Candice Wu 0:00
So, I'm having an identity crisis and you get a little sneak peek into my process as I work with what fears are coming up, what my astrology reading has told me, and sense of being more fully expressed as myself. This episode also comes with questions for you about your own congruence with yourself, supporting yourself and being who you are, especially in places, those little spaces where you have fear of how others may react, looking at those fears as well as the simplicity of being in the now and how to use that to resource you, to be present and trust yourself in your journey in your process.

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.

Hi, everyone, welcome to the embody podcast. I'm jumping on to share a bit about my process at the moment. Some of you have been following and know that I've taken a bit of a hiatus from the podcast from creating new episodes. This is a new episode, and it's just a touch in to share with you what I'm experiencing, what I'm going through in this process of the hiatus as I'm still in Mexico. I'm currently in Puerto Vallarta and I have a couple of weeks here left in Mexico before I head back to the states.

Coronavirus is the big topic. I have some thoughts on my Instagram about along with hot washing your hands, what you can do to get to the underlying pieces of what might be asking for rebalancing in your energy system. If you're scared about the coronavirus or having reactions about it or if you're contracting it, there are some spiritual emotional pieces that you can look at. If you're not connected with my Instagram, it's @embodyyournature.

So, I am going through a bit of an identity crisis, a reinvention to put it in a euphemism, a revealing of myself into a fuller self-expression where self-honesty is really the hot topic for me. Well, Candice, let's face it, this has been a hot topic forever, and what I mean by self-honesty is to be true to myself to express in a congruent way on the outside with what's on the inside. To be in ease in me and express that outwardly, and to not hide things that may seem unpleasant, undesirable, or uncomfortable because of those reasons, because of fear.

Of course, it's okay to have privacy and wisdom and discernment in selecting what I share and what I don't, and that's an evil process. That's a wise process. I don't love it when I'm not sharing and something in me needs to, wants to, it feels like it's right, and I don't. And I am not necessarily talking about on the podcast but just in daily life, in the world, in every single way, I'm looking at and re-evaluating where this might live in different places in my life, in my relationships, in my connection with all of you out there that are listening, with social media, etc.

I feel a greater call for myself and many people around me to be more integrated with who we truly are and not who we want others to see of us or what we want others to see of us but who we are. I see it with horses in a clear way. A good example of this, where horses just are how they are. They might be irritated by another horse, they might want to cuddle. They'll just go for it. They'll just express how they feel. If you're looking and paying attention and listening, you'll sense it. They will bite other horses or play or banter and see how they can work with a hierarchy of what's happening in their herd, and it feels to me in a lot of horse. People will say it that they're very congruent with what they're feeling on the inside it shows. Every part of their energy in their body shows it and there isn't a hiding of that.

I'm not saying horses can't be traumatized and also numb out their feelings and their emotions or put certain priorities first in order to protect themselves. They absolutely do that but when we're talking about healthy horses that have either full or some degree of freedom, they are, they're okay with what they're feeling inside and they're with it, and that's the kind of being with myself that I've always wanted to have and that I do have quite a bit of, and that I support my clients with being with yourself, being with yourself truly the way that you are with who you are. Sometimes, that's overwhelming and we need to temper that with tools that support us in distraction or focusing on something safe to help us to build more capacity to be with ourselves fully. To be with everything that's inside of us.

Liz LaForce was on the podcast several weeks ago and she said every emotion has a right to be there. Everything you're feeling has a right to be there and I love that, the right to be there. What's in you has a right to be here. How much of our lives have we spent denying what's right there? Pushing it away for good reasons, at times, maybe not so much now. Maybe still but just to look at that question: How much of me is able to be with myself as I am?

I recently was aware of losing a lot of hair. My aunt had said, Your hair's thinning and the place that I'm staying at now has a white floor so I can see every strand of hair on the ground, and I worked with a friend of mine, who was another healer, amazing healer and what came through was a piece of ancestral pain of my grandfather. He had lost his family due to starvation and the story goes that he crawled his way towards either another family or a village or something to get help get food, and the pain of isolation of losing his parents was devastating and I just had to move forward in life. And he did seem to replicate a sense of isolation going forward. He was very quiet and didn't really want to connect with many people, and he ended up dying of pneumonia, so, affecting the lungs, grief. And there's been a little part of me that at this point, that is afraid of isolation and being alone or feels pain about that.

Though this was a much bigger part of me growing up and into my 20's and even into my 30's sometimes, when at this point, it was this tiny little piece that would pop in sometimes and it felt really distant and it seems to belong to Him. My grandfather from my mother's side. And as we worked with this, the words that were coming to me about my hair where it's weak, it could just fall out and I really want it to be strong and firm, full, connected at the roots like thinking about how the hair can just fall out easily it felt like it could.

And my friend mentioned, she saw horses standing behind me as I was working with seeing my grandfather and his pain, imagining flowers around him actually and reconnecting, and the love of his family, reinforcing him into his life. He was only a teenager when it happened. And this love of horses that reinforces me in my life, on top of it all, and just feeling the energy of horses and their hair, their bodies. Their hair is so coarse and thick, and strong. All this help to recover and heal a piece of me that was afraid of losing, and part of that resides with my grandfather, afraid of losing. And as amazing, it immediately, I felt a shift in my energy and the feeling in my head and along with it was releasing some worries and giving some of that energy back to where it belonged to my grandfather or around him, of worry of life, the worry of food, things like that, that I am grateful that I don't have to worry about and they're not my worries, I have different worries, obviously. I'm worrying about my self-expression and if I'm being myself, and it's a great reminder of the basics and that I have those to strengthen me, and I have now a stronger, reinforced, fortified love coming through with reconnection of my grandfather to his parents, my great grandparents and to the lineage behind.

And all these, too, felt like the energy of what was happening in my head and hair was this lack of acceptance for my path, which is what I want to speak about today. More so, my path but accepting this journey that I'm on to on ravel and reveal more layers of myself that I can be even more direct and clear in who I am, and this leads to this astrology reading that I had by Elena Sakopoulos — “Hidden Gift Astrology.” She's wonderful and a friend of mine and I love her reading this because it gives me a lot of clarity and empowerment in what I need to do moving forward, and what I can expect so that it can ground me. And this time, I found a reaction in myself that I was completely overwhelmed and felt it was daunting, what was coming, and I'll explain a little bit about what is coming for me, and also how I'm working with that differently. And it's not to say that her reading, it's about her reading, because it's excellent. It's actually just my reaction to it and it brings forward more for me in terms of accepting my journey, and accepting it and the here and now, being present in my journey right now instead of trying to control things in the future. There's a piece of me that's trying to control, which relates right to my hair, right to my grandfather, and he needed to control, he needed to try to get food. He needed to do certain things and that's not the need I have right now.

So, looking at accepting my journey, truly accepting myself, and not comparing myself to others but being in this loving place of accepting and trusting my path. I felt some deep healing about that tears came through about the suffering and the grief of comparing myself to others and the forgiveness about that, forgiveness of my own judgments. And in this astrology reading, I basically understood that Cancer, as my rising sign, gives people in the public, around me, other people that I relate to this sense that I'm this sweet, loving, emotionally empathetic, watery, accommodating kind of person. I don't know that much about astrology, so, if I'm butchering what a cancer sign is, I apologize but there is that part of me that's very much all those qualities, that can obviously range from a healthy version with boundaries to one that is just bending way too much for others.

And while I'm at a healthier version now, there's still pieces of challenge that I do with, and here is this opposing sun sign that I have, which is Aries. It's actually coming up, my birthday is coming up, and this Aries' quality that I very much feel in myself is this, say it like it is, unapologetically, say the truth, be in what can feel controversial to others but is coming through me and not cushioning my actions or my words around others reactions or feelings but just being authentic. And with pieces of me that are very spiritually-based, I may come across with a neutralness that doesn't seem to tailor to being empathetic in a certain kind of way.

The value system that we have that empathy is what's needed and should happen is important to some degree but it's not everything, it is not the truth. There is a neutrality to our existence where we apply meaning to everything and we attach meaning to everything, and that is accumulated over years and years and years of existence, of perhaps many lives or dimensions wherever our souls have been, wherever our energy has been. And so, while neutrality when it meets up with the need for empathy, the need of others for empathy, it can feel really cold.

There was a while where I was discovering Mother Ocean versus Mother Earth, and Mother Ocean having this cold quality of the waves crashing and just witnessing it and being there without being a nurturing, holding kind of mother, like Mother Earth, Mother Ocean is salty, and I really loved that because I have that in me, and the loving can come from a different place. It's from attention. It's from seeing, witnessing, and being present with from a neutral space but it also the Aries part that wants to just say it like it is. I also have other parts of me that receive information from different dimensions, from different lives, for me, for others, I have different intuitive senses at different times, and sometimes, it's not wanted or needed, of course, and sometimes it feels important to be true to what I need to express. And I'm not necessarily talking about with client work, more so, in my personal life and in how I share in the podcast but perhaps it does come in with client work as well.

I'm not quite sure where this whole revealing more truth about myself, I'm not really sure what's going to come through on the other side. And with this Cancer and Aries piece, what I got the sense of was that some people may project this need from me to be this sweet, emotionally empathetic person, and I may not, I'm working on something else here, and it might very much rub up against that and bring out my own fears of upsetting someone when I'm in that young child place of upsetting someone and having no redemption or being discarded, then leading to fear of being alone. All of that really is pieces of dependency coming forward so that I can release those, heal those and come fuller into my own empowerment and a fuller sense of trusting my own path, and a surrender to the journey instead of trying to control things or manipulate the outcomes, and I find that those that control actually obscures who I am and who others are or who they can be in that space with me.

So, that may come more forward and some of these things may meet a backlash or tension or conflict, and for a couple of days, I was terrified of that and I think it really just was my, the stuff that I do hold in my energy field about the fears — fear of those things and things that have happened to me in a past life and in this present life.

So, is feeling into this astrology reading and just looking at this mountain feeling overwhelmed at this giant gap between me and that person that is becoming, and I was also told that I would experience this more publicly, that sharing my experience was going to serve others, does serve others and yet every time I share, I wonder if this is important to share or how it will affect others but when I rest in, what do I want to share and trust in what's coming through me that gives me direction and that gives me a sense of Prajña, which I've talked about before complete action, where I don't depend on the result of the action to validate this action or movement or expression but it is complete in itself. I validate myself in what I'm doing because it feels right. I stand behind myself.

Does any of this relate to you in your path now? Validating yourself, having complete action in the moment, feeling like this is worth it right now because this is what needs to happen or what I want to do or be or feel or express, and we're in your life might you take that if you like that concept.

Other questions come forward for you if you would like to explore more. What are the fears of being fully you that you have? In what ways do you try to control or manipulate outcomes or how people feel in your presence?

For me, I've often not said things or hidden certain things or beliefs, not that we need to share everything but just that, for me, it felt uncomfortable. It felt like the fear emerging that I was hiding something or obscuring it or changing it, softening it because I'm afraid of the result. Are there places in your life that you notice that happening, which gives you a little window into your own wounds or fears? Places that hold energy that you can claim, reclaim for yourself.

The fuller I step into my own freedom of expression and acceptance for my own expression, and the more that I can receive others, at least see them in their expression, the more freedom there is, as a whole, the more sovereignty. It's not that I need to shut someone else down or not have them react because of what I believe or think or want to say or do but that both can coincide, both exist, like the horses that one wants to cuddle and just reaches for the other, walks towards the other and gets close and the other one goes, “Ugh, get away from me,” and sticks out her leg and says, Eeee," where there's another interaction where it's clear that one horse is expressing something, the other one doesn't like it and this just plays itself out and all of it is okay, and they still exist together. They don't discard each other from the herd. They're still there together.

And I don't mean to say that we don't walk away from certain situations or relationships but just those moments where can we hold ourselves and another and it doesn't have to be with a sweet empathy or a kind of empathy that you take on someone else's feelings or even a comforting kind of relationship or relating but it can be a neutral one, can be one that sees and one that allows both to exist without canceling out one or the other.

So, as I noticed the experience of being overwhelmed with, in my own words, what it seems like I'm meant to become or who I'm going to be in this next couple of months and six months, perhaps, a year, I found myself just looking way to forward into the future and fearing, like I couldn't do it, I couldn't I can't live up to my own expectations of myself. It's nobody else's expectations or perhaps I can't live up to what my astrological chart says that I'm meant to do and I don't want to. I felt like Jon Snow for a moment where everyone wanted him to be king, not everyone, of course, but enough people, and he said, “But I never wanted this.” And I think I recall his sisters saying, and others saying, “It doesn't matter what you want.” It's like the wave of the energy brings him towards that position and role what others see in him and believe in him.

We could analyze it dissect that analogy a little further but I don't want to do that right now. Just the piece about relating to how he felt like he didn't want to do this, the thing that was set out for him, in a sense. There always is that free will, so, if I bring myself back to the present moment, which I'm doing in the last couple of days, and I feel so much clearer and back in my own energy, rather than in my future energy or what I'm supposed to be, being in this present moment, doing what my body needs to do.

I've been doing a lot more yoga, swimming, meditating, and just being with my emotions, being with what's in my body as well as a lot of writing. I've been enjoying proprioceptive writing, which I talked about a couple of times episodes ago. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/proprioceptivewriting, if you're interested in that practice, which helps me feel more filled into myself, my words, my expression and who I am, and just letting the things day to day reveal itself, trusting that it all reveals itself rather than having to try to do something, to try to reinvent myself, cheese, that is extremely daunting for me but to know and trust that it all will happen, and I will moment to moment be with what happens in myself and in my response and reaction to the world and those around me, that allows me to see more of the next piece of my journey.

Coming back to my grandfather, just appreciating that I have a place to sleep and I have food, and I have the basics I know always helps my nervous system, ground even further and deepen into the safety of the now, breathing and knowing I'm alive.

So, I invite you to take whatever is here for you in the present moment that gives you a calming or relieve, a sense of safety, a basic thing to let that resource you as you move forward into your day, into your week, into your life, and to remember to come back to yourself, in the “now”, in your own energy and to open to the trust any amount that you do have now, recognizing that if you still have lots of pieces of trauma that trust will come at some point if you work with healing the trauma from the root and in your body, and in your energy but that all comes with your attention and practice. And I invite you to take any pieces of this podcast, this sharing that connect with you, that triggered you, that maybe you had a positive or negative reaction to that struck or piqued your interest, I gave you something, anything about self-honesty or being who you are, fears, sense of perhaps your physical experience opens up to an energetic spiritual one that connects to your ancestry or past life, and anything here that just wasn't for you today, just leaving that behind.

If we want to speak in terms of good and bad, the ability to the tool that you can develop to take the good and leave the bad or to take what is nutritious to you, and eliminate the rest, I invite you to do that.

Thanks so much for joining me today and listening to whatever degree that you did even if you fell asleep, you know a lot of my listeners fall asleep while listening to me. If that's what's needed, great. I appreciate you being out there and also sharing with me. If there's anything that connected with you feel free always to post on whatever platform you are receiving this on or email me at Embody at CandiceWu.com. And as I continue to surrender into this hiatus and what I've committed to for myself as far as what my body needs right now, I will be thinking of all of you out there that are connected in and wishing you to the courage or the attention, the loving to give yourself what you need right now. That's uniquely for you.

Thanks so much for joining me today and I look forward to next time, and enjoy some of these rerun episodes that are coming up that I've selected in this time, and I'll touch in when there's a calling to share more. If you'd like to keep in touch with me through my newsletter, which comes out once a month, roughly, you can find that at CandinceWu.com/embody, and I'll leave you with a little bit of music that I've been enjoying here from a mariachi band in Puerto Vallarta, which also helps me resource and strengthen some of my energetic boundaries by imagining this band surrounding me and blasting sound out words, especially the trumpet players. This band is called Mariachi Nvo Continental de Puerto Vallarta and I'll link them in the show notes, too.