This is an A{Live Now} episode. It’s been a little bit of time since I’ve done one of these, and these are just podcast episodes that maybe this is how other podcasters do it when you just talk more raw and unfiltered and disorganized, perhaps, but was just coming in the now, and it’s about what’s happening in the now for me these last couple of days and few weeks, the things that have been stirring in me and alive in me.

Candice Wu 0:29

A lot of times when I share what’s alive in me with my friends, what I find is that they’re dealing with something or looking at certain themes in their life, similarly or stumbling across a certain experience that is on a parallel path to mine. So that was the inspiration earlier on for the A{Live Now} episodes. And whether or not it’s something you’re experiencing, it might be interesting for you but, welcome today to this A{Live Now} episode.

Candice Wu 1:07

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 1:42

Before we jump in, I’d love to invite you to support the podcast, if you want a place to contribute this holiday season or if the podcast has spoken to you, touched you in some way or inspired some sort of support or healing in you, anything at all, I would be so grateful if you consider just giving a little bit back, you can make a one-time contribution or you can do a recurring one that’s like a subscription monthly, and just a little bit goes a long way and fuels this podcast and really gives that nourishment for it to thrive. Thank you so much for all of you who do give and want to support in monetary ways as well as by just offering your encouragement or sharing feedback or thoughts that stirred up in you after listening.

Candice Wu 2:36

It’s really a delight to connect with all of you that are listening out there in this way, and I’m so grateful for all of the connections, conversations, and experiences that have come out of the podcast existing. Thank you for your part in it. So the highlight of this podcast today is that I have finally achieved something major and I want to share it with you.

Candice Wu 3:07

It has been probably years that I’ve been saying this, that this has been my goal and finally it’s happened. That goal has been to be bored. So that probably tells you a lot about my life and as much self-care, slowing down, resting, supporting myself, being in contentment, as much of that as I do somewhere in me I’ve wanted this experience of being bored, being so bored, that there’s just nothing. I’ve exhausted all things and there’s nothing to do.

Candice Wu 3:55

And for many, many years, from being an art teacher into being a grad student in clinical psychology to working on my licensure to being a therapist, holistic therapist and learning Somatic Experiencing, Family Constellations, Yoga, blending all this, putting this all together and some semblance of who I am, and how I want to journey with people, that, through all those years, and I’m talking like over 15 years, I’ve craved that feeling of being bored. And I did it the other day. Suddenly, it hit me. And I was in my PJs. I didn’t want to watch Netflix. I didn’t want to write because I’m writing a book at this moment. I didn’t want to call a friend which is something I really enjoyed doing. I didn’t want to cook and be creative that way. I didn’t want to do anything and there was nothing that was calling me and there was nothing I needed to do. Nothing that was pressing, no agenda that I had for that time period. And then it hit me that I was actually Bored. I did it.

Candice Wu 5:23

So on one hand, I was like, “Yes, I did it!” Wait, what did I do? What is this feeling? And it was a really strange feeling. I actually don’t really know what it is to be bored still. Do you? Do you have an idea of what boredom is for you?

Candice Wu 5:39

I guess my fantasy was that I would be so still and purposeless in a good way, peaceful and content, restful and feeling nourished that there was nothing that needed to be done. And I could find this place of like, delightful emptiness, delightful simplicity, and exhaustion of all things in a good way where I could get to that sort of bottom, the rock bottom of feeling, feeling contentment.

Candice Wu 6:18

All these years while I’ve worked towards being more content and slow, simple, peaceful, I’ve also worked with all the stuff that I do to fill that space to avoid feeling peaceful and content. And why would I do that, you know, being peaceful content, there’s that amount of quiet that can allow all things to come up that haven’t come up, all things that want to be seen in me, to ask to be seen. So, early on, in my healing process, I believe that that was quite scary because it would bring a feeling of aloneness, one that was accumulated, that had been accumulating for years and maybe even through past lives and through my ancestry, an inner aloneness, a feeling of aching for connection that I didn’t know, I didn’t know how to feel. And over this time, developing this connection with myself, healing the things that come up and having the capacity to do so took some time.

Candice Wu 7:43

And so, that habit of filling up the space was really deep. And finally, here, I didn’t feel the need to do that. And that’s perhaps what I call boredom. All my needs are filled and taken care of, all the things that I have done in its place or on its own, don’t need to be done. Don’t want to do them. And I wondered if that was an apathy or an emptiness or this feeling that nothing really sounds good.

Candice Wu 8:22

Then I remembered this story of Sudbury schools. There are schools out there, I don’t know a great deal about them, some of you may know way more but these schools that are very Socratic and where kids get to choose exactly what they do with their time, all day, each day and teachers are there like mentors and consultants, coaches, and they support them and supervise yet they don’t push them to do their lives or learning in any sort of way. It seems like a Montessori next level and if the kids want to play video games all day, they can.

Candice Wu 9:05

And one teacher had mentioned that they watched these kids play video games all day, every day for like weeks. And one day, they got to school and did not want to play the video games and they had exhausted that desire. And they moved around for a while in this supposed boredom or whatever you would call that done with feeling. And after that, they found some excitement, something sparked in them to do something and to learn something to do a project and they got going with that and that was very motivating for them. So maybe this is all part of that expansion-contraction of doing this contracting to beingness or the drive for some activity outward, and exhausting that and then coming back to a ground zero.

Candice Wu 10:08

But I was sure happy that I got there and I do feel like something is completed in me where I don’t need to reach for things to avoid certain feelings even though I might, but I found this place where stillness could happen and it could be a little even uncomfortable at times. So, I ended up just sitting with it for a while and being there. My mind took over with some of these thoughts. And then I went back to just being there with it, looking around like hmm, this is a little strange. And I thought, well, I think I just want to take a bath. It was kind of bored with that too, like, all right, we’ll take a bath, it felt okay. And that was that. And the next day, I felt really happy to do the things that I plan to do. So, it did leave me with this conversation of what is boredom? And do we avoid boredom?

Candice Wu 11:22

One of my best friends told me about this children’s book that her daughter had received. And in the book, it was talking about boredom and how the message was, you’re too smart to be bored. Use your smarts and go do something, or read a book or use your creativity. And it seemed like this rejection of being bored and this message that we need to be doing something with ourselves all the time, always having to be in motion. And how do we claim motionlessness? How do we claim stillness and purposelessness as a part of our right to exist? Are there ways in which you avoid just being? And what would it bring up? What do some of your activities serve as a distraction for?

Candice Wu 12:23

As I’ve arrived into the space of boredom, I feel quite a life force energy ready for what comes to me. And there have been a couple of really wonderful ideas of what’s coming to me that I want to pursue, as well as the book that I’m writing that I just feel I’m holding steady and fun process for. The book is about healing our relationship with money and abundance, transforming the relationship, and that’s really about transforming who we are inside. And it’s been a long time coming that I wanted to write this book. And I’ve watched myself put distraction over distraction in the way of it and also being gentle about that and noticing what fear there is underneath it and noticing what I’m doing to support myself.

Candice Wu 13:33

So, boredom feels like this little mystery spot over our consciousness like, this interesting, perplexing experience that some people who are opposite of me might be like, No, I’m bored all the time, and it’s terrible. But what does boredom come with for you? What is boredom? Is it really boredom or is it another feeling? I still don’t know what it was for me. I just know that I didn’t know where to direct my attention. And it didn’t quite feel the need to. It wasn’t totally content in what the feeling was. So there’s a little bit of maybe a restlessness and I’m aware that I’m bringing this inquiry today at a time where many people are celebrating holidays coming up or have started already, and holiday time can feel chaotic, can feel like there’s just another thing on top of all the things you need to do. And we can often become hijacked by the holidays.

Candice Wu 14:53

And I wonder if you’re wanting to shake things up and do things your way, or a different way, this time around. I’m loving the feeling of simplicity and having breathing room, in doing what you desire. So many of us have spent plenty of time in obligation, doing things we feel behold into. And in those places we give ourselves up, we give away a part of what we desire, or we hide those parts of ourselves and tuck them away and say that’s not important. Or, it would be dangerous to do exactly what I want… it’s selfish. But what if you just took the easier, simpler pathway this time around and chose what’s easier for you? Even though sometimes what’s useful for you would bring a complicated mess around you like the people who are involved or the things you have agreed to that you might change? Food for thought.

Candice Wu 16:11

So what else is alive for you? What’s happening through this holiday time, through the winter? Or, whatever season you are in as you are listening to this podcast, depending on where you are in the world do you crave a level of simplicity in your life and what would that mean?

Candice Wu 16:33

And I just invite you in this moment if you would like to touch in on a time, either recently or a long time ago that you felt stillness, purposelessness, restful, nourished, bored if you crave that, whatever feeling that you want to have through this next period of time into the new year. Tap into that feeling and notice what happens in your body, where you might feel that in your body, even if it’s a tiny little bit.

Candice Wu 17:26

I know when my body feels a deep breath and some sense of relief that’s the right choice for me or that’s what my body really want, and what if you gave your body what it wanted? What would life be like? What could life be like?

Candice Wu 17:59

Our imagination really serves to shake things up and allow us to see a totally different possibility and that is the first seed into what could be for us, what could be another possibility of our way of life and the way of life you’re living now is just one possibility. And if you can imagine, with no bounds at all, with no restrictions, judgments or limits, what you need or what you want, and then let your body feel into that and get a taste of that. Usually, everything can roll out from there. But I’m reminded that when you grow, when we grow, that if people around us are tied in with that sort of way that you are, if they have been bound to you or dependent on you or pressuring you in a certain way and you have agreed, then when you shake it up and do something that’s truer to you and aligned for you, there might be some resistance or frustration on other people’s parts. And it may be important to let that just happen. To see it to honor that people are on their own path as well and what feelings come for them are for them to feel, that is when it comes to us being truer to ourselves.

Candice Wu 19:50

So I guess that’s the space I’m in being truer to myself, even more, layers and layers continually being found about where I’m not being true to myself, or where I feel the pressure, the inner pressure to do something that’s not quite aligned with me and all those layers of healing, have released that pressure valve and it’s more and more natural to do what’s true for me in a flowing way and the way I want to and that inner tension of whatever I choose is either non-existent or not quite there. So, this was definitely not how it was for me years ago, or even maybe a year ago, definitely 10 years ago, and this last decade, a lot has happened. So wherever you are on your journey, on your path of becoming aligned with yourself and that being easeful, there is a way, there is possibility for you and hope for you that that will shift as you do your own work with your emotions and your capacity as you continue to look inside and feel, and as we approach the New Year, approaching the way you want to, coming into your true sovereignty, your embodied sovereignty, that is feeling free, feeling your own decisions are yours, your own life is yours. I wish that for all of you. And I know it’s not that easy. Just not easy to do that.

Candice Wu 21:53

I felt this last month maybe, full of rage, anger, and grief. I’ve worked through day after day, it’s in my astrology even that chaos is in the planetary transits and with the mixture of the planets and where they are, I’m not really good at remembering those details, but I have them in my notebook from my astrologer. But what I do know is that I had day after day of feeling through stuff and just letting that flow through me and the capacity to do it. And I’ve had some support as well from a massage therapist, from my own healer, healing coach and friends, and from my inner selves. But that process, if you’re in it can be challenging and I’m almost not sure why I’m saying this, but it’s just coming through me that for whoever this is for or needs to hear it or wants to hear this that your work in your inner self, that is really something and that is a lot, that’s doing a lot in your energy and to notice yourself and see yourself, appreciate what it is that you are doing for yourself and let that fuel your love, your loving for who you are and who you are in this moment and becoming.

Candice Wu 23:48

So as we come to a close with this podcast today, I’ll leave you with that sense of simplicity, embodied sovereignty and freedom, that is possible, imagination and how that can fuel possibility, a new life for you, and seeing yourself and giving yourself credit. Knowing that your emotional labor is part of what you’re doing here in the world, for yourself and for others as we’re all connected, in that collective unconscious that lives in conversation with one another. We’re constantly in underneath, underlying, underbelly conversation with one another and the more each of us can find ourselves in our anchored and grounded self, the more we’re able to just see and not want to change others or ourselves, but be in that place of loving.

Candice Wu 25:17

So if you are in that place of loving today, what would you do?

Candice Wu 25:26

Do you crave boredom? What does that mean for you?

Candice Wu 25:41

Not really sure how to close this podcast because it was just, it felt like an outpouring of just randomness from me and yet I’m just here in this space of presence with myself, with you, with a quiet that’s around me at the moment, with a salt lamp that’s glowing next to me and the snow gently falling.

Candice Wu 26:29

So this invitation to be and be in connection with your freedom, with the sovereignty of your being your existence, and with that, I’ll close the podcast today. I’m sending you all that gentleness and kindness to yourself, that present, and just wishing you that inner loving that you are worthy of. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.