Candice Wu 0:00
In this episode, I'm going to talk a little bit about cravings and addictions. And, then I'll offer an experiential to support you in moving through, getting to the deeper desire or need or metabolizing what's underneath your cravings, coping, addiction attachments, or dependencies, and offering greater freedom and digestion of what's here in your body to be present and honor the experience that you're having.

Candice Wu 0:34
Hello and welcome. You're listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu, and I'm a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:09
This experiential and podcast episode is supported by the funds from The Ally with Death audio experiential. This is a guided process where I lead you through experiencing your own death. It is accompanied by provocative and beautiful music from Larry Saint Germain and was produced by Chris Spiegl. And it is a guided experience that leads you through a series of prompts to get to the essence of what needs to die and end in your life, what's been molding or decaying, allowing that to clear out, shift and compost, and transform you into a life that you want to live now and refresh and reset you to this present moment of what you desire. What is connected with your vibrational clarity and who you are.

Candice Wu 2:08
And it's great for this time of the pandemic because a lot of us are looking at death outside of us. And what comes with that? What is the death that's happening inside of us or needs to happen inside of us? How can we embrace the energy of death and ally with it so that we can fully live? You can find that experience at [CandiceWu.com/death](https://CandiceWu.com/death).

Candice Wu 2:45
Hello, everyone, welcome back to the Embody Podcast. I am coming to you from Mexico, the ocean behind me, and the energy of the ocean here with us. I'm so grateful to be able to be here and also happier tuning in today.

Candice Wu 3:03
If you want to skip directly towards the experiential, it'll be around 30 minutes, but it'll be more precise in the show notes if you want to check them out. Or, if you're using a podcast platform, you can skip forward to the beginning of the experiential.

Candice Wu 3:23
So cravings and addictions, in this time of the pandemic, we are, for the most part, for many people stripped of the typical ways in which we move about the world. We might be feeling bare in some ways, or powerless were the things that we need or have felt we needed or want, we may not be able to have, get, or do and we are left to be with that experience.

Candice Wu 3:57
And for some, that's easy and second nature, moving through changes and just allowing the feelings to come. And for others, this is hard, especially if you have already a craving or addiction. And when I say craving or addiction, I mean the things that we go towards, that we depend upon to make us feel okay, to survive, or to feel better.

Candice Wu 4:25
I remember one of my guests, Jill Massura, who was on the podcast early on, she's at [CandiceWu.com/jill](https://CandiceWu.com/jill). She said, if you knew what my addiction was doing for me, specifically alcohol, you wouldn't ever take it away from me.

Candice Wu 4:42
And I completely see that there's wisdom in the thing that we go towards, that we are addicted to or that we keep on using. And, while it may be incredibly destructive to us, like certain substances are, or certain habits that continue to hurt us. There is an aspect of it that is protective, adaptive, and helpful, serves a purpose, and also may have, in that sense, its wisdom and medicine. I almost said “wedicine” that's a weird concept, wisdom and medicine.

Candice Wu 5:24
I remember doing a constellation with someone and their family line was experiencing alcoholism. And one of the representatives at some point said: I want the alcohol to be acknowledged. Her sense was it felt important that the alcohol was acknowledged as wisdom and the wisdom that the alcohol brought needed to be acknowledged.

Candice Wu 5:55
And I feel like when we look at our addictions, and we move towards the desire from greater freedom, that if we know what's underneath and driving it, if we begin to allow the space and capacity to heal, what's at that deeper level, then we can really honor the wisdom, the support that this thing actually brought. No matter how destructive it helped us survive in some way.

Candice Wu 6:27
And if you do have that capacity now or the desire to look into something that you feel like you need or you feel like you crave, then you may get to a deeper understanding of yourself or metabolize an emotion or energetic experience. You may or may not even have words for it at the end. But it has the chance to give you more empowerment and allow you to come from a more integrated and powerful place in yourself.

Candice Wu 7:01
There's less attachment and dependency on the things outside of us to make us feel okay. The power is less dispersed, it's more within us. And we have our inner capacities, a whole universe inside of us that can bring us to feeling whatever we want to feel or make us feel okay, whole, present.

Candice Wu 7:30
And so, sometimes it's important to just simply give yourself what you need and use your coping mechanisms, use your addictions, use the things that you crave, and say I just need that right now. Especially if you feel overwhelmed. We don't always need to dissect things. It's good to not overwhelm your system and push too hard too far because it will just drop more overwhelm. Bring more overwhelm into the nervous system that is already feeling that way. That doesn't help.

Candice Wu 8:03
So it's important to notice what your window of capacity is right now. And if you have the space and the capacity to be with yourself with what emotions come up, and it is okay and important if it becomes overwhelming and you need more support, perhaps a nervous system of someone else that can give a little bit of coregulation and coherence or presence to metabolize what can feel deeply painful, that lies underneath the surface of our coping, our addictions, the things we draw towards.

Candice Wu 8:47
Sometimes our addictions creep in and we don't realize them until maybe it gets bigger or maybe we don't even realize them, you know, that analogy of a frog. Sitting in warm water and that gets hotter and hotter. And because it's happening so slowly the frog doesn't jump out. But if it were to jump in really hot water, it would just bounce right out. So things can come in disguise form or creep in and be tricky to detect.

Candice Wu 9:21
For example, today I was making this grocery list. It's been like 10 days since I went to the grocery store. I'm going to make this count when I go to the grocery store and hope it lasts me another, you know, a good chunk of time during this social distancing and pandemic stuff going on. And I was looking at vegan dessert recipes. I'm not totally vegan, but I've been wanting to go vegan to some degree or to a large degree and it was exciting to look at these recipes. And then, I started to feel like I need that. I need to get this, this and this, and my list was like huge. I don't even know how I'm going to carry it all back with me. And then I started to feel like, I just really need that, you know, a gluten-free vegan brownie that I want to make. I started to feel that sense of craving.

Candice Wu 10:24
And it was last night too that I felt I miss Chinese food. So the things that we miss can also be a part of this process and experiential that we're going to do today. And as I came to feel that feeling like I need something in order to feel okay. Oh, okay. And I realized that there was probably something overwhelming in my system or an emotion coming up that I am just used to. At least in the past, I had a lot of food addictions. Used to feeding myself with sugars and other things that would make me feel better, at least momentarily. And as I sat with it and did the process that I'm about to share with you today, it just digested actually I coughed up a lot of energy. I don't even know what it was. I felt a little sadness. I felt after that way more grounded.

Candice Wu 11:29
And when I touched back to my desires for that vegan, gluten-free brownie or whatever else was on my list, it didn't feel as much of a need. It felt like okay, yeah, that would be nice. You know, I can, I don't feel so affixed to the idea of like, needing that or wanting that right now. I don't feel like it has as much power over me and I feel more grounded and centered.

Candice Wu 12:02
So I want to offer this experiential today as an opportunity. It's like a pathway, a beautiful pathway that leads us to something that wants to be digested in your body or your energy. It may lead to what you deeply crave, beyond the surface desire, what you're truly hungry for. It may lead to just letting something metabolize and move through and bring you a little more centered. Empowerment right now. And overall a greater freedom.

Candice Wu 12:45
So this can be something related to an addiction like a food, a substance, medicine, whatever you use to medicate with, even doing Yoga, doing something that looks supportive and positive can become addictive. Like, it can become a dependency that if you don't have it, it doesn't feel okay. And that there's nothing wrong with that. It's just, there is another level of greater freedom if you desire it, and you don't have to. It can be a desire to call and be with your friends. It can be an addiction to healing and the transformation that healing brings just being addicted to that. I know that that has been me. It can be an addiction to sex or pleasure, certain kinds of pleasures, coping with whatever you use to cope with your relationships, your work, gambling, whatever it is, you can bring that into the process today.

Candice Wu 14:02
So we're going to shift gears into the experiential portion of this episode. And I invite you into that process if there's something you would like to explore as far as finding where you're dependent or attached to certain things, or if there's something already present with you that you feel like, I really want that and I can't have it right now. Or, you just want that greater freedom in general.

Candice Wu 14:35
Okay, let's begin.

Candice Wu 14:37
First, I invite a little bit of grounding and presence for the body, for the nervous system to bring safety. And it doesn't mean you will feel grounded, but it's the invitation to sense what the body would need to feel better, to support it.

Candice Wu 14:57
You might hold your body in some way, like a soft hug or hold your elbows, hold your knee joints, touch your body in a way that brings a sense of soothing if it's possible. And if that's not supportive for you, you might try a little bit of movement. Or, you might try to look around your space and just let your eyes land on something that looks pleasant to look at, a color, an object, patterns, or shapes.

Candice Wu 15:46
And whatever might seem soothing to you just let your body open to that and notice it.

Candice Wu 16:00
We open this space of sensing anything the body is here to show us in terms of emotions, sensations, images, movement, energies, anything at all. And since this is not particularly a beginner type of somatic experiential, I'm just going to allow you to be with your own innate tools of sensing. And I won't describe in too much detail how to do that here.

Candice Wu 16:48
And now I invite you to open to something that came up for you in this conversation about cravings or addictions, a coping mechanism, anything you depend on.

Candice Wu 16:58
So what has been in your awareness, what's something that you feel attached to? Like, you crave or you desire that it feels like it has a little more power for you than you'd like it to. An addiction, something you depend on that perhaps in this time you also don't have or that you'd like to loosen up that dependency.

Candice Wu 17:34
As I spoke about earlier, this can be food, a substance. It can be an activity, or relationship, or person. It can be a certain way of being, anything at all.

Candice Wu 18:01
Particularly notice if any part of you craves that right now. And if that's the case, follow that craving, the thing that you really want right now or have wanted.

Candice Wu 18:23
Notice what it's like to experience wanting it, the wanting, the craving or the yearning, or the aching, the desire.

Candice Wu 18:52
And now imagine the steps that you'd normally take to have that thing. So for example, if you crave eating chocolate. Imagine going towards getting the chocolate, opening the wrapper perhaps and having it in your hands, or if it's not food or a substance, imagine the way towards that experience, place, person, that reaching towards.

Candice Wu 19:27
And as you do that begin to feel what happens in your body.

Candice Wu 19:41
At any time if things become overwhelming, just let it all go release your attention on it and take a break. Just look outside of you, in your space at that pleasant thing, or touch your body like we started with two little movements and if you're continuing on, move towards the next step of having that thing that you desire.

Candice Wu 20:09
Imagine it in slow motion, that you're able to have it however you normally would have it. The slow-motion is important. It gives our body and our awareness, the chance to sync up, and our nervous system, the time to digest what's going on here.

Candice Wu 20:33
So witness and observe what goes on in your body, your emotions, your sensations.

Candice Wu 20:44
As you begin to imagine having this thing that you crave or you desire, really slow it down.

Candice Wu 20:59
Notice the process of having it and what it feels like. Allow anything to come up. It all belongs here. Just be with the experience without analyzing necessary, without needing to name it. And imagine and notice what it gives you and what it would give you if you were to have this right now.

Candice Wu 21:55
Again, notice what you experience as you imagine it. And what begins to happen as you notice those feelings or the energy in your body or the temperature, your breath. Where your imagery leads you in your mind.

Candice Wu 22:32
And allow here, the space for any other messages to come to about this craving or addiction, or this experience or this moment.

Candice Wu 23:06
And if the experience was pretty intense for you, you might comb through it one more time and just repeat certain segments. Repeat the process of taking that substance. Imagining yourself taking it and moving through feeling it again. Regardless of if you do that or not, take a moment and just shake out your body or shift your attention to a pleasant thing outside of you. Just coming out for a moment and noticing where you are in space and time.

Candice Wu 23:55
And notice what happens now.

Candice Wu 24:10
And as a pulse check, touch into that initial craving or dependency desire. Touch into how intense it feels now compared to the beginning.

Candice Wu 24:34
Notice even if there's a little tiny shift.

Candice Wu 24:49
And as you begin to come out of this experience even more, let your body move or support your body with touch in any way that feels comfortable, just like we started.

Candice Wu 25:12
And as we close, thank yourself for taking a moment to look into and digest feel into what your desires and cravings, your addictions might have living underneath.

Candice Wu 25:29
Thank yourself for the time and space to be, honoring yourself, being kind to yourself.

Candice Wu 25:43
And we'll close our experience today.

Candice Wu 25:51
And as we close today, I also invite you to experience really fully, deeply, slowly when you do experience those things in real life instead of imagining it, that when you actually experience it, that you let yourself slow down and take in what it's offering you. And allow yourself to experience what's going on. And what happens after as just a portion of how you can support yourself to come more into the freedom and empowerment of yourself to heal these pieces of whatever's connected with your way of coping or protecting little by little.

Candice Wu 26:43
Thank you so much for practicing this with me today. I hope that it offers you something little loosening and opening in your own process. And I look forward to connecting with you next time.

Candice Wu 26:55
If you're interested in staying connected with me in my newsletter, that comes out once or twice a month. You can sign up for that at [CandiceWu.com/embody](https://CandiceWu.com/embody). You can also find a database of all the guided experientials and meditations by myself and my guests at [CandiceWu.com/meditations](https://CandiceWu.com/meditations).

Candice Wu 27:18
Be sure also to check out The Ally with Death experiential. It's an audio experiential now, or and or you can do it online by typing in with a series of prompts. And you can find that at [CandiceWu.com/death](https://CandiceWu.com/death).

Candice Wu 27:36
Thanks so much for listening. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.