Happening
[Spoken Word for a Dreamer] By Candice Wu
2.2.21

Why give me the signs, if they do not represent what is to come?
Universe, I ask
The Catalyst
The task

This task of believing in something I don’t see
Is making B e a u t y out of me
I’m watching it unfold
This whole world inside, It flows, the scary, the old…
Exhilarating
An unknown ride
When and where will it show outside?

You tell me to suspend logic
To trust, to live what’s not seen in front of my eyes
The tears, they stream, the dream in the proportionate size
Of uncertainty, fear, I realize

It is all washing out of my heart, my stomach, my cells
For magic is something I believe in, I think.

When can I touch it? Taste it?
The impossible is what I offer myself up in
But in the end it’s me, who I am challenged to stand behind
To hold

Beyond the yearning that is undeniable, aching, unstoppable
I am what’s happening

With the vision that must B E seen
The Eternal Being
For I AM the Dream

Candice Wu 0:00
This episode is about being in ease, doing what feels good, and being in your true flow in harmony with yourself and also aligning to pleasure as the key to Prajna, complete action.

Candice Wu 0:22
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 0:57
Before we jump in today, I want to mention a really special interview that I'm going to be on, called In Response: Interviews with Intriguing Internalizers by Mia Park. Mia Park was one of the guests on the Embody Podcast and also an old friend from our Yoga training together, advanced Yoga training. And, she's doing thoughtful interviews with all sorts of people all around the world most they're her friends and delighted to be on the show.

Candice Wu 1:29
If you want to tune into how I've been experiencing the outer world, especially during this time, internalizers, according to Mia are thoughtful, creative, sensitive spirits who internally process life in rich and unique ways. And these interviews are live-streamed on her Facebook and YouTube accounts. And so you can tune in and ask me some questions if you want during it live and hear a little more in-depth about what's been happening with me and how I've been internalizing and they just say everything.

Candice Wu 2:04
You can find the info linked to the show notes here and also there will be a short link that's at [CandiceWu.com/Miaparkinterview](https://CandiceWu.com/Miaparkinterview). The live interview is going to be taking place on May 30th, Saturday at 12 pm Chicago time at Central Time, USA, May 30th. So hope to see some of you tuning in that would be so fun to see you out there alongside us.

Candice Wu 2:37
This episode is sponsored by the Embodied Healing group that happens monthly. Join me and one or two others for a group healing experience that supports you in feeling more present in your being, more capacity to meet yourself in your daily experience, and build the tools to navigate whatever it is you're going through that come from Somatic Experiencing, Family Constellations, an integrative blend of all sorts of indigenous and Embodied Healing practices. You can find that along with all of the other offerings at [CandiceWu.com/offerings](https://CandiceWu.com/offerings).

Candice Wu 3:16
Over the years, I've found that it has taken actual practice to do what feels good, to do what feels easeful, you'd think it would just come easy, not for me, and it seems like not for most people. But luckily, it does come easier and easier. And this is really working on our state of being, being in joy and doing what satisfies us on a deep level.

Candice Wu 3:45
I want to give a shout out to a listener, Jean, who really is interested in this topic of Prajna, complete action and has also encouraged me to talk about it more on the podcast.

Candice Wu 4:00
I love the concept of Prajna. And it's something that I've worked with, to be more in line with overall the years of my life. It's doing what feels so complete in the moment because you're clear in your intention, you're really connected with why you're doing something, and in an easeful, natural, organic way, so you know why you're doing something, and when you do it, it's satisfying already in the act of doing it. It is already complete in the act of doing it because you don't expect anything further from it. But, when we're so intentional, complete, and that intention comes from a very true place and is aligned with who we are, aligned with our deepest values and the moment, what wants to particularly come through us in this existence, then we have typically some really beautiful gifts that come from it. Beautiful outcomes, beautiful returns, or abundance that just come full circle. Because it already is a circle in itself. It's complete. It's an integrated action that doesn't ask for more.

Candice Wu 5:33
And in so doing, it's so whole that abundance and beautiful things just want to follow. And it is like a gift from the universe, from life itself, to receive what comes your way after something. And it's so nice because you don't truly expect it and it's almost you're coming from a neutral place where you don't push or pull in one direction or the other, where it's okay if you didn't get what came to you. And it's just delightful that it did come.

Candice Wu 6:11
I just finished reading Tosha Silver's book, It's not your money. And in that book, there was this lovely quote that relates to this and I'll read it too. “Ironically, when you let the divine take the lead, old desires often begin to hatch and be fulfilled anyway as a gift from love herself, except now you're not their slave.”

Candice Wu 6:40
So you may have wanted something in the past, old desires, but when you let divine take the lead, she says all desires often begin to hatch and be fulfilled anyway. So the things that you probably wanted, will likely come and she says as a gift from love herself, except now you're not their slave. You're not beholden to these things that you expect and tied to them, tethered to them, and living out of this need for them.

Candice Wu 7:15
And I love the word, “their slave” because that really gives that punch in the gut feeling of how we are bound to certain outcomes and they really enslave us.

Candice Wu 7:28
So with action that is complete in the moment that is so pleasurable or delightful or so in line with what you believe in, and you are doing it because you believe in that. And it doesn't have to be some giant thing. It could just be because it's pleasurable, and you're worthy of it, and it's enjoyable and you love doing it, then you really are in a state of being in freedom, and delight and joy. And from there all possibilities of more freedom and abundance can flow, you're in a flow.

Candice Wu 8:10
If you've been following the podcast, you know, I've been talking about having this identity crisis with the podcasts like, what's this going to become? I need a break. I don't know what to do with this. Something doesn't feel right. And you know, what's been happening is that if I feel inspired, I just talk and do something on the podcast. And if I don't, I just wait and possibly do a rerun episode right now.

Candice Wu 8:38
I'm just letting the flow of whatever feels interesting to me come through. And that connects right with that topic of Prajna, complete action and doing what feels pleasurable. So I realized that I don't have to figure out what this podcast is about. I mean, it's about embodiment. Of course. It's about loving yourself. It's about deepening in your presence of who you are. That's all really the same. But I don't know, I thought there was some sort of format that was going to shift or come through. And it actually has, some of these episodes are shorter and some of these episodes just go straight to an experiential instead of having like, many connected to them, which I was doing in the past.

Candice Wu 9:24
I had that astrology reading recently from Elena S. — instagram.com/hiddengiftastrology, and she's amazing. So right on.

Candice Wu 9:34
And in that last reading, as I mentioned, maybe a handful of episodes ago. She said you will be going through a shift in who you are in the public and in your relationships. And so naturally, that's all happening. It was happening even before she had told me that, and with this podcast as well. And I realize, you know, this identity crisis is really about me, it's really about what's changing and breaking down in me.

Candice Wu 10:10
The other day, it felt like there was an earthquake rippling through my body, like breaking my body in half. Luckily, I have enough capacity to be with myself through that experience now, and I had a lovely, loved one that was with me on the phone and just being present with me. That felt so helpful. But there's this dismantling happening on the inside and I imagine a lot of you are going through that too, like, what's breaking down inside of you? What's been here for some time and wanting to make its way through so that you can be more you and you don't have to define that.

Candice Wu 10:58
So what I realized, long story short is what I realized is that you don't have to make some giant proclamation of who you are. It doesn't have to be like a coming-out necessarily, or some structured form that you define and declare, although structure can be wonderful in certain occasions when it's helpful? But maybe your way now is to not be so structured or certain but to allow things in their raw form, in there maybe quivery, wobbly, revealing, and emerging state come through.

Candice Wu 11:41
It's precisely for that reason that I love watching horses that have just been birthed, babies, fowls start to learn they have legs and slowly find a little bit of balance, like super wobbly balance with them, fall over, maybe take one little step, and then just wipe out. I love watching it. Because it's so sweet. It's so natural. It's what we're here to do. Be in ourselves totally, exploring, coming into this moment, and just being with the moment, however, it is in its newness and its uncertainty, in its development and allowing that to take its shape as it goes along.

Candice Wu 12:33
Luckily, I am still near the ocean and I think it's really helping me because I have been in surrender mode and just flowing with where things take me and definitely feeling the waves of intensity, forward and back. But what I'm finding is this process of surrender and tuning into what's pleasurable and joyful and allowing that to take the lead, gets us to what we're uniquely here to do, and to experience. There's this unlearning, unconditioning, unknowing, and undoing of layers of beliefs and messaging and shoulds.

Candice Wu 13:26
And in this time of Coronavirus 19, we get to see the outpouring of our lives as they have been untouched in its full momentum for many years. Now we have had this giant shift. I guess I wouldn't say break because for some it's not a break, but very intense contrast to what our lives have been for most of us, and we get to see what we created unintentionally and intentionally.

Candice Wu 14:00
And it's not to say that things are your fault, or if you got sick, it's your fault, or if someone is experiencing real hardship, it's their fault. It's not that at all. It's just that what is it that you're here to learn, do, and be? And what is this particular time showing you? What the body knows through our lineages creation is also here. Meaning, what is the action over time of things that are through the ancestry. Things that are unintegrated and integrated. What is the knowing that's passed down through generations, and what needs to be looked at so that it completes itself? We get to see what we're attached to or dependent on, what we're drawn to, what we feel we need.

Candice Wu 15:00
And then we get to go to the deeper layers of meeting ourselves, seeing where all that came from, and being with ourselves in those emotions.

Candice Wu 15:12
Of course, you might as well you know, you might also just be watching Netflix and eating and just trying to get through it, so this may not be an incredibly healing time, like a time you focus on going deeper, but it may just be getting through it. And that's okay too.

Candice Wu 15:31
So just going back to the old ways, part of the old ways for me is to plan a form of something, creating a structure and, or creating some intention and moving towards that. Now, it's the softer intention of just letting pleasure lead the way and pleasure in all forms. Sometimes that's just a momentary sensory experience that I get to enjoy and savor. And to let that be the front of your experience can really change your life. It changed mine, at least, when I first began doing that, I was like, wow, I can savor a good experience. But there are so many problems to look at. There are so many things to solve. And just going direct, going directly to the joy, going directly to pleasure, and having it, you're worthy of it. You're here for it, you exist for it.

Candice Wu 16:30
And just think if everyone on the planet did that right now, chose something that felt pleasurable, and even if your experience isn't pleasurable, you don't have access to something, to look at something pleasurable around you, to tune into a color that's around you that's pleasurable or a plant or some part of nature, an object in your space or even touching your body in a soothing or comforting way. We can find it everywhere.

Candice Wu 17:07
And if we all did that, this planet would be really different. If we moved towards what truly is ours, to experience here, and what we want from that deeply connected place of who we are, then this world will be really different.

Candice Wu 17:32
So what makes you feel alive?

Candice Wu 17:35
What makes you feel satisfied?

Candice Wu 17:38
And this is not going to be a similar answer to anyone else. But where do you flourish?

Candice Wu 17:47
And inevitably, when you flourish, when you choose pleasure and joy when you choose what's in line for you, that raises your vibration and if you don't like those words, that expands you, that brings you to a fullness, that is the action that is complete because you chose, it's already pleasurable. You don't have to expect more from it, then that gives a lot to people, that gives people the ability to see, wow, I can choose that for myself too, maybe I'll want to join in that peaceful, joyful, delightful place. It empowers people when you empower yourself that way.

Candice Wu 18:35
So I want to go back to Prajna for a moment because what we're really talking about here is a state of being and with action that is complete in itself in the moment. It's really about the state of being we're in and if that's who you want to be.

Candice Wu 18:56
For a long time in my life, I felt kind of whiplashed and pushed and pulled around by the experiences that would happen outside of me. And I can still get triggered, of course. I can still feel activated inside by something outside and I learned from it. But I see it all very differently now where the experiences outside of me are that chance to get to know something deeper about me, and to grow in my own empowerment, and wholeness.

Candice Wu 19:32
And before it was like, wanting to control what's outside of me. And from that place, I could see this concept of our state of being playing out. I wasn't really working with my state of being. I was coming from a place of doing than having and then being, and that place is the power outside of us.

Candice Wu 20:00
So if I do X, Y, and Z, then I'll have X, Y, and Z. And I will be happy or I will be at peace. So peace came last, joy came last, in that train of events.

Candice Wu 20:19
And so you can see how, that's not quite a complete action because when we do something, to get something else, to feel something, then we rely and depend on all these outer forces to give us some sort of fulfillment or meaning, some feeling or some — we want it to amount to something. And then we feel satisfied. And so you're really subject to the outer world.

Candice Wu 20:51
Whereas, coming from a state of being where you be, do, and then have as a natural outcome of your state of being, this is where we are abundantly connected with ourselves, feel the power from within, to choose our state of being, to take care of ourselves, if that's not the state of being we're in, to integrate fully all the parts of who we are and acting from that place of our state of being who we want to be. But not just mentally defining it being in that state of being.

Candice Wu 21:38
So, if you want to be in peace, or if you want to vibrate on the level of contentment or joy or being at ease in yourself, being in trust, whatever it is, it's connecting with how that feels in your body and connecting with the energy state in your body that goes with it. And feeling that openness where as much of you is on board with that resonance as possible.

Candice Wu 22:17
When I act from this place, I feel deeply satisfied and like, there's nothing more that needs to happen than what just happened and I feel really in the experience. Whether that's feeling anxious in it or joyful in it, doesn't matter. It's just being really in it for what it is, for the sake of being and doing in that experience alone.

Candice Wu 22:48
And then in the aftermath, what pours out of it, I feel mostly neutral about except there is delight, but there's like a grounded delight. There's perhaps even excitement and enjoyment of the fruits of that. And if it's not something fruitful, if it turns out to be some criticism I receive or a dud of an experience, it doesn't feel as disappointing because of that deeper neutrality and equanimity.

Candice Wu 23:22
And when it does feel more intense or activating, where it feels like an intense high or something or a real low, it shows me the hidden parts, the unconscious parts of what I may have been expecting or wanting out of it. Where there's some part of me dependent on an outer source of validation or an outer source to arrive to me. Giving me something that I wanted and I get to see what that is.

Candice Wu 24:06
So the key to all of this, in my opinion, is connecting with pleasure. And as I mentioned, it's simple pleasures and also deeper, more meaningful pleasures.

Candice Wu 24:16
If you're already attuned to pleasure, then it's simple. It's easy to just allow your body to follow it, just like an animal in the wild, knows exactly what feels good. They don't have to think about it. They just do and be and are with themselves in nature, going about their way naturally. And when they're hungry, they go for it. When they're restful and enjoying, they're doing it, they're not thinking about doing something else. It's easy. And so their body is naturally attuned for that.

Candice Wu 24:54
And for us, if we've been attuned to constantly focusing on challenges, hardships, if we've had a lot of trauma, if you've been conditioned to believe that you're not worthy of pleasure or joy, or contentment or peace, or having that has come with danger, then our body protects and says, No, I can't have that. It would be scary to have that.

Candice Wu 25:24
So just respect if that's what your body is going through, and to work with, however, your body is experiencing, diving into pleasure and enjoyment, working with perhaps if your body is overwhelmed, but if your body is overwhelmed, tuning into pleasure can also help it. And just know that if there is a lot of overwhelm in your body that if you tune into pleasure and feel it in your body, it can easily swing back to uncomfortable feelings.

Candice Wu 26:01
In Somatic Experiencing, Peter Levine calls that going into the healing vortex is feeling pleasure or contentment, or feeling “good” feelings. And that will pendulate to the trauma vortex, will pendulate to the things that are uncomfortable.

Candice Wu 26:23
And the way I understand that is that our capacity wants to grow as a whole. So when you feel more expansion and pleasure, you're going to expand in your ability to feel all uncomfortable things too. And those things may surface making more room for pleasure. Or, just poke their heads up and say, Yeah, we want attention too. But you can start with just feeling what's pleasurable in the moment, finding it in your day to day and as you find it and identify it, feel it in your body. Enjoy what's happening. Savor it truly and be present with it. Let your experience be so full that you get lost it.

Candice Wu 27:19
And if being in pleasure, is hard for you, just do it a little at a time, a couple of breaths. If your capacity for feeling pleasure and all sorts of experience, unpleasant as well is very large, then the invitation to dive in deeper and more often is here for you.

Candice Wu 27:43
So… find the sweetness in the day. And if it's possible, create it or move towards it. Feel what your body wants, what it would enjoy, what brings it joy, what lights it up?

Candice Wu 28:02
And to tune into how your body feels when it feels joy, where you feel that joy, how you know that that is joy is a bit of practice. So, take some time for that.

Candice Wu 28:17
Where in my body do I feel joy?

Candice Wu 28:22
How do I know that something feels pleasurable to me?

Candice Wu 28:25
And how can I feel that and can I be with it?

Candice Wu 28:32
Let your mental processing or rationality just step to the side a little bit to make room for what your body knows is deeply enjoyable.

Candice Wu 28:46
And it can be sex, it can be sensuality. It can be whatever is kinky or fun.

Candice Wu 28:55
It also can be what gives your heart satisfaction and meaning. Or, wherever the energy is that just drives you and gives you aliveness.

Candice Wu 29:12
I'll just give you two quick examples of when this happened for me, and it almost like, I didn't even need to think about it. But I've also practiced a lot and not thinking too much, but just following what my body wants is when, recently, in the process of me working on an outline for a book, someone suggested to read other books that are in that same genre and area.

Candice Wu 29:42
And my thought was, I don't want to read. This is so exhausting. Like, I just don't have any room for that right now. And then a friend sent Tosha Silver's book to me, It's not your money, and I just was like, Hmm, this is interesting. And I began to read it. And by the next day and a half, I was done reading it. Yeah, I was just so energized by it, I just kept going. I followed it. And luckily, I had space in my day to do so. And my life supports that. And I've created a life that does support that. So I just read that book in less than two days.

Candice Wu 30:26
And another example is when I really wanted to get a car, just last year. I wanted to get a car that I could camp in and I wanted to create this back area of a camper that I could sleep in. I was super excited about it. I went into full-blown woodworking mode and was constructing these boards for the bottom, the base, and looking into like foam mattresses and all these little like, screens, and things I would need to sustain myself outside in nature, in this car.

Candice Wu 31:06
And I remember my mom asking me, where are you going to camp? What are you going to do once this is done?

Candice Wu 31:12
And literally, I was like, I don't know. I just know I need to do this, like, this just feels so important than good. It was just so satisfying at the time. And I did go camping in it. And it was a very scary experience, actually. I talked about it on the podcast. I'll link it in the show notes if you want to hear about it. But it did lead me to a number of events, a series of important events that gave me information about past lives and helped me feel way more integrated in myself.

Candice Wu 31:47
I haven't gone camping that much after that, but I want to and of course, now that's out of the question with everything happening with the virus but these are two instances where my body just felt compelled to move and do what it wanted to do. And it felt so good. And it really didn't matter what was going to happen after that. It was a lot of fun.

Candice Wu 32:18
And even to the point of making certain stock and investment decisions with my body sense and pendulum, and just trusting the flow of things and trusting that there's something that I know more deeply inside of me that can direct what's right for me to do.

Candice Wu 32:41
And I think there are some losses that come out of that, but it's not really relevant to my concerns. It's not really that important. But I enjoy the state of being. It really works for me and I think if you would have asked me 10 years ago, if this is how I'd be, I would say, I don't think so. That's, you know, to my logical self at that time, it probably wouldn't have worked out. I don't think I would understand how that kind of life would work. But this feels much more easeful and joyful and natural. And it brings back our wild, it brings back what's innate to us, instinctual.

Candice Wu 33:29
So this is just the opening of a very big topic of pleasure as our compass and alignment. I wanted to share that with you today, along with the concept of Prajna and our state of being, guiding us in our lives and feeling flow from within us and our connection with all that is.

Candice Wu 33:53
The other thing too is that pleasure for me has grown, the more I followed pleasure, the more I've attuned to it, the more I can focus on it naturally and it's just part of my every day.

Candice Wu 34:09
Of course, there are times where things are hard and I use pleasure to bring my nervous system into more capacity. And then also on the other side of things, the things that are unpleasant, or have been in the past, have become more pleasurable.

Candice Wu 34:28
I really even enjoy feeling grief now because I get to know myself more deeply. It's like a sacred moment with myself, sadness, anger, even. Sometimes I may not like it, but when I can really be in touch with the feeling, there is some pleasure in it, and just feeling, being alive and feeling.

Candice Wu 34:51
And so with pleasure as our alignment, it also is that pleasure can encompass everything, that more and more of our experience can fall under the experience of pleasure over time as we build our capacity and pleasure is one of the ways we build our capacity. Because our nervous systems says all. There's beauty, there's safety, there's enjoyment, that must mean things are okay, that must mean, Wow. It is beautiful. There's a lot of possibility here.

Candice Wu 35:28
So, just leaving you with, where is pleasure now? And what would you do if you chose pleasure as your alignment and as your way to make decisions? How would your life change? How would this moment change if you touched into and could savor what was pleasurable right now?

Candice Wu 35:58
Wishing you all the pleasure. Wishing you presence with yourself and that you're okay in this time.

Candice Wu 36:05
And as always, if you want to reach out or share, feel free too, you can connect with me at my website candicewu.om.

Candice Wu 36:14
Thank you so much and also feel free to stay in touch if you'd like to, through my newsletter candicewu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 36:24
Thanks so much for joining me today and a little music to transition out. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

Hello, everyone! This is Candice Wu on the Embody Podcast, and today I am sitting in a little alcove in Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is my birthday today, it’s March 21, the first day of spring, I am 35 years old. And I, as I was meditating and going inside myself, I just felt that this message came through, and I wanted to record this special podcast to share this really special message with you today, probably a message that I’ve been holding for 35 years inside my being. And it is the essential part of what I want to bring to the world, the message that I have to everyone and most of all to myself, something that I challenged myself to step into all the time.

Candice Wu 0:54

This podcast is about loving your voice, becoming fully self-expressed, which is the deepest form of self-love is coming into your entire being. So, as you can hear around me, there are different birds, there’s construction, there are cars moving by, and I hope that you enjoy this background music as I’m here, these backgrounds sounds as I’m here, in this little park. Oh boy, there’s a lot going on.

Candice Wu 1:27

So, my message to you today is to really challenge yourself, ask of yourself to step into the deepest form of loving yourself, healing all of the betrayals that you might have internally and bringing your true self to life. As they begin this podcast, I’m actually watching somebody empty the trash. That’s the noise that you’re experiencing around me, and it’s quite perfect because, in a way, it’s like emptying what’s not really working for us in our life. And that’s part of what this podcast is about.

Candice Wu 2:10

I know now that the scariest things to speak about or to do, are the ones that I must do. The things that bring me fear or resistance are the things that are actually so true to the core of my being. And I’m constantly challenged by my partner to just express these things, just put them out there, and I spent a long time of my life keeping all of this in. And my message to you today is this, what you have to say is absolutely essential. You have a specific gift, a specific way of being a message, and a specific way to share it, to express it or to show it.

Candice Wu 2:56

So, what has been an area that you have felt shame or self-consciousness about? Are there places of your expression that you have felt brought you fear or stopped you in your tracks? Sometimes, I’ve expressed things and I’ve felt brutally hurt or wounded and I just took them away inside, and it was those very things that were so close to who I was and who I am. That that was the reason they were wounded because it meant something. So, are there areas that you have felt hurt or wounded, or scared to share? Things that you’ve had in a way or said that this is for you when you’ve made enough money or when you have the time. Take a look at your journals, your notes, scraps of paper. How you have spent your time? Where you feel most alive but perhaps are not giving much attention to? In my looking at this, I’ve asked myself, “How have I betrayed myself?

Candice Wu 4:07

And this is something you can ask yourself, “What do you spend your time doing to ignore your soul, your soul’s calling, your soul’s truth? Where do you spend most of your time and what drains you? What are the obligations that you fill up in your life so that you can keep on avoiding what it is that is true or truth?” Other ways to look at what your soul calls you to do are to notice your dreams. If you do and remember them, what are your dreams about?

Candice Wu 4:38

For a while, I was dreaming about Thailand, and just seeing the rice paddies in the river in Chiang Mai, and I had never dreamed about a specific location before other than like my home or someone else’s home. But this was specific, a specific country and I had no idea for some time why I was dreaming about it. And as I explored it, every time I thought about Thailand, it meant freedom. And it doesn’t mean that I had to go to Thailand to get my freedom, but eventually, it really felt that I was being called to go there.

Candice Wu 5:12

Another experience of dreaming was for maybe two years, I’ve been dreaming about getting rid of all my belongings, even having the fantasy that I’d have a fire and that all my belongings would just disappear, and I’d start fresh, I’d start light with very, very little with me, nothing with me, really. But when I thought about doing that, my egos reaction was, “No, not my stuff! I don’t want to get rid of my stuff.”

Candice Wu 5:41

So, what are your dreams? And what are your daydreams? Where does your mind go? Chances are that these are the keys to where some of your gift, your passion, your desire, or your Dharma, your purposeful path, or journey in life lies. These are all situations and experiences that show you what is a part of your truth, your voice, your essential being. In my opinion, you have to share this, it’s the essence of you. And for me, a core piece of my soul feels like it’s dying when I don’t, when I hide myself or ignore these bits of truth, these desires that I have inside.

Candice Wu 6:27

On the other hand, you obviously have the choice to share your gifts or not, or to even give any attention to them or not, a choice of which parts of you get to live, the fear and the maintenance of the life you have, the ego that tells you that this earthly life is important, these daily tasks are important, to-do lists or the perfectionism that makes you want to withdraw and not go for it. Perhaps it’s important to maintain the facade or the image that you’ve kept up. Maybe that’s the choice that you want. But isn’t it just important to know what you’re doing, and to know what you may be ignoring or what you may be hiding?

Candice Wu 7:13

So, as I think more about my purpose, it is something that makes me feel like me. What part of you or what activities, what way of being makes you feel like you, like completely yourself? And if you ignore this, or don’t give any attention to it, what part of you dies? Will you accept dying in this way? Would you agree to this kind of death? Sounds like a very slow and painful death to me, which is the life had been living for many years.

Candice Wu 7:49

My friend Andrew Royal, who is in Milwaukee, as a psychotherapist says to me this quote, “This is how I will die.” And he uses that line for almost everything he does when he makes a choice, or when he has a thought or when he chooses to express himself or not, even a simple action. He has thought about, “This is how I will die. And I’m okay with that.” And I really like that.

Candice Wu 8:19

My message today is not a message of pushing away and rejecting who you are today, the life you’ve created, what fears that you have, and who you are with those fears. It’s really about honoring those parts of you that are already here, and more. More of you, the parts of you that you’ve kept away, it’s time to bring them out into the light instead of letting them die that slow death internally. Is it a coincidence that we see death all around us? On a spiritual level, this can be seen as a message to us, a reminder of death, a reminder of life then, because death forces the knowledge of life and what’s living, and what will not live anymore, what is dying, what will soon die.

Candice Wu 9:09

And this type of group processing that I’m involved with called Group Relations or Tavistock, or if we look at Shadow Work, in Yang Yin theory and psychology, the destruction that surrounds us, that we allow that we partake in or that we’re bystanders, too, or that we’re even stepping up to speak out against, perhaps we need to see it, to come to some strength and truth within, to compel us sharply and fiercely into who we need to become in ourselves. That, which we cannot wait any longer to do.

Candice Wu 9:48

So, I asked you, when will it be more or equally important to share who you are, who you truly are, more important than money, to-do list, the image that you’re holding up? When does dying for your passion, for a purpose come into play? I think about movies of war when men and women have gone to war and chosen that they will die for a certain cause or a belief set that they are truly wholehearted in. And at least from the fantasies that I have seen about, in the movies I’ve seen, it touches me really deeply to feel their conviction and their commitment, the thing that they believe in, that they’re just driven by that thing that is beyond this life, beyond the human form, the idea or the truth, that they feel entirely given to surrendering to.

Candice Wu 10:49

To me, that’s a life worth living, and that’s a life worth giving to where you’re following your potential and you’re being in what you specifically came here for. And this is a call to you to be truly yourself, shamelessly, congruently and wildly, only the way that you know how to do it. Your dream and your yearning do not have to be giant, or outlandish or crazy, doesn’t have to be a big idea or a big thing. Don’t pressure yourself that way to be more or less than you already are. What you want, who you are, is already there. It’s already living in you. It’s just about allowing it to be seen, grounding yourself in your body, healing what’s in the way or what parts of you are stuck in time, stuck in the past, stuck in pieces of trauma, or unfinished, incomplete experiences. It’s about tuning into right now and creating a relationship with yourself, loving yourself deeply so that your body and soul communicates its wisdom to you easily. And do listen.

Candice Wu 12:08

There’s communication back and forth, a loving one, versus one of resistance and pushing away. Your dream can be simply knitting or having a yarn shop, it can be taking photographs in your backyard, gardening, or having chickens, minimizing your space and cluttering. It can be about speaking truthfully, from your heart, to those that you love, or being a mother or father. It can be so simple. Also, when we embrace the potentiality of ourselves and integrate more of who we are, at the truest levels, it is full of ease, not force, not pushing. It’s with wholeness and acknowledging all the parts of us because there’s a purity to the desire and purpose, there’s a fullness and expansion that’s already there, with what’s completely true and congruent to you, and only you.

Candice Wu 13:05

There’s no need to force or to pry, to white knuckle it, or to even reject, and disown other parts of us, that may be fearful or may be very present in our lives now. And as you think about this, does judgment or fear of what others will think about you stop you? If so, you’re not the only one, it has definitely stopped me at times. And it’s something I still work on with every single step I take. Some things are easier now than before and I certainly have experienced my fear and my emotions differently than I used to. But with an especially new challenge or taking myself into new territory, there’s still self-judgment that I project on to the outside world, and worry that others will judge me. So, I work on that within myself, and I get support. The truth is, it doesn’t matter what people think. It’s important to be in your full expression just for you, and that you matter.

Candice Wu 14:09

In the tantric philosophy, we exist as consciousness knowing itself. Consciousness wants to live and know itself in all of its possibilities, and all of its expressions. That’s the essence and meaning of “Om om,” the sound that we chant in yoga classes, “Om” meaning all possibility, all probability. So, whatever is important or alive to you right now, today is what is here, what’s coming through you, and what’s essential to the present, what’s essential to your life, and perhaps even those around you. Sometimes, that includes what’s been stuck in time in your soul, what’s in the past, but felt now and coming up now.

Candice Wu 14:59

Forget what other people think about what you’re doing or expressing to the degree that it’s helpful and respectful to yourself, to the degree that it honors you. If you’re coming from a place of love and awareness in you, that’s all you need to focus on. We need to start valuing our own experience and existence as important and worthy. You are able to witness value and validate yourself and bring yourself to life. Right now, you may not know your larger purpose, your life purpose or your soul’s desire on the whole, but it doesn’t matter. You can know what’s right now, the first step, the opening.

Candice Wu 15:43

For me, it was noticing the dreams of decluttering and getting rid of all my stuff, and just seeing what that was all about, exploring it. It didn’t mean I had to get rid of all my stuff. It just meant, “see what this is about Candice.” And at that time, I didn’t know what I needed to. A lot of times our soul gives us messages, and we don’t know why. For me, I wasn’t ready to face the fact that I deeply wanted to explore an adventure through traveling, it brought way too much fear. After all, I came from a Chinese family that was poor, my great grandparents starved to death in China. Luckily, my grandpa survived. My grandparents on my father’s side seem to feel like they were never enough. And even to the degree that my great grandma would eat every single grain of rice, recycle all the bits of scrap paper and fabric. And while this was resourceful, it also seemed to come from a place of not having enough and pinching pennies.

Candice Wu 16:45

My grandma on the other side of my family, my mother’s side tells me that even learning how to clean dog poop rice, rice that had been pooped on is a good skill to have. Why? Because you might need to, and she had to. My fear was far beyond what happened to my family lineage. It was the belief that didn’t shut itself when times changed. And that my ancestry didn’t shed that belief when times changed.

Candice Wu 17:18

Growing up, my father encouraged me to make money to have stability and security. So having a job as an art teacher, well, that didn’t quite make sense to him, that I wasn’t going to be making enough money and his standards. It was something, it gave me health insurance, it gave me consistent employment that I could count on, for the most part. Well, my joy didn’t quite matter. Luckily, my mom was always about following your heart. However, that wasn’t so easy, because I didn’t see her do that until my late 20s. Not that all of these stories were everything but the family lineage and seeing my parents, and what they were sharing with me was the first way of knowing how to be in this world, coming into this family. And then not to mention societal consciousness, the beliefs that society holds, or at least the ones that I directly experienced, that brings another dimension of fear and conditioning.

Candice Wu 18:26

So for me, the realization that I wanted to travel brought so many fears. How could I travel and make a living? How could I have enough? How could I be enough to have it was I worthy of it? It was completely outside of my family’s scope of how life worked, what you could do with life, and what it meant to be successful. So, I did the best thing, I ignored it, and hit this part of me for almost 20, some 25, 27 years.

Candice Wu 18:59

That worked for some time, but I couldn’t help but feel trapped in different career situations, even when they were fabulous, and it made amazing experiences. As I did more healing work on my previous trauma and releasing the fears that lived in my body, the beliefs that I had inherited in my ancestry, to even know that those existed, and to bring them to light with love. All of that helped me to begin seeing that I was a part of this whole universe, that I wasn’t as separate as I thought, and I was a piece of this universe as complete possibility.

Candice Wu 19:43

And I mean that on a very deep and powerful level, on levels that I’ve not yet tapped into. And yes, I mean, the levels of levitation and getting stabbed in the gut with a knife and not bleeding it all kind of thing, or manifesting honey dripping from a Buddha sculpture out of nowhere, manifesting things that my mind does not comprehend are possible or doing things that I don’t think are possible, things I’ve heard about, and that I’ve learned the beginnings of the pathway to those, but I don’t know that in my body yet. But doing those things don’t really mean anything to me, other than experiencing the marvel of the power within me. What matters to me is the storehouse of love and power in me specifically that wants to express itself, the consciousness of a particular kind that I hold in my very being, in my very existence, at the core.

Candice Wu 20:46

And so for me, I could begin to take those steps of expressing from a pure place of my being by accepting and healing all the fears that came up in me, knowing myself on the level of another belief set, one that came from love, loving, and potentiality. And each step I took with that, I saw more and more of my vision, I saw more and more of my gifts and truth, myself in the moment, and being present for what I’m here for. So, I realize I’m here to experience, to live and to love fully, to feel everything I can. And I mean everything, I even enjoy feeling sadness, and anger, and joy and delight.

Candice Wu 21:38

I’m here to adventure and claim all the power within and to feel completely connected with those around me, connected to the universe. I’m here to integrate all the possibility that I am, and to support and inspire others and seeing and loving themselves to give themselves over to themselves. So, what are you here for? Be direct with yourself, forthcoming, clear the illusions and cut through the layers of protection, and also honor that they’ve existed there to help you for some time, to begin with. Do you need this protection anymore? How much of it do you need right now? Having gentleness and compassion is really good for the path of coming to yourself.

Candice Wu 22:28

There’s no time to waste on getting started, noticing that there is even something in you that calls to you is step one, the awareness. This has its own transformative power. And the more we give ourselves to the things that are just keeping our lives afloat, sustaining us, sustaining our work life or image with our colleagues, the more we’re colluding with a false life. The more we’re colluding with betraying ourselves at a very deep level, we are commingling with fear, married to fear and dishonoring ourselves at the deepest level.

Candice Wu 23:13

If you’re already in your dream life, that is truly your present-day fullness and desire, good, great! If you’re not, great, because you have the most beautiful opportunity here to become yourself. If you feel a spark here with what I’m saying, take it and run with it. Do something to cultivate the deep inner longing that you have. Notice the seed that has been planted. You can pretend to ignore this but your soul won’t, your body won’t. Your body won’t lie to you. This is one major reason why we get sick. This is disease.

Candice Wu 23:56

When you put aside a part of yourself that feeds you, that is you, that is your soul and you let it rot, you let it decay and die, that’s when we get sick. If we ignore the part of us that makes us wildly ourselves. So, if this inspires you, I am so excited for you. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want support on this journey.

Candice Wu 24:22

And let me take a moment to share with you the Ally with Death Visualization Experience. This is something I designed with the inspiration of the Shaman’s death, and Ana Forrest’s death meditation. It’s a ritual to get you fearlessly and deeply to your aching desires. So, if you want to explore, the yearning is behind your existence, the voice that you truly are, what you truly yearn for, I have this experience for you. It’s a guided online process that brings you to break and dismantle the armor of the life you created. And to shift you into seeing what the truth actually is for you.

Candice Wu 25:10

It leads you through a simulation of your death in 10 hours, exploring what you regret, what you ache for, and what you need to do to live, what’s worthy of your life, what’s worthy of living, what needs to end and die and what you would feel alive in. It inspires and guides you to embody the shifts that need to happen for you to live, to actually live. It will soon come with an audio that guides you through the entire process and you can even share with me in a brief consultation session what comes up and explore your next steps.

Candice Wu 25:47

So, this work is my soul’s true calling, to be on the journey with you and exploring you being you. That’s why the name of my practice is called Embody Your Nature. I offer individual session packages and group intensive and there’s one coming up in May 2018 that uses ancestral healing as a platform for your specific intentions of being yourself, loving yourself or stepping into something. If this especially resonates with you, you might be someone who would be perfect for the Soul Body Retreat. This retreat is for women, it’s an October 2018 in Zion National Park. For the men, I have other referrals for you. But this retreat is about sinking soul and body to realize yourself, to feel like yourself, heal and create wildly from your heart, from your soul, from love.

Candice Wu 26:44

So, today, I will leave you with a quote that a friend of mine has on her wall in her home. This friend is Rachel Huttner, she is actually somebody that I’ve interviewed in a podcast previously. She has on her wall the quote, “Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but within yourself.” This quote is by André Gide. “Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but within yourself.” Such a good reminder for all of us.

Candice Wu 27:19

Before you leave, I’d like to invite you to subscribe to the weekly Embody Podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast or learn more about me and get free healing resources on embodiment, meditations and self-love by going to CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 27:37

And if you liked this, felt inspired or enjoyed previous episodes of the Embody Podcast, I could really use your support and help. I’d like to share these podcasts with a wider audience and also improve upon them. So, I greatly appreciate your words of feedback in a review on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher. You can go to CandiceWu.com/podcast/review to get all the instructions on how to leave a review. I’d really appreciate that and see you next time.

Candice Wu 28:09

With deep love and gratitude, thank you for joining me today.

Candice Wu 0:00
Let’s get real, playful, and authentic with Liz LaForce. She is just a wonderful, bright, brilliant energy and in this episode, she talks about her identity crisis and how she’s witnessing herself, the idea of daring to see yourself reconnecting with love, dance expression and voice as a way to hear the reflection of self and finding the love inside of you.

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.

Cleanse and release dead weight with The Ally with Death experiential. It’s an audio experience where you can listen to the sound of my voice along with some beautiful, provocative, and stimulating handpan music by Larry Saint Germain, an artist in Chicago.

In this experiential, you can make space for what’s growing and emerging inside of you, within you, and shave and slough off any excess old habits, energies, beliefs, stuff that’s just lurking and molding perhaps inside of you, and purify your being of what needs to die, give space for new creation, nourishment, and take some forward steps. You can find the experience at CandiceWu.com/death.

Hello, everyone. It’s wonderful to have you back on the Embody Podcast. I am in Mexico City, Mexico and I am just loving it here. Last week, I shared a few updates and also sound bites from Mexico City. I love the sounds that hold this culture together, the taste, the smells, and the colors, as well as the different mannerisms and ways that they’re kind to each other. I’ll share a little more next week so that we can jump into this episode with Liz. But, I’m having a fabulous time and just took a week trip to Oaxaca and came back and just went riding today for a full day.

And this horse, Cornella oh my gosh, he was just — wanted to run. I’ve never met a horse that wanted to run so fast to gallop. And there was this long stretch in this backcountry road of the Hacienda that we just went for it and it was so much fun. The guide that took us there, his horse is younger than mine, but he couldn’t even get his horse to go as fast as my horse was going and not particularly because I wasn’t trying to get him to go faster, he just wanted to go and in fact, I was slightly slowing him down just to maintain a connection with him. But it was so much fun. You can find some of those pictures and stories on my Instagram if you hit travel or if you hit horse love, you can find some of the bits of my trip in Mexico City and my ride with this horse, Cornella. You can find my Instagram at CandiceWu.com/instagram.

Let’s jump into this episode with Liz.

I really enjoyed talking with Liz because she’s just so incredibly authentic and open and herself. And here she is having a crisis, identity crisis, as she said, and it was quite fitting because I was in something myself, something was emerging. But it was really lovely to hear her talk about it.

So, a little bit more about Liz. She had a major turning point in her life at the age of 24 and it was the beginning of a totally new lifestyle for her, in which her talent by birth, to connect with the intangible, reopened, and started to blossom. At that time, she studied with a spiritual master, traveled the world to classes and sessions on spiritual and personal growth for many years, and mostly learned by tuning into her own inner guidance and life itself. She’s guided and taught others towards their own path for 25 years now as a life coach and personal development trainer and has been a teacher at the ICM coaching program and lived and work on Ibiza for four years. She gives one on one and group transformational retreats. Nowadays, she’s based in the Netherlands, in her home country. But she works globally, combining her background in business, economics, and spirituality, she guides business leaders and entrepreneurs back into their core through compassion, connection, and communication. So, let’s talk to Liz.

So Liz, last time we talked you were in Ibiza, and you were working with couples. And where are you now in the world and what are you doing?

Liz La Force 5:35
Right now, I’m in Amsterdam, the city of Amsterdam. I’ve taken a little break, to be honest. I’m still giving some sessions but I’ve taken a break just to — it’s quite a transmission from Ibiza back to the Netherlands. So, I’m taking the time and space to, yeah, to get grounded again in my own home country after seven years of leave. I mean, I left the country seven years ago.

Candice Wu 6:02
Oh, I didn’t realize that, that’s a long time. What called you to come home?

Liz La Force 6:06
Well, exactly that… I was just called, I don’t know what you would like to call it, but I just strongly felt, yeah, I certainly felt I needed to go back. Yeah. And it feels like the right place to be at this moment. So, I’m at peace with the decision and being here but it just, yeah, it’s also an opportunity for me to sense again, like, deeply what I want and what I really want to manifest over here. So yeah, it’s good. It’s nice to have time, it’s a luxury I think.

Candice Wu 6:41
That’s really lovely. Yeah, I love that you just follow the call and that’s how I’ve been really — That’s how I’ve been really functioning lately too, in the last several years but more so than ever I just feel what the answer is, even if it doesn’t make sense in my mental logic.

Liz La Force 7:02
What was your last calling?

Candice Wu 7:05
Oh, well, to really stay home actually, for this last year, I’ve been in Michigan with my family and it has been truly wonderful. Like, all the work I did, healing, all the dynamics that I have inside of myself, really paid off with my family. And it’s just been this lovely time. But suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, it was really cold here in Michigan, lots of snow and I just started to feel the call to go to Mexico. So that’s where I’m headed next.

Liz La Force 7:39
Oh, that sounds lovely. Yeah, that’s a good call.

Candice Wu 7:44
Yeah.

Liz La Force 7:45
It’s my experience that’s not always like, well, sometimes it’s something you really are looking forward to like you’re saying like, okay, I’m, it’s, the call is me going to Mexico and it feels really good but I also have calls where I was like, “Okay, seriously, do you want me to go there?” And then just after having the experience, I understood why, you know, so it’s not always as I see it already in the beginning and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, this is a good call. I really want to do this.”

Candice Wu 8:16
Right. Yeah, that’s so interesting, when you get the call and it’s not like really? And when was that last that you had that experience?

Liz La Force 8:25
Well, I think like, two years ago already, I came back from a visit to the Netherlands and I came back in Ibiza where I was living at the time and I just felt like, really felt like, oh my gosh, it’s going to end here. I’m going to leave this island. I’m going to leave my life here which was — I was given retreats and I was having fun and it’s a beautiful, lovely island and I had my friends there but I just knew it was time has come to say goodbye. And so that was like, almost like a shock, there was a distance between the knowing and the personality I guess. So it took me like a whole summer and I took the whole summer to just, to close that gap, like, to really understand like, yeah, it’s a good call, I need to go. Yeah.

Candice Wu 9:15
I love how you describe it, the gap between the knowing and the personality. So how did you close the gap? What was that process like?

Liz La Force 9:23
Well, I think, a part of it was mourning, you know, allowing myself to mourn for the fact that I was closing something and I was closing something that at the surface at least, felt good, feeling deeper inside of myself, I could see that I had learned and experience everything I could on the island. So it was okay to leave it but I mean, yeah, I think that was the process. Allowing myself also to feel the sadness and, yeah, all the human stuff. Sometimes, at least for me, it always has been, I wouldn’t say very easy, but easy to tap into my higher knowing and just following my intuition, but my lessons have more been to really allow my human side also to mourn or to grieve or to you know, to be bad angry or to just really feel those human emotions too, that come along with changes.

Candice Wu 10:21
Yeah. Is that part of what brought you to Love4Life Academy and what you do now? What brought you here?

Liz La Force 10:28
Yeah, definitely. I think, my own process, but also seeing, I mean, when you start to experience that being yourself, which sounds so easy, and it’s so hard, otherwise, more and more people will do it.

Candice Wu 10:44
Yeah.

Liz La Force 10:46
So, when you start to see what that can bring to you, I mean, the relaxation and the joy, and with the joy all the — I mean, all the abundance and all the things that come along with it. That’s something I wish for everybody.

And when I was very young, I already could sense when people were not like being authentic. And of course, a lot of us, me included, I mean, sometimes you’re totally unaware of the fact that you’re not authentic. You believe that what you’re expressing and the way you’re acting is who you are until you start to really feel and connect more honestly with yourself and start to, again, close that gap between what you are thinking that you are and the way you really truly are.

Candice Wu 11:38
Yeah, I find that I’m continually finding different layers of that inauthenticity, you know, layers of things, ways of being that helped me survive something in the past, but it’s not really who I want to be now. But it would come in many layers even now, I’ll find other layers and, well, okay, you know, there’s a clear way to be myself now, with that mourning or healing or looking at whatever feelings are there, but yeah, I’ve often found it’s just a continual process. How has it been for you?

Liz La Force 12:13
Well, I think it’s an endless process. It’s like you’re saying, sometimes I definitely had the arrogance in a boss to say like, Yeah, I do know myself. And now, I can laugh about it because no, I don’t. You know, I know myself as I am at this moment. Yes, that’s true.

Candice Wu 12:34
Yeah.

Liz La Force 12:34
And I try to be as authentic as I can in this moment, you know, by really being honest about what I feel and what I think. But I’m discovering, like you were saying, I’m discovering new layers, almost no, almost daily now, you know, and it’s like, okay.

Candice Wu 12:50
Yeah. Okay.

Liz La Force 12:54
But it’s fun. It’s getting more and more fun because we’re both laughing about it. You know? That’s the way I think you can, if you can relax and embrace yourself and love yourself more and more and feel that it’s okay, whatever comes up and whatever you’re seeing about yourself, even if it’s the dark inside of you, if you can feel and sense that it’s okay and you’re still lovable, then it becomes lighter and more humorous. And it’s, yeah. And then the process becomes more fun.

Candice Wu 13:26
It took me a long time to get here.

Liz La Force 13:28
Yeah, me too. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

Candice Wu 13:34
Even sometimes I can be so serious.

Liz La Force 13:36
Oh, yeah. I’m still learning to be more and more playful, but I, yeah, absolutely. But it’s, sometimes it is serious as in if you’re really dealing with some, like, the shit to call it that way, you know? Then it is, it can be quite heavy. And so it’s not —

Candice Wu 13:57
It calls for that…

Liz La Force 13:57
Yeah, so it’s easy to say, yeah, it’s playful, but that’s something that comes, there comes a moment where you can feel like, ease and you become lighter and more joyful, but it’s not something, again which you can just fake it’s palpable, I suppose a lot of people try but it’s, all these things just come from the inside you know and they come up and then it’s true and then really there and still I’ve got my dark days, I mean, it’s not that I’m always laughing and always having fun. It’s still sometimes a battle going on inside of me.

Candice Wu 14:36
So what kinds of things you want to talk about today on the podcast? I know you mentioned authenticity. What else is alive for you right now?

Liz La Force 14:46
Well, I think what’s also very much alive, it’s all interconnected. It’s like giving space and taking space. Like you were saying, I’ve spent my time last year with my family and I’ve stayed in one place. For me, to also just stay in one place and being in the Netherlands now, I can sense what it does, and what it can do instead of like, going everywhere or, you know, filling ourselves up with all these experiences, all this entertainment, almost, all these activities, and yeah, creating the space and really going deeply into that peace and rest and allowing things to come up. I really treasure that at this moment. I really treasure it and I can see the value of it. And I still believe that while most of us, myself included, we’re often still in the very Yang energy so the acting and the doing instead of, yeah, really deeply sinking into the — just sitting thing with whatever appears, yeah.

Candice Wu 16:02
Yeah, we can just so easily get moving to not look at what appears or to try to find the next thing.

Liz La Force 16:11
Definitely.

Candice Wu 16:14
Yeah, there’s such a value in being home and being rooted and just letting it all have the space to open up and air out.

Liz La Force 16:23
Yeah, and we’re blessed. I mean, you’re blessed to have the family and the place to do that right?

Candice Wu 16:30
Absolutely.

So you grew up in the Netherlands?

Liz La Force 16:34
Yes, I did.

Candice Wu 16:35
Okay. Yeah. What was it like for you?

Liz La Force 16:40
I grew up in a very small village in the Netherlands, in the southern part of the Netherlands. And yeah, I guess I always had this, more like, I’m always calling myself a “world citizen”. So the village was quite small and the ideas people had we’re not like the same ideas I had already as a child. So yeah, that —

Candice Wu 17:05
Is it really diverse in the ideas and also the people or no?

Liz La Force 17:10
Yes, also the people yeah.

Candice Wu 17:13
Oh wow.

Liz La Force 17:14
Yeah that was interesting when I was very young. It’s a — yeah. But it was a good start and a peaceful village and yeah, I can look back with joy to my youth definitely.

Candice Wu 17:28
It sounds really lovely. I’m just curious. I think, the first time you and I talked we just jumped right into part of your story. You know, the journey of you getting towards this place in your life when you are working in Ibiza and working with couples, working with different people, just teaching them to love life and be themselves and really find authenticity. Would you like to share that story here with everyone listening?

Liz La Force 17:59
What exactly do you want to know?

Candice Wu 18:01
I don’t remember, I can’t remember which pieces of the story that really intrigued me but just like the journey of you, you feeling like you and being yourself. I remember feeling that was very interesting.

Liz La Force 18:14
I was giving trainings in businesses and at a certain moment, it was like, almost like an out of body experience.

I was looking down upon myself and I was like, “Okay, this is me, but it’s only a part of me.” And I already was like, doing the spiritual work and I knew and also, I mean, I’ve been born with certain, well, I don’t know if I want to call it gifts because I think everybody has them. But I’ve developed like the clairvoyance and a clairfeeling and I couldn’t use it in the job that I was doing, being hired to give like, these leadership trainings and I just, in that moment, decided like, okay, this is it, I’m going to stop. I’m going to sell all my stuff. I’m going to travel. I know I need to travel, and I need to see how life will be when I’m fully myself. Again, as we said earlier, as far as I know, myself —

Candice Wu 19:21
Yeah, as far as you could tell —

Liz La Force 19:23
Yeah, but that’s what I did.

I left the Netherlands and I started to travel for two years, I just traveled the world. I had a foundation called the Best of U. And I was just giving trainings where I was too young in self-confidence, a way, to just to earn some money, but also to meet people. And I just started to be me. And the amazing thing was that I was, of course, as we know, I started to attract certain kinds of people. I started to have these experiences. Yeah, life was really taking care of me instead of me needed to be in control and so for two years I was just guided to all these countries and met people and I was invited and but after two years I ended up back in the Netherlands. A little bit tired I must say of all the traveling.

Candice Wu 20:18
I bet. Yeah

Liz La Force 20:20
Yeah. So, and then I asked the question like okay, I still don’t sense that I’m supposed to live in the Netherlands but I don’t know where to live. So whatever it is, just give me a clear sign because I’m not moving anymore. I’m just staying where I am in this moment.

And then I woke up the day after or two days after and I had a song in my head. I think it’s Britney Spears song like, we’re going to the Ibiza and that’s — I didn’t hear that song on the radio, but it popped up in my head and I was like, okay, you know, funny but then Ibiza starts to pop up like, everywhere. Like, I was seeing it on posters and people were starting to talk about it. And I was like, okay, perhaps I need to check this out. Ibiza is known as a party island so it didn’t really appeal to me. I was like, I don’t know, I’m not really into partying or —

Candice Wu 21:20
One of those moments like, really?

Liz La Force 21:21
Yeah, that was really — Yeah.

But then I looked it up in the internet, and of course, I saw that it had more aspects and also like, a beautiful nature and I just decided to book a ticket and I left with my suitcases, and I ended up at the island and in the, I think it was within 48, 24 or 48 hours, I just, I felt like okay, this is the place where I need to be. I found a house. I bought a car. And a week later, I call my family and like, well, I don’t know, I’m living here and I’m staying here.

So yeah, that’s how I —

Candice Wu 21:58
It’s really happening.

Liz La Force 21:59
It’s really happening. And I didn’t even know what I was going to do there but the moment I found my house and I was sitting in the house within 10 minutes, I just wrote my business plan, so to speak. And I just knew, okay, I’m going to give retreats and I’m going to have people coming over and people from all over the world came.

So yeah, it was an interesting experience.

Candice Wu 22:24
That was the next seven years?

Liz La Force 22:25
No, that was the next five years.

Candice Wu 22:30
Okay.

Liz La Force 22:31
Yeah.

So, yeah, that’s, then for me that was I think that the first very clear message from the universe, like, if you are just being you, you know, this is what can happen. You know, it doesn’t take that much more than you being you. But the moments you’re going to step in between and you’re going to just think about what you need to do or what you need to say or what you need to — then it gets tougher.

Candice Wu 23:03
Yeah, it’s a, how do you be in that flow? How do you find yourself aligned with that? I think that can feel challenging for people and for me sometimes.

Liz La Force 23:14
That’s very challenging and I think it’s about because, I am not saying that I’m always in the flow now, sometimes, I’m definitely not. But that’s for me the moment that I can sense now that I’m not. I think the first thing is to acknowledge it, you’re not in the flow.

Candice Wu 23:30
Yeah.

Liz La Force 23:31
The first thing is to acknowledge that you are struggling. The first thing is to acknowledge that you’re not feeling really happy, you know, that’s, I think, the first thing. And then to really start to look honestly about what is it, what’s making me feel sad, or what is it that’s not allowing me to be in flow, so you can self-investigate, like, really reflect — self-reflection, but for me, it really helps to sit and feel. I think my body is like the computer telling me where the default is. So for me, my body is really the entrance to the information I need to understand what’s going on and why I’m not in the flow.

Candice Wu 24:15
Yeah, I have a similar process. I find that if there are like questions in my life or if I’m just sensing what’s next, or even what’s today, if I sit and just be with myself, then whatever is in the way of those clarities or what needs to be revealed for that to come forward, it just starts like matriculating and I love that you said like a computer because it’s almost like, it’s that time I can defrag and then it’s a lot clearer but sometimes I don’t have answers and that’s okay. It’s just, okay. Here’s maybe what’s the next step or I’m here right now. And that feels good. So it’s, yeah, I love that idea of the computer and how it feels.

Liz La Force 25:04
Yeah. It’s like you said it’s giving attention to yourself, right? It’s like being present with yourself, that’s already 80% of the solution, that’s my experience. As you said, you don’t even need to know the answer. You don’t need to know exactly what’s going on. At least for me in the past, I was always eager to know. I wanted explanations. I wanted to know everything. But it also took a lot of energy and now I’m learning. I’m still learning to just — yeah, it’s okay. Whatever I know, I know. But if I don’t know things, that’s okay, too. Whatever is happening is happening. And I guess that’s what I meant with creating space and becoming comfortable in that space, and that’s also becoming comfortable with unknowing.

Candice Wu 25:55
Why do you think unknowing or the unknown can be so scary for people? Is it scary for you?

Liz La Force 26:02
Oh, yeah, definitely.

Candice Wu 26:04
Yeah.

Liz La Force 26:04
I don’t need to think about that. Now, it’s —

No. It’s very scary at moments. It’s very scary. It’s like you’re going to die. That’s how I feel it. It’s how I experience. It’s like, Okay, my gosh, whenever I really truly connect with that space like that dark unknowing, then it feels like I’m going to die. And in a way you are, because everything you thought you knew is going to die, it needs to die to get into that unknowing. So for me, I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s really about all that — we totally think we’re in control rights with a lot of stuff, we think we’re in control and we identify ourselves with everything we do and say and think we are and the things we see and the materialistic things we have gathered and you know, the status we have and yeah, but letting go, totally letting go and stepping into it is letting go of all of that.

Candice Wu 27:02
Yeah — Right. Yeah, I don’t know, if you know, the thought that we think we’re in control, like, I don’t know, when you asked me that, I think in the past I would have said, Yeah. I am, or at times I would have said absolutely not like, I’m just kind of subject to my own emotions and like the things that happened to me. But now I feel some sort of mixture of both, or maybe sometimes one and sometimes, not both as far as the world happening to me, in my emotions, but some sense of like, collaboration maybe, like, there are things that I can control, there are things that are not in my control, that pop in or come in or are part of some unconscious part of me or the world and there’s this constant navigating through that, playing back and forth with that. I don’t know. I really don’t know but that’s just how I can put words to something at the moment.

Liz La Force 28:02
Yeah, but I think it’s true. It’s definitely, yeah, I sense the same, but it’s very, yeah, I don’t know, either. I mean, I’m also still discovering and playing around with it in a way and I think yeah, that’s, we’re all just trying to figure it out, and we probably will never figure it out, right? That’s what I sense like, okay, it’s, yeah —

Are we ever going to really know? I don’t know.

Candice Wu 28:30
Yeah.

Liz La Force 28:32
As I said, it seems like an endless spectrum of things we can learn and discover and I don’t know if there’s an end to it, to be honest.

I do know the experience and I had the experiences of really being in a certain place, space where there was, yeah, and I would call it the unknown. I don’t know if that’s what it was, but where there was absolute peace and yeah, nothing is. And I was totally okay with it. But it’s just fractions and moments. It’s not like a constant state. So, yeah, and whatever that is, I don’t know, you know, who even that is like, I don’t know.

Yeah, that’s an experience. I mean, and at that moment, you sometimes think you have a glimpse of something, but you don’t even know. So, but that’s the thing.

Candice Wu 29:23
It’s part of the magic.

Liz La Force 29:24
It’s the magic. Yeah. And, I think, for me, freedom is coming.

When I was much younger, and also when I started this spot, I really wanted to know. I needed to know things. I needed to know what was over there, you know, and now I’m so much more relaxed and I’m okay with not knowing. I’m totally okay. And if this is life and nothing is ever going to change, then it’s okay too, you know, and then —

Candice Wu 29:52
Yeah.

Liz La Force 29:52
To me it is a very nice, yeah, place to be in.

Candice Wu 29:55
That sounds beautiful. Yeah. There’s a lot of acceptance and being with what is.

Liz La Force 30:03
Exactly.

Candice Wu 30:04
It sounds like —

Liz La Force 30:05
Yeah, and that feels for me, I was always looking for freedom. But that feels like yeah, that in a way feels like freedom. It’s like, oh, okay, just not that much that needs to be done. You know, it’s another — in a passive way like, Okay, so I’m going to sit here on my couch and I’m not going to do anything. No, because there’s a lot of aliveness next to that. There’s a lot of things that want to come alive through me but yes, I think it’s the right word you’re saying, it’s certain acceptance and then yeah, that feels good, gives a lot of peace.

Candice Wu 30:40
Beautiful.

Liz La Force 30:42
Yeah.

Candice Wu 30:43
Yeah. I find the same thing, just that more acceptance of not knowing. But for me, you know, it’s a multitude of different things that supported me and being more comfortable with it. One was looking at my young life and how things that were unpredictable, were scary and then felt like I was going to die because it was so like, big of an emotion without the proper kind of support that I needed.

But then, also looking at, for me, in my experience of past lives, like, they would just appear at different times to me that something was of a past life and that maybe I did die or that I didn’t die, but I felt like I was going to, in these kinds of severe, more severe experiences. And there was a lot of healing for me in seeing that part of me from a past life and letting that part see me in this life that I was actually alive again, or still or whatever it is, you know, maybe it’s not a past life, maybe it’s another dimension, but whatever it is, there’s this feeling that it’s a part of me and that really started to release some of my fear, fear of actual death, you know. And then that cleared up the unknown and unknowing space was like, oh, that, you know, it might feel painful to let go of some things or change things but it’s not feeling like, I’m going to die into a million pieces and crumble anymore, but sometimes it has. So —

Liz La Force 32:25
Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:25
Do you relate to any of that? How was it for you?

Liz La Force 32:28
Yeah, definitely I can relate to what you’re saying.

There are so many different experiences in us, aren’t they?

I mean, it’s like you’re saying sometimes I’ve experienced that I, Okay, I understand I’m not and never ever got, I’m going to really die. And then at the same time, you can sense that you’re really dying because it’s also who’s the experiencer in that moment. That’s what I hear in your story too, like, which part of you is having the experience and so giving the interpretation of the experience. Yeah.

Candice Wu 33:08
Yeah. So what’s fun in your life right now? What’s bringing you joy? What feels like you?

Liz La Force 33:16
What feels like me? Wow.

Candice Wu 33:20
I dare ask that question after the beginning of our podcast so far.

Liz La Force 33:29
I’ve no idea this moment. To be honest, I have no idea this moment, that’s the most honest question I can give to you. And it’s —

Candice Wu 33:35
Yeah.

Liz La Force 33:36
Yeah, because I’m going through so many changes that it almost feels like I’m in an identity crisis, you know? So all the things I thought I was, I’m still am on a certain level. And at the same time, I’m really again, figuring out who I am.

So yeah, that’s, I think the space where I’m in right now. It may sound crazy, but this — Yeah, this is it, this moment.

Candice Wu 34:05
No, it doesn’t sound crazy.

Liz La Force 34:08
Yeah.

Candice Wu 34:09
So not to me at least. Yeah.

So you’re figuring out who you are now and sounds like things are breaking down.

Liz La Force 34:15
Definitely.

Candice Wu 34:15
Dying off.

Liz La Force 34:17
Yeah.

It is going as I said, it’s a crazy time. It’s really happening quite fast and it’s like, Okay, I have no idea and the moment I want to, like, create like an image of myself I’m like, Okay, but I do want to do things or I do want you to know, and then I can feel that I’m forcing myself into a form. And so, I’m really allowing the form to come like, to really understand like, Okay, this is the new me. And at this moment, then the most honest answer is like, I don’t know and I’m okay with it.

It’s not that I’m like not able to do my groceries or I’m not eating or you know, I’m doing all the normal stuff. I’m doing all the normal stuff. Nobody’s seeing it even, I think, if you would see me as like, but I can sense if I’m really honest. And I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know, at this moment. It’s really taking a new form and I don’t know how it’s going to look like exactly.

Candice Wu 35:03
It feels so alive. You know, in the death, I feel so alive. Because, yeah, who knows what’s going to come out for you and who is going to come out?

Liz La Force 35:29
Yeah, and it’s scary. It’s sometimes too, and it’s not like, but, yeah, no, I’m really, like I said, I’m really happy that I’m allowing myself to really go through it. I think I’ve done this kind of process before, but now I’m really staying with it. I’m like, Okay, I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to be here and yeah, it’s quite interesting.

Candice Wu 35:59
Yeah. I’m curious for you as this continues, you know, just how it is for you. And, I don’t even want to say, you know, who comes out on the other end because it’s just being in the now.

Liz La Force 36:11
Yeah.

Candice Wu 36:12
So here and now.

Liz La Force 36:14
Yeah.

Candice Wu 36:18
So do you even find it a struggle? You know, I hear what you’re saying, you know, that it’s not always easy that sometimes it’s, well, I hear you say it’s not, it’s sometimes scary. But these are the kinds of experiences that most people say, are a struggle. But to me, what it feels like you know, even the lightness in your voice about it sounds like it’s a delight.

Liz La Force 36:43
Yes, it is. But on another level, it’s a struggle. There’s so I can sense the struggle inside of me, but I don’t experience it as a struggle. So there is a struggle going on and sometimes it can feel like ugly and nasty and I can even feel nauseous or whatever. I don’t know, I can just, yeah. Look at it and be with it.

Candice Wu 37:08
Yeah.

Liz La Force 37:10
Accept this thing again, I think. I mean, I’m accepting that this is the case and I’m just allowing it to play out the game. And then yeah, so yeah. But it’s not like, again, not that people will think that I’m only like laughing about this whole process. Sometimes there’s sadness coming up you know, or still anger or whatever and then I’m not in the I’m so happy mood. I mean, then that’s the emotion that comes up and I’m allowing that to be but there was always the one that’s observing it. I think that has been the practice over the last 20, 26 years.

And I think because there was a practice, it’s easier now to be the, yeah also very much and strongly be connected with the observer when the past, I would like have lost myself in the process where I would like — it felt like really in those dark places but also, I was in a dark place and now I’m not in the dark place. I’m the one that’s looking at the one in the dark place and that’s a huge difference.

Candice Wu 38:17
Yeah and that agreement to look and be with it makes all the difference between true struggle and suffering —

Liz La Force 38:24
Exactly.

Candice Wu 38:24
-and the emotion. The whole plethora of emotions that you do feel.

Liz La Force 38:29
Exactly, yeah,

Candice Wu 38:31
Yeah.

Liz La Force 38:32
And it’s funny, I haven’t even, while talking with you and I’m saying these things, Oh, yeah, that’s the difference. You know, I didn’t mean —

Candice Wu 38:40
That’s a big — realizing it now.

Liz La Force 38:44
Yeah, a little bit more than I did before. So thank you. Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:46
Yeah. That’s great, glad to share this moment with you.

Liz La Force 38:53
Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:54
Yeah, and I appreciate you sharing with everybody that’s listening.

Liz La Force 38:58
I’ll happy to share always.

It’s sometimes hard to find the words right, for these kinds of things. And also not to make it sound like too light. Because for the people that are still like, you know, sometimes me too, in the past, I did have my struggles and it was heavy and it was, you know, anything. I do believe if I look back because some sometimes, I wonder, I don’t know about you, but I want to like, okay, the way I’m now experiencing this couldn’t have done the same like 20 years ago, and I wouldn’t have been so much easier. But then again, I think I can experience it this way because I went through all of this. So it’s every step of the way is one step. And I don’t know if it is, or if you can just trespass one. How do you think about that?

Candice Wu 39:53
If I’m getting it right, yeah, I would agree with my own experience with that. Like, I don’t feel Iike I’d want to change anything that happened or didn’t happen and the struggle that did happen.

And yes, they were huge, painful struggles even, you know, even a year and a half ago, even last summer, you know, big feelings, big emotions, big experiences, and then the amount I struggled or suffered, varied, given, you know, how much I could really witness and be with myself and want to be or, want to abandon myself or do it unknowingly. But, yeah, I wouldn’t really want to change anything because, because it gave me everything that is now, I think, as you’re saying, and it’s all okay, it’s now. But there were so many times in my life, I didn’t feel like things were okay. So I think it’s just a lovely place to feel now, where It feels like, maybe the words for me are like the past is a bit at peace or I am at peace with who I have been and who I am now, in this moment, and maybe not all the time, but for the most part that’s more of how I experienced myself and not.

Liz La Force 41:21
Yeah. And for me, it’s interesting that even if I’m, well in the past and I, when I did like inner child work or, and I went back to my inner child, there was always these well, also things that happened in my past and created like sadness or anger or whatever. And now if I go back, there’s only happiness, which is really fun for me. It’s like I, you know, at a certain moment, you’ve rewritten the program. So there’s nothing — if I go back, there’s a happy family and it’s a happy parent and it’s like happy, where in the past, when I went back, the worst of course, I also had my traumas and my things.

So that’s also a very interesting thing. But you need to connect with the traumas and the things first to rewrite them. If you don’t acknowledge them and you hide them, and you’re not able to rewrite them. So, but it’s an interesting thing for me to experience like, Okay, this is so funny. My whole system is rewritten.

If you’re talking about joys like, Oh, okay. Yeah.

Candice Wu 42:34
Yeah, I had an experience similarly, and actually, I was feeling really tired at this point in my life.

It was some time in the last six months, I was like, I’m just tired of doing, just feeling certain things and it hadn’t even been that long that I was feeling those things. It was more just like the words needed to come out, the feeling of that needed to come out and come to the front. So I was feeling like, I’m just so tired of feeling this. And then I thought, well who’s feeling this? And I checked in with my younger selves and I was like, Is it anyone, who’s feeling so tired right now? And my younger self was just joyful and playing and just like, what we’re fine back here. She’s looking at me like, you’re the one that’s feeling tired. You adult self Candice, and I’m like, oh, now my younger self is healing me.

Liz La Force 43:33
Exactly, but it’s also because, at a certain moment, you’re so used to doing the work that you forget, even when the work is done, you’re still doing the work.

I think that’s funny was like, an interesting point, where I’ve done so much healing on myself and then I hardly could, it was like an addiction almost. It was like, Oh, but I need to do the healing. I need to do all the stuff out of myself. And then I’m not saying again that the healing is stopped or that nothing will come up or, but, yeah, it’s a different experience now, whether it was really like almost that, yeah, I’ve always so used to doing that kind of work and then and letting go of that phase was also, yeah, quite a big thing for me. Yeah.

Candice Wu 44:17
Yeah, I can relate to that addiction as well.

Well because you know, I think for me that came about because it really worked, you know, things were really working when I was choosing to do certain kinds of healing techniques or like, being with myself in certain ways. And then I thought, well, let’s go for more. Every time I felt better. So I kept wanting more so yeah, it was, but it’s such a different experience to say well, healings, not everything you can just go straight for the joy or straight for whatever you want to experience or a full experience of human life.

Liz La Force 44:54
Exactly, yeah, and that will heal you.

Candice Wu 44:59
Yeah. Anyways, okay. That will heal you but not for the purpose of let’s do more —

Liz La Force 45:08
No, exactly, yeah.

Candice Wu 45:10
Yeah. It’s funny how that works. Yeah, funny. Perfect, right?

Liz La Force 45:15
Yeah, definitely.

Candice Wu 45:17
Yeah.

So what, in the work of supporting people with authenticity, what do you find comes up? What are the struggles or what are things people are working with or that you’re working with that really help others, you know, see something for themselves?

Liz La Force 45:41
Well, I think the most important thing in becoming more authentic and daring to really face yourself, the ugly, and the nice part is at first, reconnecting with love and feeling that you are loved.

You described earlier that did you understand that there is a love inside of you, outside of you everywhere and that’s always there for you.

And for me, if you start to connect with that and start to feel that, then you can bring that love towards all the pieces, all the aspects of yourself. So for me, that’s the first step. And it’s not, yeah, and so for me how it works is like different kinds of ways.

I mean, like, I really like to reconnect people with their body because that’s where we sense and where we can feel things.

Nowadays, I’m using all kinds of creative expression forms for it, like dance and liberation of the voice, like singing, some more creative forms than I did in the past.

In the past, I was mainly working with meditation and visualizations and healing. Nowadays, I bring in more like, creative expression forms. It’s playful and that’s what I really wanted to bring into my work, you know, more playfulness and also things that people can do at home. I mean, you can dance at home and start to feel things if you do it in a certain way or you can use your voice and start to hear things in your voice and understand that, your voice is also a representation of certain aspects in yourself.

Candice Wu 47:26
Can you say more about that, that intrigues me about just using your voice and hear things in your voice?

Liz La Force 47:33
Well, you can hear in somebody’s voice, I don’t know about you, but I can hear in somebody’s voice if where they are in their body. If they’re like, really grounded or if they’re like, high or if they’re excited, or if they’re tired or you know, all these kinds of things, I think everybody can hear it in a certain way.

But then there’s also the making of sounds which can start to really loosen up certain blockages in our body. So yeah, you can use the voice in different ways. But it’s very interesting for yourself to hear if you’re like, I had a tendency, I still, I’ve got a loud voice. If I’m really excited, I’ve got a very loud voice. But if I’m really deeply connected, I’ve got a very soft and lower voice, you know.

So it’s, yeah, just whatever is needed also, if I’m, yeah, sometimes and all okay for me. It’s not like, I’m all I need to be in that kind of a voice and I always now, I need to focus with Candice, I need to be very Zen and very spiritual and I need to talk like this. And you know —

Candice Wu 48:22
Right, Not for control.

Liz La Force 48:43
No, it’s not for control. Is there a Yes or No?

And it’s there when I’m giving meditation, visualization, my voice, you know, it starts to become different and it says another resonance. So it has another effect on people. That’s how it works. But that’s with everything. If you’re talking about being authentic, it’s like, also allowing whatever wants to be spoken through your saying through your — Yeah, to happen.

Candice Wu 49:12
I just love that because it’s so indicative of or not indicative it’s so like, everything you know, the playfulness and just letting things be witnessed, arise, and that it’s not for self-criticism, it’s for the exploration and everything has a different effect in resonance. Everything has an impact in a certain way and you get to see what that is.

Liz La Force 49:38
And beautifully put like as you’re saying, everything.

I just wrote in Dutch, a blog, and there I told a client of mine like, everything inside of you has the right to be there. Everything inside has a right to be there.

And for me, you know, sometimes you saying things to another you’re like, Oh, wow.

Candice Wu 50:02
I love it… Yes, right. Yeah.

Liz La Force 50:05
So I was hearing myself saying those words, and I took them in and later, and I was like, just sitting with the words I was like, Yeah, but this is it, you know. We’re so, often, we’re just saying like, Okay, if I want, like, I’m a spiritual teacher and I need to be like this, or I’m a singer and I need to perform, and I need to do it like this. We all have, I am a director in the business and I need to act like this. We have so many ideas about how we need to act and what we supposed to be, and we’re neglecting and disowning all the rest inside of us all the time.

So for me, it’s like everything is allowed to be there.

If the happy child wants to come out and wants to come out now, then it comes out, you know. And if the Zen master wants to say something, then he will speak and it’s okay, you know, because it’s no longer about me identifying with one of them. I’m all of them. So they’re all allowed to be here.

Candice Wu 51:10
Yes.

It just gives my whole body complete relief to hear those words. Everything inside of you has the right to be there. One-hundred percent is so beautiful. Beautifully said, thank you.

It’s such a cool experience, you know that it just came through you?

Liz La Force 51:30
Yeah.

Candice Wu 51:31
And it was like, yeah.

Liz La Force 51:33
Yeah. But it is like you’re saying, I had the same it’s like, okay, you know, okay. Because, yes, exactly.

Candice Wu 51:42
Yes.

Liz La Force 51:43
And I really if it is something I’m passionate about, and I’m going to share this with the world. If there’s, you know, like — okay, everything’s okay. Everything’s okay, seriously. So let’s stop also, let’s stop thinking we know what is okay and what is not. Because we don’t?

Candice Wu 52:08
Yeah, we keep trying.

Liz La Force 52:09
We keep trying. Yeah, and we will. I’m not going to end in this year.

Candice Wu 52:16
Yeah.

Liz La Force 52:19
It’s interesting. But it also, as we said earlier, and I said earlier, I mean, it takes a lot of self-love. It takes a lot of love to start to see that everything’s okay and to embrace everything.

Candice Wu 52:34
Completely. It takes a lot. Yeah, especially in the pockets, the pockets of myself that, like, felt historically that didn’t get what they needed. It’s like filling in those gaps, takes a lot of love, takes support. And yeah, I don’t want to downplay how much that takes and going back to like, heaviness or seriousness sometimes that’s truly needed and truly the place we’re at, and it’s all to be seen and honored in its time.

Thank you, Liz. This is so lovely to talk to, and I know that you’re going to be offering an experience or meditation. Do you want to say something about it? Is anything coming to you about what you’d like to share? Create?

Liz La Force 53:23
I don’t know yet.

Candice Wu 53:28
I love it.

Liz La Force 53:28
Yeah. Because I think it has. Yeah, it’s probably going to have to do with the last sentence we share. You’re allowed to be here.

Candice Wu 53:38
Yeah. Totally.

Liz La Force 53:39
Let’s see what pops up.

Candice Wu 53:42
Yeah, let’s see.

So for anyone listening, it’s in the unknown. You’ll have to find out.

Liz La Force 53:49
Yeah.

Candice Wu 53:50
Yeah. Anything else you want to mention or share today, Liz?

Liz La Force 53:53
No, I’m grateful. I had this conversation with you. I’m, yeah, it was a nice talk, Candice.

And for everybody who’s listening, I do hope you can start to love yourself like, endlessly, like you’re so worth it.

Candice Wu 54:11
Yeah.

Liz La Force 54:11
And I also know it’s not easy and it’s sometimes, it’s just words in the beginning. But yeah, it’s worth starting to look at yourself and just, even if you’re just saying the words you know, I love you. Yeah.

Candice Wu 54:32
Thank you. Yeah.

I really enjoyed this conversation and I feel like one of your strong gifts is your presence, your energy and it’s almost like, felt like, it didn’t even matter what words you were saying even though I love what you did share in the words but the energy of what you’re exuding is just so juicy and I can feel it in your presence. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Candice.

Before we go, Liz, where can people find you?

Liz La Force 55:14
Well, they can find me in the Netherlands but it is a little bit far away for you. You’re very welcome to come over, but, no, they can find my website. It’s www.lizlaforce.com.

Candice Wu 55:31
Okay, wonderful. And we’ll have it on the show notes and everything.

Liz La Force 55:34
Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:34
So they can click there.

Liz La Force 55:36
And I’m, yeah, I’m available for online sessions too. So this doesn’t need to be an obstacle.

Candice Wu 55:44
Okay. They don’t have to literally travel to you.

Liz La Force 55:47
I will travel to them. Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:51
Thank you, Liz.

Liz La Force 55:52
Okay. Have a lovely day.

Candice Wu 55:55
Yes, you too. You too, Liz.

Thank you so much, Liz for being on the show. I just feel so refreshed by your energy and your radiance and just what comes through so clearly and purely. And I hope that all of you out there are getting something from this transmission of energy that Liz brings.

Be sure to tune into Liz’s meditation this week. Her meditation is an active one created for you to experience the joy of free self-expression. So enjoy this light-hearted and playful exercise that she brings you into, where you are the boss, you are the master in her words, and where you can help the cells of your body remember their own light and true capacity to love and receive love. Those are Liz’s words. They’re just lovely. So tune in later this week. You can also find her meditation at CandiceWu.com/lizlaforce.

Well, it’s so great to have you here, and thank you so much for listening.

Next week, I’ll talk a lot more about what’s happening with me, what I’m doing in Mexico, and what else is coming up.

If you’d like to stay in touch with me through my newsletter, you can sign up at CandiceWu.com/embody. And that’s where I give some updates about my travels, self-love notes, different workshops and experientials, events, etc., and also the updates about the podcast.

As we close today, I want to just send a shout out to all of you out there that are listening. All of you that are a friend of a friend of someone who shared this podcast with you or, if you’re therapist shared this with you, if you stumbled upon it yourself, thank you so much for being out there existing and for listening.

I love hearing your feedback, you can always feel free to email me.

And recently, I was just so delighted to hear that there are people in Wuhan, China listening in. Thank you for being out there and sending you all the well wishes for your health, for all of your loved ones to be safe and I am seeing and noticing what’s happening from here. With that, I will wish you a wonderful week and see you next week on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00
In this meditation, Liz Laforce, a guest on the podcast, encourages you to dance, sing, or do some art after this lovely, deepening meditation.

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.

This is an active meditation created for you to experience the joy of free self-expression. So enjoy this light-hearted and playful exercise and also feel free to tune into the full Episode with Liz, who is such an authentic, present being, you can find the full episode at CandiceWu.com/lizlaforce. And with that, I will hand you over to Liz.

Liz La Force 1:14
Welcome. When you’ve listened to the podcast I recorded with Candice, you may probably have noticed already that I love to create spaces. Space to feel free enough to express ourselves, express myself and there are certain forms I like to use for them and it’s dance or singing or painting and that’s what I want to do with you today too.

So, I will start a meditation with you in a couple of minutes. But I would like you to choose one of the three options. So dancing, singing, or painting to do after the meditation just to express your soul and to really connect with your self-expression.

I will explain a little bit more about how this could work for you.

So, the dancing, when you’ve chosen that, just after the meditation, get up, or if you’re already up, just start moving your body, put some music on if you want or do it without but just the loud movements your body wants to make to come up. And be aware of how it feels, perhaps you’re feeling tension, perhaps you’re feeling totally relaxed because of course, you have done the meditation, but whatever you feeling is okay, just allow it to be there without the need to change it but continue to move.

In the beginning, this can feel awkward or strange, but you will notice that at a certain moment, you can come in a certain flow and it will be a lot of fun.

So that’s for the dancing, and then, when you feel more like singing, after the meditation, start to sing or simply make sounds.

It doesn’t even matter if you are a singer or if you’re talented at it, just start to sing any song you know, improvise, make new lyrics, make sounds, it’s all about free expression. There’s no good or bad involved. There is no judgments, although perhaps judgmental thoughts will come up but just allow them to be there and observe them, take notice and allow them to go again.

This is a great help by the way, for your throat chakra to really open up and to enable you to feel freer to self-expression.

And then the last option is painting.

For this, you need a white paper, some paint or color pencils and then after the meditation, just pick a color, pick a pencil and start making stripes and perhaps it will end up in just only stripes and colors and perhaps it will take a form. But this is about your soul expressing itself. And so, allow anything that wants to come on paper to come out, be playful.

And, certainly have fun while doing all these things. You can choose one of them, you can of course try them all out. If you repeat a meditation, that’s all up to you.

And again, it may take a while for you to get really into this, but give it time and give yourself a break when it doesn’t feel natural in the beginning, and that’s normal. I mean, we all come from a background where, well at least most of us, weren’t really supported in self-expression and we were judged or we will learn to judge ourselves on it. So, it takes time to overcome that hurdle to really loosen up and to disconnect us from these old memories, and to feel free enough to just do like a child, like when we were children and we weren’t yet, well I must say, poisoned by all these judgments or ideas how we are supposed to be.

So in a short while, I will start the meditation.

If you are into the painting option, perhaps you can just stop this meditation and started again. So you can get some paper and some pencils. But for those who have chosen to dance and sing, they can continue to listen and we will start the meditation in a few moments. I will just give you some time to set up perhaps how to put away furniture and set up your things.

And for the meditation you can either lay down or sit it’s up to you, as long as your feet are next to each other and your arms are next to your body or into your lap.

So if you can just sit or lay down, I will start a meditation now. Just feel your body in the chair or on the grounds, become aware of your body. Either laying on the ground or sitting in the chair. You can put your hands for a moment on your belly and start to breathe towards the belly. If you’re not able to, that’s okay too, but just see how deep you can bring your breath. Pushing the hands up and allowing them to go down while breathing out.

It can help to breathe through the nose in and out, through the mouth. Find your body already going into relaxation because the mind can only do one thing. So if we start to focus on the breath, that’s where the mind will be. And if the mind calms down, the whole body calms down.

Just breathe in and out a couple of times very consciously, and then start to bring your attention to your feet, your feet and your toes. Let’s bring the attention towards the feet and the toes and if your mind is going to wander off, just bring it back to your feet. You’re the boss, you’re the master. And then internally, just say feet, relax and move on to your legs, gaining the muscles in the legs, coming away of the knees, thighs, just concentrate and focus on your legs without the need or necessity to change anything.

Just being the observer, allowing your body to relax deeper and deeper and then move on to your pelvis, a place where we hide a lot of old information, old pain. The attention and the love going towards this place is very welcome.

And then move on to your belly, aware of the intestines, while your body’s relaxing and relaxing deeper and deeper.

And then move on to your chest, bring your attention to your heart, perhaps feeling any tension or perhaps feeling that is totally open, all is fine, all is good. Everything’s allowed to be here.

And then from the heart, we bring our attention to the back, your spine, and the shoulder blades, sinking deeper and deeper into relaxation. Allowing the body by concentrating, bring focus, attention, and love to it, and find his own way into relaxation.

There’s really nothing we need to do and to bring our attention and love towards it.

Then we move on with our attention to the arms, the elbows, hands, and fingers. Going deeper and deeper into relaxation. Perhaps your body’s feeling heavier.

Finally, we’ll get our attention to our neck and head.

Notice our body is really entered in this relaxation modus, you visualize above your head above your crown a golden light. And this golden light enters the crown and starts to fill up your brain cells, your senses, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears. All of it is going to be filled up with his golden light I mean clean stain-cleared.

From any old information no longer needed in the brain cells or in the senses. Helping the cells to remember their own lights, their capacity. It’s a true capacity that goes way beyond what we’re using.

And then the golden light enters the neck and goes into the chest and enters the heart and starts to fill up all the cells in the heart, as the cleaning cleans the whole heart’s remembering its capacity to love, and to receive love… opening and up, you can receive even more love and gave me some more love and it has been doing until now.

Then when the heart is totally filled up, the light starts to spread over the chest into the arms, all the way down into the fingertips.

Every cell is going to be filling up, built up with the golden lights.

Your arms and hands and fingers can be used again for your self-expression, to put your love into action.

Then the golden light goes into the belly, fills up the intestines and the organs, clearing, cleansing them from all the inflammation no longer needed to be there. So you can reconnect with your power, the power that can be found in our belly.

Strength, vitality.

Then the golden light goes into the pelvis into the legs, all the way down to the feet and the toes.

Again, cleansing and clearing the cells, filling them up with golden light. Making it easier for you to stand, stand up, for standing your own truth, and to walk your own path, to know your purpose, find your way on this planet.

Then the golden light goes up the base of the spine and starts to curl up around the spine, all the way up to the shoulder blades filling up all cells in the back. Cleansing and cleaning them, bring golden light into them, allowing you to feel the support. The support of the universe, of your guidance, the people around you, the support you need to feel.

Feel free to express yourself. Feel safe. Feel loved.

And then finally the golden light enters the neck and the head, and your whole body is now glowing with golden light, vibrating. Perhaps you can feel it. Whatever you’re feeling is okay. No good and bad involved.

Just for a couple of minutes, allow this golden light to really integrate into your system, into the cells.

While the golden light is integrating, you can ask your soul, your higher self, what it would like to express through you today and to invite it to express itself through you to give it the allowance to express itself through you or it needs your: “Yes”.

And then when you feel ready, just stand up and start the dancing, start singing or do the painting and enjoy it, allow this energy to just flow through your body and to just start to make the movements, to start to make the sounds, start to make the stripes on the paper.

Just go for it and allow it and enjoy it. Enjoy the fact that you are alive. Enjoy the fact that this energy is always available for you each day, every day, every moment of the day.

Wishing you a lot of fun and thank you for listening.

Candice Wu 20:42
So as you transition from this meditation, to some self-expression of your choice, I want to thank you for joining us and thank Liz for offering this experience.

Thanks so much and again, you can tune into the full episode with Liz at CandiceWu.com/lizlaforce.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, Mary Oliver and a poem by Mary Oliver, loving what it is that you love and being free to do so and using self-forgiveness to release some judgments and belief sets around being yourself versus pleasing others and other ways of being around niceness, and ways that we can embody being ourself fully. Also, a little bit about how immigration and my ancestry and past life experiences have conditioned me to please others.

Candice Wu 0:49

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 1:24

This episode is sponsored by something that I love which is the Embodied Healing group that happens once a month. And if you want a little bit more soul support, body support, energetic support, if you want or need a compassionate space to do some healing work within a group that allows relating to one another and connection as well as working with me and in the many different ways that I do work with people, check the group out, it’s at CandiceWu.com/support.

Candice Wu 2:00

So I’m going to start off today with a poem by Mary Oliver and this poem is called Wild Geese. Many of you probably know this poem and I want to send a shout out to Kristen Donigan, who is a physician at the Raby Institute for sending me this link. It’s a SoundCloud link of David White, who’s another poet, reading Mary Oliver’s poetry and talking about it so passionately. And in her words, it’s devastatingly beautiful. So thank you, Kristen, for reminding me of Mary Oliver’s poetry and for bringing me such an important message right now that just really touches me and has also touched several of my clients, since I’ve received it and listen to it, which is only like, yesterday, well, yesterday at the time of this recording.

Candice Wu 2:56

So I’m sending my gratitude to you Kristen, thank you so much for listening to the podcast, for connecting with me and also sharing this awesome reading by David White and commentary by him of Mary Oliver’s poetry, which I’ll link in the show notes.

Candice Wu 3:13

So here is Mary’s poem, Wild Geese: “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile, the world goes on. Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”

Candice Wu 4:27

This is coming to me at a time where I’m noticing the next level of the subtle way in which I try to please people and I may make things sound prettier or try to make what I want to say, come out in a pretty way or in a way that is accessible to everybody, like I want everybody to like me, and it’s really not possible and by admitting that, it’s also admitting that there there are people that I don’t like or want to be around, not that I don’t respect them or maybe I don’t respect them, but it’s a reality that there are people we are attracted to and people we are not wanting to be near.

Candice Wu 5:14

And sometimes those are lessons to us that if we stay, we will learn something more or will discover something different. And other times it’s important to trust, what our body wisdom and what our intuition tells us about where we need to be and who we need to be around. And it gives us the freedom to not like everybody when we accept that not everyone likes us, and that’s okay.

Candice Wu 5:43

Well, of course, I logically know all that and there’s still parts of me that just have been conditioned over years and years and years, maybe even lifetimes and I see it in some people in my family system, in my ancestry, that act in certain ways so that others can like them.

Candice Wu 6:03

Particularly, I noticed that in my father that he can feel anxious and begin to make himself seem happy and charming to the world and make things sound nice and good. And yet, there’s a whole other part of him that he may be blocking off or denying or not acknowledging and feeling. And it seems hard for him at times to just settle into his body and be present without making everything feel good, and maybe a false good. And I want to just respect that right now because I think that’s part of what has made our family survive, and perhaps shows in ways how he survived his own experience and maybe people in my ancestry on his side of the family have survived life in general for different reasons.

Candice Wu 7:04

And what I mean is that, particularly with my father and mother, they both immigrated from Hong Kong to the United States when they were 17 and they met when they were 21. My mom’s English was not that great and my father’s was better. My father, in large part, became the interface between our family and America. So between his parents, and siblings, and the United States, because my grandparents didn’t speak English, and for my primary family, where he was the person that was out in the world, making more money and being an engineer, he did really well in terms of using his social skills, his language skills and making people feel good in a way like a salesperson, but someone that gives others confidence about his work and about what their projects are. He has succeeded so much at that.

Candice Wu 8:16

And like him and many other immigrant families, the generation that comes over to a new place, at least in those times where racism and being prejudiced and possibly hurt or imprisoned could be a reality and it still is possible now. It’s still happening in many places, including here, painfully so. But, when it was even more of a risk, that those people that made their journey into a new land had to learn to be like other people and to smile and to be what others wanted them to be to fit in and belong so that the family could survive.

Candice Wu 9:10

We may know that as a simulation and that experience can be passed down in the ancestry and I feel I’ve inherited some of that experience, where some part of me believes that I need to be a certain way and pleasing to others in order to fit in and belong and be accepted, be successful, be liked and of course, if you’ve been listening to the podcast, there are many ways that I’ve talked about my young life, my childhood experiences that also contribute to that. And tack on some past life experiences where I’ve been a witch and whipped and burned and my leg cut off, because of my gifts and the fears of other people about my gifts and having to do things to survive.

Candice Wu 10:07

So just looking at the ways in which I can still try to please people and how deeply that’s ingrained, and stepping into a next level of moving into a different paradigm, another paradigm where I’m just me, and there’s a deeper, fuller acceptance from within myself that asks less of other people around me to accept me in order to feel okay and I can hear it in my voice. You might hear it too, over time on the podcast that slowly happened. In the beginning, I was a little nervous and not sure how this was going to be received by myself and by other people. And over time, I’ve built more confidence and loving in myself that I accept myself more deeply.

Candice Wu 10:59

Luckily, I have a friend that went to grad school with me and she and I, we just meditate together, we tune in and sense what deeper beliefs are living in our experiences where we parallel each other, the themes that are coming up and what might be needed. And she said to me that there’s a way in which I share my work or do my work, especially like, in the way I present myself in the podcast or other things that are public that feel a bit heavy because I’m still trying to please everyone and be accessible to every single person, and the truth is that I’m just not.

Candice Wu 11:48

I am who I am, and what I share is not going to reach every person and that is okay, because if it touches who it needs to touch, then great and if I’m enjoying it that is truly what I want to drive my experience. If I’m deeply connected with what I’m doing, what I want, and as Mary Oliver says, just letting the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Candice Wu 12:24

What would your life be like if you did not have to be good or, you did not have to do something more, do something different, or hide something of yourself in order to be good enough, worthy, deserving, belonging?

Candice Wu 12:48

There’s a way that we can truly be at harmony in ourselves if we’re congruent from the inside out. And that lends itself to true harmony with each other, when there’s acceptance inside of who we are and what we are and all the things that are trying to come through us, then there’s a deeper acceptance of other people being in that freedom as well or there can be.

Candice Wu 13:24

How much of us are still in the way of being nice and polite or making peace and where the reality of that is actually deception, disingenuousness and not peace but keeping things underneath the surface, so that they just don’t show up, so that we protect ourselves?

Candice Wu 14:03

So yeah, I’m calling myself to the table on one hand, but calling myself to the table with more loving.

Candice Wu 14:13

How am I pleasing others still? Where am I doing that? What does it feel like in my body when I do that? What does it feel like when I’m just true to myself and say things just as they are, just as they want to come through? And what am I so afraid of if I actually just do that?

Candice Wu 14:39

Sometimes I afraid that my words will be too sharp, that I’ll come on too strong or I’ll be too much.

Candice Wu 14:49

There’s a dream worker I was working with and she offered the words: “You’re so much.” Instead of being too much or not enough you are so much, and I really liked that. And I think that’s true, and it’s a way to reframe it so that I can find this space that I can be more genuine and authentic to myself and to the world.

Candice Wu 15:20

So if I’m sharp, what’s going to happen? Someone’s not going to like me or like what I said, or someone will misunderstand me, these touch into all of my younger viewers, and it’s calling myself to the table to honor those and respect that way of being as a way that I’ve survived and as a way that has helped me in life and in past lives, and that is the way that has helped my ancestry and the people especially that came here to start a new life. And it’s safe now. It’s safe now to be myself and not do the pleasing as I did once before. It’s safe now that not everyone likes me, no one’s going to kill me, at least I hope. I mean that is still possible in the world, but not as likely.

Candice Wu 16:27

And if you look at yourself, are there ways that you are giving your energy away? Are there ways that you find that your power is outside of you in terms of needing someone else to validate you or give you something that you think is outside of you, some belonging and some worthiness or some love or achievement, rather than feeling deeper and cultivating your own power even more. And how do we do that? How do we embody that? It’s not just words, as this whole podcast is about. It’s about cultivating any sense of yourself that has felt like yourself.

Candice Wu 17:17

There are two experientials that I focus on that and one’s in the alignment podcast at Candicewu.com/ alignment. It’s resourcing a feeling and a way of being that you desire to be.

Candice Wu 17:34

And in the podcast at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, where we tune into times that you felt like yourself, the more we can touch into those times and let our body feel aligned with them, resonate with them, and in that safety, the more that builds up, the more that our nervous system and body says, “Oh, I know how to do that and it’s safe to do that, and I can be in that space.”

Candice Wu 18:10

And also looking at the fears and releasing the fears. Releasing the beliefs that aren’t true.

Candice Wu 18:24

So here’s my self-forgiveness for today, and I’m just tuning into this now and seeing what words want to come through, it’s not prewritten this at all. So let’s tune in here together and you can also, if you want, tune into any beliefs or ways of being that you want self-forgiveness around and to release judgments around and let’s do that together.

Candice Wu 18:59

I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that I’m not good enough. I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that I need to be a certain way in order to be liked, loved, and accepted.

Candice Wu 19:24

I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that I need to say things in a nice way or else I’m selfish, rude or a bitch.

Candice Wu 19:47

I forgive myself, for judging myself, for believing that what I share needs to reach everybody and be accessible to everybody.

Candice Wu 20:11

So I’m just letting those move through my body. They’re not very intense right now and sometimes it means for me that I’m not hitting the right spot and sometimes it’s just, I’ve worked on it and it’s cleared through my body energetically and emotionally.

Candice Wu 20:28

So I just did that with you so that you could feel into my process a little bit. Sometimes the words are not, “I forgive myself for judging myself for believing”, but there, I forgive myself, for judging myself for forgetting and have a few there. I forgive myself for judging myself for forgetting that it’s safe to be me and that it’s safe to say things just as they are. That it’s safe to love just as I love.

Candice Wu 21:03

Thank you, Mary Oliver, and also thank you to Charmayne Kilcup who initially taught me the phrases around forgiveness of the judgments and she was taught by her teacher, Robert Waterman.

Candice Wu 21:22

You can also phrase things in terms of, I forgive myself, for judging myself, for all the times and places that I and fill in the blank, that I was not myself or that I pretended to be somebody else or that I sugar-coated and glossed what I wanted to say or changed what I had to say for someone else.

Candice Wu 21:48

Whatever those ways of being or that you would like to shine some light on, so it’s not that we’re changing our habits, even though that’s part of what I am doing, it’s not the pressure to change, it’s the forgiveness, that you have judgment around the way you’ve been, around the belief sets that you have, and have had. That’s what gives the safety for something different to arise, that’s what brings that belief set into the light and out of the unconscious place in us, that just lives it out, unknowingly. Or, lives that out because it hasn’t been looked at fully and embraced and taken into our hearts. Candice Wu 22:37

So when I do this forgiveness work, I stay with the feelings and allow them to move all the way through or work with the feelings and parts of me that show up. That’s for another podcast, but you can also tune into the Parts Work podcast if you want a little bit of support with working with parts. That’s @ CandiceWu.com/partswork.

Candice Wu 23:03

And let those emotions and energies move all the way through the system and that’s what creates a lasting change. That’s one way that I work with the body and the beliefs.

Candice Wu 23:19

So as I come back to Mary Oliver, you do not have to be good and you do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. This is my favorite line: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Candice Wu 23:39

It’s so easy. It’s so simple. Love what you love, and that’s in terms of people, that’s in terms of your experience.

Candice Wu 23:53

So much of the time I can be clouded by what I feel I should do, what I feel or think I should do, what think I should do that usually comes from what I should do or what I have been doing, or what something in my ancestry tells me that I need to do or some way of protecting. But if we let these words sink into our bodies, in our hearts, you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. It’s like giving the deepest permission to be yourself and that’s exactly what I believe is needed in the world.

Candice Wu 24:33

There are all sorts of ways that things can be helpful. But when they’re really resonant with the energy of loving what one loves, we feel it, like, I can feel that in Mary Oliver’s poetry. There’s a deep resonance that vibrates through my resonance, which is like the universal energy that’s in all of us. It’s in you and me. It’s that remembering, coming back to the wholeness, and that wholeness can save lives, that wholeness can show someone else that there’s a way to just love what you love and be you, and that is incredible harmony. We won’t need war if we can just be ourselves.

Candice Wu 25:42

Sometimes they think about this in terms of horses and I think what would a horse do?

Candice Wu 25:49

If a horse doesn’t like being around this other horse, are they going to try to are they just going to find a distance that feels right for them? Are they going to find another horse to be around?

Candice Wu 26:02

Sure, there are ways that horses have trauma and could be resourced, could be led by other horses or people or other experiences to learn and heal and renegotiate that trauma. But by and large, what they do is they will be congruent with what they feel. What they feel they need, they will instinctually do without a thought. They don’t think about, oh, should I walk away or should I stay? They are just doing it.

Candice Wu 26:38

And while that’s not applicable in every situation, that’s something that we can feel into and use in our own energy.

Candice Wu 26:50

How can we make our lives simple and just love what we love?

Candice Wu 26:54

Do what we love to do and cut through the fears whatever ways that we think we should be and just shatter them to the ground.

Candice Wu 27:11

So I want to leave today’s podcast with the idea that we are not limited. We are just one possibility of the infinite amount of possibilities that we could be, the ways that we could be. And yet, there is a way that is so deeply aligned with who we are and so specifically eccentric to ourselves.

Candice Wu 27:40

In the podcast with Nick Werber recently, at CandiceWu.com/nickpart2, a friend of mine and fellow healer and integrative coach and constellations facilitator. He and I talked about being black sheep or not, and wherein our being is the black sheep. And those are the places where we feel like we don’t belong. And those are the parts that we can bring forward and that are really essential to who we are usually, and essential to us feeling whole.

Candice Wu 28:20

So while we are infinite possibility, I do believe that there’s a unique signature of who we are that wants to reveal itself and that can be a great relief because all we need to do is witness ourselves and as Mary Oliver says, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Candice Wu 28:52

Thanks for joining me today and may you love what you love.