Experiencing my grandmother’s death has brought me to honor her in a very big way – in honoring her worth to me, and her worth to all those sharing a piece of her story, I must honor my own worth — and this has brought me new levels of abundance and self-love.
In this episode, I share my grandmother’s story, and mine with her, explore some recent thoughts on death, and how I am integrating the wisdom I am gaining from her life.
I jump into shadow work and how we can use loss to bring us to more wholeness, and we can use our imagination to empower us now. I share three ways in which one can explore death to breathe in life and to know oneself more deeply.
To ignore death is to ignore life. So here’s to embracing it to bring more and to know more of ourselves.
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Experiencing my grandmother’s death has brought me to honor her in a very big way – in honoring her worth to me, and her worth to all those sharing a piece of her story, I must honor my own worth — and this has brought me new levels of abundance and self-love.
In this episode, I share my grandmother’s story, and mine with her, explore some recent thoughts on death, and how I am integrating the wisdom I am gaining from her life.
I jump into shadow work and how we can use loss to bring us to more wholeness, and we can use our imagination to empower us now. I share three ways in which one can explore death to breathe in life and to know oneself more deeply.
To ignore death is to ignore life. So here’s to embracing it to bring more and to know more of ourselves.
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Show Notes & Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:06 Sharing Gratitude & Becoming a Patron of the Embody Podcast
02:09 Travel Update (Bali > Hong Kong > Kl)
03:15 Let's Jump Into the Topic: Death
03:27 No Judgement Around Reactions to Death
04:19 Notice What's Coming Up
04:26 Death: A Sharp Opportunity to See Your Projections, Existence, and Spirituality
05:30 Clear Stop to What Connects Us Consciously and Unconsciously
06:21 Jungian Theory – Bringing the Shadow to the Surface
06:49 Not Knowing Why You Feel What You Feel
07:36 Sorting the Intergenerational Dynamics
08:28 How Grief Has Been Processed in Your Ancestry Affects You Now
09:18 Grief Demands to Be Felt in the Soul of the Family
09:50 My Personal Story With My Grandma
10:14 How the Morning Is to Be Had
11:21 Funeral Experience Great Grandmother
11:45 My Grandmother’s Arrival to the Us
12:22 Dog Poop Rice!
13:41 a Drastic Change in 2002
14:12 Visiting Hong Kong: Every Time Felt Like the Last Time.
14:28 Her 96th Birthday Party
14:54 Learning More About Someone After They Passed
15:31 Her Good Deeds
16:13 My Family’s Part in Saving Many Chinese During the Japan Invasion of China
16:59 Going Back for Two Village Children
18:03 Proud That She's My Grandmother
18:12 Being Enough
19:36 We Are a Reflection of Worthiness Before Us
20:16 Abundance in Life
21:11 Seeing My Mother More Clearly and Where I Belong
22:04 Abundance Equated With Working Hard in the Past
23:14 My Grandmother the Feminist
24:12 Working Easy = Shifting
25:18 Guilt for Working Easy
25:56 She's Living in Me and Through Me…
26:23 Mention Faith Hill Song "Everywhere I Am, There You'll Be"
26:37 Ideas and Exercises to Explore Death for Yourself
26:50 Looking at Death Gives You More Life
27:40 the Shaman’s Death
28:22 Mention of Ally With Death
28:29 Writing Your Own Eulogy
29:10 Imagine the People You Worry About Dying
32:28 Cultivating the Qualities in Yourself
34:03 Shaman’s Death in Reverse
35:04 a Choice to Explore Death
35:37 Experience and Gentleness
35:53 Ally With Death – My Shaman’s Death Online Experiencial
36:48 Last Thoughts About Death
36:54 Honoring Death Is Honoring Life
37:10 Denial of Death Is Like Denial of Life
38:14 Thank You for Joining Me Today & Listening
38:57 Patreon
39:21 Outro & Newsletter

Hello, this is Candice Wu, and you are listening to the Embody Podcast.
Candice Wu 0:04
This episode is about death. And it was specifically inspired by my grandmother’s passing away about a week and a half ago. This grandma, on my mother’s side, is really special to me. And it has inspired me to share the process of what I went through, and the pieces of wisdom and the gifts that I’m integrating, and pieces of my grandmother story.
Candice Wu 0:28
At the end of the podcast, I’ll offer ideas about looking at death in many ways in your own life. If you’re curious about exploring it, or if the topic has been particularly challenging for you, I have found that denial of death is akin to denial of life. And when we make peace with death, it brings us peace in life or more in life.
Candice Wu 0:52
When I make peace with the thought that life could end at any time, or that somebody else’s life in my relationship could end it anytime, I can live more fully, I feel more alive.
Candice Wu 1:06
So, thanks for joining me today and before we jump in, I want to share my gratitude for some of you who have already donated to the Embody Podcast, donated to me so that I can continue to do these podcasts. I appreciate it so much. And this has inspired me to create a Patreon page. So, what it is, is a page for artists to continue their work by receiving support from the community. If you don’t know about Patreon, it’s wonderful. It supports artists in continuing to create and build what they’re building. And for me specifically, it allows me to continue these podcasts as well as create a lot of different free resources to the community.
Candice Wu 1:52
And you can even donate about $1 a month and receive some specially tailored gifts from me. I’d be so grateful if you would consider donating in that format. And if you’d like to, you can go to my page at CandiceWu.com/patreon.
Candice Wu 2:09
And just to give you an update about where I am in the world, I am currently in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. And I just arrived here a couple of days ago, after spending a week in Hong Kong, with my family, for my grandmother’s funeral and to be with everyone. As I’m here in KL, it is a big city just like Hong Kong, so different from Bali, where I was previously. And just pretty much being in the jungle, coming here is a big change. It’s close to being in Chicago for me, with the noise, the traffic, city life. And what’s lovely is just walking down the street. I’ve already spoken to people in four different languages – in English, in Indonesian, in Thai and also so in Cantonese, which is my family’s language.
Candice Wu 3:03
So, I’ll be spending about a week here and then heading back to Indonesia. And we will be spending a little bit more time there.
Candice Wu 3:10
So, now let’s jump into our topic today of death.
Candice Wu 3:15
Everyone has a different experience of death and death in their lives. And even the thought of death or the word death might bring different reactions. When it comes to death, I think one of the most important things to remember is that: to not have judgment or “shoulds” on my own and other people’s experiences.
Candice Wu 3:37
And when I hold that space, just so much can come of it. So many surprising things, even. In even creating this podcast today, I had to face a couple of my own internalized judgments, judgments about what I’m sharing what I’m feeling, the timing of me sharing, when is it too soon to share something about the death of my grandmother, what is to emotional, or how much to share?
Candice Wu 4:05
And I even had some should on myself like, I should be focusing on my grandmother and not what my reaction is. But when it comes to the experience of death or anything for that matter, I don’t believe that that’s important, I believe it’s important to notice what is coming up, whatever it is.
Candice Wu 4:26
The death of someone in our lives can be a slow, gradual process leading up to more predictable death. But sometimes it’s abrupt, intense. And in a very quick and absolute ending of the physical presence of somebody. It can be a sharp disconnect, or a softened one. And either way, we have different reactions. There’s no one to one equation about how it is that we react when something’s gradual or not.
Candice Wu 5:01
What I found is that since it’s a sharp disconnection from the body of somebody from what holds their soul and our connection with that person, it challenges our very spirituality. Meaning, who we are, who we believe we are in this universe in this life, how we believe our existence works and is and what is in life and beyond? What is unseen, and how do we understand it?
Candice Wu 5:30
So, in a way, death puts a clear stop to what we think we know in our relationship with a person. And what we don’t know. So, all of the unconscious ties that live underneath the level of our connections with people can come out and can come to the surface when somebody dies. So, what I’m talking about is our projections of who we think they are, or who we thought they thought we were to them, our attachment to that person, whether we feel very connected with them, or very disconnected or some space in between. What we feel in terms of how we relate to them, and the dependency we may have on them, but we rely on them for. All of that can be unknown to us until it’s gone.
Candice Wu 6:21
In Yang Yin theory, there’s the concept of the shadow. And it’s basically that we put out into the world, we project any undesirable, unwanted, unpleasant experience, idea, feeling or projection on to other people that we don’t want to feel.
Candice Wu 6:42
So, when someone dies in our lives, this can come forcefully to the surface of our experience. In my own experience of people dying in my life, it’s interesting to note that I don’t always know why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. And it’s for these very reasons that sometimes things are very unconscious. So, as I share some of my story of my grandmother’s passing, I’ll share with you the shadow parts that I’m integrating, actually some of the light in the shadow, the gold parts of the shadow, the goodness that I projected onto my grandmother, I’m learning to integrate in me that I saw my grandmother as this wonderful, beautiful giving loving person worthy and enough and I’ve not totally integrated into myself that that’s who I am as well.
Candice Wu 7:36
Another aspect of this whole process of shadow and grieving within that. And what’s unconscious is what’s in the intergenerational line. This being my grandmother that passed away, I have had to sort out whose feelings are whose. Are these my mother’s feelings of sadness that I’m feeling for her? Or are they mine? And how do I know that? I’ve often felt responsible for other people’s feelings, so, it’s in my habit to take in emotions, taking the energy that other people are having a hard time holding for themselves. And I’ve learned to notice when there’s an energy in the room, or a feeling of something going on, that maybe isn’t mine. So checking in with what’s mine and what’s not. And that’s been a process over time.
Candice Wu 8:28
And yet another fascinating aspect is that can come into the unconscious dynamic of all of this is how grief has been processed in your family, not just your primary family or growing up but in your lineage. If there’s been huge, or even some overwhelming trauma or loss, someone’s died early, someone has died in war, or there’s been some sort of grief unprocessed and incomplete through any losses. Then, when someone dies, this can bring all of that to the front. It can bring it all to the surface, not just for you, but your family system.
Candice Wu 9:10
And whatever the dynamics are of who feels what in the family system are, it can greatly affect what you’re feeling in a moment. Grief that has not been felt in the soul of a family, in the lineage of a family, demands to be felt at some point. And it’s typical that the younger the more living people in the family system are holding that grief because the story of the family system wants to be shared with it wants to come to the surface to be honored, integrated, and all the wisdom and love coming from it to be felt, as well as the hardship.
Candice Wu 9:49
So, now that I’ve talked about grief and death a little more generally and broadly, I’d like to share specifically about my grandmother and my story. I grew up very early, practically living with my grandmother about 50% of the time. While I don’t remember all of my early years with her, I feel it in my soul, I feel it in my bones that I am so close to her. What I do remember is when I was a little bit older, like 10ish, she’d wake us up in the morning and show us how the morning was to be had. And this meant we had to wake up very early and one of the rituals she had was to take a wet cold towel and slap it on your eyes about 20 to 50 times upon waking.
Candice Wu 10:38
And this is something that Chinese people practice. Not all Chinese people, but some. And it’s to help stimulate the energy and wake the body up. On those mornings where she’d forced me and my cousins to wake up, we would do this and then do some Tai Chi, which at the time I had no interest in and at this point I wish I had learned more of, then we would take a nice walk around the block. I have many memories of making Dim Sum in the basement kitchen with my grandma and my cousins, as well as swimming in the pool that my cousins had and my grandma just taking care of us around that, giving us food everything felt in abundance with her.
Candice Wu 11:21
I remember a few distinct more painful memories, one was her just bawling, crying so loudly at her own mother’s funeral, my great grandmother. And this was when I was very young. And it just was one of the first experiences of grief that I’ve had, where she just cried out loud, so freely. And that had marked something in me that I would never forget.
Candice Wu 11:45
My grandma was a resilient, strong, really hard worker and made very much a very little. When she came to the United States, she had only $3,000 and had six children and a husband. She took two children in and had four of her own, which I’ll explain a little more later. As soon as she came to the United States from Hong Kong, she created a restaurant with my uncle. She worked so hard that she was able to pay for many of her grandchildren’s education in college. And I’m really grateful for her support in my own education.
Candice Wu 12:22
One of my favorite things she said to me was about education, she said, and I’ll say it in Chinese first: “Mut yeah do hauk. Sai gow see Mai do hauk.”, which means: “Learn everything, even cleaning dog poop rice, is something to be learned.” And I had no idea what she meant when she told me this, it just sounded ridiculous, as far as dog poop rice, but what she meant was out of her own experience of having to do this in her life, that even cleaning rice that had been pooped on by dogs was worthy of learning, because it can be a resource to you at some point.
Candice Wu 13:04
And this just reflects her entire life. She has taken every single skill that she has and made something of it. When she worked in Hong Kong, after fleeing from China during war times. She was sewing, she was a messenger, she did little deeds and chores for everyone to just make a little extra cash.
Candice Wu 13:28
I remember her as being really active, and moving around in her body, and just so joyful all the time, tending for plants, and for all the grandchildren and her own children in her life. In 2002, things drastically changed. She had a stroke, a couple of them actually, and after all of that, she was paralyzed on her right side. So, as a college student, I was helping my grandma with physical therapy and helping her do exercises every day and also giving her bath at times.
Candice Wu 14:04
At that point, she moved to Hong Kong to have better care and support, and she began to slowly deteriorate. So, this was hard for me. And for the last six years, I had come to Hong Kong roughly once a year to visit her. And every single year in this last six years, I felt scared that this would be the last time I’d see her.
Candice Wu 14:28
This year, she had her 96th birthday party and I was able to come in March. And I just knew for sure this was the last time even though the years past, I had felt the same. But this year, something felt completely different. I was more at peace because this last five and six years, I had been grieving slowly and each time saying goodbye each time.
Candice Wu 14:54
Through my grandmother’s death, I’m learning so much more about her, things that she never told me, that my mom never told me or that I had never asked her. It feels like this kaleidoscope of pieces of her brought together by other people and it just feels amazing that everyone’s spills over with gratitude and love for how she has treated them in her life. They recollect how generous and giving and loving she has been through deeds that she’s done for them or ways that she’s helped them that have saved their lives.
Candice Wu 15:31
For example, this man would come visit her and come stay with a family and I had no idea who he was, for some time, I came to learn that this was actually a second cousin of mine. And that when his father got stuck in China after most of the family left for Hong Kong, in the late 1930s 1940s, my grandmother was working and sent him any extra money that she had. She sent him packages of salt, flour, spices so that he and his family could have food. And this is just so much like story after story that I heard about her.
Candice Wu 16:13
What helps me understand even more about my family lineage and my grandmother is that, when she was young, they had suffered the Japan invasion of China. My great grandfather, so my grandmother’s father, made fabulous solid doors, and he made one for his own home. What the people of the village remember about my grandma and her family, her father, is that he made this door and invited everybody he could into that home. So, when the people of Japan invaded China, many people were inside that home and were saved. They could not break through that door, it was so strong.
Candice Wu 16:59
And one of my favorite stories about my grandmother is that after she and her family fled to Hong Kong, during this wartime, she went back for two children that were in her village. The parents of these children could not go to Hong Kong for I don’t know what reason. But she wanted to take the children with her to give them a life. And she arranged with some government officials, and hired a woman to disguise as the mother of these children to smuggle them over to Hong Kong. And once she did that, she raised them as her own for 15 years. And to this day, I call one of these children was, of course not a child anymore, they call one of them my aunt and have ever since I was born.
Candice Wu 17:48
So, well my grandma does these heroic and good, generous deeds, I still love the sweet moments, the quiet at moments where I got to sit with her and just eat oranges. I am so proud that she is my grandmother and proud of what she’s done in her life and who she is.
Candice Wu 18:12
And the most memorable moment of my entire life would have to be being in Hong Kong a couple of years ago, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, sitting in stillness. We looked at each other quietly and the feeling that I got from her was that her eyes said to me, I know everything I need to know about you and I love you. It was just the love in her eyes that I felt, and my presence with her just felt so worthy and good.
Candice Wu 18:47
And this is the moment that I’ve drawn to so many times not just in my life where she was living, but even after she died. And as I honor my grandmother now, and have spent time doing so in the last week, if I’m to honor my grandmother fully, I can see that it forces me to honor my own true and full worth because I see her as completely worthy enough, more than enough, lovable and amazing. And if she’s that, aren’t I, too? If I’m not, I disgrace her very existence who believes I am. Of course, I’m sure she’s quite strong enough to hold the love for me, even if I don’t have it for myself, but what I’m speaking to is that we are a reflection of those who come before us or our internal idea of them. Our internal relationship with those who came before us exists in our bodies now, lives in our being in the fibers of our being now.
Candice Wu 19:55
And so, as my grandma has passed away, even though the years of grieving have helped me get to this point, I feel very much at peace with her. And what I’m integrating is peace with myself, piece that she brings to me and that I deserve.
Candice Wu 20:16
And I’ve often worried about abundance in my life, having money and knowing more pieces about her life helps me to realize that some of that fear is not quite mine, but what was living in the ancestry. But also looking at the way that she was so resourceful, and creative in making money and powerful in herself, knowing that she wanted to do so and carved out her own life as a woman in a Chinese family in a Chinese culture that didn’t honor women very well. But for her to continue and work hard and to create a life with so much love and abundance, this has given me so much. And I see that I came through her and that I am the abundance, the joy, and light in her eyes, that helps me feel abundance in my life.
Candice Wu 21:11
And with all of these, I also see my mom more clearly. I can see where she came from, even better. And where I belong, where I stand in relation to all these lovely women, when it’s often been confused by me, taking care of other people in my life or feeling like I had to be bigger, all of which is part of the family dynamic that was working its way through.
Candice Wu 21:36
So, it’s simple, yet profound what I’m receiving here, and it gives me more than enough on the inside. And it’s the sense that if I do what is innately my gift, if I just shine in my presence, from my love, that there’s only abundance, and that I can handle what comes in lean on the strength of the mothers before me, the strength of my grant mother, to give me that inner guidance and support.
Candice Wu 22:04
And on the topic of abundance and money, I’ve seen the way that my grandmother works hard. I have learned that one of the amazing qualities of Chinese people is that we work hard. And that is, of course, a stereotype and a generalization. But for me, it comes from this lineage that has worked incredibly hard to get where they’ve gotten. Most of my family has come from a completely poor background where they, my grandmother remembers even eating bark for dinner, eating bark, maybe boiled in water and having a soup. And where my grandfather had lost his parents due to starvation.
Candice Wu 22:48
So, they know what it is to have nothing and to work very hard to get something. And in the time of my grandmother’s life, it seemed like such an expansion of consciousness and expansion of what she could be beyond her limits, to work incredibly hard to make more than enough money to share with her entire family. And she, of course, didn’t do this alone, but she’s quite the feminist, the quite the person who says, “If you are a woman in a family, you make money, you can do it, you can do whatever you want, and don’t leave it just to the men to make money.”
Candice Wu 23:31
So, I hear all this, I see all this and I’ve often experienced that I need to work just as hard, because that’s what we do. And the interesting thing is working hard is a great quality to have. And it’s a good tool at different times. And I’ve definitely worked hard in my life to get where I am. But I’ve also been able to have the privilege of working hard of my grandmother, and my mother and everyone before them. And I don’t necessarily need to do it again.
Candice Wu 24:03
So, seeing my grandmother’s contribution, and her way of being that she worked this hard, it doesn’t mean I need to repeat life just like her. In the last seven years, I’ve struggled with, how do I work easy? Working hard doesn’t quite work for me because they just work myself to the bone, I become this high achiever. And I push myself and override all of my body’s messages. And I wear myself down.
Candice Wu 24:30
At that point in my life, about seven years ago, I had adrenal fatigue, I had headaches all the time. And I started to get numbness in different parts of my body, which really scared me. I even had heart palpitations. And all of this sent me into a very weak and vulnerable state in my body. And I knew that I had to make a change. And the change was towards working easy, working with love and following what feels good, and to not press harder than my body wants to all the time. But to do that sometimes when it’s necessary, and to also cultivate intuition and other inner senses that can draw abundance in.
Candice Wu 25:18
So, in doing all of this, I have felt some guilt, like I should work hard just like my grandma did. But I realized now that that was part of her gift to me, that her working hard was for the future of her family, that then they perhaps wouldn’t have to work as hard as her or that they wouldn’t have to do it the same way as she did that they could have more. And I do have more. And I thank my grandmother every day for that. And it is because of her that I have more and the possibility of so much ahead of me.
Candice Wu 25:56
So, my grandmother, my Pau Pau, she lives in me and through me through my existence, my worth, my actions, and the way that I love. And that’s how my own children, if and when I do have them will know her through my eyes and through my heart. And that’s how all of you, all the people that I come in contact can know her as well. It’s through my heart.
Candice Wu 26:23
So, I love these words from a Faith Hill song, and it’s written by Diane Warren. “Everywhere I am, there you’ll be.” And that’s exactly how I feel about my grandmother. Everywhere I am there you’ll be. In sharing what I’ve experienced, I would like to offer a couple of ideas about death, and exploring death. If you’re interested in looking at this in your own life.
Candice Wu 26:47
As I mentioned it earlier, if we address death, we also are able to give more to life. And we are able to feel more alive. So, if there are ways in you’d like to experience yourself more fully, or to live in a certain way that you haven’t yet, exploring death can be incredibly fruitful. There’s a cycle of life, death-life. And what we understand about that cycle is when things die, more life is created.
Candice Wu 27:20
And in my life, when I’ve let certain things and release or stop or die, I’ve created space for more to exist, then I have a clear space to create from my authentic self in this moment.
Candice Wu 27:34
I’ll share a few things that you can do to explore death, and offer some ideas to think about. One of the ways that I like to explore death is through what’s called the Shaman’s staff. And it does come from the practice of Shamanism, it’s a symbolic death of yourself, experiencing that so that any feelings that are coming through can be processed. And looking at what are the ways that you need to let certain things end in your life, what needs to stop or be released so that you can live a fuller life.
Candice Wu 28:09
And it’s an experience of letting certain parts and energies in you die. So, if you like to know more information about that, you can look in the show notes. And I’ll explain a little bit of about what I’ve created, which is the Ally With Death Experience, which you can find on my website.
Candice Wu 28:29
Another way you can explore the topic of death is by writing your own eulogy, asking yourself, “What I want to be remembered for?” And writing a eulogy about yourself. And when I’ve done this, it’s been extremely powerful to know what it is that I really believe is important, how I want to see myself and how I’d like others to see me. And it helps me become more congruent with a truer sense of myself. Because when it comes to death, it seems to be so final, that we want to look at what’s at the bottom, what’s so essential to us.
Candice Wu 29:09
The last idea I have about exploring death, here today is to imagine all the people that you worry about dying. Notice who you’re attached to, your friends or co-workers, parents, family members, anyone that you feel very attached to, or that you care about in your life, even. And make a list of all these people.
Candice Wu 29:38
If you look towards each person and your connection with them in your life, you might see where you have more intense connections with a certain person, whether that’s an attachment to them, or a feeling of dependency on them for whatever reason, something you rely on them for, or you count on them for, any of these feelings towards that person, or what you feel like you are to them. And for the sake of this healing practice, not as a wish for anyone to die. But for the sake of this intention of healing, and becoming more whole in yourself. If you imagined that they were to die, what would you feel?
Candice Wu 30:19
And just noticing the emotions, the sensations in your body, where that emotion lives in your body, and what thoughts come up? What fears come up? These are all pieces of you living within this interaction and dynamic with this person. And if we look at what’s unresolved in our relationship to this person, or these people in your life, or what you would need in order to bring peace to yourself in this relationship, you might clear up some of those dynamics that are living there and be freer to live and love right now.
Candice Wu 30:57
Some of the questions that you might ask yourself in this process are, what needs to be acknowledged in this relationship? What feels out of balance in this relationship? And what is the meaning of this person to you? What does this person represent to you? What’s unresolved here that you’d like to bring peace or resolve, too?
Candice Wu 31:28
And in answering any of these questions, this is purely for yourself, there’s no need to go to this person and share all these things. Especially not that I imagined you dying and here’s what happened, unless you have that kind of relationship with them, and you feel safe talking about this with them. But even if there are things that you feel you would need to say to this person, you can do that in your own imagination and feel through that experience.
Candice Wu 31:58
If there are things unresolved, you can imagine the resolve that you would like a need for yourself to have peace, or whatever needs to be acknowledged in the relationship. You can do that internally, or if it feels right, you can do that externally, with that person. But none of it has to be even said or spoken to them for the healing to happen because our psyche doesn’t really know the difference if we imagine it or if we actually play it out. So, you get the healing anyway.
Candice Wu 32:28
So, if there’s a certain dependency or reliance that you have on someone that you feel like it only is provided by them, or that you couldn’t live without, this is where you can call upon an inner part of yourself, an inner lover, or an inner parent, or a wise part of yourself. You can create this part of you to bring in, some adult part of you that can give this feeling to you, give that experience, or whatever it is that the other person brings to you, to yourself.
Candice Wu 33:06
And if that’s something that’s hard to find in you, perhaps that’s an area you could cultivate in yourself. For example, if you have a friend that you love so dearly that is always there for you. And they just represent pure love to you, that whatever you share with them, they have loving acceptance for you. Perhaps it’s up to you to cultivate the loving acceptance in yourself. The part of you that knows how to do that, or that is learning how to do that.
Candice Wu 33:40
Or another example is, if in your exploration someone represents stability in your life, perhaps that’s something you’d like to cultivate in yourself. Another example would be if someone motivates you, and coaches you, and you feel just so inspired by their words, perhaps it’s time to develop the inner coach and yourself.
Candice Wu 34:03
So, all of this exploration is like a shaman step in reverse. It’s not experiencing your own death, and what you would like to create for your life now, but it’s experiencing what it would be like to not have that unconscious tie to somebody else. If somebody else didn’t exist in your life, what would you be left with? And in doing this, you can clear up the ties that leave you bound or dependent on others, that actually leave you in parts and pieces disintegrated instead of whole. And you can gather up these parts of yourself and have a clear and more purely loving connection with the real person that does exist.
Candice Wu 34:48
And to be able to fulfill in yourself some of these aspects that others bring to you, and to use those people that you treasure, as resources to help you integrate that, to feel the feeling of what they give you until you can feel for yourself.
Candice Wu 35:04
All of this is an exploration and meant to be held with kindness and compassion, and gentleness towards yourself. And you don’t have to do any of this. It’s all a choice. And it’s not bad if you leave all of your relationships with ties or dependencies or certain bonds. But this is purely if you would like to explore yourself in this way to know yourself better, to feel more empowered in yourself in different ways or to claim something that you’d like internally.
Candice Wu 35:37
All of these experiences that I’m naming can feel very intense, it can bring up a lot of distressing emotions. And it may bring a lot of peace and joy, and empowerment at different times as you practice this.
Candice Wu 35:53
If you’re interested in something like the Shaman’s death, you can feel free to go on my website at CandiceWu.com/ally, to find the Ally With Death Visualization that I’ve created. And in just a short while, I will be adding an audio version of this experience right now. It’s an online experience that guides you through a series of prompts, to explore your own death, and to explore what true purpose in life you have right now, and what you need to do for your daily life.
Candice Wu 36:25
That’s all in the experience now as an online type form but the audio experience will guide you through with my voice, and with meditation before it and after it, and also guide through navigating what comes up. I’ll also be adding the Shaman’s death in reverse at some point. So, stay on the lookout for that.
Candice Wu 36:48
And today, I’ll leave you with some last thoughts about death that I’ve been thinking about lately. Honoring death is actually honoring life, because if we don’t honor death, are we truly alive? It’s an aspect of our whole experience and it’s the polarity of life. So, what’s one without the other?
Candice Wu 37:10
The denial of death is like the denial of life, and the feelings that it might bring, and enhance all of the experience of your entire being. If we feel into the feelings that are harder to feel, that are a release, tears, sadness, grief, loss, anger, anything that moves outward, in terms of more challenging emotion, then we have more capacity to feel into joy, happiness, empowerment, and peace, calm.
Candice Wu 37:44
This is not just a concept, it’s actually something that happens in our nervous system where we do build the capacity to feel even more enjoyable feelings and pleasure when we’re able to feel through some of the harder feelings. And so, it just makes complete sense that looking at death in our life, looking at the deaths we’ve experienced in our personal life, even, all of that can be so life-giving.
Candice Wu 38:14
So, today, I thank you so much for listening to my story about my grandmother, what I’ve experienced, how I’ve experienced death in my life, and for exploring this with me today. Feel free to reach out if you need any support. I love working with the concept of death and what comes up with it. I work with many people about grief and loss with their pets, and with people in their lives in a way that helps them find peace, find strength and integrate who this person was to them. So, that the grieving doesn’t have to take over their lives, and that you can feel more complete in your daily life of living now.
Candice Wu 38:57
As I mentioned earlier, I created a Patreon page where you can donate to me and the podcast so that I can continue to create podcasts such as this. So, if you found this helpful at all, and you’d like to be part of that community, where you’ll also receive specific and tailored healing meditations, feel free to go to my page at CandiceWu.com/patreon.
Candice Wu 39:21
And before you go, I’d like to invite you to listen in on more interviews, meditations and explorations at CandiceWu.com/podcast, and you can also subscribe to my weekly newsletter and become a member of the body community on CandiceWu.com/embody. Here you can get free resources on embodiment and healing meditations as well as information about future retreats workshops, private sessions, and other offerings.
Candice Wu 39:49
Thank you so much for tuning in today. I appreciate that you’re out there, and feel free to reach out if you’d like to give me any feedback, share your own personal story, reach out for support or have any questions, and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.
Candice Wu 40:06
Wishing you lots of life and love.
Photos of My Grandmother and Family
Your Support Means So Much!
If the Embody Podcast, my writing, or guided healing meditations have inspired you, helped, or spoken to you, it would mean the world to me if you would show your support through a small donation.
Each creation is lovingly made from my soul and takes anywhere from weeks to a few days to develop and produce. I gladly pay an editor who supports me in polishing and creating high quality content.
As little as $1 a month would nourish my podcast and other creations to continue to have life and cover costs. Plus you’ll receive some sweet personalized healing gifts from me that can deepen your embodiment on your own journey.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I am so appreciative.
Links & Resources mentioned in this Episode
- Ally With Death Visualization/Shaman’s Death
- There You’ll Be, by Faith Hill
Show Notes
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:06 Sharing Gratitude & Becoming a Patron of the Embody Podcast
- 02:09 Travel Update (Bali > Hong Kong > Kl)
- 03:15 Let’s Jump Into the Topic: Death
- 03:27 No Judgement Around Reactions to Death
- 04:19 Notice What’s Coming Up
- 04:26 Death: A Sharp Opportunity to See Your Projections, Existence, and Spirituality
- 05:30 Clear Stop to What Connects Us Consciously and Unconsciously
- 06:21 Jungian Theory – Bringing the Shadow to the Surface
- 06:49 Not Knowing Why You Feel What You Feel
- 07:36 Sorting the Intergenerational Dynamics
- 08:28 How Grief Has Been Processed in Your Ancestry Affects You Now
- 09:18 Grief Demands to Be Felt in the Soul of the Family
- 09:50 My Personal Story With My Grandma
- 10:14 How the Morning Is to Be Had
- 11:21 Funeral Experience Great Grandmother
- 11:45 My Grandmother’s Arrival to the Us
- 12:22 Dog Poop Rice!
- 13:41 a Drastic Change in 2002
- 14:12 Visiting Hong Kong: Every Time Felt Like the Last Time.
- 14:28 Her 96th Birthday Party
- 14:54 Learning More About Someone After They Passed
- 15:31 Her Good Deeds
- 16:13 My Family’s Part in Saving Many Chinese During the Japan Invasion of China
- 16:59 Going Back for Two Village Children
- 18:03 Proud That She’s My Grandmother
- 18:12 Being Enough
- 19:36 We Are a Reflection of Worthiness Before Us
- 20:16 Abundance in Life
- 21:11 Seeing My Mother More Clearly and Where I Belong
- 22:04 Abundance Equated With Working Hard in the Past
- 23:14 My Grandmother the Feminist
- 24:12 Working Easy = Shifting
- 25:18 Guilt for Working Easy
- 25:56 She’s Living in Me and Through Me…
- 26:23 Mention Faith Hill Song “Everywhere I Am, There You’ll Be”
- 26:37 Ideas and Exercises to Explore Death for Yourself
- 26:50 Looking at Death Gives You More Life
- 27:40 the Shaman’s Death
- 28:22 Mention of Ally With Death
- 28:29 Writing Your Own Eulogy
- 29:10 Imagine the People You Worry About Dying
- 32:28 Cultivating the Qualities in Yourself
- 34:03 Shaman’s Death in Reverse
- 35:04 a Choice to Explore Death
- 35:37 Experience and Gentleness
- 35:53 Ally With Death – My Shaman’s Death Online Experiencial
- 36:48 Last Thoughts About Death
- 36:54 Honoring Death Is Honoring Life
- 37:10 Denial of Death Is Like Denial of Life
- 38:14 Thank You for Joining Me Today & Listening
- 38:57 Patreon
- 39:21 Outro & Newsletter
Featured Photo by Chad Wu
Your Support Means So Much!
If The Embody Podcast, my writing, or guided healing meditations have inspired you, helped, or spoken to you, it would mean the world to me if you would show your support through a small donation.
Each creation is lovingly made from my soul and takes anywhere from weeks to a few days to develop and produce. I gladly pay an editor who supports me in polishing and creating high quality content.
As little as $2 help nourish my podcast and other creations to continue to have life and cover costs.
You can also take a look at my offerings which can deepen your embodiment on your own journey. Proceeds from those offerings also help me in the creation of more resources and material.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I am so appreciative.