Candice Wu 0:00

Hello, this is Candice Wu on the Embody Podcast. And right now you’re listening to a mini-series within the larger and Embody Podcast. It’s called the a{Live} now series.

Candice Wu 0:11

And this is a series I just started now, and I want to continue it on and see how it goes. But I’ve been called to speak more authentically and more in the moment, more in process, and more just in time, without editing and without polishing it up.

Candice Wu 0:35

And with what’s alive right now, in the moment, it’s felt like an inner calling that I want to be able to do this and challenge myself to this, as well as share what’s happening, because what’s alive in me right now, has often been a source of good conversation with people or resonating with people in a way that helps bring them a feeling that they’re not alone, or helps them understand what they’re going through, or adds to my experience as well.

Candice Wu 1:06

So a{Live} now has a lot of meanings, multiple meanings here. What’s alive in the moment, what’s alive now, live now, to live now and to be present and to be fully with what my experience is and to share it and to express it.

Candice Wu 1:27

And also, to some degree, it’s live, this podcast, but because I will have a bit of tweaking and editing by my editor, just minorly to make the sound quality good, it will be edited and put out there as soon as possible.

Candice Wu 1:46

What I also find interesting about sharing what’s alive in me right now is that it’s often filled with many emotions, it’s complex. Sometimes the most alive thing feels also tainted or touched by fear. Because it’s pushing me to my edge and my boundary. And it often is filled with other emotion, maybe it’s joy, or maybe it’s sadness, or grief, or anger, whatever it is, the combination makes it feel very alive in the moment, makes me feel like I’m full in myself and completely here.

Candice Wu 2:26

A second fascinating thing about sharing what’s alive right now is that I’ve often experienced other people healing around the same issues, or the same themes. And maybe they’re across the world, or maybe they’re connected with me in some way or not at all. And they’re just strangers. And so I found that dialogue to be incredible.

Candice Wu 2:51

So feel free to share with me what happens if you hear my thoughts, my feelings, what’s present for me, and spontaneous. And I’d be happy to hear from you. I respond to every single message. And if you don’t get a response from me try again, because chances are I just didn’t get it or something happened or didn’t see it.

Candice Wu 3:13

So what’s alive for me right now?

Candice Wu 3:16

The other day, my editor told me how many hours he had spent on editing this particular podcast, which was an interview. And granted, it took much longer than the normal podcasts, where it’s just me talking or a live interview. But this one was on Skype and meshing the two audio tracks, for the best sound quality was a longer process than normal. And he told me how many hours and what I was thinking about, “Wow, that cost me a lot of money.”

Candice Wu 3:51

Thinking about like a podcast and spending that money, investing that money in what I’m doing here and sharing to the world, the way I am. And that scared me. And for moments, I stopped and just witnessed this whole fear thread go on in my mind. Maybe you shouldn’t do it. Maybe it’s not worth it anymore. What are you doing? Wow, can you really spend that much money on this?

Candice Wu 4:20

And of course, my editor is completely worth it. So it wasn’t that, it was more so an eye-opening moment where I realized how much money I was investing in this process. And the question came, “Do I want to invest this in the process?”

Candice Wu 4:41

So a couple of things came out of this, the question of why am I doing this? And is this worthy of my time and money and energy? And also, a second piece came up as I sat with some of the feelings.

Candice Wu 5:00

I’m kind of fast forwarding because it wasn’t just like it happened all in one sitting.

Candice Wu 5:07

A night went by and in the morning, I totally stressed and had about an hour to have super stressful sleep, the kind where you’re just thinking and obsessing. But you’re not really thinking clearly even because you’re sort of half asleep. Either way, it’s not getting you sleep, and it’s not getting you proper thinking or being with yourself really.

Candice Wu 5:34

And I could just feel the fear pervade my body. And luckily, I could witness it and explore it deeper. And so that next day, I, which was just about yesterday, I sat with it and talk to the fear. And for a while, nothing came up. And eventually, I was talking to my partner and realized that the fear, the belief underlying the fear was about not being worthy, not feeling worthy to invest in myself.

Candice Wu 6:09

And I knew those were the right words because it would bring me tears. And I didn’t quite know why. After all, I could invest in myself in other ways like in therapy, in healing work, in investing in my business or my practice, investing energy and time into things that I don’t know what the fruits of will be.

Candice Wu 6:34

And for this particular feeling, what revealed itself was that my great grandma, whom I grew up with, and just loved so much growing up, and now she always, when it came time to give her like the bedroom of her choice in the new house that we moved into, or giving her a new mattress because hers was about 15 years old, she would always choose the least, like the smallest option, the oldest option, the one that gave everyone else the least stress.

Candice Wu 7:17

So she chose the tiny little room that was actually meant to be a laundry room. And she wanted that or seemingly wanted that. And when we tried to give her a new mattress, we even changed it for her, she stubbornly went and changed it back, climbed all the stairs, I think she was like 88 years old. And she just lifted it all the way back up and, and returned, recovered her own mattress and gave the new one to, I think, my sister.

Candice Wu 7:45

And what I realized was that there was so much pain in seeing my great grandma reject things that could be investing in her. And that she could receive and that we all wanted to give her. And at the same time, I could feel her love in giving it all to us.

Candice Wu 8:05

But there’s something left in that feeling of worthiness to invest in yourself there. And so, I used — when I felt into that, I already was grieving and some energy inside my body was moving. I could feel sensations of tingling in my chest, and some tightness breaking up and opening. And it could breathe a little better. And to let it move a little further, I used forgiveness.

Candice Wu 8:37

And it’s something I use with my clients, as well as with my own healer, who taught it to me. And I use the words, “I forgive myself for judging myself, for believing that I’m unworthy of investing in myself.”

Candice Wu 8:56

And I also used “I forgive myself and my ancestors for all the times and places that we felt unworthy of investing in ourselves.” And that just let the rest of it move. And granted, I do have a lot of practice with letting feelings move through my body without blocking them or without holding tight. And so I could just feel that release. And as soon as that happened, it was maybe an hour or two later that I just felt like, I’m totally renewed with energy about continuing this podcast, and even coming up with new ideas around it and feeling like I am worthy of investing in.

Candice Wu 9:42

What was also quite nice in contrast to my story about my great grandma was that I learned that my partner, he had a story that seemed to be opposite that about his grandmother, where he said that his grandmother would, even recently, even in her 80s, she bought a $3,000 euro desk, a very nice desk for herself because she wanted a desk, and how easy it was for her to do that. And also excited she was to be able to pass that down in the family line that someone else would be able to have it later. But that just brought even more heightened awareness around what my experience was.

Candice Wu 10:29

So if this is resonating with you in any way, I’d encourage you to explore it deeper. Perhaps it’s about experiencing how you invest in yourself, or your own worthiness, or learning a tool that I’ve shared today about forgiveness or feeling emotions through the body or talking with fear. I didn’t elaborate on it too much, which I will another day. But I’d be curious for you how it’s touching you, in what ways and again, I’d encourage you to share that with me. I want to mention two other pieces today that seem to touch in on this as well.

Candice Wu 11:11

Just this morning, I got an email from somebody that, I just burst into tears because this person wrote that they had listened to my podcast, and felt like it had resonated with them in some ways, and that they were experiencing some similar things.

Candice Wu 11:32

And that this weekend, they were singing, this is part of their career, and they were singing and performing and found themselves feeling tightness in their chest and a lot of anxiety and gasping for air even. And then later when they were at Yoga, the same feeling came, this gasping for air and a lightheadedness. And as this person went to create their intentions for that day and sit with themselves, they noticed shaking in their legs and a lot of feelings moving through.

Candice Wu 12:08

What they said to me was that instead of dismissing their feelings, pushing them away, not feeling them or even having a huge concern or fear about the experience, they instead were able to be with themselves, even voice to their partner that they understood what was going on to some degree and let them know what they needed about this, navigating through their feelings.

Candice Wu 12:35

And within a couple of hours, all of these emotions had passed. And they were diffusing some oils and drinking some yummy teas, loving their inner selves with practices that we had worked on together before.

Candice Wu 12:49

And I’ve also received a few other messages from people where they felt like this really described something they were going through and it had helped them put together some of the pieces of what they were experiencing.

Candice Wu 13:03

Oh, I’m realizing now that I haven’t even mentioned which podcast this is. It’s the one about spiritual and existential crisis. It’s called Freedom + Expansion : The Terrifying Gifts of Spiritual and Existential Crisis AKA WTF is Going on? #AmIGoingCrazy? – EP13.

Candice Wu 13:19

And this is one of the things that happens to me when I record live is I just forget to say some details. So here it is.

Candice Wu 13:28

But I am so touched by all of the messages I’ve received, and all of the personal and vulnerable stories that have come my way because of what I’ve shared. And this is one of the joys that I have of sharing so deeply, and being on the receiving end of the story of your souls.

Candice Wu 13:50

So thank you so much for listening and following along and giving that feedback to me as well.

Candice Wu 13:58

And at the edge of wondering, and inquiring why I’m doing this podcast, these pieces of feedback have just given me so much heartfelt delight and gratitude and purpose as well, for expressing myself in this way. So it comes with my personal purpose of growth and vulnerability and challenging myself to be at my living edge, but also to hear and to converse with people about what they’re going through. It’s just one of my joys.

Candice Wu 14:41

The last a{Live} now piece I want to share today is about someone who passed away recently, Avicii. His name is Tim Bergling, he’s a Swedish musician and DJ. And a lot of you may know his music because it’s beautiful, and it’s lively.

Candice Wu 15:02

And, actually, for the longest time, I had known his music but didn’t know him specifically as the artist like I didn’t know the name of who sang this song, Wake me up.

Candice Wu 15:13

As I learned about his death recently, I also just burst into tears. And I wasn’t sure why. And I think it’s so interesting to hear things in the news, and to hear things about other people because it really provides some stage for exploring my inner world. And not to take away from what actually happens like the passing of Tim Bergling. And the sadness that’s around that for a lot of people, including his family and his listeners. But it gave me a lot of sadness, just to know that he’s so young.

Candice Wu 15:57

And when he was, I believe it was in 2012, or maybe 2014, I can’t remember now. But he realized that he was on his path to death. And he even said in his documentary that if I keep on going on this pathway, if I keep on performing, I’m going to die.

Candice Wu 16:18

And from things I’ve read, apparently, he had told press and media, that he did not want to be lured back into that world because he knew that it would kill him, and it had gotten so bad.

Candice Wu 16:33

So rock bottom, it seemed that he knew he had to make a change. And then that he died two years later, or a couple of years later, that just hit me really hard.

Candice Wu 16:44

Because it hit me in the spot where I know there are certain things that I need to do for my own self-care, another level of letting my body take the lead and listening and doing exactly what my body wants, not pressuring it to do more.

Candice Wu 17:03

That level of self-love and care is what my body’s been asking for. And there are ways that I’ve pushed it aside, even here where in Bali, where I’m able to take a lot of time to rest, I found myself pushing and challenging myself to go out and do something or to do a little piece of work.

Candice Wu 17:27

But hearing this story yesterday, just gave me another moment of grieving for myself, and also feeling sad for the world and for him, but mostly grieving for myself that I also need to make certain changes internally and to give in and surrender to what my soul and body are asking for.

Candice Wu 17:55

So I leave you with that today. And if that touches you in any way to ask yourself, what is it that you’re needing? What is it that your soul or your body are asking for, that you know, you need to listen to? And perhaps you’ve been pushing aside. Like me or like the person whose email I shared about how they would often dismiss and push away what they were feeling, but now has stopped to listen and feel.

Candice Wu 18:30

So what is it that something inside of you has been whispering or saying or screaming to you even and that comes in small, little intuitive thoughts that come quickly or feeling senses, an emotion that comes and asks of you to feel through and listen to what it is or a sensation in your body that needs to move through and give you some sort of wisdom.

Candice Wu 18:57

So I hope today that these thoughts will give you something interesting to chew on or just let you have more pieces of my story. Or give you a chance to look into your heart and see what it is you need or how you might need or want to invest in yourself, what areas you want to give forgiveness to or just tuning into how the world is affecting you and looking at one piece of what touches your heart.

Candice Wu 19:28

Thanks so much for listening in today. And I look forward to sharing more on the a{Live} now series of the Embody Podcast. And if you’re interested in listening to the podcast on spiritual crisis or existential crisis, check out my web page at CandiceWu.com/podcast where you’ll find that podcast, as well as all the rest that have been there.

Candice Wu 19:52

And if you are interested in staying tuned with me, with other healing tips, workshops, retreats, blog posts, and the like. You can sign up for my newsletter at CandiceWu.com/embody. Be well today and I hope to see you next time on the Embody Podcast.