Near-Death Experience, Automatic Writing, And Inspire Nation With Michael Sandler  

Some things happen that leave us asking, “why me?” For those who have been in near-death experiences, it can be difficult to understand what the universe has planned for us. Michael Sandler, host of the Inspire Nation Show, has been in not only one but two near-death experiences, snapping him out of his old self and into the heart-centered person that he is now serving others. In this episode, Corin Grillo interviews Michael to share with us his stories and how he took the universe’s calling to make some change in his life. Plus, he also talks about doing automatic writing, telling us the origin behind it, and how you can get into direct communication with your spirit team, higher self, and the creator. Dive deep into this conversation as you learn the value of listening to the universe through Michael’s story.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Near-Death Experience, Automatic Writing, And Inspire Nation With Michael Sandler

I want you to meet another one of my newer friends. I got to meet him when I was doing a lot of promotion for my book, The Angel Experiment. I hit it off with him. He’s an awesome dude. He loves him some angels. The reason why I’m having him on is to share with you his story about his near-death experiences. That’s right, experiences, more than one. Also, I wanted him to bring some of his magic to you. He does a lot of automatic writing. He has a whole website dedicated to that because automatic writing has helped save his life and has helped dial him in more fully to the spiritual world. He walks you through his special steps into getting into direct communication with your spirit team, higher self and the creator of all that is.

A little bit more about Michael is that he’s the host of the Inspire Nation Show, which is one of the top spiritual and self-help podcasts and YouTube shows worldwide. On that show, he interviews leaders, experts and spiritual visionaries, many times each week. He is putting out amazing content all the time that is inspiring, thoughtful, and helpful. He says two near-death experiences, but it’s like 2.5. You’ll hear more about that in our episode. A lot of his body is made out of titanium because of it. How amazing is he? You have to meet him. He’s super sparky and has a lot of awesome wisdom. I feel like he’s an internal optimist. Don’t we need a little of that? Yes, we do.

To Michael, life is a spiritual journey first and foremost. His mission is to help others shine bright or discover their gifts and true, authentic self and rise to the highest vibration possible for themselves and the entire family of humanity. Did I mention he’s a professional athlete? That’s how some of his near-death experience has happened. He’s a fascinating guy doing amazing work in the world. He talks about his spiritual journey and how he went from being one person into getting essentially cosmically pimp slapped into becoming more of a heart-centered full that’s here to serve others. I thought that his story would inspire you. No pun intended. Take your inner guidance seriously and to listen to the call, that’s coming from your heart when it’s desiring to make some change in your life. If you don’t listen the way the universe shows up, it can sometimes be a little intense. Michael’s story is a perfect example of that. He is gracious to bless us with his inspiring story. Please welcome, Michael Sandler.

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I want to thank you for coming on. I’m excited to talk to you. I know the last time we talked, you mentioned that you’ve had the old, near-death experiences, but we didn’t get to go into detail about what that journey was about for you. How would you like to start sharing that story? I’m curious about what was happening in your life before the first accident.

I’m glad you asked, Corin, because usually it starts with the accident and prior to the accident, I’m going to back up a few years. The accident was on April 2nd, 2006. If I back up, I had a vision or dream in the middle of the night that I was going to be selling all my racing gear as a professional cyclist. I was top ten in the nation of the seniors, 30-plus for sprinting on the track and stuff of that sort. Seniors at 30, that’s funny.

I’m in shock, I’m about to collapse, seniors at 30. You were an old man.

I was an old guy and after this vision, I sold all my racing gear, rode my bike 5,000 miles in 40 days solo across the country to help people with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder, and had all amazing spiritual experiences out on this journey. Fast forward a year later, I felt like I was supposed to do something like that again. I’d been a speed skater as well as a former pro cyclist. I picked up a sponsor with Rollerblade to set a world record 4,000-mile 40-day skate across the country.

I am glad I asked that question.

It would have been more badass if I had made it. With that said, that’s not what the universe had in mind. I was training, I moved to Boulder to train from Fort Collins, Colorado, and I was training for this event. I felt it would be safer there to train there’s some irony to this. Two-and-a-half months or so before the start and it was going to be cool sponsored by Rollerblade. I also picked up a sponsor that was the American Electric Car Association. This is pre-Tesla and they would have different people with different electric cars escorting me along the way, which is cool to me. Fast forward to the day of the accident, I had been struggling with plantar fasciitis. I knew I could make it.

What’s that? 

Weak, swollen, unhappy feet. I had been not training too hard. I felt I could make it, but there was a seed of doubt in me. There was a concern for both, “Can I do it? Am I supposed to do it? Is this what I’m being called to do? Is this ego? Where is this coming from? Am I going to be safe?” All of these questions, which were probably during this COVID time. I finished a good Sunday morning training session. I sat down, took off my skates, and sat in the Boulder Creek, which is snowmelt. It’s cold stuff but I love that cold. I sat in the water and meditated for about 30 minutes, praying for safety and guidance. I got out and I laced up my skates, had been listening to an audiobook, Dr. Wayne Dyer, everything is book inspiration about everything happening in life and life happens for a reason. We’ll jump into the accident but I feel like got my answer by what happened next.

It was right after that.

Yeah. I laced up my skates. I said, “Michael, go slow. It’s a Sunday. Tourists are starting to wake up. They’re going to be out on the path.” Skated a few 100 yards rounded the first bend a slight downhill. Wasn’t going fast, but there’s a parking lot at the bottom. A father tourist visiting Boulder didn’t know it. He stepped out onto the bike path, teaching his baby how to walk. I like to say I had a choice of hitting the baby or hit the deck, the fact is nobody’s going to hit the baby. I found myself shooting up and backward to try to stop myself from going forward. It would have made an Olympic high jumper proud. I’m going through the air. I’m wondering, “Am I going to be able to do this?” Crack boom and Michael, who was, was no more. We get what we need. I wasn’t gifted with the tunnel experience and a little of that in my second one, but I wasn’t gifted with that. I was gifted with a concussive thud, knowing everything shattered a pause was the more I’ve thought back over it over the years. That one paused before I looked and saw that everybody was okay.

Barefoot Running: How to Run Light and Free by Getting in Touch with the Earth

You’re talking about the baby.

Yeah. I didn’t hit the baby. I didn’t hit the dad. Technically, I pulled myself up and rotated to the side because the baby is to my right. I rotated it up into the left. I landed on my left hip and exploded the hip, femur, and arm on impact. There are pieces of a femur sticking into the femoral artery so it’s a miracle I didn’t bleed to death. At that moment though, everything changed. I went back about 6, 7 years to that same spot, and would put my hand on a tree that then the bark changed to form the shape of my hand. I would go back and give thanks to because of the me who was died that day right there on the spot. I looked up baby’s okay. Dad’s okay. Sun’s still shining. Thank God. The fingers and toes still work. Something told me to flip the left leg over the right, which kept the artery from being punctured and bleeding out. I had the biggest beaming, excited, ecstatic, on fire, over the top, ear-to-ear grin. I was such a happy camper. It was a moment of pure bliss. I was in the most incredible pain in the world, but it was a moment of such pure bliss, peace, and everything. In fact, when the EMTs got there they each asked the same question, “Did you hit your head?”

You’re riding the high of life. All of a sudden inappropriate high on life. 

The best way I can describe it is I got the big picture, message, downloads, egoic, and this doesn’t mean that I didn’t have challenges in life afterward. I did but there was this element of the me became the we, probably the best way to put it. I went from focusing on my life. Granted, I was trying to help others, but certainly trying to help others from an egoic place. I go out and slay the dragon and set this world record.

I was like, “I’m a badass. Watch me roll.” 

It all changed. I can remember when they finally scooped me up, they got me to the hospital. I’m trying to take a photo of myself, this huge grin. The doctor’s like, “Michael, I’ve got to get you into surgery. You’re going to at least lose your leg if not lose your life.” I was like, “I could not have been happier.” You pray and you say, “God, give me an answer.” We’re going on tour. We’re going on an Inspire Nation pilgrimage here. I wasn’t sure about renting between a couple of different RVs and I went to sleep and I said, “Angels, God, guide, give me an answer what I’m supposed to do.”

In the morning, I woke up and there was a message that the RBI wasn’t sure about had been rented. The message came in right after I said my prayer and go to sleep. You look at the timing I prayed for safety and guidance and here I am completely broken. There must be a reason for it. It was an answer to my prayer. It was saying, “You’re not going to be doing this tour or at least not in the way you think.” It was crystal clear to me that instead of this being a poor me, whoa it’s me experience. I’m now broken. Who knows what’s going to happen? They’re talking about will I lose my leg? Will I be able to walk again? No, this was a gift.

You could feel that right at the moment that it was a gift?

It’s hugely so.

When you look back at that, do you find that odd? Had you had some trauma? Do you always respond with like, “This is glory be to God?” Is this the first time you had this deep encounter with the presence? 

I had many accidents. I had been an accident-prone athlete and since my early day’s accidents with part of my journey, until I renegotiate my contract, that’s another thing. Maybe we’ll get there, but never had I said, “This happened for a reason.” I was racing, trying to make it to the Tour de France. I was racing in Europe a long time ago and I was in the French Alps and I came up through this inner race, came up through this blind turn, around about there all these fans going, “He’s American.” The safety official had waved me through a blind turn, into an oncoming car. That ended my pro career at least trying to make it to the Tour de France, I had a right angle, left angle I could say bend in my lower left leg. I had been flipped over the car.

Was that the second near-death experience or that was an accident? 

That was an accident after which was many years earlier. I said, “God is dead. There is no God.” The juxtaposition. I did not feel, I was like, “If there’s a God, why did he, she, it take my career away from me? Why did this happen?” I had 6.5 to 7 years of PTSD, in and out of back pain centers, you go to this NDE and I’m down and I’m like, “Life is good.” Completely different.

I know it was an emotion or connection. Could you feel something with you as well? Were you too busy feeling the pain? 

It was as if I had been in the comeback. I didn’t get the pyrotechnics of the journey. I got the residual glow.

It’s the afterglow.

They’re going, “Did you hit your head?” I’m like, “Life is good.”

You’re like, “May I have a cigarette?” 

Something like that. I was coaching one of the ambulance people on how to work. I was doing a lot of coaching at times with people learning disabilities. I was coaching him on his nephew who had ADD. I was in such a brilliant ecstatic place. I wasn’t thinking God is all around me, but I wasn’t thinking God is not. I was thinking, “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. I’m surrounded by love. I’m filled with love. I come from love. Love is all there is. This is love. Love is life. Everyone is love, connected, and one. This ambulance person who I’m speaking to is me. I am them. It is everything.”

Tell me after that happened. We know you were in this incredibly, strangely, and ecstatic state. You got apparently fixed up. You had some surgeries.

I coach the doctor. I said the last thing I told him was, “Don’t worry, doc, it’s going to go back together better than you ever expected it would because I felt this was on purpose and I was going to be fine.” The next day he comes running in after surgery and he goes, “You’re never going to believe it.” He throws up this X-ray and he’s a straight-laced doctor guy. He’s pointing to the X-ray and I now have titanium femur and hip and some other stuff in there. He goes, “Michael, it went back together better than I ever expected it would.” I’m like, “I’m on it.”

You’re getting the automatic downloads. You have your magic. Your magic was kicking and flowing. After that event, you got that going then what happens to you? What is the sustainable change that you noticed immediately after that?

It changed my life trajectory. I was coaching at the time and it had an effect on my life trajectory. There was a much closer connection to spirit. I had been meditating a lot but I was meditating a lot more. There was a lot of closer connection. It was challenging through years on many levels. My ego was trying to come to kick in the back door, which is to say I may have been gifted a glimpse of something, at least on the subconscious level. I truly embodied that, but there is an element of at least my ego was strong and my ego was saying, “Now that you’ve got the message and the big picture, what are you going to do for me, sucker? How are you going to share this message? What are you going to do? You’ve been given a second chance. You need to get to work.”

The ego comes in the back door. For myself, I couldn’t heal for 1 or 1.5 years until I stripped off my shoes. I heard a message, “You’ve tried everything else. Why don’t you try going barefoot?” I stripped off my shoes and getting connected to the earth, helped me to heal and get balanced. I got an inch leg length discrepancy. My wife and I, who I hadn’t met yet at the time, wrote the bestseller Barefoot Running and Barefoot Walking. That was part of my healing journey. After the accident, I had a fiancé at the time and she broke up from halfway around the world on me. It’s not even over the phone. Through her coach, she disappeared. It was wild.

Did you say through her coach?

Yes. I call this time period the festivities because I was stabbed through the heart after I’d been shattered in the leg and I never got closure. I was on many levels, the potential for being a true mess, but I made a conscious decision, Corin. The conscious decision was this. I have a choice I can focus on what’s not working here and spiral downward into an abyss. I can use every bit of energy I have to turn this around and turn it into something special.

The energy for me is going to our collective situation right here with COVID and with all the amazing movements that are going on the social justice movements and how easy it is to find and land in a dark place and to go down to a dark place. We can go back to the near-death, but I’m wondering, what’s going on with you there? What’s your take? Did you see how that relation is? We can all take the low road but what’s your input about that?

There is no low road. We are certainly minus creator. Whether you look Neville Goddard and Napoleon Hill, whoever you want, our mind creates our reality, it truly does. Our outer reality is a movie projection of whatever’s going on in the inside. We get to choose that projection. We get to choose a different movie. I used to say, “Don’t watch the news, negative, worthless stimulation.” Corin, now I check it several times a day, but then I bring love and light to it. I link it to something positive. I go, “Here’s the outer vision. What do we want? How can we create this?”

Barefoot Walking: Free Your Feet to Minimize Impact, Maximize Efficiency, and Discover the Pleasure of Getting in Touch with the Earth

There’s a difference between becoming news obsessed and staying informed. There is a magnetic pull to the news that we do have to reel back. I like that practice of, “Giving it some love. I’m going in, but going in with your love and light frequency. I’m coming out with your love and free frequency.”

I see this time period on a conscious level, it’s this tour that’s coming up. I have no idea fully how it’s going to come together because I’m not supposed to, but something magical will come. We’re going to be 6, 7 weeks in an RV, traveling around the country, interviewing people cool stuff. With that said we’re in the RV as a collective and species, or what we are is we’re a butterfly in a cocoon. A butterfly I learned when a caterpillar goes into a cocoon, it becomes mush. It digests itself with enzymes and different cells stay around that this will be where the eyes are. This will be where the brain is and so forth, but it completely digests itself.

If you opened it up in the middle, it would die and that cocoon is in a sense of chaos. If you were asked the caterpillar butterfly, whatever it is at that point, it’d be like, “Life is a mess. This is a disaster. You could see me on CNN, Fox and this is horrific.” That’s not real. I can’t predict how this is going to happen. It’s a choice we can go either way, but I have complete and total confidence. If we choose as Paul Selig’s Guides call it The Upper Room and my guides do too when I do Automatic Writing. If we choose that higher perspective, that is where we will go and something incredible will come out of us. I can’t say it’s going to be easy. Me being snapped into that day was anything but easy, but was one hell of a gift.

I like what you’re saying that it is a choice. It’s fascinating that you’re bringing up the butterfly and the transformation that it goes into because that is a lot of what I’ve been talking to people about. A lot of times people go, “I’m going to become a caterpillar to a butterfly.” I’m like, “Do you know what happens in between that?” It’s gnarly and it’s painful. We’re in that process and it can appear to be ugly. Something that’s interesting though, is that some of the impressions that I get are that these cells that have separated from the old organism and we’re liquid. We’re like, “We haven’t quite formed yet.” It’s important for us to hold a different vision, a vision of beauty around it because those cells have not been programmed yet. Those of us who can hold a vision of beauty through the darkness need to be doing that at alarming rates so that we can hold the space for it, to blossom into the highest and most awesome version. That’s crazy that you’re saying that verbatim, I’ve been talking to people about that.

This is no surprise, is it?

I know. That middle stage, I neglected that middle stage too until this whole thing. I’m like, “What happens? You got to be kidding me. Why don’t we know this?” This painful purge, but important so that you can hold the paradox. For you, this excruciating physical pain yet this deep, powerful, heartfelt, spiritual elation, and this deep knowing that all is in the right and proper order. You go through that first part and it was after that you got broken up from afar. What was it via a coach or text?

I was engaged to a professional runner who was back in Japan. After a series of emails, she had let her coach know that we were engaged at this time. It’s a different culture at different times. All of a sudden, she disappeared and I was contacted by the coach or the coach’s wife first, and it was broken up and she was gone.

What was that? 

Cultural differences. She was fine. It’s as if your fiancé had passed away on you because you could have no more closure, no connection, and nothing. She was fine, but without that closure, it challenged me for several years. I was reeling on levels, but that too was probably exceptionally important. The lack of closure was as exceptionally important to let’s grab on to a different rope and grab onto the rope of spirit. Believe me, there was some crying, screaming, God only knows what was going on. This wasn’t, “Life is good. I’ve got an answer to my prayers.” That was not.

That sounds bizarro. At the same time, my sense is that when you have the opposite of cataclysmic shock, spiritual shift on the inside, when your heart shifts on the inside, it seems like it’s a matter of time where every area of your life will have to undergo a huge crusty transformation as we talked about with the butterfly. Is that how you see that process in that phase for you is, “Here’s another way you can anchor into the spirit?” How do you see it? 

I see the whole time period is helping cultivate and sculpt the new me. I’m trying to remember the expert who I had on near-death when we first started this show, a woman who’s an investigator of near-death experiences. She talked about one of the commonalities is oftentimes the partner goes away and quite quickly. I was such a different person before and afterward that it makes complete and total sense. I didn’t know that at the time, Corin. It hurt. I have a wiring inside of me that says, “Did I do something wrong? Did I mess things up?” That I had to be careful not to focus on that or that would have spiraled me down and to accept it, even though it hurt and even though I was still clinging at straws for a few years, “Maybe when she comes back to train in Boulder, I’ll get to speak with her. Maybe at some point, if I do this and that I’ll be able to do.” There was no closure. It was a wide-open gaping wound.

That sounds atrocious and supremely painful and on the piggyback of that. I didn’t know that was in relation to a near-death experience, but I work a lot with people going through massive spiritual awakening in different ways. Often the partners, sometimes there has to be rearrangement, not all the time. There you go. You have your big near-death experience. Your girlfriend does some weird stuff and unbelievable when I think about that. That’s crazy-making. It’s good that you got through that. Then what happens for you?

I’ll give you the fast forward version so we can get to the two-twin accidents that brought me to where I am. I had been meditating and was told, it’s time to come out of the woods, so to speak. I did a lot of meditations in the woods, but it was more metaphorical that it was time to let go of my attachment. At that point, I was like, “Someday I’ll go to Japan and I’ll meet the right person for me or I’ll become a monk.” I heard that I should come out of the woods and I should find a meditation center and I would find a community and I would find my wife. Sure enough, I went to the Shambhala Center and about a month later I met my wife, Jessica, and I knew it the moment I met her. She on the other hand did not, but I knew it.

Need some convincing. 

It did take some convincing or she felt she was conscripted. We got married, we wrote the book, Barefoot Running, together. We went on a book tour. We turned down a book deal with Wayne Dyer’s publisher, which is a whole other, beautiful, amazing, crazy story about everything in life happens for a reason. We found ourselves on Maui, with me going on another book tour for Barefoot Walking. The second book we did together and everything was going wrong. The RV we were supposed to do a house swap for an RV, the transmission broke, which was Jessica, she’s more plugged in even than me. She’s like, “That’s it, that’s a sign. I am not going on tour. You have fun.” I went out on tour. I rented this RV, the batteries died. The serpentine belt broke. I broke my foot walking into a store to give a talk and had to hide it because it was a Barefoot Walking tour. The RV almost tipped over. The RV got broken into. I had two car accidents on the same day. The RV got almost broken and yet I didn’t quit. I said, “I’m going to push through, I’m going to slay the dragons. I’m going to do this.”

Until finally, I give up in Colorado. I’d been going through the West and Jessica flew out to help me get the RV back to the RV rental place. I’m going to give up on this tour. We get into Lake Tahoe the night before we did, we stayed at this amazing campy place for a few hours. I watched the fish jumping out of the water. I watched the birds swooping down for fish or bugs and it was this mystical experience. I’m like, tick-tock Corrine. “I got to go. I got to get going.” I left that place and I started bawling and crying. I felt, “Why are you tearing yourself apart? Why aren’t you allowing yourself to soak in the beauty of the moment? Why are you so go, go?” I had 54 miles of coned off the desert highway where I couldn’t turn around. I couldn’t get back. The next day, I’m in Lake Tahoe. We meet these people from San Francisco and hike with them and they’re Silicon Valley-ers. They get her done people. I’m like, “I’m quitting the book tour, but maybe I can still do it this way. Maybe I can still do it that. Maybe I can still do it.” In other words, I hadn’t learned the lesson and the next day we went out, hiking stopped at this.

A couple of hours from returning the RV, we did “one last hike.” Met a guy at the side of the trail. He’s got on red glasses, red hair. He’s like the devil or something. He goes, it wasn’t like, “You wouldn’t miss this for the world.” It’s something to do with prophetic about, “You need to do this hike.” We did this hike at the top of it was snowmelt coming off of a cornice, dropping down into the stone, which created this giant, turquoise water pool of 32-degree water. I went swimming in it. It was freezing cold, but blissful. I went swimming and for the third time, I lost my glasses and I was cold.

I wasn’t thinking straight. Couldn’t get the glasses out. Jessica’s like, “Put on what little clothes you have. You’re turning blue, put on your leather-soled moccasins instead of being barefoot out here on the rock. Not as much traction, but I need you to be warm.” We started hiking back and I paused at one moment and I stopped her and said how much I love her and how much it’s time to have kids. She started hiking in front of me across a tiny little creek. She crossed the first baby tiny little creek. I stepped down into the creek. I stepped on some sand. I collected some sand on the bottom of the moccasins.

I took one more step and went flying through the air. I don’t know how I landed, where I did, how I did. I landed on the other side on a pyramid-shaped rock, going right into my thigh. I yelled, “No, not again.” I had obliterated my right femur with pieces of bone sticking into the skin from the inside. Jessica was a distance off. I had yelled to her and then I stopped breathing and everything’s going tunnel vision on me. I don’t believe I got into a tunnel of light. It went as in end screen Looney Tunes, “Here we go.” I had a moment of, “Do I want to stay?” Stay meant something different. It wasn’t a voice, but it was, “Do I want to stay?” Meaning in this place of non-breath, “Everything is going to be fine. It’s going to be peaceful. You’re going to be in a state of bless or do you want to go back to where Jessica is? You’ve been through this before. This is going to be hellishly painful. This is going to be the toughest experience you’ve ever gone through.” Michael is Michael.

Love a little pleasure with the pain. Dig in it.

I want to have kids and then go and check out on her. That’s bad juju.

You’re being a good guy that’s why you came back?

I fought for her. I came back.

You remember having that feeling or that conversation, you knew that you were riding a threshold.

I’d stopped breathing. I came back and whether it was literal or metaphorical, I don’t know or literally in my head, I yelled at myself, “Effing breathe.” Pretty much. I had to turn for the next hour plus an unconscious process into consciousness. I had my waist from my waist to my feet was stuck in a shallow creek, 3, 4 inches of freezing cold water probably saved my life or maybe it was going over my legs even. I would have these extreme jolts of pain racked the whole body. I said, “What’s the most powerful thing I can do?” It was amazing Lake Tahoe. The sun is my guest, is this brilliant light above me. I don’t think it was like a light at the end of the tunnel. I breathe in light and I said, “What else can I do?” It was a conscious act here, “Send out love to everybody, breathe and light, racks, spasm, pain, breathe and light, send that love.” I got in such an ecstatic state where my gas is the only way I can describe it as I was getting download after download at this point. Different people came up to me who are out in this trail and in the backcountry but not far from civilization at all. There’s a parking lot a mile or so away, but it was considered backcountry. At one point I broke out into, “I can see clearly now the rain is.” I got back to that state of the first accident in between the pain.

It seems like it works for you. 

The EMTs have got to me, no blood pressure. They’re completely freaking out. They’re not sure what to do. They’ve got to get a helicopter to me. There’s a helicopter that needs to go someplace else. How are they going to save my life? What are they going to do? It all worked out. It took 4 or 5 other people. Fast boarding here, two helicopter rides, five-hour surgery, 4 or 5 other people’s blood to keep me alive. The next day, the PA comes in who assisted in the surgery. I’m in the hospital bed. I’m weak. I can’t even get my head off of the bed, but I’m alive.

He goes, “Michael, how did you already get your X-ray up on your website?” “What in the world are you talking about? I can barely lift my head.” He goes, “Yeah, let me show you, it’s on the website.” It turns out before the accident I had in my left leg a titanium femur, titanium hip, and several metal wire hoopy things that held the whole thing together and an inch leg length discrepancy. After the second accident, I had matching identical titanium femur in my right leg, titanium hip, and metal hoops, and exactly the same place that faked out the doctor on X-ray who had done the surgery and no more leg length discrepancy. I’m a tuning fork.

Near-Death Experience: The majority of us, even if we’re “spiritual”, weren’t fully putting ourselves out there and embodying it. We were chameleoning up trying to fit into this world.

You are a tuning fork. You have two of these “cataclysmic” because it seems like it’s part of your becoming. How did the second one change you? The first time wasn’t enough. The second time happened, what is the process here?

I got one more thing that wasn’t a near-death, thank God. We have one more thing that finished the trifecta, it was clear after the second one that this was no accident. How can you look at one leg and see the other leg, identical decisions, identical everything?

That’s insanity.

Clearly, the universe is speaking to me saying, “You’re off track. You’re pushing too hard. Your ego is out of control. You’re trying to slay the dragon.” I can remember going on a crutch. I’ll call it a hike on this amazing hill because we were living on Maui called Polipoli, this super steep grass slope that any place else in the world might’ve been a ski slope, but not on Maui. I can remember hearing spirit talking to me my soul and saying, “I took you out and live or die. We couldn’t have you living that way anymore. You were too much out of alignment.”

In these shamanic communities, one of the phrases that I’ve heard about these accidents, they call it an Assemblage Point shift. This is for anybody who’s going through a major, especially those spontaneous moments. You don’t see coming car accidents, all of that stuff. Sometimes it’s a way that at a soul level if you’re not in alignment, let’s say you’re looking at life through this lens. It’s a quick little readjustment there which for us, stand on the ground as the person seems uncomfortable, but always there’s this growth that comes from it, that was in alignment. Do you feel like that’s what was happening for you? Did you need a few little cosmic pimps’ laps?

Yeah. I’m not sure with the word little, but I’ll go with cosmic guidance with a 2×4.

We call it however we see fit. That’s a major but what’s fascinating is that you did have this elevation of spirit after both, that helped nourish you through that. Also, I feel like this is such a metaphor for our collective where we are heroically and egoically-driven and go. A lot of us have hit the pause button through the COVID experience. We have been able to pause and go, “Why the hell was I running fast? What’s going on?” Let’s keep going. The next layer for you. 

Fast forward about a year later, and this one I had learned how to heal from the last one. Healing faster, we had been making a beautiful program, which was at that point a project completely out of control. It was too large for us. We finished it, but it was too large called Mindful Running and I’ll plug it MindfulRunning.org. We’re creating a program of meditation and movement, which I was using to heal. I’m out on a bike ride. I have gotten off of the crutches. I’d been jogging again. I was healing and I was out on a bike ride before the last day’s photoshoot. I was riding back to the house former professional cyclist, never had any bike accidents on my own with other people and races, different story.

I’m on the side of the volcano called Haleakalā because we were living on the side of this volcano. I’m going through two switchbacks before the house. I watch, it seemed like slow motion, the front wheel started going into the air. Why is the front wheel going into the air, Corin? I have no idea, but the front wheel is in the air. It was like you’re watching a movie from slow motion to super fast. I was thrown into the ground hard, shattered my helmet, concussion. The handlebars dented the top of the bicycle by swinging around fast, broke all the ribs in front of my heart, and broke all the ribs behind my heart. Broke the scapula above and behind my heart, broke the clavicle above and in front of my heart, every bone around my heart was broken. I want to go woo-hoo.

That was the woo-hoo. I did get my woo-hoo after the first accident. I did get my Buddha to laugh, so to speak, which takes Jessica and a pitchfork to get me laughing like that usually. I did get that after the second one, but it was the third accident where it’s not that you drop the ego, you shed the ego. It was finally able to go into my heart and to stop guarding, fighting, and fully driving. I work my tail off and I have this gung-ho side that runs mountains and stuff. I can run mountains still. It’s amazing. It took that accident to finish me off. From there, we got kicked off of Maui soon after that, Jessica had been sick with mold, toxicity poisoning. Our finances are completely wiped out from the accidents.

I dove into a process that I teach people called Automatic Writing. It’s a process of connecting with the angels and your inner wisdom and learning. Before this, I was operating on ego or head. In fact, it’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about it this way after my concussion got my bell route wrong from that accident. It says something, “I wasn’t operating from heart.” Even despite the experiences, learnings, and the download after download is the only way I can describe it of being in that creek bed that completely elevated my understanding of everything to a completely new level. I wasn’t operating from heart. The shields were still up and the shields got shattered from that accident.

How long did it take you to put that together?

It was such a hyperdrive of healing and then, “We’ve got to get off Maui. We’ve run out of funds and then Jessica is sick. There’s black mold.” It’s interesting. I had been holding space for the winter prior. I had been holding space at a meditation center for 2, 3, 4 hours a morning. Even though that process, I was not getting the words of wisdom and guidance that I needed. Once we got off Maui, I dove into automatic writing each and every morning. It’s a total process of surrender. “God, angels, guides, whatever we want to call it, I give up driving the ship. It isn’t working, help me out here.” I learned why the accident happened, why Jessica got sick, why we were kicked off Maui. I learned what the next step was. I learned that we got to start a show, everything unfolded once I truly said, “I surrender.” Allowed myself to dive in and connect with spirit.

For you, one of the most amazing tools in processing the past and getting the answers you wanted was automatic writing. Can you take our readers through that process or through how to do it themselves? As a collective, we are much going through a heart cracking. We’re getting our ribs broken especially with my own private clients, people have the same questions, the why? How can they use automatic writing to get some answers?

People can find a whole program. We made a whole 50-video series program to walk you through step-by-step.

That is prolific. 

We’ve turned it into an art. It’s cool.

The Tour de France of all channel writing programs.

AutomaticWriting.com, it’s super simple to remember. In essence, what we do is we come up with morning, ritual, everything in life. The more we make it a ritual, the easier it is to get into a state. We come up with a morning ritual for people. We help people do a short meditation to get them into a special brainwave state. We go to theta music to help them with that brainwave state. We go into several short prayers to create the sacred vessel, the bubble from which you want to write on your calling in God source universe, whatever it is for you. Any belief system works. Corin, have you never been down a dark alley where you felt like, “I need to get the heck out of here?”

Yeah. That was the story of my early life.

That’s the voice of Automatic Writing saying, “Hello, Corin. Those hairs are sticking up. They should be telling you something.”

That’s what was happening in their first twenty years of my life. Got you. Get the hell out of there.

The voice is there for all of us. You create this sacred vessel from which to write. I’m an angel’s guy. I’m always calling in the Archangels. I have to call in the angels, Mother Earth and Mother Nature. I’ve never understood. Is there a difference? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I call them both in.

I do too. I’ve been calling her Big Mama. I’m like, “Big Mama Gaia.”

Big Mama hit the red button for us. She hit the pause button full stop, Corin. You’ve got to stop and breathe. I call in Big Mama and the Spirit of the Earth, wherever I’m at the elders, the ancestors because I want to call in all the mojo. We’ve all had loved ones who’ve passed on who we feel are by your side. I may call them in as well. I develop a boardroom. You don’t have to call in all that many. I joke and say, “You can call in the giant cheeseburger in the sky. It’s all good. It’s energy. I call in the troops.

Call in something that you think is bigger than you. If you don’t like the word God, you can say anything. I agree with you that the more that we empower ourselves to call on a bigger or higher presence to engage, that higher version of whatever you want to call it the better. I love the simplicity that you’re talking about calling it in. I have a big posse too. I like to call in all my allies and whoever’s charting up, but seriously, a lot of it is Big Mama. Big Mama is coming through in all of her different facets and doing the good teaching. You got your posse rolling. What do you do? 

After you get your posse rolling, you go and you put pen to people. You’ve been writing these out and you’ve got pen to paper and you ask this first question. Simple but profound, what do I need to know? You keep that pen moving on the page no matter what do not stop. Don’t ask, “What I should write? I have people listening to different theta brain entrainment music. If you start thinking, crank up the music, but keeps the pen flowing. Oftentimes we’ll get little snippets. Some people, I break it down. About 10% of people get poetry, prose, and lyrics.

How do they get lyrics? I still don’t get lyrics. They get lyrics. About 10% of people get profound words of wisdom. Most people, but 60% get little snippets like, “I don’t know what to write. Corin, you’re loved. I don’t know what to write. You come from love. I don’t know what to write. Everything’s okay, Corin. You don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write.” That’s most people. About 10%, 20% don’t get anything for the first few weeks. You go through this program. Everybody gets it because the voice is there for everybody but you feel better. You feel better because you’re making that connection with spirit.

Near-Death Experience: If you don’t listen to the universe, you will get the messages the hard way. The universe will crank up the volume.

It’s about connection. I feel like people have the idea that because they believe in a higher power like, “I’m spiritual.” It’s this ideological experience. It’s a belief system, but they haven’t quite anchored in an authentic connection. I have been wanting to replace the word spiritual with connected. There’s a difference and sometimes when people over-identify with like, “I’m a spiritual person.” They begin to separate themselves from the rest of the world. 

That’s a real danger, particularly now we go, “I’m a spiritual person. I’m spiritual having a human existence.” I do say a lot, but it doesn’t mean that you want to be floating around in the ether. We need you anchored and step forward.

We need to get anchored, get powered up, start taking sacred action. I’m seeing a split happening in the spiritual community that has been quite a little thorn on my side. This is not about ideology here. It’s about action and embodiment and being here and listening, connecting, moving, not sitting around like, “I’m going to pray.” That’s people can get cut off. I am making a little commitment. It’s not spiritual anymore because no matter what, whether you’re having a challenging, dark experience, I’ve always said whether you’re smoking a crack pipe or praying on a pew, it’s all a “spiritual experience.” Why even name it? 

It all is. There is no spirit. There is no non-spirit. There is no duality. There is no, any of this nonsense. You’re here, work with it.

We’re here to make the biggest party you can imagine. Do it for you and as many people as you can bring with you. I know you’re a party animal too. Can you tell me the ways in which people can use this Automatic Writing? What can they do? How can they transform their relationship with spirit, life, and their relationship with this particular tool?

It can affect and profuse every area of your life. Mid-COVID, why is this happening? Why is this happening for me? Why are these people say to me and it’s for you and through you rather than to you? Why is this happening? What can I learn from it? How do I step forward? Where do I go from here? What’s important to do? What do I need to remember? What is the future outlook for me? Are there any changes I need to make in my life? How do I grow this connection so that I can hear it 24/7 when I’m not even writing?

How do I upgrade or up-level my life from the inside out during this time? What’s going on with my relationships? Why am I having these fears, worries, and concerns? Why is this a year of reckoning meaning? Why are all the things that I thought I healed coming back into my face right now? What do I need to know about it? How can I learn and grow from them? You can throw anything out and yes, this is a year I don’t know about your wounds, Corin, but all of my wounds and clients’ wounds are coming back up to be healed at a deeper level.

We’re all triggered. We’re all like infants sucking our thumb for a while. At least at the toddler stage, I’m walking, but it was this collective like, “What’s it an upside-down world and what do we do with that?” I’ve been grateful that I’m seeing what I’m seeing, at least within myself. It’s like a hall of mirrors. Wherever I look there, I am again. It’s like you were saying. It’s a choice, what you’re going to do with that information? You can either follow the wound into more wounding or acknowledge the wound, absorb it. How spirit has shown me, at least with our past wounds as they come up, they’re coming up because they were still gaping wounds. They were under the surface for a while. One of the ways that we can at least envision them healing is not by bypassing them and pretending, but asking spirit to heal this.

I do see an open wound. If I see like, “This is some old shit. Here I am again.” I ask spirit to show me the wound and it comes to me like a flesh wound. I asked spirit to do the healing and I watch as it gets healed. The scar that I see when I know that it’s healed or at least I’ve gained the wisdom from it, it turns silvery-white, like gray hair. It becomes silver. You don’t have to forget the past, but you can become wiser because of it. It sounds like that’s so much of your life. You’ve had a lot of literal wounding and you’ve managed to gain wisdom and continue to do amazing work in the world for others. I love what you’re doing. I love this channeled writing because it’s empowering. I also feel like it’s simple in a way that people can access it.

For me, it’s having your own inner GPS. No matter how much meditating I did beforehand, I could not hear, “Where do I go? What’s the next step? What’s going on?” I was still fully off-track. There is no off-track, it’s all learnings, but there’s a painful method and then there’s inflow. I was out of flow or out of resonance, grinding gears and you go into Automatic Writing and you’re like, “That’s why.” I’ll still hear on occasion. I’m much better. I have an expression, “Kind, gentle, easy and good may all lessons come to me. Kind, gentle, easy, and good. I am listening.”

I’m listening. I love that new contract.

It works much better. Sometimes there’s some minor steering or guidance or little nudge necessary, but it’s much kinder. It has left me in a place where I can’t pretend to have the answers. I joke as much as everybody else and says, “My crystal ball is broken.” As we were trying to go through this, but I am a lot more grounded and rooted. I have an idea of what my next steps are. Not the whole picture for sure but it is greater of an understanding of, “Here’s where you are. Here’s where the collective is. Here’s what you get to do next.” That is a different way of life than where we are, if we don’t have a process to ground us and connect us of feeling spun and freaked out and scared.

This is coming in resonance with something that I’ve been also speaking to my communities about, which is, “Now is the time.” When we start looking at other people, you’re looking at the news for answers you’re looking to this to answer something outside of yourself for answers. Now is the time where we have to anchor into our truth. We also have to use rational thinking. It’s a balance between don’t listen to, “I’m going to listen to my heart.” You have to balance it out with your cognition.

That’s why I love you, Corin because it’s a two-step dance. If you go, “I am spiritual.” You stand in front of the railroad train or the train, you’re still going to get smooshed like a bug.

It does not, who knows we need discernment? I love this channeled writing because it’s user-friendly and anybody can access it without dogma, without the whatever. Your information is there and I also have had extremely powerful channel writing experiences. I’ve had one with my mother who passed away 30 years ago. I was like, “Mom.” I don’t know why I was already doing intuitive work, but I was like, “Old wound, I don’t want to go there.” I decided to go there one day and she gave me all of this information and I was like, “How can I know that this is true?” My Mexican side of the family is massive. There’s this one family my family was having drama with, but we grew up together.

We love each other, but there were strains because of other people in my family, but I was not necessarily part of it but I felt butthurt about the fact that our families weren’t communicating anymore. She said, “I’m going to fix this relationship for you.” I shit you not, the next day I get a friend request from the matriarch of that part of my family on Facebook. She was in her ’60s. What is she doing on Facebook? She friended me on Facebook the next day. Within a week, I and my children were at Disneyland with their family. I was like, “Mom, you the bomb, girl.” I knew that was real communication. Something else I want to say, when we are doing this intuitive work, sometimes we feel like we’re making it up. What do you say to people about that?

First off, there’s nothing wrong with thinking you’re making it up because it’s all energy and spirit. Where did the impetus come from to make it up? We get to ask that. If I’m teaching people automatic writing, I say it’s easy to tell if it’s your ego or not. Ego is shoulda, woulda, coulda. It’s going to shit all over you. That’s your ego. If it’s a loving, kind, and gentle voice, Corin, that’s coming from spirit. If what you’re saying, you don’t believe, or you’re not sure where it’s coming, but it’s a loving, kind voice, explore it more. Ask where it’s coming from. Ask how it’s here to serve you. Check it, verify it.

A loving kind voice is not going to say, “Jump off of the cliff.” That’s not a loving kind voice. When we think we make things up, there is always a powerful thread of truth. I don’t care if the answer seems like it’s coming from a relative who’s passed on, your inner wisdom, a God humors her itself, a pet, or whomever, the words have validity to them. They have magic, they have a resonance. You can feel, what does that feel like? Does that message? “That’s profound. I want to cry.” Is that, “No, that doesn’t make any sense?” You can check it and tell me where that’s coming from.

What was the website? 

It’s AutomaticWriting.com. It will walk you through step-by-step in the process. We were supposed to have a book come out called The Automatic Writing Experience. You can buy it on Amazon, but it won’t appear until January 2021. I like to joke and say, “It got COVID.” It was allowing me to pull it back because let’s face it, before this time period, the majority of us even if we’re “spiritual” wasn’t fully putting ourselves out there and embodying it. We were chameleoning up trying to fit into this world. Pretending we’re one thing, feeling like we’re another and not feeling like we’re fitting in.

COVID brings it up in our face and says, “You need to embody who you are and if not now, then when?” I scooped that book back and said, “I was trying to make it so that people and corporations want me to call me in and then I could train them on this.” I’m like, “No, you’re an angel guy.” Put yourself out there. Be completely open and honest if you scare people away, great. We’re at mile 20-plus in the marathon. What happens at mile 20 of a marathon? Everybody gets religious, “God help me.” Put it out there. Be yourself and I put it in there.

I’m glad you did. That is so much of the guidance I’ve been getting from other people too, is like, “You better wave that freak flag even bigger because we’re all about to turn into the freaks.” 

Thank you. We have to. That’s what going to happen when we elevate anyway, whatever that means. I don’t think it means we’re suddenly going to be zipping around or in magic carpets. When we go to that next energetic state, it’s because we chose to embody what we are gifted with.

We chose to embody it. That spirituality is not an ideology. It is an experience. It is an embodiment. I also used to meditate a bunch and then I shifted into like, “Allies, things are alive. Angels exist.” More people have to come out of the woodwork talking about the support system, the real palpable, energetic. These beings are helpful and powerful. The more that you magically approach through Automatic Writing and other tools the more that your life transforms. It’s inspiring to hear that’s what happened for you. You started coming from your heart more because of this Automatic Writing Experience. Michael, I know that you shared with us your website, is there anything else that you are available for that you would like for our readers to know about and how can they find you?

We have a biweekly show where we interview other spiritual authors, guests, lightworkers experts, all fields to help people to elevate consciousness, to uplevel your life, take it to the next level.

It’s an awesome show. 

Corin would know it well as she has been on it as one of my favorite guests. It’s The Inspire Nation Show. You can find it at InspireNationShow.com. You can find the episode with Corin as well. On YouTube, you can find it at YouTube.com/InspireNationShow. On top of that, we have lots and lots of classes. We have an Automatic Writing class coming up. We have an Automatic Writing course that you can find out about on AutomaticWriting.com and join us for that course. We have bootcamps a week or five days courses to help uplevel your life as well. I am on a mission, you’re on a mission and I’m sure you’re on even more of a mission to get out as much wisdom as you can, without hurting ourselves. We’re not allowed to do that. We cannot slay the dragons, but you are and I’m on a mission going, “It’s go time.” We’ve got to shift consciousness. That means to connect to spirit. We’ve got to find a way to do that now. Something you were saying, which was, “Ask the angels, ask the guides.” The more that we can treat life as a ritual or ceremony in constant communication and constantly asking for guidance means everything.

I think it means everything too. I’ve thought that for a while, but this is no longer a drill. This is not a drill. You better step up, stand. You got to walk your talk. I’ve been pulling out all of my old tricks, every single tool to keep me and my family contained, expanded, and in love with life. It takes a lot. For all you people who are hanging out in the background, but know you’re here for a mission, it’s time to keep on talking to spirit. If you want to open up that funnel, please, do go to the website that Michael’s talking about. Automatic Writing is badass. I’m stoked that you’re doing that for the world to theirs, Michael. Thank you for that.

The Automatic Writing Experience (AWE): How to Write in a Meditative State to Get Unstuck, Find Direction, and Live Your Greatest Life!

Thank you for having me on your show and for giving me a chance to share. We’re in this together. We need to all come together. Meaning if you’re reading this, we need to all come together as a web at this point, connecting, supporting, helping each other, and raising consciousness together. I cannot think on the surface, I look out there and I have to truly believe that something special, amazing, glorious and woo-hoo is coming out of this, particularly if we come together.

We have to believe that because what are our options? 

Hiding under the covers. That’s another option.

Every once in a while, I do and go into hiding under the covers and sucking my thumb stage but I do come back out and I’m like, “Damn it, we’re going to do this. We’re going to rock it.” It’s complicated yet simple, whole division, and takes those sacred actions. Those aligned actions and get aligned without catastrophic events. What’s your new contract so we can make sure to use that one? I like it.

“Kind, gentle, easy, good. I am listening.” It means you have to slow go to AutomaticWriting.com or do your own process, but you have to slow, take the time and listen. That’s not my edict that’s the universe. If you don’t listen, you will either get the messages the easy way or the hard way. The universe will crank up the volume. The volume is on what appears to be max. If you can remember Back to the Future with Michael J. Fox, the first scene, he goes into Doc’s office or something and cranks up this amplifier and there’s a giant speaker in front of him. He pulls out his pick and he does one note across his guitar. The speaker blasts and he’s thrown backward. That’s what’s coming next if we don’t choose to listen. I’d rather listen.

When you were talking about speakers, I was seeing the movie, Spinal Tap, and it’s not turned up. The dial is not turned up to ten. It’s turned out to eleven. We’re getting close to eleven. It’s turned up to ten right now. That’s about to go. Michael, you were such an inspiration. I love your show. I love the work that you’re doing and your energy. I’m glad you’re alive. You were the good guy who chose to come back, not leave your lady hanging out there to dry on her own because the world gets to receive your gifts. 

Thank you, Corin. It goes both ways. You have amazing energy. This was fun. What you’re doing is what we need right now.

Thank you, Michael. I love you. I’ve given you a social distance hug thousands of miles away. 

Important Links:

• The Angel Experiment
• Inspire Nation Show
• Barefoot Running
• Barefoot Walking
• MindfulRunning.org
• The Automatic Writing Experience
• www.AutomaticWriting.com
• www.InspireNation.com
• www.InspireNationShow.com
• www.YouTube.com/InspireNationShow

About Michael Sandler