybody creates, whether you're creating a child, a cake, a new business, a better body, we're all that's that's what I align with. Um, I spent 25 years working at an ad agency, and my gift was I could sit with a client in like you across from the table, and I could see clearly what their next step was. And the ability to step into, I call it stepping into spirit or aligning with the field. So I love the word align. I'm very, very good at it. Um, but ideas, it's like this little hole. I see a dike, you know, a little hole in a dike, and I can channel and pull water from anywhere. But what happens if if I'm doing that all the time? There's like an overload. There's like a it's like too much power coming through the human, the little guy, I call it little CJ. And little CJ, every he just he's freaking out. Does that make sense? I I I had a conversation with my higher self two nights ago, and I woke up in the middle of the night. And what happens is when I'm not in the field, when I'm in the field, it's glorious. Like, I don't know how you feel right now, Christy. When you're connected to those people, the that that that realm, it's glorious. It's it's glorious.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah, it's light um for me and and floaty. I'm a bit far away from you guys. Right. Um, and and it's you know, but yeah, but it's yeah, it's really um it's exciting. It's fun. Yeah, it's really fun.

SPEAKER_04 46:34

So when I teach, when I stand to do a sermon, when I paint, I feel that. But then when I wake up in the middle of the night and little CJ goes, oh my gosh, and he starts trying to write the story, you know, the story-seeking mind, that's where that's where. So there is a structure. What they're trying, I would say what they're saying is there's a discipline, just like you did. You took there's a discipline to being able to align with that field. There's a discipline, but then there's a surrender. You're not controlling the field, you're just listening to that.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Um, first of all, that's where they would start. Okay, they would start before before the creativity comes, right? Before the art, before the inspiration, before technique, just begin with listening. And it's not because listening is so important, but listening is the root of everything, right? So then they say, Wait, when okay, this is Beethoven particularly, they they speak collectively and then they break off sometimes. So this is him, and I'm just have to learn to listen this way. Okay, so when he was younger, he thought that the music came from effort. Later, he thought it came from talent. And eventually he discovered that neither one was entirely true, that it came when when he became quiet enough to hear it, right? It's it he says, you know, not not here, not here either. And then he's he's doing this and he says it's somewhere deeper, right? It's not not just here or here, but it's somewhere deeper. So then this turning it into expression, or even imagining that your creativity begins when you turn it into expression. It does begin with this receptivity and allowing right, allowing the the slow down, allowing just the enjoyment of the reception of the idea and not the all of it has to be done. When someone is very receptive, inspiration is flowing all the time, right? It's always speaking, it's speaking through beauty, curiosity, wonder, excitement, fascination, and and even through the sudden idea that something just came from nowhere. But what happens sometimes too, they say clearly, people like you, artists, um, people like you is that you become obsessed with following all the whispers. That's what you're that's what you're doing. So um what also happens here is that we have this uncertainty, and we're very concerned about uncertainty, but your creativity requires this uncertainty, and you all of your great work begins with not knowing, right? Just like in a way, every great life does too. So if inspiration is already speaking to you, right, all day long, it's it's really those moments that matter, not so much which ones get brought into form, which ones get followed. That really is immaterial. It's just whatever wherever you're being pulled. So um it as you as you bring something into existence, right? That didn't exist before, you're in that flow, you're you're in that. It's the joy of being in that, not the the piece itself, not the speech, not the sermon, not the painting, not the book. It's about that flow. Pick one and and be in it. And there's no need for all of the the holes to to you know to be caught in the bucket and then made into something. Does that do you understand what they're trying to say to you there?

SPEAKER_04 50:54

I do, but little CJ resists. Right, of course, right? Right, of course, right?

SPEAKER_01 51:00

And that's that is that's part of the that is part of the journey. And and understanding that that trust that you don't know where each one leads, and there is never a shortage of them. There's a feeling in you there they're showing me that it's it isn't so much that all of it has to get done. It's a fear that it will stop. It's a fear that the the flow will stop. Either I will miss something, and as it's almost like punishment because I because I didn't listen to that one and I didn't bring it into reality, I'm gonna get pinched off. Do you understand that feeling?

SPEAKER_04 51:47

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Yeah, they're showing it to me. That's something you feel is very subtle and it's under there, but that's part of what that little CJ thing is. We have to do all of this. If we don't, they're not gonna send us inspiration anymore because we we can't handle it. We have to do all of it. Um, that, and then just in general, that fear that it will stop, even there's a level where you understand it, it wouldn't be punishment, but you're not trusting the flow yet. You know it's there intellectually, but to trust that it's always flowing, and just like air, you can breathe in this one, and you don't have to take in all of the air just in case tomorrow there isn't any more air. So they want you to understand that I've got the feeling that the emotion that that you're that happens when you're in it, and it's a bit frantic, it's a little frustrating, it's overwhelming, but it is definitely an underlying fear. It's I have to prove that I'm worthy of all of this flow of inspiration. I have to. It's there's that really drumbeat under it. And um, you know, then not to mention this is all so cool, I really want to do it all, but it's it's a it's a little bit of both. But um, do you can you feel it? And once you're aware of it, now you can you can play with it and it'll soften right away, right? Um and your your creative thing, your this creativity is a very powerful spiritual practice for you and for everybody listening, because it does teach us to move before we're certain, and and that's what that's all about because spirituality and walking this way is about listening and taking a step before you have any idea or trusting that everything is happening for you and not to you. So that inspiration comes first, and there's always fear that that immediately pops up, right? So um inspiration moves really fast, right? And the inspiration arrives first, and then the mind shows up to explain why that inspiration shouldn't be trusted, or in your case here, why there's too much inspiration and I can't keep up. That is also just fear that it's based on some limiting belief, which they revealed right to you a little bit. So if you pay attention, you see it happening all the time. You get the idea to start something, and you say, Well, what if it doesn't work? Well, I want to write a book. Um, but who who would want to read this, right? Um, you are drawn to ask someone to go have coffee with you, and oh, you know, they're probably too busy, is all these little fears that show up right away. And the pattern is so consistent. But the fear is never about the present moment, and they want to say that here. It's always about a future that hasn't happened when you receive inspiration. That's something I've never thought about, but that's true. The inspiration says go, and the fear says, but what if? Right? That's what it says. So you while you can't totally ignore the fear, what you want to understand is that fear, they're going really fast, you guys now. So sorry, that fear isn't your enemy, fear is your information. So the most important moments in your life will contain both inspiration and fear. That's that fear is just the information letting you know where you have imposed a limitation on yourself. Um, John, he says, when he when he left some familiar territory in music, I don't know his history, so we'll see what he's talking about, but he followed some sounds that other people really didn't understand yet. And he had a lot of fear in that. But um it was like this devotion to his music and um and that tied it to a spiritual search, he always had fear. Um, fear accompanies every expansion. What you're talking about, and this the franticness, even is part of that fear. It's just one of those fears that's showing up after inspiration starts coming. And the fear can even be there's too much of this. I can't get it all. It's very funny the way they're showing it. I've never had that come through like that. So um, yeah, okay. So they're they're gonna go to um they're gonna switch off and talk about. All right, I see. Um, so they all right, just drop that in then. That I understand that inspiration, um, creativity, these things, this is this is a relationship, right? It is it is coming through you. You are receiving it, but you're generating a relationship by listening. And that listening requires some humility, um and then conversation with the unknown. They're going really fast. I'm not picking up everything they're saying. Whoa, okay. All right. So that yeah, it's like things they would just want to okay. Do you do you um do you want to go to your question about the chronic pain? Do you want to do that now?

SPEAKER_03 57:36

Yeah, sure. Let's just see if they is it tied into this or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Okay. Um, how would you um would you frame it? I I'm I'm just okay. Well, they don't need you to. Okay, never mind. All right, so all right, that's okay. So they say that um that pain has pain has a way of dismantling illusions, it's not because it's noble, right? Not because the suffering is required, but pain forces us to confront something that we can't control. And many times we, especially spiritual seekers, I I can see this. If we become conscious enough, spiritual enough, or in your case, aligned enough, the discomfort and the pain will disappear. But it's a bit more mysterious than that. Okay, so and they're they're gonna give you some stuff to hear. So that okay. Phaedrun, he's he's saying that one of the most difficult lessons he encountered in life was that his suffering wasn't really usually coming from his pain, much of it came from his resistance to the pain, which you are speaking to as welcoming it, and hey, I'm here, I'm here. Um, and so then John says that that the um there's the physical experience, right? And then there is the story that's built around it. Um, why is this happening? When will it end? What if it never gets better? Um, what's wrong with me? All of these little things, right? And and those questions are understandable, but they create another layer of suffering that is uh far more intense than the pain itself. And then they say, okay, so your your question is like, should I just accept it? Is that should I just do I just simply like accept that, right? And they say it's the way that the acceptance thing that you are asking about vibrationally is a little um thing they want to just tweak with you. Um it's just a misunderstanding of accepting it. And they say it doesn't mean liking it, and it doesn't mean giving up, it means beginning from what is true. The minute that you stop arguing with reality, then your own flow of energy becomes available to you again. So, and okay, there's they're giving me stuff to sense here. So you've devoted a lot of your life, they're saying, to listening. Um uh listening for spirit, for inspiration, for guidance. This is a lot, it's more than just the last few years, right? It's a pretty good portion of your life, and and now you're being asked to listen in a place that you would rather not look. Okay, so this is getting intense and deep. Okay, so just it won't they won't get loudly uh personal, but this is do you know what right? Okay, your pain narrows your attention, just for anyone, but your awareness starts to expand it again. So the question isn't really why, but they want you to ask instead of why, you know, why is this happening? Even the the to me on the end, why is this happening to me? Right, it's it's still there. They'd like you to just switch it and say, Okay, who who am I becoming through this experience? Okay, it's a switch for you. Who? Okay, so it's about being vulnerable. Your deepest creativity, your most powerful stuff is yet to come, and is going to require more vulnerability on your part from uncertainty, from not knowing, and from being humbled by life. Beethoven says his deafness, he would never call it a gift, but it was a doorway where he discovered depths that he would never have explored without it. So even you know, he said in his life, he he just could not call it a gift, and that's okay, but rather than the why, it's it is that who am I becoming through this experience? And it's this invitation, I'm asking you this isn't to glorify the pain, it's to remain open while you're moving through it, right? And so you're we're going to be like they're gonna steer away from this from a metaphysical cause, right, of the condition to a gentler question. Um you're being asked to develop some qualities a bit more intensely, a bit more deeply. Presence, patience, compassion, humility, receiving support, and surrender. That is all tied to this thing. So rather than interrogating your body, right, uh, what lesson am I missing? What belief is causing this? What are you trying to tell me? Okay, right. No, don't demand an answer from the pain. Just as you're just getting, like just getting going to do it, it's becoming really acquainted with it. But you can actually visually bring this clearer, right? You were you were alluding to it in your conversation with Gary, but they want you to bring it a little clearer. And they say for five minutes every day, they want you to close your eyes, breathe normally, bring your awareness to the pain, and notice its qualities. Yes, I do this sometimes too. Is it sharp or dull? Is it moving or stationary? Is it dense or porous? Is it hot or cold? Is it pulsing? Could it have a name? Does it have a color, texture, right? All these things. And rather than asking, hey, why are you here? Right? It's just you're becoming interested, right? Nothing, just interested in you. The moment you switch, just like Gary was saying, the moment you switch to go above that horizon line to do, then what might this pain? This is kind of deep. This is pretty emotional. What might this pain be protecting? That's a question to ask for you. Um you're going to discover some pretty surprising answers here. Okay. And that question is going to bypass your intellect. Um, and uh they've they're giving me some possible answers to it, but I think they want me to just shut up. So, okay, they're gonna shut up now because we've gone way, like way past time. They apparently they can't see a clock, but they're like, yeah, they're going like this.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Where's the most vulnerable part on a man?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Let me tell you. Let me tell you.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:06

So yes, it's certainly. Well, that was that's fascinating. It's fascinating. And it and it makes me curious. And uh I have to re-listen to this and really, really listen, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

Yeah, you you you will not get it all at once, but hopefully, even just in it, some some light bulbs maybe went off for you as we were talking.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's it that's why we love this stuff because who would believe this? Beethoven and John Coltrane coming to to speak to you specifically about what you're interested in and where your life is. And uh it's this you can't make this stuff up.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

I love it. They just dive right into inspiration, which you guys were you know talking about, which you know so funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Yeah, and stuff that we've never really considered before, too. Yeah, how this inspiration and creativity works.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:58

Yeah, yeah. Well, this has been great. It's been great. Um, I really love having you on the show, and it's fascinating. There, you're right with two of you, it's like you you almost want more time because it is, it's hard to cover everything. But um, is there anything else you you want to share with the listeners about like Gary, about what your process uh of of how you work with people or or Christy or both of you together? Anything?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Well, I would start by going to our website and getting Josh was first book, A Perception of Reality, which the audio book you can get on our website for free using the coupon code GaryFree. If that resonates with you, then follow up, search Gary Temple Bodley or Christy Levy, and see what else is out there. There's some meditations for free on the website, too. Um, our Freedom Project is something that is doing essentially what this conversation with Beethoven and John Coltrane. It takes you specifically where you are and just shifts your perspective day by day by day over a hundred days, so that you get to such a level of clarity and freedom because you never know where you are until you start diving in. And essentially, CJ, you're at the point here where you are are at this edge of expansion, we say, where this pain has come to show you your next level of expansion where you don't want to look, and that's the brave part of this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Yeah. That's great. That's great. It does take a lot of bravery, right? It's a courageous thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:44

Yeah, I say it all the time. This stuff, this spiritual journey is not for the weak.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:48

No, no, no. It's that's the thing. Spirituality isn't a cushion for life, it's just to help you work through it. But it's not, it's not a pain-free existence. It's not, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:01

It's a much better one. I like it much better than my old life of fear and control.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

Right. Oh, right. I do. I had no other choice. Yeah. I I I love having you on here. Thanks again. Um, listeners, uh, you've you've heard that. I'll have the notes in there about how you can get in touch with Christy and Gary. Um, great people, um, fascinating conversation. Um, remember, my book, The Spiritual Artist, is on Amazon.com, and I'm releasing a companion book to my spiritual parable. It's a coloring book. It'll be released at the end of this month. So you can get the coloring book and the parables and read um stories to help move you ahead. So um, both of you, thanks so much, and I look forward to seeing you again. So, everybody out there, go out and be a spiritual artist. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Spiritual Artist Podcast. Whether you're watching this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or iHeartRadio, make sure you choose the subscribe button so that you will receive updates when new segments are released. Most importantly, be still listen and know that you are a spiritual artist.