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 0:10

In this episode, I give my first update about my trip to Mexico about some spiritual emergence and crisis that I’m moving through, as well as how to use proprioceptive writing to connect more deeply with yourself and the words that you use, and your unconscious self.

Candice Wu 0:31

This episode contains explicit language and themes that may not be for all audiences.

Candice Wu 0:38

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 1:14

For one month, from February 10th to March 10th of 2020, my dream classes is free on Skillshare. So you can learn all about how to remember and record your dreams, and to uncover and awaken your dream life.

Candice Wu 1:29

This class supports you in building a nervous system that feels safe and embodied enough to play and open into your dream world, plus ways to specifically record your dreams with ease to allow the remembering to come with more ease. So check this out, along with the other Dream classes on Skillshare at CandiceWu.com/dreamclass1.

Candice Wu 1:57

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Embody Podcast. It’s really interesting to tuned back in here today. I am in Mexico and I have spent about a week in Mexico City, and now I’m in Oaxaca, which is a little more southeast of Mexico City. And, wow, it’s been only a week of me being here, but I feel like I’ve been, in a sense around the world and back.

Candice Wu 2:26

So far, this is my fourth, Airbnb and finally, I have some peace and quiet to be able to podcast. For me, it’s a really interesting thing to look at myself and notice how I’m not completely overwhelmed by the sounds. I’ve had some traumatic experiences with sound and that has very much affected where I’m able to sleep and if there’s noise around me, I don’t sleep well. I get bothered by noises that just are unpleasant or too loud or overwhelming or when I don’t want it. And here, I’ve really embraced the sound to a large degree except for when it comes to podcasting and working with my clients.

Candice Wu 3:16

One of the first things that the first Airbnb host told me was that sound is an essential part of Mexican culture. There is sound to celebrate, there’s sound to communicate and to alert of certain things, different foods, different services, and it’s a part of what holds the heartbeat of the culture it seems. And so, I gathered a mishmash of sounds for you to just tune into. So here’s a blend… [playing sounds of Mexican street life]

Candice Wu 4:15

And lastly, I met a friend who was playing this beautiful guitar music on the streets, in one of the major areas… [playing guitar recorded in the streets]

Candice Wu 4:57

When I heard this music, it reminded me of my father and the guitar he would play when I was younger. So I just stopped and listened and took it all in and recorded it and it since has been really touching me on a deep level and healing my heart in many ways. So shout out to Juan Ignacio who is from Argentina, who is this musician playing his music.

Candice Wu 5:36

My first reaction when I arrived here in Mexico City was that it smelled just like Hong Kong, Indonesia, Chiang Mai all put together with a flair of Spain and Italy, at least in Maroma and like in Bayside area, which I know has that European flavor, but the exhaust, the tropical plants, the smell of different foods and a little bit of sewage, sometimes sounds, it was very heartwarming. And for this whole week, I have met so many kind people that have really held me in this experience.

Candice Wu 6:22

If you listened to the podcast a couple of weeks ago, about solo travel and some of my fears, you probably know that I had to break down some of the fears that I had about coming here around safety. And once I got here, all of those fears just dissolved, granted, I was in pretty safe locations comparatively, but that’s part of it, you know.

Candice Wu 6:48

In Chicago, where I live for 10 years, where many of you all listening are living as well, there are some areas that you just wouldn’t walk down the street in the dark alone or, you might just be a little more careful in certain areas just because you don’t know what’s going on there or maybe it’s unfamiliar, but there are places like that all over the United States that we would just be careful of. And it was just the same exact thing here. And by and large, people were just so friendly, wanting to connect with me. They’re curious about me, and I think because I’m Chinese, they don’t really know what to make of me. They don’t know where I’m from. They’re curious about what language I speak, and quite delighted when I speak any broken Spanish at all.

Candice Wu 7:43

I was really shy at first. I had been practicing with different podcasts, but once I got here, I was just like, I can’t follow what people are saying, it’s going too fast and it took a little bit to be — a little bit of courage to speak up and ask for what I needed, asked for them to slow down or let them know I couldn’t speak very much Spanish just a little bit, but that has been very well received and the smiles that I receive, the mannerisms of kindness here, I’m really appreciating.

Candice Wu 8:26

The biggest thing here, for me, is that I feel like parts of my soul are coming alive. The food, the sounds, as I mentioned, the people, the colors everywhere, the community, the aliveness, and the movement. It’s beautiful and very soulful. I haven’t got myself to try the crickets. I don’t really think I will. But, the Malays, the corn, I don’t eat corn at home or tortillas, but here, I’m eating that and it feels like a really nice, sacred connection to the land, to the people, the heart of people.

Candice Wu 9:08

So while all this is happening, and I’m discovering this place, it is just so happening that I am feeling through another layer of existential emergence or existential crisis, spiritual crisis, whatever you want to call it. It feels like a breaking down of ego, a breaking down of who I feel I am or who I thought it was, and a lot of grief, some anger, some sadness, some longing, and the questions, well, the thoughts that emerge into questions come in this form: Who am I anymore? What am I doing here like, in life in the world? What’s going on? What am I here for?

Candice Wu 10:01

And while all these questions are emerging, I feel that they’re not really to be answered functionally and if they will be answered, they will be through a revealing and through an allowing and emerging. But so far, those are just the words that are coming up with the feelings in the body and feels like I’m just sloughing off a lot of different layers that I don’t need anymore, and letting that surrender that I, so desired happen, letting myself come into more joy and delight and playfulness, and that has been my experience here.

Candice Wu 10:40

I know that astrologically a lot of people are going through different challenging experiences, different layers of themselves, whether or not you follow that. I’m curious where you’re at and how you’re feeling in yourself. What is the experience of your life right now?

Candice Wu 11:00

So, I invite you to take a moment and tune into that here together with me and with all those listening, just taking a moment to listen in word and feel the sensations in your body and what it’s like to be in your body now. And what is the theme of your life at the moment? What are you looking at spiritually or very functionally? And is there anything you need in your life right now to support you or make it a little bit more comfortable?

Candice Wu 12:01

Okay, so this inner listening just brings us to the main topic today which is proprioceptive writing.

Candice Wu 12:08

I recently went on a proprioceptive writing retreat at Hope Springs Institute, which is in Peebles, Ohio, way out in the boondocks, in this wonderful, gorgeous space held by nature. This space is created by Suzanne Stevens, in her vision of creating a spiritual center, a place where people can really find respite and connect with each other, connect with a deeper sense of themselves. That’s my perception of her, her space and what she’s offering. And here, she hosted Mary Bach, who does an annual proprioceptive writing retreat there at Hope Springs.

Candice Wu 12:58

This way of essentially journaling, or tuning in, has given me just another aspect, another way to integrate my experience and the ways that I already know how to tune in intuitively, it has offered me a deeper connection with myself, a feeling that I’m filling up this space in my body, and that I exist and embrace my existence. I feel surer of myself and I feel more present, loving to myself, as well as a deeper and more open space to be loving to others and to see others in their experience and their freedom with a clear boundary.

Candice Wu 13:52

So let me back up and explain a little bit about what proprioceptive writing is, at least to the degree that I’ve learned it and what I have experienced.

Candice Wu 14:03

Proprioceptive writing was coined by Linda Metcalf and Tobin Simon and it’s a way to listen in word, write down what you hear, and then ask yourself, what do I mean by, and whatever word seems to have some energy or tickles you in a certain way, or has a resonance? And then as you ask, what do I mean by this word, what do I mean by, then you listen again and let this stream of consciousness flow through.

Candice Wu 14:40

Proprioception is the perception and awareness of the physical position and movement of your body in space. So the sense that you know where your body is, and different parts of your body are, the awareness inside.

Candice Wu 14:58

So the combination of proprioceptive writing is this idea that we are moving knowledge, the words that we use carry knowledge from our experience. So our language set, our vernacular, the way we use certain words, is all rooted in our own wisdom, our experience, through our personal lives, societal, cultural, collective, and archetypal experience, and past life and lineage, all the dimensions and other dimensions that I have not named.

Candice Wu 15:34

There are ways that experience cannot be put into words but when we do take the time to let the words come through or any a semblance of words and sensation, or intuitive or appropriate receptive experience come through, then we get a chance to define things as much as it actually is possible. And that would be a quite endless process to let all words come to their fruition of meaning for us. But it’s a really fun experience and it was so deepening and it’s something that I’m going to be using for all sorts of things. But, the best thing that I found about it was to do the process of writing and then share it with the group, which was incredibly healing and powerful and validating.

Candice Wu 16:35

And just another thought, because I’m in Mexico and I’m using some Spanish, I’ve often noticed that being in another culture that has a different language set has a frequency that I need to plug into and as I plug into the language, I plug more into the frequency of shared knowledge, of connection, of the way interaction happens. And then, there becomes a sense of built-in meaning, and it can feel when I use certain Spanish words versus when someone else that is native there or has lived there uses that word, it carries something energetically different. For me, it’s a lot more flat because it’s a newer word.

Candice Wu 17:24

So, what do we mean by the words we use? What does each word carry? What does your name carry? What does mom or dad, work? Love? Play? Listening.

Candice Wu 17:45

Any word that you find interesting, what does that come with and not to use this type of writing as a thinking process? But one of — what do I mean by and letting the words come to you, letting the information be received by your listening and observational ear.

Candice Wu 18:09

So this inner listening is the heart of proprioceptive writing and it’s not so different from a lot of the different healing experientials that I’ve offered here or the type of listening inward that I do for myself that I support others in doing. But it is different when you write it down and it’s hard because there’s this weird interaction of having to slow down or allow the — what’s being — what’s coming forward to slow down enough so that it can be written down.

Candice Wu 18:48

And I have found there’s this weaving in and out of different parts of me coming forward. So different parts of me may be speaking and then another part and another part, but this sensing inward, intuiting, channeling, even perhaps, excavating, following the energy, all that is a part of this process.

Candice Wu 19:10

And as I’ve worked with this, just in these last couple of weeks, I’ve even found myself using words more particularly, but not in a belabored way more so in a way that I feel more connected with the word that I’m saying. I’m more personally connected and I feel that this process can lend itself to speaking in a more powerfully resonant and energetic way.

Candice Wu 19:39

I liked that Mary Bach said that we’re looking into every corner, and it’s like taking your eye towards people and looking through and just seeing everything you can see. And what I’m really left with, is this feeling of what is satisfying to me and what do I mean, and what comes through doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else, even when I read it to someone else, when I read it in the group, none of it had to make sense. It didn’t need to be understandable. And that was incredibly freeing because it just didn’t have to make any sense. None of it did. But it meant something to me and it touched something in me. And when I read it out loud, it gave me a feeling of showing up and being seen, especially in things that were more vulnerable, as well as I was more seen to myself, letting a group receive what just came — stream of consciousness — to me, was bringing me to the emotion more powerfully.

Candice Wu 20:51

So the process goes like this, listening to Baroque music for about 20 minutes, lighting a candle in front of you, just allowing that to be a part of the ritual of creating this time and space where this inner listening is to be had and to be received.

Candice Wu 21:14

So if you’d like to try this, you can pull up some Baroque music on YouTube or Spotify or whatever platform you use and set a timer for 20 minutes. You can even invite a friend to do this with you either in the same room or across distance online.

Candice Wu 21:37

And take a couple of breaths as you light the candle and as you ground and feel into your body, as you feel the space that your body is taking up, and after a couple of breaths, listen to any thoughts, words or sense of communication that’s coming through and begin to write. And just let the flow happen as you write down whatever it is that’s coming through without any filter, without any need to make it sound in a certain way, just how it is.

Candice Wu 22:22

And anytime you have a word that just tickles you a bit or stands out, or has more energy to it or calls your attention, pause there and write down: “What do I mean by” and that word that stood out to you. And then listen again and continue writing, recording whatever is heard from inside and whenever that exhausts itself, you can ask that question again and write it down, “What do I mean by” and check out a new word. And it can be a word that comes to you or word within what was just written.

Candice Wu 23:15

And if you feel like you’re getting stuck here in this thinking mode or blocked here, you don’t hear anything or you’re just writing the same thing over and over again, just allow that to happen, notice it. And the teacher of the retreat, Mary Bach would say, to go back to the thing that you touched upon right before you got blocked or you felt stuck, and that there was something there for you that maybe got glossed over or you missed a word that has some vibrancy, and just check out if anything pops up now. And there’s no expectation. There’s nothing to pressure yourself about. It doesn’t have to sound good.

Candice Wu 23:59

So relieving yourself of all that might be part of letting the flow happen and within what can come through, it is a bit like free association. It’s like, whatever is connected with that word might come up to you and things might be surprising, or things might feel ordinary, like, these are your thoughts every day. It doesn’t matter. Just let it all be recorded and observed, and just continue.

Candice Wu 24:32

And when the 20 minutes is up, your timer is up or the music stops, if you have a way to allow the music to just stop at 20 minutes, then finish the thought or sentence you’re on and write down, “How do I feel right now?” The question itself, and then answer the question.

Candice Wu 24:55

And just making an observational note about how you feel now.

Candice Wu 25:04

When I’ve done Dreamwork, I’ve often asked my dream, or the parts of my dream, different questions. So going back into the dream and tuning in, maybe there’s a car in the dream or certain person or a flower, anything, and I talked to that part, and the way that I do that is I write a question with my dominant hand, like, “What message do you have for me?” And then I answer with my non-dominant hand.

Candice Wu 25:38

This often offers the most powerful, poignant, simple, and profound information. So it seems to distill it and it’s coming from a different place we’re so used to writing with our dominant hand. And using the non-dominant hand is accessing parts of us that aren’t typically are more normally conditioned. And that’s something you can use in this process as well, if you want to try doing the proprioceptive writing with your non-dominant hand, it can offer a whole different experience.

Candice Wu 26:17

I recently did this experience with my sister and my mother and it was incredibly powerful. So it wasn’t the way we normally spoke to each other and the topics that came through, actually, each of us were connecting on certain themes, death, our family, moments of life, how we want to live life, those themes were emerging and yet, we each had such a different perspective. And I don’t know that in a conversation, these words or sentiments might have come through in such a pure way. And what I mean specifically is actually after we finished writing, and wrote how we felt on the piece of paper, we took time to read it to each other, which is what I did at the retreat as well.

Candice Wu 27:11

And each of us read what we had written all the way through and if something could be really hurtful to the other person, we were giving ourselves permission to skip that, just so the process can be really safe for each other and that it can be safe to yourself when — whatever wants to come through, wants to come through.

Candice Wu 27:41

And so we read each full piece out loud and then the other people get to react to it, but mostly share any other words that struck them for the reader to continue their exploration.

Candice Wu 28:03

So for example, my sister caught on to certain words for me that I wrote down then and took with me and it gave me some feedback as to what was striking her and resonating with her for me, and what might have some energy for me to continue to listen into.

Candice Wu 28:29

So this next segment of the podcast, I’ll share some of the themes that I had been working with during the retreat and what spilled into my life thereafter, as well as I will read a couple of excerpts from my writing, just to give you a sense of the experience for me. And keep in mind if you do use this process as a tool or try it or play with it, that your experience, your words, your stream of consciousness might sound completely different. And that’s what I found with my sister and mom, as well as the different people in the retreat itself.

Candice Wu 29:15

So if there’s any part of you that has that inclination to compare or have a sort of right way to do it, it’s just not relevant. And what is satisfying to you, as I mentioned earlier, what is coming to you and interesting to you, what is being heard from inside of you, that’s what’s important.

Candice Wu 29:36

So some of the themes that I was working with were sensuality, intimacy, and using these words in particular, remember, extract, erotic, dragon, sleep, tiredness, father, mother, baby, embarrassment, procure, manufacturer, wounds, choke, freedom, flexible belonging, fuck, uterus, kindness, descent, immigration, trauma, pleasure, trust, shadow.

Candice Wu 30:24

And what was really cool about this process was that using the names of people, the word for a friend of mine or a previous lover? “What do I mean by” and their name can bring up a whole experience that helps some sort of integration happen and reveals what’s there about it and also allowed me to look at some of my shadow parts like what are the associations with certain words, then we know what’s loaded into a word when we use it, what unconscious feeling is there, which reveals itself to consciousness?

Candice Wu 31:09

So here’s a piece from my third write?

Candice Wu 31:13

Sleep. What is sleep? A time of quiet rest into a space of nothingness and everything. My dad would disrupt my sleep. This caused so much torture for me all my life. But why does my uncle have the same issue? Did I repeat this experience? Where is the origin of this experience of torture for us? It has a feel of long before us.

Candice Wu 31:42

And another piece, what do I mean by intimacy, being in touch with what is touching the moment? One with the moment, embarrassment, guilt, sweetness, sadness, all, tenderness with it all. No hiding truth. Visual congruence with unseen but layers of this being in contact, the sensuality of the existence we have.

Candice Wu 32:11

And as I asked myself, what do I mean by sensuality, different words came up, but then more personal experiences came up, some sensual experiences that I had had recently that were bringing me into more intimacy and vulnerability, pleasure, sexuality.

Candice Wu 32:31

And so these were some really vulnerable pieces that I shared within the group and that was kind of exciting.

Candice Wu 32:38

And here’s the piece that I wrote later in the retreat, and I use my non-dominant hand, for me my left hand and this is what came through. You are a dragon from another dimension. You read light, digest energy easily because we’re so connected with the land.

Candice Wu 33:01

What do I mean dragon? Breathes fire, playful, flies, scales, wings, long tail, funny, and majestic all at once. From where? Another world. Does not have word name. It is a knowing — dragon tribe.

Candice Wu 33:23

What do I mean by tribe? Bonded to others in a group. This was the most free way to be in a tribe because I was so big I had a lot of place to travel and to wander but stayed near enough, we could communicate from far.

Candice Wu 33:41

So that piece I felt like I was channeling and connecting with some information about me being a dragon in another life and being in this multidimensional experience. Maybe it wasn’t another life, I’m not really sure but another part of me and I do feel another part of me is in this dragon part of me.

Candice Wu 34:08

And it continued, what do I mean dragon? A baby still growing, a toddler now, at one time I died. But I can live on different or is it simultaneous to now? It is now, I suppose. Deeply free and powerful, no need to prove yourself.

Candice Wu 34:29

What do I mean by prove? Do something to provide evidence that my human form has often felt the need to do.

Candice Wu 34:39

The Ugly Duckling is a human story but some get left behind and die and they just do prove to have felt the need to do things to be enough and worthy.

Candice Wu 34:52

Social media tugs on this, it seems to be the currency, achieve, do, show. This is what I’m doing, “how to be with this.” Look at the parts that are up.

Candice Wu 35:06

And then I’ll just read one more piece and this was the most vulnerable piece that I had written and I felt like I was breaking through some unspoken taboos, that was just my felt sense, which was not necessarily confirmed or not confirmed. But I do have a history in my lineage of sensing when certain topics are taboo, especially sex.

Candice Wu 35:40

So that was a similar feeling and similar to feelings I’ve had when I’ve done — when I’ve been part of group relations, work, or Tavistock group work, where the topic of sexuality is in the room like there — people are feeling it to some degree or something’s happening around it and reactions and defenses are coming up so that’s not felt, not talked about.

Candice Wu 36:14

And so, here I am in like, the fifth write. I think it was the night before the last day. And this is what comes up.

Candice Wu 36:26

Fuck. It’s fuck that wants to be here. What do I mean by fuck? Red energy, aka anger, sometimes, and other times passionate, forceful, something that intrudes for a reason, for desire or for boundaries and decent to keep away, to express a feeling of frustration and exasperation, to have sex with passion, to be filled up to the point of intensity. We’re all women here. At least that’s how I think we’re identifying and just as a point of reference that was at the retreat, and it feels dangerous in a way to approach fucking yet, isn’t it a part of us often?

Candice Wu 37:10

This act of fucking or sex? What power does it have? A putting together, remembering provoked physically if it is wanted, I guess or maybe even not, that’s a whole other can of worms `sigh or am I writing this because I have new relationship energy? Is it a relationship? What is it? It is kind of one. It’s what I want right now. The mystery and the pleasure, the joy, and yes, the fuck. But there’s much more than that. Am I done now? You’re not done with me. Okay, what? It’s not soft, it’s forceful and it’s assertive. Know what I want kind of energy. Maybe I can bring this more into my life for fun, for pleasure, joy. Yes. Why not? Not tucked away or unspoken, like it was in my family, and how it can be in my culture, not even a look or holding hands, or it means you must marry. Well, fuck that.

Candice Wu 38:14

Okay, I think we’re done now. And then I moved on to the question, what do I mean by liberation?

Candice Wu 38:23

So that’s all for what I’ll share today. I hope this was interesting for you. It’s actually quite freeing for me when certain things are hard to talk about or maybe they do feel like they have some sort of power in a room or with people I’m sharing with. As soon as I do share it, I feel like I’ve claimed it. And I’ve claimed that I’m more powerful than the themes or the words or the things that are going on. I’m the part witnessing and that topic doesn’t have power over me, or at least there’s this negotiation of that at times where maybe it feels like it has some power and speaking it truthfully decreases and dissolves that.

Candice Wu 39:12

So liberation. What do I mean by liberation?

Candice Wu 39:19

If you are inspired or compelled to practice this, I encourage you to try it or to take a proprioceptive writing retreat or to get the book that is written by the founders of the work. I will link that on the show notes where you can find Hope Springs Institute as well as Mary Bach and Suzanne Stevens.

Candice Wu 39:44

And whether or not you know what you’re doing, just try it if you want to, it’s really just listening in and not driving the car, but watching the train go by and writing it down.

Candice Wu 39:59

I know that this is a verbal experience, bringing some unconscious, unspoken stuff, some felt sense stuff to the surface into words and I’ve struggled with the fact that not everything can be put into words. And we just recognize that and allow for what can come through. And if pictures want to come through, then that can be a very powerful experience too.

Candice Wu 40:30

So, I encourage you to play with it and just see what works for you and if you have questions, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll do the best to answer them according to my experience, and in the next couple of weeks, I will be continuing on my travels. I don’t know where I’m going next. So in about four days, I will be likely leaving Oaxaca, but unsure of the next destination which is a little bit uneasy for me, but I think I’m okay with it right now. We’ll see what happens.

Candice Wu 41:09

It makes me a little uneasy to not know if I’ll have good Wi-Fi to do my quiet work because I love my clients and I don’t like to disrupt that process. But other than that, I’m really just in that surrender mode of, “Okay, show me where I’m supposed to go next and what unfolds for me, what I meant to be doing here.”

Candice Wu 41:38

And along with that, the spiritual emergence and stuff that is coming through and opening my heart up and breaking me open into grief and some vulnerable, creative, pink center of my heart. I’ll keep you posted on that too.

Candice Wu 42:01

Thanks so much for tuning in today. I hope this was interesting for you and wishing you all very well. And that sense of what is satisfying to you. What do you mean by certain words, what do you mean in your life, really feeling into your own energy and body that already exists.

Candice Wu 42:23

Before you go, I’d invite you to sign up for my newsletter that goes out once or twice a month and updates you on podcasts, retreats, workshops, self-love notes and updates about me and travel as well. You can sign up for that at CandiceWu.com/embody. Thanks so much for listening and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, I share about how I have approached my travels and living abroad and the next travel that’s coming up, that includes a surrender into sensuality and flow, as well as some solo traveling tips, and how to connect with your body to develop and cultivate instincts and intuition for your own safety. Lastly, the idea that you can change your life at any time.

Candice Wu 0:30

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 1:06

So here’s a little note from my friend Doreen, and she is the creator of Verdant Faerie, these yummy botanical scents and oils. She says, “I highly recommend Candice’s healing work. I love her podcasts and the Ally with Death experience was pretty powerful. I loved the music and of course her voice. My heart slipped out of its crusty burnt casing (like a burnt marshmallow) to reveal a vibrant pink thing. I wondered why I let a single person or event ever take my joie de vivre and vowed to dance and shimmer among the stars. Here’s to new beginnings!”

Candice Wu 1:50

I hope I pronounced that French correctly. I probably didn’t. French wasn’t my class in high school. But, thank you so much, Doreen, I loved hearing about how your heart slipped out of the crusty burnt casing like a marshmallow. Doreen is talking about the Ally with Death experiential audio. And it is this beautiful audio experiential, that supports you in facing your own death, and looking at what would really be important in those last final hours of your death, looking at what beliefs and things have been holding you back in your life? What would really make life meaningful? Who would you spend your time with at the end? How would you spend your time?

Candice Wu 2:39

And getting that push from death really forces us to look at what is important. I actually did this just a few hours ago for myself and just bald, and some really important things came through, things that I didn’t know, that I wanted, things that I didn’t know were that important to me in this exact moment, came through and I thought, oh, maybe I’ll do that coming up. So I don’t know if I would have revealed that or got the courage to look at those things in this way, had I not been going through this myself.

Candice Wu 3:22

It’s a great way to cleanse or to start a new cycle, start this new year, it’s not too late. You can find that experiential at CandiceWu.com/death.

Candice Wu 3:33

When I started doing some major travels in 2017, my first travel started in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and that’s actually where I began the Embody Podcast in February 2018. In that time, that I set out to Chiang Mai, Thailand, I actually wasn’t really going for travel, I was going to create a life there and see how it would be to live for a long chunk of time.

Candice Wu 4:02

So being in Chiang Mai brought me a sense of feeling pleasure, simplicity, slowing down like downshifting majorly and I also met someone that I had dated for then several years thereafter, and then we traveled together, Chris, who’s the editor of the podcast still, these travels led me and Chris to many different countries together and then some places where I went alone. And that included Bali, Indonesia, different areas of Thailand, Perth, Australia, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Marbella and Malaga, Spain, Hoff, Nuremberg in Germany, and then I took my own travel to Hong Kong or my family lives, and Ireland, Donegal area. That’s when I was with the horses and cut my trip short, came home in February of the last year — 2019.

Candice Wu 5:07

And in this whole last year, I’ve been exhausted by the movement. So, rounding myself in Michigan and just staying in the Midwest of the United States was just the right thing for me and it happens to be a beautiful time for me and my family. After doing so much healing work in my lifetime, for the last solid, you know, 10, 11 years, and all that my mom has done for herself, gave us the best experiences this year, we’ve had so much fun and I feel like all those years of healing work really paid off.

Candice Wu 5:50

So starting, well, coming into January 2020, a friend asked me, so where are you traveling next? And I said, No, I don’t want to travel. I have no plans to travel. I don’t want to leave, I’m happy and I’m still a little bit tired from last year and the years, the two years I had moved around in different places in the world. And then January 8, specifically, January 8, two days before the lunar eclipse, January 10, I felt a strong impulse and desire to travel again. And I felt like I wanted to be in another world. I felt like the world that I wanted to be in was one of sensuality, sexuality, pleasure, surrendering to my soul and what calls me and following the flow of what my heart craves, and what my body is saying yes to and moving towards. So, I am going to Mexico.

Candice Wu 7:04

I wasn’t so scared until someone close to me said that they were deeply scared for me and wanted someone to go with me and I just freaked out. And then I went into all sorts of research to figure out how I’m going to travel.

Candice Wu 7:22

What’s been really important for me is to discern what is the media’s inflation of fear-based on projection, based on the fact that we have our own shadow parts, the country of the United States has their own shadow that they don’t want to look at, and we can distract from what’s not going well here, what’s unsafe here in our own land, by looking at what’s going on in other countries. Of course, there are dangerous things happening all over the world. I’m really encouraged by several women that have traveled the world and women that travel to many places that speak to safety and speak to different themes around the world that unite us.

Candice Wu 8:09

The first black woman to travel the world is Jessica Nabongo. She’s actually from Detroit, and was on a TED talk in Detroit. And she traveled 195 countries, 89 of those which she’s traveled alone. She speaks to how we assume people are bad people because we don’t know them and we’re encouraged to keep people at an arm’s length. And it makes people feel justified to keep guns and to treat people as something to be feared. And we mostly distrust people based on appearance, race, nationality, and religion. And what she has found is that the world is our neighborhood, and the home is in the people.

Candice Wu 8:52

So she speaks of the world being our neighborhood, in terms of online and offline, the online neighborhood that we create in Social media and also the neighborhood of our earth. And the first woman to travel all countries, so all 196 countries, and she was the fastest person and the fastest female to travel all those countries, and that’s Cassie De Pecol. She did it in 2015 and it took her 18 months and 10 days, and she now talks about peace and how to create more peace and sustainable travel. And she noticed a common thread too, that most people have the same needs. We’re all the same people, she said, and we all want a loving family and that brought her to start to respect other people more.

Candice Wu 9:48

And who inspired me even more powerfully was the youngest person to travel the world by 21 years old, that’s Lexie Alford, and after about 100 countries, the places became so obscure that people stopped wanting to go with her. And in her TED Talk, she spoke about our comfort zones, and getting out of our comfort zone and how much that has lost its meaning, what does it really mean? And that we may be having the wrong conversation about getting out of our comfort zone.

Candice Wu 10:22

Her idea was that we’re sugarcoating fear and how fear, if we defined it or break it down in between our physical, emotional, and spiritual selves, then we can really look at what it is that we’re fearing, and where it comes from and feel the correlation between our comfort zone and body, mind, and soul.

Candice Wu 10:46

She speaks to how fear has played a major role in the defining moments that she’s experienced. And those include: getting malaria in Africa, West Africa, having public anxiety attacks and other experiences that are less than desirable.

Candice Wu 11:02

And as she shared this, I just began to cry. I didn’t know exactly why, but it really touched something in me. And as I sat with it longer, what I felt was this restoration of trust and my own willingness to be in discomfort, to follow myself and to follow what I need to do in this life.

Candice Wu 11:26

She spoke to one of my fears, which is physical danger, either being robbed, or raped or attacked in some way and maybe killed. And she said that in all of her travels, she was only in physical danger at one time and it was in Yemen.

Candice Wu 11:43

One night she heard gunshots and it lasted for some amount of time. She worried that she potentially be kidnapped. At some point, it all stopped and she cried herself to sleep and the next day, she spoke with her one contact in that country, and that person said, Oh, that? That was just a wedding party, because they shoot guns to celebrate. And so for her, it was only scary because she didn’t fully understand the culture.

Candice Wu 12:14

I love her final question in her TED Talk. How uncomfortable are you willing to become to reach your fullest potential? And that really nailed it for me. It brought it home as to why I was crying. It was a release of past fears and sadness. It was bringing me back and restoring me into a deeper knowing and trust that does live inside, underneath the fear. The trust in myself that this is what I meant to do and the right timing and right place will be everything. If I can tune in, and to a great deal, allow pleasure as my compass, allow my body to be the narrator of what I need to do and what I need to walk towards, and walk away from.

Candice Wu 13:09

In all of the countries that I visited, which are far less than 195 or 96, I would say, maybe 20, I’ve only felt physical danger, could have been imminent one time, but it was a kind of light fare. That was when I landed in Sri Lanka and I made a few mistakes. I was kind of naive and didn’t even think twice about my own safety.

Candice Wu 13:38

I was about 27 years old, and I had enrolled in this homestay program where I would teach Buddhist monks English. It was a two-week program, and I would stay with this host family. I landed in Colombo, the capital and it was 11:30 pm, dark. So while I’m on the plane, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that I’ve not even thought about that I’m entering the country in the dark and my host family said that a man would be picking me up and bringing me to a nearby hotel. And then the next morning, we would take the three-hour drive to Gal, which is on the coast. This is the coast where the tsunami hit in 2004.

Candice Wu 14:29

So I just trusted that and so here I am in the plane and suddenly fearing this because I don’t speak Sinhala or Tamil, the main languages in Sri Lanka. Luckily, I had been conversing with this man sitting next to me on this trip from Hong Kong to Colombo, and he was Sri Lankan and he spoke Sinhala and I just begged him and said: “Please. Can you help me? I just realized that I’m nervous about who’s picking me up. Can you just talk to this man and make sure that I’m not going to be in danger and that I’m going to get safely to my hotel room.” And he did so, and I just trusted that he did that, because it was all in another language.

Candice Wu 15:22

And I took the ride alone to this hotel, and I checked in, it was completely quiet. Nobody was sitting at the reception desk, we had to call somebody to arrive to check me in and the driver left. And so I’m getting checked into my room by this young man who seems to be a teenager, and I locked the door behind me, so I’m still doing fine. But then I just thought, who has the key because it’s this outdoor door entrance and could someone just come in during my sleep.

Candice Wu 15:59

I get up a phone call about an hour later and it surprised me because it had already been about midnight and why was I getting a phone call at 1 AM? The boy that had checked me in said, “Miss, do you want some water?” And I said, “No thank you. I’m fine.”

Candice Wu 16:16

Somehow I managed a few hours of sleep probably in the earlier mornings of the night, with the lights on, my luggage sitting on top of a chair pushed up against the door. And when I got into the van that was meant to take me to this host family, there were some Canadians sitting in the car. And for me, that was a relief at that moment just because I had scared myself so much and this was so unknown to me in the dark.

Candice Wu 16:45

I got to the host family and there were several, different young people from different countries visiting and staying with them and also volunteering.

Candice Wu 16:56

One woman that I became friends with for many years after and still now, she had told me a little story that at the hotel, she had someone come to the door, knock on the door while she was there and bring water to her and asked her if she wanted it. And she said, “Sure.” And he said, “Where should I put it?” And she said, “On the table’s fine.” So he comes in, puts the water down, and he closes the door, and she says, “What are you doing?” And he said, “You invited me in. So can we get in your bed or, should we get in your bed?” And she was like, “No!” And she asked him to leave and he ended up leaving. And I come to find out later through her that if you’re inviting a man into your room, that is sometimes considered an invitation for sex.

Candice Wu 17:53

So, I am glad that I did not accept the water and I’m glad that I survived that night and I did learn some things about how to prepare a little bit better and when is a safer time for me in my ability to sense my surroundings? Yeah, daytime, Candice. And I probably would have asked more questions to my host family about who would be picking me up and how things would go so that I just felt more prepared and could feel settled and then use my instincts and be aware in other ways that I couldn’t be because I was so scared.

Candice Wu 18:33

Other than that, I’ve only had one other time in Vietnam that I was scared. I was with my boyfriend at the time and we were catching a bus from a more rural area back to Hanoi. And the hotel said just stand across the street and wait for the bus, you’ll see it and there’s no bus stop or anything. We’re just standing on the street. So we get on the first bus that stops for us. Several had passed by and said no or not, you know, no. And it appeared that they were not going to Hanoi. And so this bus picks us up and it’s like a party bus. It’s the most unique bus I’d seen anywhere in the world. It’s like flatbeds. So you can lie down, and they’re layered and stacked on top of each other. And you have to take your shoes off because they want to keep it clean. And there are these, like, glow lights on the inside that are flashing.

Candice Wu 19:29

And so we get on this party bus, take off our shoes, we climb into the back, and we’re playing chess on my iPad, suddenly, and I had been tracking with my google maps that I had downloaded. Suddenly, I have a man almost in my face pointing at me saying, “You! Hanoi!”, and gesturing to get off the bus. And I think that they had been yelling Hanoi and sending people off. But I insisted on staying on as I was checking my google maps and noticing that we were not in Hanoi, we were only halfway there. I’m not getting off the bus and my boyfriend’s off the bus. So they’re telling me to get off and he’s off.

Candice Wu 20:13

So I felt like I had to get off. And I grabbed my stuff fumbling to get my shoes on, while I’m walking over to this smaller bus that they’re directing us to. I’m the last one on and I’m shoved in and the door closes on my butt. And I look around me, people are filled up in the seats, sitting all over the ground, on the steps. And there’s one man who has a bloody face, like he had been struck in several places. So that freaked me out.

Candice Wu 20:48

And I’m trying to talk to the men that ushered us onto this bus and they don’t speak English, and I don’t speak Vietnamese, so I’m using Google Translate. I asked why did we get on this bus? And he said, something wrong with the other bus, is what I got and gathered. And for me, that felt like a lie. And someone else on the bus said, sometimes they do this. And so, I just began to gather that it was more of a money-making scheme than anything and that bus that was a more expensive bus, the party bus, and the one we were on was really small and obviously they were cramming people in.

Candice Wu 21:33

So I didn’t stop being scared until we got closer to Hanoi, because I thought, where are they taking us? So I’m tracking it this whole time, ready to just like push my way off the bus into who knows where that would be scary too. We ended up being fine, aside from people trying to pull us off the bus so they could give us a taxi ride which I just walk straight through and try to gather myself away from the crowd of those people.

Candice Wu 22:08

Other than that I’ve never felt physically unsafe but I haven’t necessarily traveled to countries that people tend to warn others about.

Candice Wu 22:19

I stumbled upon this article in my research by Kristin Addis. She’s a woman who speaks about solo female travel. This particular article is called, We need to stop telling women they will get assaulted if they travel solo.

Candice Wu 22:34

She speaks to the fact that people of all genders can be told that you’ll be an easy victim, you’ll get robbed or killed in different countries that are more unknown, but women, more often than men are told that they will get raped. She did not speak to non-binary. She did not speak to trans and she mentioned that she would like to speak to non-binary folks In terms of travel tips, but she didn’t have the experience and spoke only to our competency.

Candice Wu 23:07

She wanted to look further into this and her research in pulling travel-focused Facebook groups, she had 1000 responses, 69% reported that they would be told that they would be raped, That’s women versus men. Again, she doesn’t seem to have any trans or non-binary or other gender identities in her experience. She mentions about how reporting data might be skewed because sometimes men don’t report.

Candice Wu 23:36

In one World Health Organization, global and regional estimate report, the number one crime was stolen passports, and that the perpetrator, being someone that the person did not know was very low. And so her conclusion was that it’s very rare to actually get raped. And while the world is not safe for women in general by traveling, this suggests that a woman’s potentially putting herself in less danger than she is when she’s at home. Because typically, rapes happen by acquaintances.

Candice Wu 24:10

She raised a bunch of really good questions, including, is it simply too threatening, whether consciously or more likely unconsciously, to see a woman going against the typical status quo and having more self-agency? Is it abnormal to see that she does not need a partner or a friend or chaperone to journey to another country with, her challenges that when a woman goes against the status quo, it triggers people’s fear of change, and that their discomfort over a life not fully lived, gets poked? And this may explain why women caution other women about the dangers of solo traveler, and that isn’t always from firsthand experience, that they bring that caution.

Candice Wu 24:53

She states that we need to ask why female autonomy is such a scary concept in modern society, and why are we continuing to undermine women. Her words are: “we are killing a budding sense of self-undermining trust, and could we support them in flourishing and trusting themselves to believe in herself and her abilities instead?”

Candice Wu 25:16

So for me, this article helped me discern that difference between what was just fear living there that is unwarranted, and what is the reality based on what some facts are, as well as the reality that I do have instincts and that I can do things to keep myself safer, and that I can sense good connections most of the time and nourish those connections.

Candice Wu 25:49

And a friend of mine who’s from Mexico said that people are very loving and community-oriented. They’ll look out for you if you nourish those relationships and speaking a little bit of Spanish goes a long way.

Candice Wu 26:06

Another friend of mine that lives there who’s from the States, as a woman of color, also just feels like she focuses on nourishing connection. And of course, she does things to make sure she’s not putting herself in danger. But she doesn’t really think about it. And she’s in San Miguel de Allende.

Candice Wu 26:27

As people, we have basic, instinctual, and intuitive, and energetic abilities. We have those gifts that help us, the body wisdom and intelligence that says, “Oh, this doesn’t feel right. Oh, I feel pressured in a way that doesn’t feel good. Yes, this feels great. Yes, my body says yes.” And that can be clouded by our trauma and wounds that are unintegrated, and it can be clouded by the fact that because of travel, we are more likely to override our experience. And that in our collective society, we are conditioned to override.

Candice Wu 27:14

One of the ways that I learned to not override my body’s messages is through Somatic Experiencing where when you’re working with a client, and when I’m the client, the experience that we get to decide, the client gets to decide where and how and how far and in what direction we’re sitting. And the funny thing about a therapy office, or a space, is that we often go into that space and just say, “Oh, yeah, we’re fine. And we just take what we get.” We sit where the chair is, or some people sit on the floor or lie down. I’m a floor sitter often. And even that seems to break some of the norms or what can feel socially appropriate at times. And how about asking the question: Where do you want the chairs to be? Or where do you want to be sitting? And do you want me to turn towards you or to the side or completely away?

Candice Wu 28:14

And having that preference is often a thing that some of my clients even have thought, Oh, this is weird, or no, everything’s fine. And there’s a little bit of discomfort sometimes, or, I’ve never been asked that question, and we haven’t. It’s uncommon. But if we really get to listen to our body, then we can feel, Oh, this is too close. And there’s a breath of relief when I sit at this distance and at this angle. That just helps me feel good and safe right now, and it can change. It can vary. It can be something that you work with, because you may want a different kind of contact with someone. It may be helpful to work with being in a different comfort zone so to say. And yet, it’s extremely helpful to notice what your body says right now and to not override that need, or that preference.

Candice Wu 29:16

And I transferred that to all different areas of my life, where I prefer to place my things in my room, in my space, letting the timing of my body happen more organically rather than pressuring and pushing and glossing over the message of my body that says, wait just a little longer. Or, now, let’s go now.

Candice Wu 29:43

And a lot of times when we are having some parts of our nervous system in a frozen state where something happened in our lives that was overwhelming or traumatic, there wasn’t enough resource to deal with including time, loving, compassionate support, or it was a dangerous situation, our body can go into an overwhelmed state that paralyzes us and shuts us down like playing dead. If you want to learn more about that, there’s an episode at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm, that speaks specifically to tonic immobility and what happens in that state, as well some experientials to support you in coming out of it.

Candice Wu 30:28

If there are parts of us that are in a frozen state, then we may not act when we need to, we may not run away or walk in the other direction when we do sense danger, we may not even sense the danger, because some of our faculties are turned off in order to protect based on the past experience, based on the fact our body already doesn’t feel completely safe.

Candice Wu 30:55

So for me, as I prepare one of the biggest things I’m going to do and I’m doing right now is cultivating where in my body do I sense when something is feeling good? What are the cues? Is it my breath? Is it a release in my muscles? Sometimes my genitals will speak. It’s like there’s an opening and a yes or a closing up and constriction, no. And for me it is a yes or no, the maybe typically means no.

Candice Wu 31:31

Someone once told me if it’s not an obvious guess, it’s a no. And that’s really helped me a long way. When my body says yes, I feel uplifted and excited. And once in a while, I’ve felt too excited, like over the moon. Oh my goodness. Yes, this is everything and sort of this idealized excitement and connection. And that’s one of my warning signs because in some of my early attachment relationships, specifically with my father, I experienced some more narcissistic empath dynamics and experience where my father would give me this loving attention at some points, and then it was painful and destructive at other points, and emotionally violent.

Candice Wu 32:28

So there’s a part of me that can get attracted by that sparkly energy, that charming energy that usually also asks more of me, and I’m willing to give and there’s something that bites me. So if I get too excited, too happy, like over the moon, then I know that I need to slow down and just feel into the deeper energy and which part of me, is it my younger self that’s craving this loving attention, that gives me some sense of worthiness, and I’ve long worked on that part of me and yet it can still show up here and there, in little pockets, debris.

Candice Wu 33:14

A friend of mine mentioned that when she senses that someone is reaching out to her in scarcity, from a place of scarcity, needing something from her, wanting her energy, wanting any material from her, perhaps also, that she feels like she wants to put something in front of her body, and she’ll instinctively put her hands there, put a bag or something that she has with her, right in front of herself, and that’s one of her cues to know that this may not be an interaction she wants to continue with.

Candice Wu 33:48

So this last chunk of the episode is going to be on some of the more practical tips and tools that I’m going to use on my travel and I didn’t use all these in Thailand and when I went to other countries, a few of them, but this time around, I did a more comprehensive look at what other people are doing to support themselves, besides using your instincts, trusting your senses, but what other mechanisms, so let’s jump into that.

Candice Wu 34:25

Alright, so we are now a couple of days later from when I first began recording this podcast episode. It’s interesting because typically I go all the way through the episode whenever I do an episode, and this one I just had to take a little break and a lot has happened between the first chunk and this chunk. I feel like a whole other person in some ways. And some of that feeling in me has also affected how I’m seeing my trip and I’m building a lot more confidence and just feeling more comfortable. Ready to go. Excited.

Candice Wu 35:01

My trip is coming up in about a week and a half, two weeks now. And at this point, I do have my tickets, my flight tickets into Mexico City. And I’m going to spend about a week there. And then I plan to meet a friend in Oaxaca. We may go together from Mexico City to Oaxaca, so I’m really excited about that. This is a dear friend of mine and I’m super thrilled about two apps that I use that a friend told me about, one’s called Hopper. And it’s this app that tells you when is a good time to buy your flights. I use that a little less frequently now because that one doesn’t quite give me the best flight rates. But it does sometimes give me a sense of when to buy and when not to buy, when to wait a little bit. It creates predictions about when the best time to buy your flight tickets would be.

Candice Wu 35:59

The other app that I love is called Skiplagged. And that shows just the best flights it can find in general, but also shows you where you can take a flight and get off at the connecting flight stop instead of the landing destination and that’s often cheaper. So for example, say you want to fly from Detroit to LA, if you buy that ticket, then you can just get off at LA, as long as you only take a carry on bag with you and make sure that pack fits on the flight. And then you just leave the other leg of the flight, and you’re where you want to be, and it’s usually a lot cheaper.

Candice Wu 36:41

Of course, airlines don’t like that, but I have found that if I look at Skiplagged and then go on to the site itself, I can find that flight or I can book right through Skiplagged if I want to do that in an easier way. I don’t always find the app that easy though. Sometimes it creates an error message. So none of these websites that I’m listing, I have any affiliation with, it’s just me sharing some resources that I use personally. So I get no money from them or anything. It’s just something I recommend to all my friends and family.

Candice Wu 37:16

So now when I share with you all the things on my list that I’m doing, and also remember to bring with me on my trip, I don’t always use everything on this list. But I thought that in case any of you are out there and are going to be traveling solo or even with a group, if you want to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to support your own safety and play it smart, as well as giving yourself the best chance you can to have a great experience of connection with the people, with the culture and place.

Candice Wu 37:51

So some of these travel tips include bringing a doorstop alarm, and I just learned about this. I never used this before and at some point, I may not use it but I’m going to bring it just to feel a little safer. I think it would have helped me feel comfortable while I was in Sri Lanka, where I stacked my luggage on chairs against the door. So it’s an alarm that rings at 120 decibels and it hurts your ears if it gets tripped. And so you put it behind the door and if the door opens, when you don’t want it to or when that doorstop alarm is on, then, of course, it will ring, also have a little handheld personal alarm in case you want to use that while I’m out or walking or in a situation that I might want to have just something extra. And that’s also an alarm that rings at 120 decibels. I’ve tried it and with earplugs on, I can hear a loud noise and without your plugs in it hurts my ears and it’s dangerous for your eardrums. So that’s interesting. I

Candice Wu 39:04

It’s a good idea to take up some personal self-defense classes and to just brush up whenever you feel like your body might need to build that body memory again. And I’ve recently taken a couple of private lessons. One was just unarmed self-defense. To me, I would describe it as offensive defense. It is teaching my body how to not defend but to attack if I feel like I’m in danger, that kind of danger. The second lesson I took was on sharp weapons and I basically learned the same movement for use with several different small sharp weapons. But, I am primarily most comfortable with a pen. And there’s this particular pen that my teacher told me about that I did order and it’s a very sharp pen. It’s not one of those clickable ones. It’s one that is with a cap, but you just leave the cap off, you empty the ink out if you’re going to be pinning it to your body or something or putting it in your purse, or some bag you have. And you can even walk around with it and most people don’t even think about a pen being dangerous or that you might defend yourself with a pen. If it’s a clickable pen, then that pen can retract and break. They’re pretty weak. And this one is super sharp and very strong. Hopefully, I never have to use that but it does give me even more confidence if I do have to be in a situation or end up in a situation that’s dangerous or where I feel unsafe. I will link some of these products in my show notes, the ones that I’ve gotten so that you can see if these are right for you. And I definitely recommend taking self-defense classes.

Candice Wu 41:01

I like to bring an extra lock in case I need to lock my things in a locker or in some sort of space.

Candice Wu 41:08

On my first international trip ever, my father who is a pretty savvy traveler and is very focused on safety, told me to put my money in my socks. And that has served me at times just to spread my money out so that in case I get robbed or something falls out that I have a safe place and if you’re wearing pants, you can tuck your money in your socks and then put your pant leg over that of course, and don’t bring out that money in a public place where everyone’s watching you, of course.

Candice Wu 41:44

Some people recommend bringing a decoy wallet, especially to places that muggings happened more often, where you can just hand someone credit cards and a little bit of cash or even the whole wallet and they may be satisfied with that and leave you alone.

Candice Wu 42:02

One website that I was looking at suggested using a plastic tampon applicator to store your money in. And I don’t think that would work for men or people who don’t look like they’re female who knows maybe. But for women and non-binary folks out there that look appearance-wise, like they might be using tampons, that might work and most people won’t bother looking at your tampon or wanting to grab it.

Candice Wu 42:36

I always take copies of all my important documents, my passport, as well as take pictures of my electronics and important items and either email that to myself or store that somewhere that I can access even if something is stolen, especially the serial numbers. You want to make sure that you have a copy of those somewhere in case you need to make a report.

Candice Wu 43:00

I always like to get a local SIM card, especially because I spent a lot of time in the country, usually when I’m somewhere, and I use a lot of data when connecting with my clients. But most phone companies in the US offer something that can be International. If you’re a TMobile user like me, then it offers a small amount of data almost everywhere, at least everywhere I’ve gone. But it hasn’t been enough to sustain a long period of time. So getting a local SIM and researching how you can get one, researching where you can get one and what the plans are, can be really helpful so that you’re not doing that research when you get there. And of course, buying the SIM card at the airport is always more expensive.

Candice Wu 43:52

I like to download maps from Google Maps. If you download it in advance, you don’t have to use data and you can still use Google search. And using that Google Maps is super helpful when you’re transiting somewhere and you’re taking an Uber or you’re taking a taxi or some other way of transportation, you can see if your drivers going in the right direction.

Candice Wu 44:21

When I was in Vietnam, I noticed the driver was taking a whole loop in a roundabout way to get us to the destination. And I kept telling him, I tried to translate it on Google Translate, which is the next tip I have, download a translation tool and Google Translate is super easy.

Candice Wu 44:42

So I was using Google translate to tell him you’re taking us too far, and you’re taking us the wrong way. And he kept insisting that the roads were closed the other way. I wasn’t convinced because there were several other roads that it seemed we could take on the map, and he still took this really long route. So, by the time that I had told him and insisted that he listened to me a couple of times, I noticed that he turned towards the direction we were supposed to go. And so it is really helpful to pay attention to where you’re getting driven and to use the maps that you downloaded.

Candice Wu 45:22

So I already mentioned a translation tool like Google Translate. Speaking the language goes a long way if you can just speak a little bit. It’s a respectful thing to do and people tend to be a lot warmer to you and want to help you if you are trying to speak the language and respecting it, doing it in a way that is earnest and kind.

Candice Wu 45:48

Some other random tips are to check the windows and all the doors when you arrive at a location like an Airbnb or a hostel, or some sort of stay. Sometimes windows have been left unlocked, and people have their things stolen.

Candice Wu 46:07

The editor of this podcast, Chris Spiegl mentioned that there are some people that even go as far as using this sort of metal netting around their belongings and locking it. And I have read that it’s important to lock things in your safe, or in some way, even when you’re there if you’re in locations that people tend to steal things. Don’t say that you’re alone if you are alone when you’re in transit, or when you’re just talking to random people, unless you truly trust that person, and you have your instincts on board. You might say that you have a partner at the hotel or someone is meeting you. A friend is taking a nap and you’re going to head back to see them. Anything that says that you’re not really alone.

Candice Wu 47:03

If you take a taxi, you can take a picture of the license plate, you can also take a picture of their ID. Usually, that should be posted somewhere inside of the taxicab or behind the seat. I recommend taking Ubers if you can because there’s tracking on Uber and there is a company behind that. So there’s just a little extra measure of safety there.

Candice Wu 47:28

If you take a picture of the taxi license or the person’s ID, you can send it to a friend and let them know that you’re in a cab and that you’re on your way somewhere and then text them as you arrive. Know where your embassy is. Look it up before you arrive and put that somewhere that you can access it even just to know the basics of where it is, like, which city it’s in can really help you feel more confident and get you that information more quickly if you do need it.

Candice Wu 48:05

Find the emergency numbers of the area, there is a link on my show notes to an international list of emergency numbers.

Candice Wu 48:14

Know the scams and the typical crimes of the area and that can support you and just keeping your eyes open all the way around you 360 so that you’re aware and that can really protect you.

Candice Wu 48:30

I like to plan the first couple of nights at least, and at the very least the first night and I don’t like to arrive in the dark, as you can hear in my original story about Sri Lanka I did that naively and didn’t even think about it and learn the hard way. So arriving with plenty of daylight can just feel a lot easier to navigate everything, especially if you’re going to an Airbnb or a hotel and you’ve never been there. It could be in an obscure location and you just don’t know or could be in a place and who knows what is in that area.

Candice Wu 49:10

Reach out to friends in the area. If you have friends of friends that might be someone you meet with depending on how long you’re staying in that location, and nurse any support that you get and receive if you are staying for a short period of time, and there are local people that you see at a restaurant or along the way continually, it’s great to try to use their language and talk to them, say hello, do anything that you can do to cultivate those relationships because people tend to want to look out for others. Of course, that depends on the location, and if you look into the cultural expectations, cultural etiquette of the location, that’s really important too.

Candice Wu 50:00

I think it’s in Thailand, that there are these beautiful gates and doorways. And if you step on the beam, the wooden beam that’s about a couple of inches above the ground, when you go through the doorway, it’s really disrespectful. So just knowing things like that in advance, can support you in building the connections that will keep you safe and support you along the way. Who knows what kind of support you’ll need?

Candice Wu 50:36

Know that you can say no, for your safety, no matter what. You don’t have to listen to someone telling you about a deal about a travel trip. You don’t have to indulge someone in their conversation with you. These are all just really basic tools and tips of safety and you can apply that as you travel and just remember that because sometimes when we land in a place, we can feel a little disoriented.

Candice Wu 51:05

A few more tips, it’s always helpful to get travel insurance and you can get that yearly. It’s a lot cheaper than just doing it per trip. But if you only travel once a year, you might try per trip. And with travel insurance, that usually also covers medical evacuation. And for me, I like it too, just in case I need to get home because of some medical issues.

Candice Wu 51:30

I also like to go to my bank and get some local currency, the place that I’m arriving into, and it’s not always the best rate, it probably is like getting money at the airport, but it feels better to me to have a little bit in my pocket so that I can just get out into where I need to go and have a bite to eat and all that.

Candice Wu 51:52

Let your bank know that you’ll be traveling so that your credit cards and your debit cards work. At Chase Bank, they even have a travel notification place that you can enter where you’re traveling just on the app so it’s super easy.

Candice Wu 52:09

Also, there’s a registry with the United States government that you can let them know where you’re going abroad and for how long so that in case something happens to you abroad, that they can alert your family. I’m not sure totally about how good it is to be on a list like that in terms of the benefits and the disadvantages and what those lists are used for, but of course, the United States does have a record of where you’re going anyway because you’re using your passport to leave. So I figure that it’s just one other measure, in case anything happens.

Candice Wu 52:51

And of course, as I spoke about several times in this podcast, develop your instincts, people say all the time, trust your instincts. Pay attention. But how do you do that? And how do you do that effectively?

Candice Wu 53:05

So work with your own body, in sensing how you know that you feel safe. When you feel safe if you even imagine it or think about your own safety right now a tiny felt safe, what happens in your body? What do you experience? When you’ve noticed feeling in danger, whether that’s a bit of emotional danger or physical danger? What happens in your body to tell you to give you that cue that something’s not right, that you need to run? That you need to say no or that you need to yell? How does your body tell you? And if you’re building that relationship with your body regularly than when you’re on travel, or you’re in a location by yourself that you’re not quite sure about, you can rely on yourself, you can go deeply within your body and check-in.

Candice Wu 54:02

When we have had previous trauma, we don’t always have our instincts online, we’re not always able to use our awareness in a way that reflects the present moment. Sometimes we can have a big startle response when one isn’t needed. Or, we may stand there in a frozen paralyzed state, when we actually need to run or yell or hit or move. And what I found in taking those self-defense private lessons is that a lot of frozen energy, a lot of energy of being paralyzed and overwhelmed, playing dead, moved out of my body.

Candice Wu 54:42

Using Somatic Experiencing and other types of trauma healing, have helped me incredibly in restoring all of the responses of my body and a present and alert awareness that is calm when it’s safe, as well as an alert when I’m not quite sure. Or, when I hear things, see things, feel things, that may tell me that I’m in danger or something’s not right.

Candice Wu 55:15

Another thing to take note of is that if you have a big jetlag, that when you arrive, you might be more disoriented, your body might feel ungrounded, you might be tired, that can really affect your body in terms of staying alert. So really plan for that first day upon arrival and you can also practice this meditation that I have in Episode 28. It is called Calibrating Earth and Sky within Prana and Apana Tantric meditation. That’s on the episode with nature. Nature as support and medicine.

Candice Wu 55:59

And in that meditation, we are connecting with the earth wherever you are as well as the sky. So wherever you land, if you do this meditation when you land, at some point when you get to safety, a safe place, and groundedness, then doing this meditation can support you in routing into the energy of the place that can help your body feel more grounded and centered. It can help you adjust to the temperature, the culture, the whole sense of the area, and can help with jetlag.

Candice Wu 56:38

I’ve also found that doing some Yoga, when I arrived is really helpful as well as on the plane and putting your legs up the wall. A Yoga pose that you can lie down on the floor, put your legs straight up the wall, that helps to ground the body as well and to help with jet lag so that you’re more in line with the time zone. There are a small handful of other things I do for jet lag and I won’t talk about them here. But if you do need tips for that, feel free to reach out to me anytime. You can find me on my website Candicewu.com.

Candice Wu 57:18

So all these tips, I hope that some of these support you if you’re traveling, and maybe if you live in a city and you haven’t felt safe, maybe those things can help you too. I think it’s really important to look at the places where we’re fearful and to sense into what exactly is the core of that fear. And that can be a piece of trauma healing work. That can be some belief sets that come up, can be projections. It can be ideas and perceptions about others and our self that are not true and are ready for reexamination and healing. So traveling gives these really wonderful opportunities to do that and I recommend doing that.

Candice Wu 58:06

Coming back full circle for me from this place where I freaked out about my safety and was really scared to looking at what beliefs are there, looking at where does this come from and why am I this scared. And coming back to this place where I feel more connected to my body, to my instincts, my intuition, to trusting myself, it’s so restoring, and I’m really excited about this trip.

Candice Wu 58:34

And by the time this podcast is out and you’re listening to it right now, I will likely be getting ready to go. So I’ll give you some updates along the way. So pay attention in the next couple of weeks because I will be sharing how my experiences, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions and thank you so much for listening in today.

Candice Wu 58:59

I encourage you to pass this along to anyone that you know that might be supported by this episode, especially if they’re traveling or living abroad solo and need some support for that first time or are going to some new place that’s giving them a different internal experience.

Candice Wu 59:21

Thanks so much for joining me today and if you want to stay connected with episodes, with experientials and meditations that come out, as well as self-love notes and events, sign up for my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody. Be sure to check out that Death experiential. If you want to cleanse something out or if you’re feeling heavy and stuck inside depressed or anxious, or just want to get some sense of your next steps in life. That’s at CandiceWu.com/death. Wishing you all the self-love and worthiness as well as an intuitive connection with your body. Take care and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This is an experiential that supports you in having time on your side. We’re going to play with time in our imaginations to trick our bodies into feeling like we either have more time or something happens for less time so that we can feel more complete and balanced right now.

Candice Wu 0:21

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.

Candice Wu 0:35

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 0:56

Welcome back to the Embody Podcast, it’s wonderful to have you here. I wanted to offer this brief episode to share with you this trick that I like to use with my clients, with myself with anyone that needs a little bit of support in using time to their advantage. If you like the experiential on traveling into the past and the future, to strengthen your present-day self in Episode 105, then you might like this one. You can find that episode at CandiceWu.com/ep105. And of course, if you’re just tuning in, and you want to skip right to the experiential, feel free to click to the chapter of this episode where the experiential begins, and that’s noted in the time markers in the show notes and in this episode.

Candice Wu 1:49

So often, I find myself fighting against time and it’s really just created more suffering in the present. So, I don’t have enough time. I am too busy for x, y&z. When I have time, I’ll rest or I will do this or that. And when it comes to things that our body needs — our heart, soul and body and energy — it needs rest. It needs integration. It needs to be able to move through our emotions. I have felt like I could just sleep for days or months or I really wish I could sleep for like a year. I’ve also heard words come up from myself and others, like, I feel like I would cry forever if I started or that I would need to cry for days, months, will this ever stop?

Candice Wu 2:54

So, when you wish for more or less time around your experience in your emotional and spiritual being, as well as your physical being, this experiential might be for you. When our mind can focus on an idea and even picture it or sense into it, then our body doesn’t really know the difference between it happening or not. On one hand, our awareness knows that it’s not real, it’s our imagination, but we can use our imagination as an ally, and that can support us with having time on our side. So, as you jump into the experience and try it out, feel free to apply it to any sort of time aspect that you’re struggling with or that you would like more benefit from and play with how you use it.

Candice Wu 3:46

So, let’s begin really, basically and simply by just beginning where you are, feeling a couple of breaths, in and out. We just begin to open the witnessing parts of ourselves, observing our breath going in and out. Notice whatever your mind is thinking about. Notice your emotions. Notice any body sensation that you’re aware of, and just how it has to be in your body right now.

Candice Wu 4:38

Now, connect with any sense of struggle with time that you have. Some of my own examples include wishing I had more time to rest, needing to sleep for decades, fearing I would cry forever or feel angry forever, whatever uncomfortable emotion that you might be experiencing that feels like it would just stay for a long time. So, whatever the words are or the sense is, notice that as we begin.

Candice Wu 5:31

Notice what happens in your body as you feel the words that you don’t have time or you wish you could sleep for months, that you need an hour to rest and you only have five minutes. However, this comes to you now.

Candice Wu 6:01

Now, this is where we play with time. Whatever it is that you wish could happen with time. Imagine that happening. Whether that’s visualizing it if you can picture this experience or thinking about it, putting your attention on it, and sensing into time going by, for as long as you need, let’s begin doing that.

Candice Wu 6:31

So, for example, if you wish for more time to rest, imagine yourself resting right now just the way you would need to rest or sleeping just the way you need to sleep or instead, you might imagine an activity, an activity that you really want or need to do for a length of time, for example, I love being with horses and I just feel like I cannot get enough, enough time and enough experience with them. And that’s something you can imagine here, an activity that you just really love or need more time with, and to notice how that feels in this experience or if it’s that you’re crying or sad or angry or some emotion that feels like it could last to infinity or for days, imagine that kind of emotion expressing itself and how it would be if it just expressed itself in the right way for you.

Candice Wu 7:52

So, whether it is your resting or sleeping or bawling or raging with anger, however, those feelings and emotions want to express, imagine that happening for this whole day or however long it needs to. And then another day if it needs that, feel free to imagine the days turning into weeks or months. The timing all depends on just how long your body and your soul senses it needs in terms of whatever you need to experience.

Candice Wu 8:47

Imagine the fullest expression or the deepest sleep or rest in the perfect way for you, and if it’s only a short amount of time, like an hour, a day, feel free to just slow that down so that your body can really integrate it in this couple of minutes that we’re working with this. And if it’s longer, if it goes into years, decades, centuries, even infinity, let that happen at the pace that feels right for you mentally as you picture or sense or touch into that experience that needs to happen for that long.

Candice Wu 9:52

And as you sense, it’s beginning to move towards completion or that you’re ready to transition from inside of your mind’s eye with whatever you’re experiencing. Sense the quality of your rest or sleep or your activity coming to a close and the feeling that you have as you know that it’s enough, and then feel all the way through the experience of it ending, whether that’s an activity or an emotion or whether that’s your sleep and you’re waking up, and notice what it would give you if you had that whole amount of time to experience this. What does it feel like on that end of things? And as you feel this, feel this in your body right now, noticing what happens in your body in this present moment.

Candice Wu 11:32

Notice if there’s any difference and any changes inside. If you need a few more minutes or a little more real-time in order to let time pass in an accelerated way, feel free to continue on here or pause this recording so that you can take your own time, but whenever you’re ready to transition, feel free to alongside with me.

Candice Wu 12:12

And as you’re ready, you can to slowly move your body or stretch or give the body some sort of contact to support you in transitioning, to opening your eyes and sensing that you’re here in present time right in this moment, and as you look around your space and begin to orient yourself to present time, sense what’s happening inside.

Candice Wu 12:49

So, as we close today, acknowledge that this just took a couple of minutes, to be exact in our experience because of me explaining it, it took about eight minutes, but if you even have two minutes of your own time or five, even better, just spending a couple of minutes on your phone, as a timer or something, just to give a frame of time, and you can use that two minutes to play with this at your own pace. Whenever you feel, like, “Oh, it would just feel so much better if I had an hour more of rest,” well, imagine that deep rest. Sometimes, we can even feel more replenished after doing this than had we actually slept. So, feel free to play with this how it works for you, if it works for you, and thank yourself for practicing today.

Candice Wu 13:56

Thanks so much for joining me today, and if you’re interested in another experiential, playing with time and allying and with time, you can tune into Episode 105 at CandiceWu.com/ep105, which is traveling on a prism and journeying through time to connect with past moments and future selves for resource and strength, and supplying you with more strength in the present.

Candice Wu 14:30

It’s been great having you here. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00

This is an experiential to transcend time in order to support yourself in the present day with your past and future self-traveling on a prism, journeying through time to find resources as well as to see what kind of support your future self can bring you into the present day. I also talk about some upcoming topics for the year that I’m interested in sharing with you that are going to be on the podcast throughout this coming these coming months as well as a quick update about how I’m doing.

Candice Wu 0:37

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.

Candice Wu 0:51

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 1:12

Before we jump into the episode, I want to mention that The Ally with Death Audio Experiential that’s been on sale since December of last year is on sale through today, midnight, central time in the USA. You can buy it from anywhere in the world, but it just ends at midnight central time.

Candice Wu 1:33

This experiential is to support you in propelling yourself into the new year with integration and clarity, with a sense of curiosity and playfulness, and coming back to alignment with yourself, letting anything that’s built up through last year or the years of your life, anything that’s been triggering or ways that you’ve talked to yourself, situations that you’re just over, belief sets that have been weighing you down or feeling painful, to let these truly resolve and heal through a process of clearing the space and letting your body digest and compost what wants to transmute to give you fertile ground for this next segment of your life.

Candice Wu 2:23

It’s great for the new year and you can use it anytime once you order it. The mp3 is yours, it’s a download it’s yours forever and you can use it anytime that you’d like. I love doing it at certain times of seasonal changes or moon cycles or once a year at least so that I can just clear out what is ready to go or end, ready to shift and bring a ritual that sets me forward into vitality. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/death, and once again the sale ends today, January 6th, 2020. If you’ve missed the sale, please feel free to just go for it anyway, it’s a great offer because you do get to keep this forever.

Candice Wu 3:10

And so you know, all the proceeds go back into the podcast, all the experiential tools that are free, all the meditations, the guests, all of that is fueled by The Ally with Death Experiential as well as the other offers that I have, and just your generous support for those of you who have just decided to give some money back. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

Candice Wu 3:36

Happy New Year. It’s 2020, welcome back, it’s great to have you here with me today. Now that it is the new year, it would be a great time to use this experiential of transcending time to support yourself right now, to bring more loving to yourself, to just bring this agreement with yourself that gives you your own full support. Just a few updates with me of December was a lot of anger and grief moving through my body, and over the last six months, a couple of astrologers had told me that a lot of planetary transits would be happening near and with Venus. I’m not an expert myself, but it made sense when they shared it with me, and what that has brought is a lot of rage, a lot of anger through my body, a lot of grief. It really reminded me of some of the forest fires that were happening in different parts of the world that was like a spiritual fire clearing out stuff in my body and getting every last bit and while there’s pain with that, I also felt the clearing happen around solstice of December coming into this new year.

Candice Wu 5:02

Where are you? Are you in tune with your astrology? Is that helpful for you? And what have you been moving through? More and more as I’ve built a stronger relationship with astrology and connection with it, I’ve noticed how, just how true it is, but more so, how it can really help me just to stay equanimous, to stay neutral and witness through what I’m going through, just like it’s all part of it. So, basically just gives me a lot more non-resistance to what I’m feeling and just knowing that it’s all moving me in the direction of myself. So, I wish that for you. I hope that whatever you’re going through, that as you’re moving through it, maybe if you can just say to yourself, “Okay, this is part of it. This is part of it.” Then what happens? How can you be with yourself and be in that alignment with what is right now, what’s happening right now? But with this greater awareness that you will move through it or that you can reach out for support to get through it.

Candice Wu 6:19

I recently, in December also did a constellation workshop with a group of healers and therapists, and we just dropped so deeply, instantly into what they were working with, and it was so great. I felt just really connected with the work, and facilitating constellations is such a powerful process for me. I feel incredibly present and seeing aware open eyes, and it did combine that with some self-forgiveness, with belief sets that were coming up for people through the constellation, through the ancestry, through how they may have perceived something or someone in the ancestry had received something, and where sometimes that can either get distorted or misplaced, where we’re holding something that someone in our lineage really experienced, and we can give it back to its original context.

Candice Wu 7:24

So, that was wonderful, and as I’ve come into this new year, I feel that pleasure is a huge focus of my experience ever since I traveled to Thailand, gosh, to over two years ago now, when I first set out, and actually the podcast was born a couple of months later. So, I first set out in 2017 November. The podcast was born in February 2018, and here we’re entering into 2020. Ever since I left for Thailand and landed there, I felt that pleasure and enjoyment, simplicity, the feeling of purposelessness, just in getting me off the hook for the things that I felt so pressured inside about. That has been where I attune myself and align myself to.

Candice Wu 8:26

So, the alignment of pleasure, aligning myself to pleasure as the guidepost for where I’m headed, what I’m doing, what I want to invest my energy in, in noticing experiences, even that feel unpleasurable, noticing where there is some pleasure or neutrality in it, finding pleasure in uncomfortable situations and feelings. That’s all been my compass pleasure. And in December, I had a sexology session with someone who’s a student of sexology session and it was incredible. It was like an erotic massage, but it held the space for exploring my sensuality and physical pleasure in ways that are supported for healing and growth rather than just experiencing like a one and done experience, it was more of a building and exploratory session.

Candice Wu 9:36

Alignment with pleasure really helps me be safe in my body in a lot of ways to feel a new level of safety. Even just noticing what’s around me that looks pleasurable and allowing my body to integrate, seeing that thing in my space or outside or noticing wherever I find a pleasure sensation in my experience like drinking a cup of tea and feeling that or noticing how it feels to connect with a loved one and really taking it in while it’s happening, knowing that I’m safe, inviting more pleasure into my life for my body, embracing it and feeling the right to pleasure. All of that has supported me in being in my body and really enjoying it.

Candice Wu 10:32

So, this year, as we set forth into another year of the podcast, we’re over a hundred episodes now and coming up on our two-year birthday, two years in February. We want to invite a lot of pleasure into this process and a lot of topics on pleasure. So, BDSM, sexuality, where the genitals and other pleasure centers are waking up. Pussy, polyamory, ethical non-monogamy, other sources of sensuality, the experience of embodied autonomy, and sovereignty, and then other topics that I’ve been interested in and are going to bring forward, I’m going to bring forward this year are race and spirituality as well as some hot topics, money and abundance and our relationship with money and abundance, and who knows what else will come forward? We’ll see, because when I do open to pleasure, it’s like magic happens. I can’t even fathom it before it happens, but when it does, it just feels connected to using pleasure as my compass. And I don’t mean just like the topical pleasures and the simple ones that I mentioned, but deeper ones, too. Deeper pleasures of what feels truly right to me and align to me, in my soul in my bones.

Candice Wu 12:07

So, as the new year begins, I wish that for you, too. I wish you all experience pleasure and find more and more experiences that you can experience pleasure in, no matter what it is, and noticing what that opens up in your life if it does.

Candice Wu 12:36

So, let’s jump into our topic today and our experiential. I love the idea of transcending time, using the space where time isn’t a limit, and we can move easily back into time as we know it or forward into time as we know it, but the soul doesn’t really know time, and we’ve often heard that past, present and future is one in the same or it’s all happening at one time. It’s all complete in this moment, and that may be hard to conceptualize. I know it is for me sometimes, but I do feel we have some access to who we are going to be, who we’re becoming, and what may be in the future. We do have psychic abilities or intuitive abilities that can tell us something that’s different from the now, that’s forward from now, and we do have the ability to be with things in the past no matter what amount of time has passed, sometimes things cling to us. Sometimes, experiences are not yet resolved and the soul doesn’t know time.

Candice Wu 13:56

Some people say time heals and I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. Time can help in some cases where we need a little time to process, we need time to go forward, especially where our healing process is already moving towards integration. Time can support us, but saying time as the only factor, time heals, I don’t necessarily believe that because time can amplify and layer and accumulate experiences that are painful over and over each other, especially in places of our psyche, that we didn’t have enough resource or that call for more support or that are so scary that we didn’t want to go back or we resist it for some reason. And in those cases, I don’t believe time heals at all. It just leaves something dormant or latent in us or active from the backdoor where things happen that we really do not like and we keep getting in the same situation. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you might know my take on that, that all of that is to support us in knowing ourselves more deeply in bringing us back to our safe, creative, flowing, abundant self.

Candice Wu 15:27

So, with this experiential, we’re working with our past self, only the parts that for the moment that can bring us a sense of safety and resource, and we’re working with our future self to bring support and a distanced perspective that can allow us to move with more space in the now. We can give a sense of agreement to our present-day selves, agreeing with how life is right now, and that compels us and moves us forward. So, it doesn’t mean we have to stay where we are. Agreeing with what’s happening is a full embracing and acknowledgment of what we feel and what’s happening, and that lets us be integrated and digest through what’s here so we can move forward. That’s loving ourselves through experience of the moment and appreciating the journey. And if you don’t appreciate, that’s okay. You know, noticing how you’re experiencing it. There’s no need to appreciate your journey, but we do know that acknowledging it can truly be healing and integrative.

Candice Wu 16:54

So, that’s enough of me talking. Let’s jump into the experience. I invite you to just tune into yourself and draw all of your awareness towards yourself here, all the parts of you, any parts of you in the past your thoughts or mind remaining and experiences. Invite those parts of you back to the now and into your body. Invite any part of you that’s in the future, thinking about your plans or what’s coming to sync up with your present-day self.

Candice Wu 17:40

And as you breathe, feel your spine. Feel free to give a little movement if you’d like. Stretch, if you need, just getting into the body and feeling what’s happening inside, imagining what’s happening inside, as if you could see the whole inner landscape.

Candice Wu 18:06

And feel free to sit in a comfortable position or stand however you’d like to be. You can even lie down, and I invite you now to travel on a prism, on a rainbow that comes from the prism through time and just journey into the past. Let yourself land at a time you felt okay, where you felt like yourself, affirmed in who you are or time that was pleasurable.

Candice Wu 18:52

When you land here, notice that experience. See all of the details of that experience, and it can be a simple thing, simple moment or it could be a significant or meaningful moment, it doesn’t matter. Notice what happens in your body right now as you make contact with this time in the past. Let yourself marinate into that experience as if it’s happening now.

Candice Wu 19:44

Notice your breath if there’s a deeper breath or a shift. Feel your heart, any tension around it, if that changes your emotions. Notice your senses, notice your ability to see and if there’s a different kind of clarity as you look around.

Candice Wu 20:13

Sense any shifts in your body or the ability to be more in your body. And also, notice if other emotions come up that may be wanting to move through, and from here, you can travel on that rainbow again and go to another time in the past where you felt okay or like yourself, and if you’d like to do that, feel free to pause here with the recording and take a little more time there. You can do that as many times as you want. Just going to other moments where you felt okay, where you felt pleasure, tiny little moments or big ones. And when you’re ready to jump back into this experience with us or if you’re ready now, we’ll move on to the next step.

Candice Wu 21:16

So, take an inner snapshot of what’s happening here. As you feel into where you felt like yourself or felt, okay, and take that feeling with you in your body as you hop back on that rainbow and go the other direction, and move back towards the present. Let the rainbow just take you on this ride as you travel into the future, and it doesn’t matter how far into the future you go. It doesn’t matter if you know what your future self will be or look like. Just let yourself be taken there.

Candice Wu 22:07

When you land in a spot in the future, notice how it is to be in your body here, imagining that you are your future self, and if this is challenging or not possible right now, not accessible, I’d invite you to hop on another rainbow, the double rainbow that’s right there near you. Hop on that other rainbow and distance yourself from yourself and be someone else. Be someone kind and loving, and compassionate, and that could be a person, animal or spiritual figure or any being known or unknown to you. So, it could be a total stranger.

Candice Wu 23:07

Whichever part you’re in, your future self or another being, notice how it feels here. Notice what there is to see around you in the future without any pressure or expectation or filter. Then take a look at your present-day self. Notice how are you. How is your present-day self? How are you feeling and what’s happening in your life?

Candice Wu 24:05

Acknowledge any feelings, any experiences that your present-day self is having without trying to change them. Just look at your present-day self with presence.

Candice Wu 24:35

What advice, support or wisdom do you have for your present-day self? And feel free to say those things to your present-day self now. Are there any words that your present a self needs to hear or any words to soothe or bring resolve to your present-day self? Any affection or touch that your present a self would need? And check to see if there’s anything else that you want to tell your present-day self or let them know. And when you are ready, hop back on your rainbow and journey back to the present.

Candice Wu 26:00

As you arrive there in your periphery, see your past self, the parts of you that you touched into or you felt okay or felt like yourself and your future self or that being that was kind and loving on the double rainbow, and notice how you feel now in your body, now in this place of the present.

Candice Wu 26:38

Give yourself a little moment to land here, back into your body, and just let go of the rainbow, let go of the past and future, just being right here right now. And if your eyes were closed at all, feel free to open them at your pace and look around your space. Touch your body to give it the sense that you’re here right now with yourself.

Candice Wu 27:18

Notice how your body feels now, how your emotions are, your energy state. Feel free to focus on any part of your feeling sense, your experience in your body that feels supportive, helpful, calming, empowering, any, anything that feels pleasant or even neutral, and I invite you to take that energy with you into your day, into your week, into your year. Feel free to visit your past self or your future self whenever you need any more wisdom or insight, perspective or that reminder to your nervous system and body that you can feel okay, that you can build upon that.

Candice Wu 28:32

And as you begin to transition, feel free to move your body even more if you need. Take a couple of cleansing deep breaths if you’d like to release all of that as you step forward into your day, and I’m so glad that we’re here together practicing this. I love traveling through time and using time in ways that seem to trick your logical mind that wants to run on time. And so, I invite you later in this season to check out other experientials that will offer that journey or transcend time or build upon our relationship to time.

Candice Wu 29:21

Thanks so much for joining me today, and just wishing you a lovely New Year. I hope that you take your sweet time. If you’re interested in a couple of podcasts that have already been out around time, there’s Take Your Sweet Time with Kremena Yordanova, a guest of mine who’s from Bulgaria, and is in Amsterdam, and that’s at CandiceWu.com/kremena. She brings this lovely sense of taking our sweet time to be ourselves and to let the world of our lives unfold.

Candice Wu 30:07

And there’s also a podcast episode 34 around loving yourself, how to love yourself by letting the past be over. There are a couple of experientials there, three of them actually, taking inventory on what stuck in time in your life and your soul, and psyche, in your ancestry or past life, closing a relationship that haunts you or seems to still be entangled with your energy or your emotional state and completing a chapter in the past through an embodied healing process. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/pastisover.

Candice Wu 30:55

Be sure to check out The Ally with Death Experiential if you are still interested, and if you’d like to stay informed about my book that will be coming out around our relationship with money and abundance, and healing that relationship or if you’d like self-love notes and updates about the podcast, experientials, you can sign up for my newsletter that comes out once or twice a month at CandiceWu.com/embody. And just as a quick reminder, all of the experientials and meditations are searchable on this lovely database at CandiceWu.com/meditations.

Candice Wu 31:40

Thank you so much for joining me today, and it’s so wonderful to have you here in the New Year, 2020. I hope it’s a lovely one for you where you come to know yourself more deeply and love yourself through that journey.

Candice Wu 31:54

See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:01

It all started when I saw this note on my friend’s refrigerator that said, “Brave is…” and there was a handwritten section that said, “what you have done.”

Candice Wu 0:12

Brave is what you have done. I thought that was the sweetest thing. I don’t really know what this note was referring to. But I had a feeling it was coming from love from a person who cared about my friend and was proud of her. So after I talked with my friend about it, she referred me to Shannon Weber, who I’m so excited to have on the podcast today. She talks about risking falling in love, Empathy Adventures, agility and giving and receiving, cultivating healthy dialogue with her son, reimagining our own true script for life, and how to lead instead of save people.

Candice Wu 0:53

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 1:29

This episode is brought to you by the Sound Sleep album. It’s an album of 11 healing experientials and meditations that will guide you to feeling more grounded, restful, and embodied in your life. It’s for anyone really, even if you have good sleep, it can help you feel in your body in your daily life and be more present, connected, and enjoying your life.

Candice Wu 1:55

The healing experientials bring you deeper to a way to help your nervous system, calm and deepen, and helping you look deeper into the aspects of your sleep issues, if you have any sleep issues. You can order the album at CandiceWu.com/soundsleepd and all that money goes to helping to create more podcast episodes for all to enjoy. Thanks so much for your support and I hope you enjoy it.

Candice Wu 2:28

What fun to come to a website and for it to say to you, “You found love.” That’s what you can do if you go to Loveyou2.org, you can download all sorts of beautiful love notes that are sprinkled all upon the website, such as, Note to self, I like, your happiness matters, I love you because, you’re a wonder, good luck in your honor, or brave is — like the introduction I talked about.

Candice Wu 3:07

This is the beautiful work of Shannon Weber who just brings magic and love and sprinkles that all around the world, and this is her story of how she started the love notes, and the idea that sprung from in her relationship with her children.

Candice Wu 3:26

In this episode, she also talks about missed connections and moving from disconnection to vulnerability. How to find a different way of relating when you find yourself in enmeshed — or codependent-relationship, that’s a tongue twister.

Candice Wu 3:43

Also, she talks about noticing white fragility and saviorism in all of us, with gentleness and compassion, and how boundary creates connection in other spaces in our lives, and the icing on the cake is a love note for you later in the episode, so be sure to tune into that, as well as Shannon’s explanation of Empathy Adventures and how to bridge an empathy gap. Why it’s important and why it’s interesting to develop your empathy muscles and strengthen your ability to take those adventures into vulnerability.

Candice Wu 4:20

You can find that extra “Stamp Your Passport Empathy Adventure” explanation and discussion at CandiceWu.com/shannonweber. You can also find all of Shannon’s HIV work as well as her book, Show Up Hard, and all the lovely notes that you can download at the show notes in the link as well.

Candice Wu 4:43

So now let’s jump in and meet Shannon.

Candice Wu 4:48

Shannon, I’d love to start here today by just saying something to you that I’ve seen on your love notes that you spread all around the world. There’s no one else like you.

Shannon Weber 5:02

Oh, I have goosebumps. Wow. Thank you.

Candice Wu 5:07

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Shannon Weber 5:10

What a thrill to be here.

Candice Wu 5:14

I’d love for you to share how the love notes came about and what it is for people who don’t know about it. It was delightful for me to see one on a refrigerator door of a friend of mine and ever since that, I was just like, “Who does that? Whos notes are these?” And it’s you!

Shannon Weber 5:36

It’s me!

Shannon Weber 5:38

It’s one of my favorite stories to tell, so thank you for asking.

Shannon Weber 5:42

So, when my kids were quite young, and I would travel for work, they would miss me and as it would happen, I would also sometimes miss important things in their life, which was also devastating to me. And so I started leaving these little trinkets, we called them “Jujus” a little word from my childhood, from my mom and these little trinkets and a note, and I would leave it for my three kids, and so I’d leave one for each of them. And then they could hold the little Juju in their pocket and so they have a tangible reminder of what cannot be seen, but can only be felt.

Shannon Weber 6:25

And so I would say to them, so even if I’m gone, or I’m missing, you doing that reading, that school, or I’m missing this practice or game, you can have a piece of me in your pocket. And so it was this great ritual we would have and sometimes, you know, before something that they were really anticipating or nervous about, we would get together in a circle and they would put out all their Jujus and they pick one to take with them and the other kids, and I would each tell the kid who was nervous about something, you know how we would be there with them when they were going to go do this brave thing.

Shannon Weber 7:00

So, it was this whole ritual that we had created to stay connected and to love and support each other. And so one day, they said to me, sometimes we need a piece of you even when you’re here and I felt overwhelmed by that on some level, because I already felt so stretched thin and in so many ways spent as a single parent of three young kids. I thought: I’m already giving so much and it was so curious to me because I thought I’m showing up in the best way I know how when I’m here. How is it that you could want even more of me?

Shannon Weber 7:12

And I was curious? Well, what is that? And I thought, well, maybe it’s the being able to, you know, with the Juju that they had autonomy over, you know, the choice over when they get the juju and they could take that, fixing when they needed it. And so I thought, “Oh, I want to create something like that for them.”

Shannon Weber 8:02

So even if I’m around, but in whatever way I’m not available to them and in the way that they need, they could still access that love, which ultimately what is that, it’s like that deep knowing inside of ourselves, that is reflected back to you as a kid, by your parent. But really, it’s like accessing who you are inside. Right? So in the end, is it really about me as the mom or am I this, you know, being in relationship with them, I’m this mirror of accessing that. That love —

Candice Wu 8:32

It’s a beautiful piece.

Shannon Weber 8:33

Yeah. So I made this love note then that said, “I love you” on the top, it was an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper. I love you on the top and on the bottom, these little pull tabs that said I love you too. And I put this on the fridge —

Candice Wu 8:47

I saw that somewhere.

Shannon Weber 8:48

Yeah. So I put that on the fridge. And I said, “Okay, so you said you needed a piece of me even when you’re here. Here it is, this is your take what you need love note system. It’s right there on the fridge. I’m just very pleased with myself too, that I’ve come up with the system and then that love notes sits there and they don’t touch it and I am so inside proud of myself for this clever thing I came up with.

Candice Wu 9:14

It’s so clever.

Shannon Weber 9:15

And it was such a funny thing, because I was like, “I am so proud of myself that feels so clever that I’ve come up with this system but the kids weren’t engaging with it.”

Shannon Weber 9:26

Then one day, it was early in the morning and I had woken — I love waking up early before everyone else and I walked into the kitchen and the note surprised me. It was as if the note was for me and the “I love you”, like, what came to me is it was my grandmother’s voice and she had passed on the year before. And I was so deeply touched by the experience of thinking that my grandmother was saying, “I love you” and that I could take a tab that said, “I love you too grandma” and keep it in my pocket and so I did. I took it and I kept it. I put it in the little pocket inside my purse and then it was magical for me how every time I went in my purse to get my chapstick, to get my keys, to get my, you know, my bus card, whatever, I would find that note from my grandma even now as I remember it, I feel myself tearing up.

Shannon Weber 10:24

Because it was so meaningful to have that little reminder of love and again, as I was saying about, it wasn’t really about my love for my kids or me bringing back to them their deep connection and it’s the same thing for me with my grandma.

Shannon Weber 10:41

So then, I began to wonder what it would be like to be able to share that magical experience with other people.

Shannon Weber 10:49

And so my kids and I took that original flyer, the one that says “I love you” on the top and has the “I Love You too” tabs at the bottom, we printed them and we start hanging them up around everywhere we went, on bulletin boards and on telephone poles and, you know, sneaking them in places and leaving them for other people to find.

Candice Wu 11:13

I love that.

Shannon Weber 11:15

And then from there, people started saying, they would see the love note on our refrigerator, or they would see it where we’d hung it up around town or where we ever were visiting. And they said, “You know, I want that note too. And you should start a website.”

Shannon Weber 11:29

And so then I thought, “Oh yeah, that’d be amazing.” Because I want other people to experience this feeling I’m having on both sides. I have this profound experience hanging the sign. I have also a profound experience whenever I run back into one of my love notes, and I’m surprised by it myself.

Shannon Weber 11:47

And so I created a website and put up the love notes so people could download it and print it and hang it themselves, and then share their story if they wanted to and so from there, really grew to various kinds of love note templates and different ways for people to engage in writing love notes and creating these tangible reminders. You know, again, like the Jujus I had with my kids, but what is a reminder of what cannot be seen, but can only be felt? And what are these proofs of love that we can give and receive?

Candice Wu 12:26

It’s beautiful. It’s like a network. It’s just growing of Juju.

Shannon Weber 12:31

Yes.

Candice Wu 12:32

Stemming from our hearts, who came up with the name Juju?

Shannon Weber 12:36

Yeah. I remember it somehow, a name from my mom, referring to something from her childhood, which was the word has a meaning of, it’s a treasure to you and I have that may not be a treasure to other people. I don’t know where it came from, but that was how we refer to it. So, we would have this little trinkets, you know, that I would keep as a kid in my pocket or in these little tiny purses or, you know, hide them in little boxes, and they were treasures of things that meant something to me, but may or may not be a value to other people.

Candice Wu 13:13

That’s so sweet. I love it. And it’s such a reminder of connection.

Shannon Weber 13:19

Yes.

Candice Wu 13:20

And like our need for connection to stay connected in some way, to what gives us life and love and what gives us that sense of I know who I am.

Shannon Weber 13:32

Yes, absolutely.

Candice Wu 13:34

So you’ve created an art out of loving.

Shannon Weber 13:38

Yes. The practice of what does it mean to be in the world, to love and to be loved.

Candice Wu 13:44

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 13:44

And I’m super fascinated with both sides of that. I mean, as if there are only two sides, there’s not but I’m so fascinated by the fair, you know, the exchange and how — what’s it like to play in the different spaces of giving and receiving love in the variety of ways that we can do it, and that completely fascinates me. How can I be agile in that and in what ways can that spark agility and other people to move in that space?

Candice Wu 14:18

As you’re describing that, I was thinking, as you’re describing the the flyers you made and the little tabs that said, I love you too and this now, this giving and receiving of love, I have been spending a lot of time with horses, as you might know, and others might be hearing about on my podcast too and it’s so joyful when I bring a carrot and I give it to them and they just like, they grab it and they sometimes, they stand there and nibble on it right in front of me.

Candice Wu 14:48

Other times they just like, turn their back and go crunch on it in the corner because that’s how they want to do it. But I was just thinking about that. The way that they receive that love, that gift, that’s like, they don’t need to say thank you to me, that’s their “I love you too”.

Shannon Weber 15:07

Oh, I love that.

Candice Wu 15:08

It’s like yum, I’m enjoying this.

Shannon Weber 15:10

Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:11

And they might not give me the time of day after that.

Shannon Weber 15:14

Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:14

But that’s theirs to have.

Shannon Weber 15:16

Right.

Candice Wu 15:16

So it’s just seeing them receiving it this way and seeing how I could see that in life, you know, people are just enjoying the thing I gave or the expression that I offered and even if they’re not, whatever they’re doing with it, it’s theirs to have.

Shannon Weber 15:33

What’s beautiful about that is how you do that without an expectation. And so I think that is the commonality between these two experiences we’re talking about, which I think as you say, is this metaphor for life. Because if you are showing up with the expectation around, I’m giving the carrot and this is the scripted response that I need or want from a horse, you know there goes the magic and there goes also the opportunity for you to see that metaphor for life.

Shannon Weber 16:05

I think that same thing about love and this for me, the love notes is this tangible aspect of other ways in which we love but what is it to put up the note and to have not an expectation for what comes back. What is it for me to receive from someone else without an expectation for what follows and that is such a beautiful space to be in.

Candice Wu 16:32

It’s so clean, feel so clean, like an untangled with the expectations. I know, whenever I’ve expected out of people and horses will show me it especially they tend to go away.

Shannon Weber 16:48

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:48

Like, when I expect something. They’re just like, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Shannon Weber 16:52

When it says scripted.

Candice Wu 16:53

And they walk away from me.

Shannon Weber 16:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:55

Yes. Right. It’s so pressured.

Shannon Weber 16:58

It’s true.

Candice Wu 17:00

So Shannon, what would be the love note that you would write yourself today?

Shannon Weber 17:10

Well, you know, when we were meditating, I mean, we weren’t meditating, we were giving a pause for the soundcheck for 10 seconds, but I was closing my eyes and really wanting to connect with you. I actually picked up my pen and wrote this note, and it said, “When I arrived, there’s so much light.” And I don’t know that that’s necessarily the note. Yes, anyways, that’s what comes to me is that when I sat there with all that space and wanting to be open and connected with you, I was overcome with just how much the light there is.

Candice Wu 17:47

That’s beautiful.

Shannon Weber 17:48

So maybe that’s my note to myself.

Candice Wu 17:50

Beautiful. I love it. I feel so much.

Shannon Weber 17:53

And what does it take to arrive? Right?

Candice Wu 17:56

Yeah, you speak about this in your book, Show Up Hard, about connections, and the journeys and adventures, and the concept of missed connection. I would love for you to talk about that, with this topic of what does it mean to arrive?

Shannon Weber 18:16

Oh, I love that you made that connection. That’s, great.

Shannon Weber 18:22

So in the book, I am talking about this framework for how we can show up as helpers and create connection for the purposes of helping someone in crisis or creating change, but to not burn out. And so one of the ways I talk about, that people can choose to show up in the world is through a missed connection and sometimes we think of that, or I’ve seen people taking that framework and they’re having judgment around it, “Oh, it’s a missed connection, that’s a bad thing.”

Shannon Weber 18:51

The reality is that we have a missed connection or that way of engaging in so many parts of life, that’s how we go to the grocery store, we ride the bus, we’re walking down the sidewalk, we can’t have empathetic deep connection for every single moment of our life.

Shannon Weber 19:06

In fact, you know, having that boundary creates the opportunity for us to have this deep connection in other spaces but as it relates to how do we arrive and for what I wrote to myself, which is when I arrived there so much light, is that to move from a space of missed connection to being a compassionate witness, which is what I talked about in the book is about how to connect with someone else in a space that you don’t get over-involved and overwhelm, a couple of things you want to have to really deeply know yourself and know how you can peel back that layer so that you can have empathy and connection.

Shannon Weber 19:47

And you also have to have the ability to not just know yourself, believe your own worldview and your own sense of what the world looks like and step into the shoes of someone else and be able to see the world or at least try to, really try to see the world through their eyes and their world view and that’s where we get empathy, and that takes courage, and it takes energy to let go of our own worldview, and be willing to step into someone else’s worldview and see how the world looks from their eyes.

Candice Wu 20:29

Yeah, this is interesting, because I pulled this quote from your book, do you mind if I read it?

Shannon Weber 20:35

Please.

Candice Wu 20:36

“Beginning on an Empathy Adventure may feel risky. As we leave the comfort of our own worldview and narrative. To explore another’s, we risk falling in love. We risk feeling deep connection. We risk changing our own mind. We risk returning from this Empathy Adventure as a different person.”

Candice Wu 21:00

Like we risk falling in love, that one really hits me in the heart.

Shannon Weber 21:06

Yeah, tell me more.

Candice Wu 21:09

I don’t know.

Candice Wu 21:13

Because when we see something else, and we let ourselves fully in, to witness that, to open our heart to that, it feels like we can find something outside of ourselves. But when we fall in love, it feels like it’s a match inside of ourselves, somewhere and so we get to know ourselves through opening ourselves to what we think is not us.

Shannon Weber 21:42

Yes.

Candice Wu 21:42

Like, you know, that we have to, we think we’re leaving the comfort of our own worldview and then we find that actually, there’s just more of us somewhere that we were not seeing before —

Shannon Weber 21:56

So beautiful.

Candice Wu 21:57

— through someone else showing it to us.

Shannon Weber 21:59

So beautiful. Yeah, it takes such courage to do that. Because we develop these narratives about ourselves that allow us to go through our day and get our things done and do our work and cope with traumas and stress. And to be willing to shake that up, you know, or to risk that one of those, like a piece of our safety net, which is that narrative, we tell ourself about who we are, and how the world works. It takes tremendous courage, we also risk being rejected, we risk the feeling of being wrong, of kind of losing a piece of our foundation of what we believe is right by going on these Empathy Adventures.

Candice Wu 22:54

That’s true. And I think so much of us, at least in my own experience and what I see, when we’re not having empathy for someone else, there’s often something I’m trying to protect, with myself, and I might have to feel some version of pain or rejection or hurt if I take another person’s view.

Shannon Weber 23:20

Yep.

Candice Wu 23:21

And see it from their hurt or their experience. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense, we do risk the rejection, we risk pain.

Shannon Weber 23:32

I think it’s okay too to choose at times to protect ourselves.

Shannon Weber 23:38

So, if we have trauma, or particularly if we have trauma that we haven’t healed from, I don’t think that the requirement is on a daily basis that we open ourselves up unprotected. You know, that’s not necessarily the challenge, or the, you know, the goal. And so it’s okay, you know, to recognize that there are parts of ourself that will protect and to know why, that it’s a trauma, or it’s something that’s unhealed, or I have an experience with and connecting with someone in this way, and I have felt betrayed before. So I feel held back in that way now.

Shannon Weber 24:16

And so in that way, knowing, very deeply knowing our own, you know, edges of connection is so powerful and again the requirement isn’t necessarily that we change, but that we know where those places are and through that, then it can create space for us too, you know, kind of have a risk at a time when things are maybe lined up for us in a different way.

Candice Wu 24:45

I appreciate that a lot. I think so many of the messages that we get on social media, and that we can just pass along, maybe sometimes unknowingly, is you just have to push yourself and power through and go for it and not protect yourself and be bigger or whatever people say, but the protection helps us.

Shannon Weber 25:11

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 25:13

As you said, yeah, it’s about taking it one step at a time for you, for ourselves and knowing ourselves. And that’s, I appreciate that, because that sounds like the true loving, coming into play, not how we have to be in the shoulds of all of that, but how do we really love who we are, where we are?

Shannon Weber 25:40

I do think it’s important for us to know what our privileges are. And I do think that it’s a time in which those of us who have privilege, there is a requirement on us to acknowledge that privilege and to do more. And we have to know what it — I have to know what the immense privilege that I have, and also how I have to invest in my own resilience so that I can show up but I do think that it’s required, of those of us who have privilege and opportunity to take what may feel risky, but to put ourselves out there and to be willing to be wrong and to learn to make mistakes so that we can create the change that’s necessary.

Shannon Weber 26:27

And it’s been on people who’ve experienced so many traumas and structural racism to do that for so long and so I think part of what I want to say too, is that it’s important that if you have these experiences, that you are really taking care of yourself, but part of knowing ourselves is knowing what our privileges are.

Candice Wu 26:54

And it sounds like you’re saying that, well, on one hand, there might be a time for just seeing the way you’re protecting yourself and appreciating that on one hand, or allowing that and using that to be able to move forward. It’s also — it doesn’t take away from responsibility to see our privileges.

Shannon Weber 27:16

Yes, that’s beautiful.

Candice Wu 27:17

Right. The acceptance of that protection. Yeah, it doesn’t just mean we sit back and say that’s it. But there’s still a responsibility —

Shannon Weber 27:25

Yes!

Candice Wu 27:26

-to see more.

Shannon Weber 27:27

Correct.

Candice Wu 27:29

Yeah. I completely agree with that. How is that showing up in your world lately?

Shannon Weber 27:36

Well, for me, personally, it’s been doing a lot of reading and being in conversation and reckoning around any fragility, or not any, but the fragility I have around race, and in what ways does my white fragility show up, and maybe a story I told myself, six months ago or a year ago was, “Oh, that’s too scary. I have to protect myself.” And I’ve now been able to see and learn, “Oh, no, that’s my white fragility,” and what does it look like for me to be willing to look at that, and to, even though it feels risky, and I may be wrong, and I’m going to make mistakes to keep showing up, so that I can learn and I can do better.

Candice Wu 28:31

I appreciate that. For some people listening, I don’t know if they may be familiar with white fragility, the term?

Shannon Weber 28:38

Oh, yeah.

Candice Wu 28:39

Would you? Yeah, just in case, would you share a bit about what you understand with it and how you experience it?

Shannon Weber 28:47

For sure.

Shannon Weber 28:47

I’m certainly no expert in the topic and doing a lot of active learning around it right now. So I can just talk about my own experience with it.

Shannon Weber 28:57

So for me, it’s been a way in which I told myself a story of, “Oh, I’m a good person, I’m doing good work, I’m not part of active racism, or I don’t have advantages from our systems, which are so racist.”

Shannon Weber 29:13

And really then shy away from looking at how my privilege has benefited me and then when I do that, then I’m not opting in anti-racism conversations in a way that really create change. If I stay in that space, then I’m really still part of the status quo.

Shannon Weber 29:32

And so for me, it’s been coming to learn how I have my privilege, it’s like a cul de sac going round and around of protection, where I feel uncomfortable and so then I stay in my privilege, and don’t crack that open, and, you know, learn more so that I can be a part of anti-racism work and create a change. And for me, that’s white fragility. And white fragility is making sure it’s about other people and not about you, when in fact, all the white people have privilege and have a lot more to learn.

Shannon Weber 30:15

There’s a fabulous book, I would just say, called, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, which is a great place to begin with reading and then there are so many wonderful conversations going on, and I would say wonderful and healthy conversations going on various forms of social media and blogs where people can learn more too.

Candice Wu 30:35

Yeah, I love April Harder on Instagram, especially the way — Yeah, she’s kind of like, no bullshit, which I appreciate. And on the other hand, she’s also very empathetic and non-shaming. So it’s like, we’re going to be no bullshit, but we don’t need to shame people into feeling like they’re a bad person, let’s just look at this in a way that we can look at it.

Shannon Weber 31:05

That’s beautiful. I can’t wait to look it up.

Candice Wu 31:07

Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. It’s really lovely to hear you talk about it in that way, and I, I’m Chinese American, and I know I have a lot of privileges too, and so I don’t opt out of those conversations, either with myself. And I think it can be easy for someone who’s a person of color to just say, well, they’re not part of it at all. And that I think, perpetuates a level of shaming, because it’s to say, like, that’s not me at all and I think it’s all of us, because it’s the water we breathe, to some degree, you know, in some aspect, some more than others, some way more than others, but it’s there, it’s living in us.

Candice Wu 31:56

Lately, I’ve been looking at how am I living incongruently with myself and congruently with something that is holding things in place that keep the wounding happening or holding a construct that doesn’t really, that hurts.

Shannon Weber 32:17

That’s powerful. That is very powerful.

Candice Wu 32:21

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:23

So, I also caught on to these words, in your book, about confusing leading with saving, with saving people, and I think it fits right here.

Shannon Weber 32:34

Yes.

Candice Wu 32:36

Yeah, I would love for you to talk about that. And you wrote this beautiful checklist of how to spot if you, as a helper or as a person in the world, even that’s, you know, wanting to make a difference. How do you spot if you’re trying to save people, versus being that compassionate witness and leading?

Shannon Weber 32:57

Yeah, beautiful.

Shannon Weber 33:00

So I think for so many of us, because of the stories we tell ourselves, the experiences we’ve had growing up, we can really be scripted into believing that we are doing good, or we are creating change, as we save other people. It almost as if it gives us, you know, it’s such an active process. It’s almost like we can kind of collect this story and it’s a proof of us, doing something in the world, when in fact, it’s really not change that’s happening because the other person isn’t, you know, making the change that’s required.

Shannon Weber 33:37

And oftentimes, it’s us avoiding dealing with our own stuff, because we’re so focused on what they mean for someone else. And some of the tips I give in the book for thinking about it as if we’re working harder than the other person, like, how vested are we in this outcome of this story?

Shannon Weber 33:54

I share all of this because this is my default mode. I write about it, because it’s something I know so well, even after the book is done. How many more times have I done it since the book has come out? So many times, it’s my way of being.

Shannon Weber 34:08

And so it’s a reminder for myself of like, you know, where’s my ego in this story? You know, have I projected myself as some sort of hero in this narrative, of some problem that’s sitting there? And when real change gets created, it’s by the person who is in the crisis, who has the problem, being empowered or seeing their own power to create the change that’s right for that.

Candice Wu 34:37

Yes. I love how you said that.

Shannon Weber 34:39

Yeah, because back to that kind of magical thing we were talking about, when we were talking about love and how this agility to be in different ways of giving and receiving love and through that space, that’s where the magic is, well, that’s similar here and that the magic will come when it comes from inside the person who’s in crisis, or who needs help.

Shannon Weber 35:00

And in fact, when we are so attached to an outcome, and we have such a narrative about ourself, saving this person, I know what happens to me, these todo lists can come up automatically in my head. I know all the right answers. I know just what to do. We, in fact, —

Candice Wu 35:17

Right.

Shannon Weber 35:18

— scripted and leave out the opportunity for the magic of something more awesome than we could ever imagine happening.

Candice Wu 35:27

That’s beautiful.

Shannon Weber 35:28

I would say the downside, well not the downside, the other part, the other side of that, is that also, nothing can change and the things don’t get better, and that’s the risk. But that is the way in which we have to create that space, you know, so there’s the opportunity for that magic and the things that we could never imagine happening.

Shannon Weber 35:53

There’s also the opportunity that the person does not change at this time, and they may change another time. We certainly know this experience in our life over and over when we have people whom we love, and we’re in relationship who suffer from addiction or mental health issues, that this may not be that time that might not be their choice in that moment and yet it is still on us, to be the compassionate witness and create the space for them to have the autonomy to choose and find the way that’s best for them.

Candice Wu 36:29

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s really, especially where you say that if the person doesn’t feel empowered in themselves, that the magic isn’t happening in themselves, if we’re just doing it for them, or giving them the answer that we think is there. You know, just swinging back to the conversation, we’re just having previous to this, the topic of privilege and dependency, non-dependency, there’s this way that it feels like it perpetuates, having people dependent on you.

Shannon Weber 37:08

Yes, so true.

Candice Wu 37:10

Feels privilegy?

Shannon Weber 37:12

You know what you’re so right.

Candice Wu 37:14

White privilege, right?

Shannon Weber 37:16

Correct! The Savior complex.

Candice Wu 37:20

Yeah. Right, and we can taut ourselves from our ego thinking that is we’ve done something good here and I think that is a clue to say, “Wait, what have we done?”

Shannon Weber 37:33

What have you done?

Candice Wu 37:34

What have we done? Not in a critic like, not in a shaming way, but like, “What am I doing here?”

Shannon Weber 37:40

It goes back to the thing you were mentioning right now about where’s this incongruent or congruent. And yeah, so it’s not a thing to be shamed about. But is this congruent with what I believe to be the higher path or the path that’s going to create this deeper change in the world? And so many times I think it’s no. It’s our default way of showing up. It’s the way that has gotten us through to this point.

Candice Wu 38:07

I know this place very well too, like, this is definitely my default way. And I even remember, in college, my friends, and I would be like, we’re going to save the world, because we’ve done this, like, cool project that did help people.

Shannon Weber 38:20

Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:23

But yeah, it was like — Yeah, maybe wonder, is this in our nature to want to save what is that about, and as I go deeper with myself with that, it’s about proving myself that I’m enough and that’s all about me, not about someone who has their own autonomy and just wants someone to love them by seeing them as they are with our own power.

Shannon Weber 38:50

You know, I think it’s also about having meaning in life, I would say that, I agree with you. Because I think it’s the same thing for me, there’s a huge part of my ego, always, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that and shake hands with the ego and, you know, find a way to walk together. But I also think that it’s we want, and crave meaning in life, and maybe the way that we think that there’s meaning is by some superhero, or -shero story, that’s from some movie narrative, or now, it wouldn’t even be a movie, you know, it only be a one minute video that somebody saw online.

Shannon Weber 38:51

True.

Shannon Weber 39:28

But in fact, you know, creating, or having meaning in life and creating meaning out of our life —

Candice Wu 39:35

Right.

Shannon Weber 39:35

— is a much deeper and quieter process and it may, in fact, not be seen in that same way or acknowledged in that same way, that real meaning and that real change in the world is that quiet and everyday work that it’s not as glittery and fancy as our egos might want to believe.

Candice Wu 40:01

I love that I really connect with that, the quieter and deeper process, and I’m wondering how that, how that shows up for you?

Shannon Weber 40:14

Yeah, I think about that, in my life right now as it relates to work that I want to do in the world, and also, as it relates to parenting, my kids who are in their late teens now. And when I think in these settings about what is the, you know, when I wake up in the morning, and what is that impact that I want to have, it what was required to make that impact is this deeper work of wrestling one with my ego and getting straight with that, and then figuring out that kind of background work that infrastructure, scaffoldings, that needs to be there for whether it’s my kids or the work that I want to do in the world. And it’s not the glittery, or the frosting on the cake, you know, the final touches that we kind of might dream about. But it’s creating the infrastructure and scaffolding for bigger, bigger work.

Candice Wu 41:19

And that’s that daily, like one brick at a time feel. It sounds like.

Shannon Weber 41:24

Yes, and not getting distracted, I think, for me by the things that can sometimes feel more fun or look more exciting or be more Instagram-worthy. But it’s like — and at the end of the day is that the one step forward or two steps forward towards that bigger and deeper change.

Candice Wu 41:43

Beautiful. It’s like one pebble at a time, one piece at a time. So what topics are up in the air for you lately? What’s alive?

Shannon Weber 42:02

You know, something that keeps coming up and I would love to talk about with you is, in the book, we talked briefly about the framework, and we talked about missed connection and compassionate witness, and then I don’t know that we named this third framework that we’ve referenced at many times, which is this enmesh framework or this martyr framework.

Shannon Weber 42:21

So we’ve talked about in our conversation, how that can be both of our default methods and it’s many folks for a variety of reasons. But something that’s up for me right now, which is, I’ve been asked many times by folks, can you move from an enmesh relationship to a compassionate witness relationship? And of course, I think the answer to almost anything in life is yes. But then it’s probably a matter of how.

Candice Wu 42:47

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 42:47

And so I’ve had conversations with people about how complicated that can be or how tricky that can be to move from an enmesh or an overinvolved relationship to one that’s balanced, or the compassionate witness in which we’ve removed the kind of power, the holding of what’s happening from ourselves and put it in the space for the, to either be shared or where the person who’s in crisis has got ownership of their whole story.

Shannon Weber 43:19

And I’ve reflected that these kinds of things will blow up one way or another. So it certainly behooves us to, in advance, try to avoid being in these sorts of situations and relationships. But for some of us were in these relationships, and some of them have gone on 10 years, 20 years, or even months into something that feels like a deep pattern, and it can feel really hard to back out of.

Candice Wu 43:47

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 43:48

And so I’d love to chat about that with you. If you have thoughts from your healing work, or you have experiences from meditating with the horses, and, you know, where are these kind of tips for once we’ve acknowledged that we are overinvolved, we’re in an unhealthy space, and it’s not necessarily something we’re just going to cut off.

Candice Wu 44:10

Right.

Shannon Weber 44:11

Because maybe it’s in a work scenario or a family scenario where it’s not like you can just move away from it. And so are the other ways to move from that into a healthier space.

Candice Wu 44:22

Well, Shannon, this is like the story of my life.

Shannon Weber 44:26

Oh, I did, I didn’t mean it to be that.

Candice Wu 44:29

That’s okay. So, I guess, I’ve never been asked that question from this space, so it’s great.

Candice Wu 44:41

I would say that as a default and when I say that, meaning just like, the imprint of my young life, and maybe past lives, or my ancestral role that I have taken up coming into this life has been of being responsible, where it’s not mine to be responsible for and that was a survival, and it does something, it does do something in the system, in the soul of the system of my family. I do believe that my doing so has done something. But I’ll go back to something you said in your book that staying enmeshed has a price.

Shannon Weber 45:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:30

And learning or shifting that also has a price, is what you said. It really resonated with that.

Shannon Weber 45:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:38

Because when I did start to see that this was exhausting for me and it was a hard seeing, you know, my body was showing me this is more in my 20s, but my body was like, you can’t keep doing this with your family. You can’t keep doing this with the world. You’re just taking on everyone’s problems.

Shannon Weber 46:02

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:02

I realized that was a part, a very big part of my journey in healing my own body and heart and soul. And it didn’t have to do with healing everyone else anymore. It was where I thought that was the case. It was more about me at the point at which I begin.

Candice Wu 46:21

So, I’ve been in numerous relationships where I have become enmeshed with someone, found my connection with them through helping them and becoming their person, their go-to person or taking on the role of a mother or, and that sometimes was beautiful and lovely. And other times it was awful, because I also got the bad end of the stick. So to say, the rougher end of that, like if things didn’t go right —

Shannon Weber 46:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:55

— I had to take the heat for that, too. So, yeah, and I would say that all of those different relationships that I’m referring to that were family, friendships, and also intimate partners, they all had different outcomes as I start to realize, and different ways for me to navigate it as I realized that this was the pattern that was going on with me and in this relationship. So yeah, some of the price that I paid was the relationship did end —

Shannon Weber 47:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 47:29

— at some point, and —

Shannon Weber 47:31

Me, too.

Candice Wu 47:31

Yeah. And sometimes it was very successful in shifting that this is no longer going to be the case. But what it required was a lot of loving and brutally honest communication and boundaries that I didn’t have. I didn’t know how to put boundaries up at all. I didn’t allow myself to. I didn’t think they were. I didn’t think I was allowed to have boundaries. So giving myself that permission was a big step.

Shannon Weber 48:02

And even the ability to have the brutally honest conversation, I think that’s so challenging, when we’re in these scenarios, sometimes we aren’t even brutally honest with ourself about how off the relationship is. You know, another clue I’d gotten recently is if I’m explaining a relationship to someone who’s new in my life, and I have to explain how special are all the excuses, when ultimately the mirror back is for me like, oh, because it’s so unhealthy.

Shannon Weber 48:31

The story I’m explaining is actually so unhealthy and off. I’m having to really go and explain all the ins and outs, which have you been close to me that you already understand all the ins and outs of the wackiness. So, I think that this point about the brutally honest conversation, which starts with ourself, but then like, awesome that you were able to say that with another person like that, in and of itself is super powerful.

Candice Wu 48:59

Yeah, and I just think about what that required because it wasn’t easy. But it also required that —

Shannon Weber 49:08

So many guts.

Candice Wu 49:09

Yeah, and that daily, deep doing, and being with yourself over time and being with that person over time, the one I’m referring to is more of a romantic connection, but we had built a lot of trust in the relationship to be honest with each other and to tolerate the other’s brutally honest expressions.

Shannon Weber 49:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 49:33

What I mean is saying truths that are hard to hear, but we found a way to say it lovingly, that we could tolerate it, that we could really look at.

Shannon Weber 49:44

That’s so beautiful.

Candice Wu 49:46

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 49:47

So beautiful.

Shannon Weber 49:50

And sometimes that’s available for folks and sometimes it’s not to, if it’s maybe in a work scenario, or a community scenario, depending on where the people’s privileges and you know, power differentials lie that may not always be available for folks. But I think being able to have this space where we can talk about it brutally honest, at least with someone, whether that’s a friend, or a therapist, or some other person so that it has sees the light of day.

Candice Wu 50:22

I love that, seeing the light of — so it sees the light of day, that’s beautiful. And sometimes just to add to what you’re saying, sometimes the other person or other people aren’t interested in hearing that truth at all, and that has been very hard for me.

Shannon Weber 50:37

Such a great point. Because for some folks, that way of engagement has served them and for you to shift it up, you’re not going to work for them. So you’re so right, it’s may not always be available.

Candice Wu 50:53

I think with my way of surviving when I was younger, I had to be very persistent. Well, people generally think persistence is a really good thing, I think it’s a great thing to be able to be persistent. But there’s always a balance to every kind of trait and there’s always good in a sense of good and a bad side or when it becomes out of balance. And when it is in balance with my persistence, when I experienced someone who was unwilling to go there, my persistence became really unhealthy and it was better to walk away in those situations or let it have space or something and that was hard for me. So that’s another thing I had to learn. Yeah, but how, what is your experience? And what are the thoughts that you have around it?

Shannon Weber 51:45

Yeah, something that I’m just paying so much attention to in my life right now and talking about it with as many folks as I can, so I can learn more, so it feels like it’s such an area of exploration for me. But I would say, one thing I got coached by someone to do in a scenario where I — so one of the things I’ve realized about myself is that it might take me 24 or 36 hours to really kind of process and integrate that something is off and I used to judge myself about that. And now I recognize that that’s part of who I am and there are so many beautiful aspects about myself that I’m not quick to, I don’t know the word, “judges” is right, but I’m not quick to decide about something because that’s a beautiful possibility. But where I’m struggling with it is like I maybe needed to have said something or set a boundary and I didn’t. And it will take me these 24 or 36 hours to really integrate and then articulate what’s up for me.

Shannon Weber 52:52

But I’ve also recognized that I can often feel in my body when it’s happening, that something’s off. But I won’t have all the pieces together to say something and so I was coached by someone with this great line, which I’ve been trying to use when I recognize in my body that something’s off. And what she said to me was, “Would it be possible for you to say something has offered me right now, I can’t quite name what it is. But I want to just say that, and I’ll circle back to it when I know what it is.”

Shannon Weber 53:22

And it’s such a great thing, because it just flags for me and I can do that in a way, it can have a neutral energy, or a, just a, hey, what’s up energy, but it also, it’s a way for me to acknowledge that my body has that feeling, that something’s off. So I’m not necessarily sweeping it under the rug, and then waiting till later, you know, to process.

Shannon Weber 53:43

But it also might — I’ve seen it happen where other people in the setting might say, “Oh, yeah, something’s off for me too. Is it this or that.”

Shannon Weber 53:52

And so in some ways, it’s created a healthier dialogue than —

Candice Wu 53:57

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 53:58

— or for me to get more inputs and information about what my body has said, “Hey, something’s up.” But I again, can’t quite articulate it at the moment. So that’s great, I’d like area place I’m practicing in.

Candice Wu 54:11

It’s so respectful of you and your process, and your body and where you’re at. I love it and I love that it opens up a conversation at times with others.

Shannon Weber 54:21

Yes. So that’s, yes, it’s good. And who knows what will come from that for me. Like, I don’t know that I’ll necessarily be able to integrate and then articulate things. Immediately. I’m not sure that’s the goal. Right? The goal is for me to keep showing up as my best self and the framework of my book, being a compassionate witness is in as many, you know, areas and opportunities as I can and so that may be my path forward to that.

Candice Wu 54:53

It’s beautiful. I mean, there’s no good reason to pressure yourself to, I don’t know, to be able to respond quicker.

Shannon Weber 55:04

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:04

So trivial, you know?

Shannon Weber 55:07

I know that, but I do sometimes feel like, “Oh, I want to be that very witty and articulate and very self-knowing person that knows.”

Candice Wu 55:15

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 55:15

But really, it takes a run or a walk and a sleep, and, you know, some meditation, this is just the way my inner world works.

Candice Wu 55:27

I think I work in that way, especially when it touches something that might have been hard for me, in the past or traumatic, like it touches on some piece of that. But also, like, just with what you’re saying, like yeah, I would love to be this witty, quick on my feet person and I think I am sometimes.

Candice Wu 55:48

I’m watching Designated Survivor on Netflix and so many TV shows, or movies like people, it’s a script, people are so witty in an instant and it’s so exciting. But that’s just not the reality of human beings, in most cases.

Candice Wu 56:09

We need time to think about it. We don’t always say the funniest, clever thing, or the right thing and we need to be able to rewind and fast forward or say let’s do this again, or —

Shannon Weber 56:24

Truth. Yeah.

Candice Wu 56:25

Yeah. And what was the other thing you wanted to share?

Shannon Weber 56:29

Oh, yeah. So I was thinking of another way in which this experience is showing up for me which I am really enjoying is my middle child is 19 and he and I, so let me rewind by saying, we had talked about how these relationships will often end, they’ll necessarily end or they’ll be, I think, also energy that stays with it in a way that it’s not necessarily attractive for us, or that we, you know, we want to lean into.

Shannon Weber 57:03

And so I also challenge myself, in what ways when I recognize that these sorts of behaviors on my set are starting earlier, can I say something or speak about it sooner with the goal of that I can shift that way of engaging earlier on and keep it towards the healthier side? So that it won’t necessarily blow up or, you know, have this something of consequence that kind of lingers.

Shannon Weber 57:33

And so I’m really loving this experience with my middle child who’s 19 and he is graduate from high school, and he’s living at home and working. And so we’re in this really interesting space of reimagining our relationship. And so, I love that we are able to have conversations about it, and what’s hard and was easy for us and I just noticed this week that I started to get over-involved about something and I even reflected to myself, “Oh, I feel like it’s high school again. And I’m doing this.” And I had to think to myself, I mean, “Whose problem is that?”

Shannon Weber 58:15

It would be easy for me to get upset and be like, “Well, that’s his problem.” But I had to reflect I’m behaving in this way that reminds me if you know him at a younger age, and so I actually chatted with him and we have this beautiful practice now of doing these check and he calls them check-ins. And so we check in with each other to chat about how our relationship is going and so we have the check-in, and I said “I noticed I’m doing this”, and he says, “I noticed that about you too, mom, and that is not the best life for you.”

Shannon Weber 58:48

You know, and I was like, it is not the best life for me. And he was like, so but then he was, he, you know, he could ask, is he doing something that’s causing me to do that? No, it was me defaulting to this.

Shannon Weber 59:00

I was like, this is the story I’m telling myself about what you’re doing right now and so this is how I choose to respond, and he’s saying, well, this is actually what’s happening. And, you know, I want more of that in my life, you know, not just with him, which I’m just so grateful to know what I know and for him to be who he is in the world, so we can have the conversation and I hope to continue on a path that remains healthy and beautiful. But I want more of that in different relationships in my life, these sort of check-in and being able to say, “I noticed this about myself” and the other person saying what they notice then.

Shannon Weber 59:38

It doesn’t even take that long, to be honest. It takes trust, it takes vulnerability, right? But it’s not even a huge amount of time to be able to both end up kind of balancing things and being your better self.

Candice Wu 59:55

That is incredible, Shannon. I feel so, my heart just feels so wide open and like warm knowing that you and your son have this conversation and it’s a regular conversation and you can be so honest with each other. It truly shows how much trust you have built.

Candice Wu 1:00:14

And that he can even say, “Is there something I’m doing that’s contributing to that?” Wow!

Shannon Weber 1:00:23

Yeah, it’s a good space.

Candice Wu 1:00:25

It’s beautiful and I like this idea of reimagining a relationship, and it sounds like you’re saying, well, what’s going well, and what’s a challenge here or what’s not going so well or here’s what I’m noticing about each of us and how do we want it to be. Is that right?

Shannon Weber 1:00:47

It is. What’s interesting as you’re saying that, I wanted to tell you, “Yes, because we don’t really have a script for who we’re supposed to be right now.” Because where’s the script for, you’re 19 and you’re living at home, and figuring out what’s next, and so because there’s no script, we acknowledge that to each other. We’re like, we’re unplugging from this story about this path and that path and now because we don’t have a script, we’re going to talk about it and figure it out. But as you were reflecting this, I was gonna say, when do we ever have a script for what it’s supposed to be?

Shannon Weber 1:01:23

You know, we take these scripts that are given to us from society, from stories, we tell ourselves, from the movies, from whatever, and then we have that script dictate these various relationships and in reality, I am now recognizing through our conversation, like this beautiful opportunity that he and I are having is like, really, that’s what all of life ought to be. Because what script is there?

Candice Wu 1:01:49

Yeah, truly. Well, my mind just went to, well, there’s like, just in the work that I do with Family Constellations and the lineage, there is an undertow of the script.

Shannon Weber 1:02:04

Okay, good point. Excellent point.

Candice Wu 1:02:07

And then, as you said, like, there are these scripts that we take on from the world around us.

Shannon Weber 1:02:13

Yeah, it’s true.

Candice Wu 1:02:14

Like, we should be X, Y, and Z. But I think you’re bringing up the most beautiful, magical part of living is to ask what scripts really do we want to be following? Like, we can design this with our awareness, with our loving each other.

Shannon Weber 1:02:33

It goes to your being incongruent and where your incongruent reflection, right, like really having the courage and the awareness to look at that, those scripts or stories or paths. Right?

Candice Wu 1:02:49

Right.

Candice Wu 1:02:50

Wow. Well, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, Shannon.

Shannon Weber 1:02:53

Likewise.

Candice Wu 1:02:54

I want to just, yeah, I want to just ask you one more question, if you would be willing, if you’d be willing to share with our listeners today, one of your love notes that you feel our listeners could take in today, just from your intuition.

Shannon Weber 1:03:21

Yes, the one I want to share is this, “You are enough.”

Shannon Weber 1:03:30

And if I could, I would come into your house and I would take a Sharpie and I would write this on your bedroom wall, and I’d write it on the mirror in your bathroom, and I would write it on your kitchen wall, and I’d write it by your back door, and I would put it on the sun visor in your car, and I’d write it on the back of your hand so that everywhere you turn around, there was this note that was telling you that you are enough.

Candice Wu 1:03:53

I love it! That is so great. I definitely tell that to myself at times when I needed and could use the reminder at times when I don’t remember.

Candice Wu 1:04:09

And as you’re saying this, it made me think of maybe, think of like, Habitat for Humanity kind of projects and like, with what you’re doing with just leaving notes in public spaces. It made me think of, yeah, if you could go into people’s homes, like, if people invited you into their homes to love, I don’t know, what would you call it? To love it up.

Shannon Weber 1:04:39

I have lots of Sharpies. Invite me over anytime. I’m so happy to write on your wall.

Candice Wu 1:04:47

My five-year-old self would have been like, inviting you over right away. Well, my dad would probably be like, “What have you done?”

Shannon Weber 1:04:55

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:04:58

Spreading out on the walls.

Shannon Weber 1:04:59

That’s all I want to do, is write on the walls.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

Thank you so much, Shannon. Is there anything else you want to share today before we go?

Shannon Weber 1:05:09

Well, maybe I will just share that, if folks want to go to the love note website, which is Loveyou2.org, there are all these free love note templates you can download in six languages.

Candice Wu 1:05:25

Oh cool.

Shannon Weber 1:05:26

And lots of different ideas for how you can print the love notes and share them in the world. And so, I think it’s just so fun and people telling me amazing stories about what happens when they start very freely writing love notes.

Candice Wu 1:05:42

I love that. Do you have Chinese on there?

Shannon Weber 1:05:44

There’s Mandarin. Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:47

There’s mandarin?

Shannon Weber 1:05:48

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:49

There’s — well in Chinese, all the writing is generally the same, even though the spoken is different.

Shannon Weber 1:05:56

Got it.

Candice Wu 1:05:57

So, yeah. Oh, that’s cool. I love that. And your book is that ShowUpHard.com

Shannon Weber 1:06:05

Correct. And there’s at ShowUpHard.com website, all the love notes that I wrote in the Show Up Hard book are available to download for free, as are the worksheets and then there’s also a free 30-day e-course people can sign up for where they’ll get a little email every day for 30 days with a little prompt and a little message or a love note. I think that’s kind of fun, too.

Candice Wu 1:06:27

That’s beautiful and I love that your book is designed like a workbook. There are these sections of questions and reflection. It’s great.

Shannon Weber 1:06:38

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:06:39

Yeah, and do you want to mention your HIV work at all?

Shannon Weber 1:06:41

Sure. Also, too, I really love my work, I feel lucky to be doing it and I found it in direct a website called pleaseprepme.org and practice the HIV prevention pill and we help people get access to the HIV prevention pill. We have a directory and resources and then we do online chat and help people figure out how to get the pill and the associated services paid for.

Candice Wu 1:07:13

Beautiful and I hopped on there and I love how it’s speaking to all different audiences, whether you’re a man, you’re a woman, you’re trans, or I think you had some other populations on there that you were speaking to.

Shannon Weber 1:07:26

Yeah, we’re very keen on youth as well. It’s a really diverse and inclusive space. Yes.

Candice Wu 1:07:35

Beautiful. Thank you so much for doing the work you’re doing there and the love notes, just sprinkling your heart across the world and spreading that joy and love. So beautiful and I’m so touched to have you here today and I learned a lot and I appreciate you. Thank you.

Shannon Weber 1:07:57

Likewise, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate our connection and I have enjoyed your newsletters and podcasts and learning about you and your teachers and I’m really loving learning about horses from you.

Candice Wu 1:08:10

Oh, thank you!

Candice Wu 1:08:15

What I really loved about our conversation and connecting with Shannon is how real she is and how authentic she shows up as, and it feels like I can really feel her presence. It’s not like an extra layer that I have to cut through to feel a connection with her. It was so easy.

Candice Wu 1:08:33

I hope you felt that connection too and that informs or inspires you to find your own way to connect with others, your own authenticity, your own ability to empathize with yourself and also with others through showing up the way that you are, with who you are and with compassion.

Candice Wu 1:08:54

Thanks so much, Shannon for showing up hard and showing up on the podcast today. It was so much fun and I learned so much and was very opening for the love in my heart.

Candice Wu 1:09:08

And just a quick note, be sure to check out her discussion about Empathy Adventures coming out later this week or you can find it at https://candicewu.com/shannonweber.

Candice Wu 1:09:18

I hope you all find love in your life today, in every day, and also, perhaps sprinkle some of those love notes around your space or in your community spaces, maybe sneak around like Shannon and her kids do and just have an adventure with it and see how people react.

Candice Wu 1:09:38

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of pictures and posts on the US Mexican border and how our artists have been creating playful artwork and installations that people can interact with, such as seesaws that connect on both sides and where you can see the other people on the other side playing with you and also I saw a big painting. It seemed like a big painting, installation of a child’s face looking over into the Mexico side from the US side. It was really a sweet image and to me, those seem like playful ways to show our love and connection just like these love notes do. So I feel like this is one way we can bridge connection and make it safer for people to connect and make people feel or invite people to feel the love that we want to bring to the world.

Candice Wu 1:10:47

Lastly, be sure to check out Shannon’s book at Showuphard.com if you are interested in the discussion about being a helper and how to support yourself with self-care boundaries, going on Empathy, Adventures, etc. And that can really help anybody who feels that they’re in a position of helping another.

Candice Wu 1:11:09

Thank you so much for listening in today. It’s great to have you here. Before you go I invite you to sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter that goes out with updates on experientials, podcasts, retreats, workshops, and self-love notes. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:11:31

And before we go, I want to make a couple of shout outs today to Nick Werber who offered the music to the beginning and the end of the podcast that I still use today. Thank you so much, Nick, I love it. And also to Chris Spiegl, who does the editing and behind the scenes production of the Embody Podcast, as well as the website.

Candice Wu 1:11:54

Chris does an amazing job with the sound quality and editing the pieces so that they’re easy to listen to and completes it all on the podcast as well as communicates with all my guests and helps us out with any tech issues that any one of us may have. So I want to thank him and appreciate all the work he does for the podcast. Thank you, Chris.

Candice Wu 1:12:20

So with that, I will leave you all today with the inspiration to risk falling in love. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

Candice Wu 0:00

You are listening to Shannon Weber’s discussion around bridging an empathy gap, stamping your passport with an empathy adventure, and learning how empathy adventures can guide us into expanding our capacity for connection and creating change.

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.

You can find the full episode on Shannon’s story on how she created her love notes, as well as our discussions around vulnerability and intimacy, noticing missed connections, reimagining our script for life, how to lead instead of safe people, and how boundaries create connection in other spaces at CandiceWu.com/shannonweber. And right now, I will leave you in the loving hands and heart of Shannon Weber.

Opening By Shannon

Shannon Weber 1:28

When I was a college student, I was working in Switzerland, one summer, as part of a work-study exchange, and on the weekends when we had time off, and we’d gotten paid, we would go on adventures. I loved collecting stamps in my passport at the time, and I would go out of my way sometimes to go through a country or try to see if I can make my way through even a small country if even just had the stamp and my passport. It’s such a freeing experience, because regardless of how I experienced that country or the weekend for that period of time, if I like the food, if the hostel was comfortable or not, if the places I’d wanted to visit were open or not, I still had the stamp in my passport.

So, about 10 years ago, when I was at a transformative time in my adult life, I challenged myself again, with having these various adventures with the only goal of having the adventure and getting the metaphorical stamp and my passport, not being attached to the outcome of what would happen freed me to try new things, to experience the world and people and adventures, and different ways than I might have, otherwise. And at the end of the experience, if I ultimately decided it wasn’t for me or if it was particularly challenging in some way, I could say to myself, and I often talked about this with my best friend, “Well, I have the stamp in my passport.”

A Practice of Empathy

So, I bring this to you as a practice now when we think about empathy and how we might grow our empathy muscle, so, we know that 10% of our empathetic responses, and innate response which means that the rest of it can be learned or it can be built, it can be developed. And so, this practice of this Empathy Adventure Passport, which I introduced in my book, Show Up Hard, and this resource that I’m going to reference the Empathy Adventure Passport is available for free, for download at showuphard.com. This is a practice that can be really useful for people who are wanting to experience more empathy in their life, and for people who have, perhaps, a higher innate response to being empathetic. The Empathy Adventure Passport can be useful and helping us to understand our selves on our empathy adventures so that we can either more quickly access empathy or so that we can be more expansive in whom we feel empathy for.

You know, one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that I have a story, I tell myself that I’m a highly empathetic person, but there’s also truth that I have biases and assumptions, and these stories are stereotypes and narratives can be getting in the way of me being empathetic for some people. So, it’s true, I’m highly empathetic in some situations and some times, but I still like to challenge myself with these empathy adventure experiences, to be more expansive in my ability to access empathy for a variety of people.

Steps of the Empathy Adventure Passport

So, I want to just walk through the Empathy Adventure Passport and talk about the different steps, and I think it’s so valuable, by the way, to print this out and actually write it because there’s something valuable in the process of noticing of slowing down to notice, but also, because we’re writing helps us to integrate things. And so, for those of us who are on a quest to more deeply and expansively experience, empathy, this practice of writing about it can be really, really helpful in helping develop that muscle or skill.

So, as part of the Empathy Adventure Passport, we define what the adventure is, and sometimes these adventures are happening to us, so, it might be a crisis or a situation that comes up at work or in our community or in our family, but they also might be adventures that we seek out. So, if I notice an edge to myself, that I might task myself with finding an adventure, which helps me to tap into that edge, and to explore whether or not I can find a new edge. So, why is the adventure and then we reflect on what’s the internal narrative? So, with that story I tell myself about this adventure, that can be both who I am and the story or what I’m expecting about the other person or this scenario, but being able to identify our internal narrative is super helpful, because it can help us one acknowledge it and give it a space so it can sit there, but then it gives opportunity for there to be space for something else to be true.

We can also write down our biases, and assumptions, you know, what are we taking from our own worldview into this experience, which might impact the adventure? There’s a place then to write about what did you notice about your body? And I’m so keen on this aspect of noticing our body in these various experiences, because our body always gives us clues as to what’s going on, and so, the more that we can learn to tap in to the clues that our body gives us, then the quicker and sometimes more easily, we can navigate or traverse these challenging and or expansive experiences.

And then there’s the opportunity to write what’s the takeaway? So, what did you learn about yourself? Or, you know, what’s the summary of this empathy adventure? And it may be, “Hey, that thing is not for me,” and that’s, you know, you got your stamp on your passport, but it may be that we changed our mind, that we fell in love, that we came away with a different worldview or a new perspective, and that’s the beauty of going on these empathy adventures is that we ourselves might be changed.

And then finally, how did I return to myself? Because while we go on these adventures, to see the world through someone else’s eyes, and to experience the world in a new way, and this is part of how we create change in the world. We need to let ourselves know at the onset that we will come back to ourselves. So, we may come back change, and that’s the beauty of writing about it is that we can then integrate it and it can become part of who we are and how we show up in the world next time, and that can be part of the more tangible aspect of the passport stamp from that experience, so to speak, but I think it’s also helpful for these riskier and more challenging empathy adventures if we let ourselves know at the onset, I’m going to return back. It provides a sense of safety and stability that we can come back to that core of who we are, and give space to process it or to integrate it.

Wishing You…

So, I wish you all the best in having magical and expansive and wondrous empathy adventures. I have the Empathy Adventure Passport is helpful to you in navigating these experiences, and I’d be so thrilled to hear from you about how the Empathy Adventure Passport serves you and becoming more expansive with your empathy.

Closing

Candice Wu 8:38

Thank you so much for listening in today, to the discussion around empathy adventures. I hope to see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

You can check out other experientials, podcast guests as well as healing topics and self-love topics at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

See you next time.

Candice Wu 0:00

In this episode, I talked very personally and vulnerable about my horse adventure that continues, why and how I left Ireland in January, when I left the horse farm, as well as what’s happening now in the horse world and what’s happening in my relational world.

Candice Wu 0:19

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.

Candice Wu 0:32

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 0:54

Welcome back, everyone. It’s great to have you here. This is an a{Live} now now episode. I started this because I wanted to talk about what’s alive now in me, and what often fueled conversations with others or synchronize with what other people were experiencing.

Candice Wu 1:11

So, I’ve fallen a bit behind the last time I did an a{Live} now episode was about lessons from horses, boundaries, and my new Assertive Hat Episode 57. So you can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep57 or CandiceWu.com/horselifeireland.

Candice Wu 1:31

And this is where I talked about some of my experiences when I was in Ireland living on a horse farm. So I was with four horses and living with a host family at the time. And I may have talked about leaving Ireland in a few other podcasts just as an update and how I had arrived back home in Michigan, and I was so happy. And if you are following my newsletters, you probably learned a bit more about the process of me leaving and why and what happened. But I didn’t really go in depth here and talk about it. So I wanted to do that now. And I thought it would be interesting to start off with going back to some of my spoken word, journal podcasts.

Candice Wu 2:13

I haven’t talked about this on the podcast. But during my adventures in Ireland, I started to create a private, spoken word journal, I shared this with a few close people in my life, as well as my family. So they could keep up with the day to day of what was happening with me in Ireland, and that I didn’t have to keep repeating myself. So I realized I was practically speaking into that journal every day. From the time I arrived there January, I think it was 14th to January 26th. And then, a couple of days after that, I left Ireland and I was just so done with the experience, needed to step away and look away, and process it from a different space and not talk about it on that spoken word journal podcast, or on this podcast. So, I just like neglected doing that. And now I want to go back and just fill in those gaps.

Candice Wu 3:10

I’ve heard from someone in particular that they really liked hearing about my horse experiences and my personal life. And they encouraged me to share more about that. So, thank you so much, you know who you are, who has encouraged me to do so. I appreciate you incredibly, and I keep feeling fueled by the inspiration that you get from listening in to what I’m experiencing.

Candice Wu 3:37

And that’s specifically for this listener, but also for all of the rest of you that feel inspired by something or touched by something. I appreciate all the feedback and sharing that happens as a result of these podcasts. And I know many of you don’t share your reactions, maybe you’re worried that there’s a judgment towards me or some feedback or a challenge towards me, I’d love to hear that. Or maybe you just don’t reach out because it takes time and energy and maybe guts or vulnerability. But I appreciate all of you no matter what place you’re at with connecting with me.

Candice Wu 4:18

So just want to thank this listener for encouraging me to speak more vulnerable, share more of my personal life, and to honor the stories that are happening in my life.

Candice Wu 4:30

So let’s go back to January 26th, 2019, where I have this clip for you, which is titled, “Can I do this? Empowering myself to leave”. And then this specific segment is called “Day 12 and still alive”. So you can already feel how I was struggling and trying to get the courage or figure out what’s right for me. So here’s the clip, unedited, pretty raw and without a filter.

Candice Wu 5:06

So I’m still surviving, I’m still committed here, even though it’s been challenging. And I say it this way, because it absolutely has been a debate at times. Just last night, I was preparing myself to leave, if I had to. And, I did have that idea in mind as I came, that I would give myself permission to leave if I needed to. I didn’t want to break a commitment that I’d made. But I felt like if I needed to, then I would have to, to respect myself and honor what I need.

Candice Wu 5:43

And last night it came to a head where I started looking for other places to live and looking at other experiences where it might be a better fit for me. I just felt like, the extreme conditions that I’m enduring, the messiness and dirtiness, everything’s really still very hard for me the bathroom sink, still clogged. And so I have to go to the kitchen to wash my hands where it’s dirty everywhere on the floor, coal and mud and maybe horse poop. Who knows? We mop and about an hour later it’s dirty again. And it’s freezing. And I’m getting adjusted to that. But with that, plus some things that happened with my host. It just felt like if I’m not going to get what I want out of this in terms of learning with the horses, and to feel good through it, to feel ease and joy through that, then it’s not worth being here just to have a place to live, and food for exchange of doing some work. It’s just not worth it.

Candice Wu 6:54

Well, what happened yesterday? At the end of the night, my host, cornered me in the kitchen, and she was a little bit drunk and decided to question me about the learning that I had that day and something that I had done.

Candice Wu 7:11

And what I had done was, when I walked to a certain place near the horse, in the stable, I hesitated. I do have this fear that if I’m walking, the horse isn’t going to respond to me, and I’m going to get met up with resistance. And I’m not going to know what to do. And it will develop a bad habit. And it won’t become this leader that I want to be. That’s a lot of pressure. I know. But, so I walked forward, I didn’t quite know what she was asking of me, which is part of the problem.

Candice Wu 7:50

I don’t think the activity was scaffolded well enough for me. And I thought I knew. But then once I started, it didn’t, it wasn’t clear to me anymore. And so the horse didn’t move. And she said just turn around and walk away. And then she did the exercise. And the horse was even more resistant. Because the horse had learned that if they’re resistant and stay put, then I’m going to walk away and release the energy. That’s the pressure that’s on them. Just by walking towards.

Candice Wu 8:23

Well, she pushed through and managed to get the horse to move with some firm and clear pressure and just waited a little bit of time. But yeah, at the end of the night, it was like 10:30 at night, I was going to get my hot water bottle, ready to go to bed and she corners me and I told her, “Are you asking me right now? I’m about to go to bed.” And she said “Yeah”. And pressured me. And the interesting thing is, I didn’t get all that triggered. I felt like, this is disrespectful. I don’t like this. I could walk away. Or I could answer what do I do?

Candice Wu 9:11

And, I’m somewhat okay with what happened. I ended up answering and kept it very short. And at some point, I made a joke like “Am I dismissed yet?”, which was my signal that I know what you’re doing here. I know that this interaction wasn’t an interaction that was very respectful. And the way I’m being treated is like a young child that I don’t know, who’s getting disciplined or something.

Candice Wu 9:43

And so, that resulted in me feeling like, you know, if I’m going to learn from somebody, it has to be the right teacher. And yes, I can be forgiving, and allow, or recognize that teachers make mistakes. I teach my clients, I teach Yoga, as one of my roles in my healing work. And I’m sure that I make mistakes, or I have different times where there are relational ruptures or misunderstandings, or where I pushed in a way that wasn’t appropriate because of something that was going on for me. And that repair is so important. And I felt like if this isn’t going to get repaired, if I’m not going to feel respected, then I am going to leave.

Candice Wu 10:37

And then here’s a fun little section about me being greedy and looking at my own feelings of feeling enough and doing enough, as experienced through my interactions with the horses. So some things that I learned.

Candice Wu 10:53

So what did I learn today, I learned a lot, just to start with some of the themes of what I learned. I recognize how I’m greedy. And I want more than what’s there. Sometimes I just want more and more. And that showed up in terms of just recognizing that one step is enough, and not asking for three more.

Candice Wu 11:21

So when I’m asking the horse to move, front, backside, or side, just one step and releasing the pressure, turning around and not asking more of the horse is where we’re starting. And not to do that a million times, but once or twice, and that’s it, and then maybe do a little bit of what she calls the friendly game, which is one of the natural horsemanship games of touching the horse in a way that they can still stand still. And feel comfortable and safe and okay with it. So just doing a little bit of that, and then releasing that, and not going for more.

Candice Wu 12:08

And so during the process of me doing some of these exercises, I just noticed how I might go for another step or feel like I want to do it again and again. And that plays out in my life, I want more than what’s here. And I thought I had been very good with accepting and feeling like I have enough, I’m doing enough. It’s something that I’ve been working ongoingly.

Candice Wu 12:39

And now I recognize even larger step towards acceptance. And enough, just one step. So as I say that I take a deep breath, it feels good, it feels like just the kind of inner learning that I want, that feeling of peace and contentment, that one little thing was enough and that I can enjoy other things and not push it.

Candice Wu 13:08

So there you have it the up close and personal experience of what I was going through. And a couple of days after that I was working with one of the horses, EY, this horse is the Alpha horse. And I had learned some of the basic horsemanship practices with him. So I got to take him out into the arena by myself. And no one was watching. I don’t know, fortunately, or unfortunately, because I didn’t really know what to do. And this was part of the impetus for me to realize that this was too overwhelming of an experience in general for me.

Candice Wu 13:47

So we’re in the arena, me and this horse. And whenever you’re with a horse, or with more than one horse, this is considered a herd. So me and this horse, our herd. And anytime you meet up in a herd, all the animals combined are trying to figure out who is the Alpha here. Who is in charge of the safety of the herd? Who is going to ask the others to move if something’s dangerous? Who’s going to protect everyone? And who does everyone have guidance from?

Candice Wu 14:22

And it’s always a question until it is resolved and clear. And it is pretty anxiety-provoking for both human and horse, if that’s not clear. So I’m trying to establish some sense of leadership with myself and with him. And so you can see how I was struggling with that and feeling anxious about it. And just practicing. I’m also reminding myself at that time that I was just new at this, a baby, so how was I supposed to know everything? But, if you’ve listened to my Past Life Trauma Episode, and some of the other horse episodes, you might know that I’m very hard on myself with the horses, because I feel like some sort of resonance with horses that maybe I’ve been with them in the past life and was an expert or something. And I came into this life feeling like I should know how to be with horses and how to be a leader to them.

Candice Wu 15:22

So here I am out there. And I’m asking this horse to circle around me on a lead rope. And so he begins to circle as I direct him, but very sluggishly. So I’m asking him to go a little faster. And it’s not quite working. And as he circles behind me, I see him eye me. And it feels funny, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, and slowly his head lowers, and then his whole body starts to stop. And now I know what’s happening. And it’s too late.

Candice Wu 15:55

But now this horse is on the ground and rolling on his back, and enjoying this, like back massage and back scratch, which horses love. And I think that’s great. It’s just that this is in the middle of me asking him to walk and to practice our collaboration.

Candice Wu 16:16

And what I learned, all you horse people out there may know other thoughts about this, this is just what I learned, is that the Alpha horse is usually the first horse or wants to be the first horse to be able to just come in and roll on the ground. And it’s a sign of strength and confidence. And I can do whatever I want. And I can feel vulnerable and know that I’m not going to be attacked or I’m going to be able to handle it. I’m safe here. And the Alpha horse takes that lead and the other horses might follow. And the followers, it’s clear that they’re followers, like the Alpha horse doesn’t follow.

Candice Wu 17:01

So here, he does this in the middle of me asking him to walk. And I just didn’t even know what to do. So I was like, “Oh, shoot! This happened.” And so I remembered some other things about Alpha horses, they walk away and then they walk wherever they wanted. They take that initiative.

Candice Wu 17:21

So I started doing that, I walked away. And I decided, you know what I’m going to roll. Because I’ve heard my host also tell me that that’s what she does sometimes, to establish leadership with the entire herd, she walks right in the middle dead center or wherever she wants and just rolls on the ground.

Candice Wu 17:38

And luckily, that day, it was not muddy up to my ankles, as it usually was. It was snowy and icy. So the ground was full of ice and I could roll on that. And so I wandered around, rolled on my back, like a horse, got back up and then continued walking on my way, wherever I felt like wandering in this arena, hoping that this would do something. And it did. I got the horse’s attention. And he started coming over to me, which was a good sign. But then I didn’t know what to do after that, or I just, I couldn’t feel into the confidence of the other practice, the other horsemanship practices that I was doing.

Candice Wu 18:26

So then eventually he did it again. And I was like, “Oh, no, this is becoming a pattern.” And also, what are we doing here? What’s happening here? Is this a pattern that tells him that he’s the leader, or is this some sort of weird game we’re playing? And I do it again, later. And he then again follows me. So we’re going back and forth, we do this at least three or four times. And at this point, I realize, okay, this has become a pattern that I don’t know how to handle and this is a good place to stop. But I directed him or I asked him to do a few other things to leave it on a good note.

Candice Wu 19:04

So I went inside and just got cleaned up. And as I reflected on that, I just started crying. It just tipped over, the overwhelm of the entire experience, the daily wearing of the environment outside, which is tolerable if everything else is good, plus the wearing of the environment inside like the dirt and mud, and probably horse poop everywhere. Moldy stuff in the kitchen, every place being like really icky and just not being able to walk around barefoot anywhere, the sink in the bathroom still being clogged and having to go to the kitchen sink anytime I wanted to wash my hands, kind of dancing around in someone else’s space where that person and I are also having interpersonal conflict and trying to work it out and doing an okay job of that, but it’s bumpy.

Candice Wu 20:07

And then put all on top of that, me learning with the horses, and also cleaning their poop every day, which became sort of a meditation, but learning how to be with the horses, how to be a leader with horses when I was just so brand new at it and pushing myself on the inside which I was working with releasing and just being enough in the moment.

Candice Wu 20:31

But having criticism come at me that wasn’t supportive sometimes and would come at times where I just needed a little bit of encouragement, and where my host would use every single interaction between us as a lesson for me with my horsemanship, which just became incredibly tiresome and challenging.

Candice Wu 20:55

And even when I’d assert some boundary around that, as you heard in the story about me being cornered, it just was so much to defend in my world. And some of that reflects what I need to grow in. And some of that just reflects a situation that doesn’t match what I need. All of that was incredibly stressful.

Candice Wu 21:19

So when I came back inside, after this horse had rolled on the ground, and pretty much just, you know, took leadership, because I wasn’t quite confident enough. I really felt this overwhelm and realized in that moment, why am I enduring this?

Candice Wu 21:40

I know how to endure hard stuff. I have done that. I have even pushed myself straight into challenging experiences so I can know my own strength and grit, and to become stronger and also to learn. And is this the right environment to learn? At this time. Do I need to endure a hard situation and overcome that in this time of my life? Is this my lesson right now?

Candice Wu 22:09

Which was the biggest and most important question of all for me, because I realized, that this wasn’t my lesson, my lesson was to walk away, and to feel the freedom to walk away with love and respect, to find a way to do that in a graceful way and not out of anger or rejection with that kind of like harshness of rejection or rage. But to walk away in respect and love from this dynamic that so reminded me of my relationship with my father.

Candice Wu 22:47

And the lesson here was to integrate this so that I could handle this kind of energy. And the way to handle it this time in this moment was to leave.

Candice Wu 23:00

The second lesson that I realized later that I was receiving in that moment, is that I wanted to fully trust myself, my inner knowing, and my inner guidance and compass, without question. And the very fact that I didn’t even give enough space to recognize the knowing until later, until a couple of days, I know it wasn’t that long, but I’d like it to be thinking of a little bit more to the moment. But this experience helped me to do that.

Candice Wu 23:37

The thinking up of recognizing what my inner knowing is, what my intuition says to do, as my go-to. And here in this experience, I was thinking: “Oh, this is something I can learn, and this, and this, and this.” And it just kind of overflowed, and I don’t have to learn in every single arena of my life, and be challenged in every single part of my experience to grow. And it’s okay to enjoy it, and to have a kind person as my teacher. And I started to get clear about what kind of teacher I wanted to have.

Candice Wu 24:17

So this lesson of totally trusting my inner compass, my intuition. What I need to do was very clear when I told my host and the host’s son, because they both challenged me and attacked me pretty hard. I got called a quitter, and I was interrogated. And I learned to find a place where I wasn’t trying to defend myself, but share what I wanted to share. And stay confident in my knowing that I needed to leave.

Candice Wu 24:55

I was thrilled when my mom was like, “Just come home”, and that really helped me to take that step. So arriving in Dublin for a few days was wonderful and restorative. And then getting all the way home to Michigan. I just appreciated Michigan so much more. And I know that 10 years, 11 years ago, when I left Michigan for Chicago, I felt like I was never going to come back here to live, I was rejecting Michigan to a great deal.

Candice Wu 25:32

And now I feel so fond of it. And I spent this last couple of months getting grounded here. Even though I’d made a trip to San Diego, I’ve been very focused on the things that I want to enjoy here, like my growth in ballet and just moving my body that way, working with horses again with a new riding teacher, as well as a new horsemanship teacher that I found, and creating loving experiences with my family and friends, and taking all the enjoyment.

Candice Wu 26:11

If you read a recent newsletter of mine, I also shared how all of this enjoyment, all of the things that I’ve created out of finding inner freedom, and therefore the congruency in my outer world like financial freedom, like loving myself, being able to have the time and space to take care of myself, to do things, I love, to have loving relationships.

Candice Wu 26:38

And most recently, while I was in San Diego, falling in love with a new person that actually I’ve known before, I talked briefly about that in the last Manifesting Episode at CandiceWu.com/manifesting. All these really good things were happening and there was even a little push inside of me to do more or to do the next thing.

Candice Wu 27:04

But it was time to stop and breathe in and out and just take in all the fun and pleasure. Why would I create all this and skip over it? That sends a message to my being that I just don’t feel worthy, and that we don’t enjoy things, but I am worthy. And it’s good to enjoy and celebrate the things that you spent your energy and attention on. And that’s what we ultimately want to feel. So why not arrive there. And truly take it in and soak it in for longer as long as you want to, as long as your heart and soul want to. So that’s just what I’ve been leaning into as I release more beliefs of unworthiness, and expand my feeling of worthiness inside to enjoy all these pleasures.

Candice Wu 28:01

And so, as I reflect on this ending of leaving Ireland, ending that experience early, ending a dynamic where I didn’t like how I was showing up and how the other person was showing up with me. I’m talking about my host. I also was experiencing other endings. Sometimes I would talk about my partner on the show, and I want to just mention and honor that relationship with him because that love, the way that it was a romantic love has shifted, and we’ve shifted more into a friendship and a professional relationship. And that has also been woven into my experience from January until now.

Candice Wu 28:47

When I left for Ireland, that was the beginning of it. And I don’t want to talk completely about that right now. I’d like to talk about that in the next episode that’s coming up about relationships and dating and relationship grief, because a lot of people have shared with me that their relationships have been ending, whether that’s friendships, or love relationships, or family relationships.

Candice Wu 29:14

So that has just inspired me to do an entire episode on it. So I’ll talk more about Christoph and my previous partner there. And another relationship that ended in my world is a friendship relationship. That was a really long time.

Candice Wu 29:31

But what started to evolve, maybe even 10 years ago, just kind of tail spawn, and it didn’t really click to me that this is a relationship that just needed to end or shift until just recently. And the thing I just want to share about that today is that all the relationships in my life, in my experience, and as experienced them for my clients, serve to show us our inner model of the world, our inner model of ourselves, what we believe and feel about ourselves in the world, are reflected in the relationships that we have in the way that we’re treated in the way that it feels and the way that the roles are in the relationship.

Candice Wu 30:20

We do attract those people that will support us in seeing ourselves. And that means both our light and our dark. And that light being the love in us, the truth in us, as well as the dark, being the wounds or the parts in ourselves that want to be resolved, so that we can feel our wholeness, we can come back to our wholeness.

Candice Wu 30:45

So the wounds and the beliefs and the things that are incomplete in us, that our soul wants to go back to, to heal up and integrate. Our soul wants us to go back to those places where our tender heart has bled or is bleeding still, and sometimes bleeding out. And that young, intuitive, sensitive dreamer, infant of ours, the baby that came into this world that is so open, so full-hearted, with no protections and no guards up, has experienced wounds, has experienced the need to protect and put armor up in different ways and for different reasons. And that all is what our soul wants us to go back to, to heal up and recover. To go back to that innocence, truth, love, pure experiencing.

Candice Wu 31:47

If we’re actually taking relationships as a reflection of place to look at ourselves, then we can let the relationship have its own natural life force.

Candice Wu 32:02

Sometimes we do need to tell the other person what we need or ask and request the other person to do something that would support us. I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing. And that can be a very good thing, and a way to collaborate.

Candice Wu 32:19

But if there’s so much constriction in a relationship, so much controlling of the way things are, can’t do this, can do that, need to do this, shouldn’t do that, then it clamps down the life force. It clamps down the aliveness of the relationship and what wants to come through to support us in shaking ourselves awake and shaking us up, to look at, the places that we’re wanting to love ourselves more, to look at the places where we’ve hidden away, that wants to be uncovered and to be felt and experienced, known. If we clamp that down, then we don’t grow, we don’t have our own life force thriving, the soul that drives us towards these experiences to integrate them, gets hampered. And we kill ourselves in a way very slowly.

Candice Wu 33:23

So I invite you to look at your own relationships in this way. Who you are in those relationships? And what are the dynamics that you are seeing right in front of you? What are the things that your soul wants you to learn here? And what is it that you can learn here?

Candice Wu 33:42

If you pause and just check in with yourself about all your relationships, and just check that these are relationships that support you. And you don’t have to learn every hard lesson at once. It’s not about just cutting off all the relationships that are not fun and joyful. I don’t know positive, I guess. I don’t love using the word positive. But it’s about looking at what are you learning in this relationship? And how can you see this sacred interaction as something that’s fueling your spirituality or being, and who you are in this journey of life?

Candice Wu 34:30

Who have you attracted in your life? To show you certain lessons of loving yourself. What does each relationship show you that you desire? And how can your relationships connect to on a deeper level with what you want and who you truly are, and where your wounds are so that you can heal those up and find yourself arriving back at who you are. And then, that you can attract exactly what you want with clarity, ease and from the loving that is you.

Candice Wu 35:13

So just going back to my horse journey. About a week or two after arriving back in Michigan, I took a horsemanship lesson from a woman named Sue, and her horse Delta. And it was wonderful. It just was so incredibly healing.

Candice Wu 35:33

And that same experience that happened with EY, where he rolled on the ground actually happened in this lesson. But it was a completely different experience. Of course, I was alone in that experience in Ireland. But I could only imagine that even if my host/teacher was there, in that moment that it might not have felt so comfortable.

Candice Wu 35:57

But here with Sue, she asks me or gives me the opportunity to ask the horse to walk in circles. So feeling like okay, this is familiar, but I already had a little bit clearer direction from Sue about how to do it with confidence. And she was so encouraging, and kind, Oh… it just was so recovering for me for the ways that I was criticizing myself and also feeling the pressure from the outside.

Candice Wu 36:27

So I asked Delta to walk and going around the first way to the right, he did exactly what I asked him to, walked three times and then stopped. And then I asked him to go the other direction. And at some point, when he got behind me, he did that same look in his eyes, and started to roll down towards the ground, or like slumped down towards the ground and get on his back and looked at Sue. And I was like, “Oh, no, this has happened to me before. What do I do?” And she said, “It’s okay, he’s not doing anything wrong, and neither are you.”

Candice Wu 37:09

So that was just really helpful for me to hear. And we stopped. And she said, “Well, he just kind of blew you off. He wasn’t disrespecting you or being mean, he just kind of blew you off. But are you okay with that?”

Candice Wu 37:26

And I was like, “No.” Just like, well, what are you going to do? If someone blows you off in life? Are you just going to stand there and take it? Or are you going to say something or do something? And I was like, I’m gonna do something. But what do I do here? And she’s like, “Well tell him, do it again, and make it clear this time, get your energy up and have some conviction with it.” And so I did, and we did great.

Candice Wu 37:54

He did exactly what I asked of him because I was clearer. And had the expectation, but also responsiveness to what he was showing me and how he was responding. And so when he went around behind me in a circle, I made sure I kept my eyes on him and kept clear about what I wanted him to do. And she asked me to just to think it in my mind, walk four laps, and be clear. And that just happened exactly as I wanted it to.

Candice Wu 38:32

And I also got to practice many of the things that I did learn in Ireland, and that had integrated over the time that I took a break. And Sue was super encouraging, and notice that I had a lot of natural talent. And that just went a long way for me, for her to say, “Wow, you have a lot of skills already. And you’re just a natural at this.” And for her to show me how she connects with her horse, with loving and sweetness at times.

Candice Wu 39:02

While having that leadership of clarity and boundaries, all of that was so helpful to me. So I wanted to share that with all of you, especially since that same experience happened where the horse rolled on the ground. So my connection with horses is growing. And I have been loving riding with this one horse named Armani, who’s at a different stable, and where I’ve been taking lessons and that’s continuing and my horsemanship skills are supporting me in having clarity, calmness, groundedness and respect, mutual respect with the horses as well as connection.

Candice Wu 39:44

And there’s just a bit more, the last day I was in Ireland, I spoke with a woman named Sarah Fancy. She’s out near San Diego, and she does family constellations with horses. She has seven horses, and she offers private mentorships, where we design exactly what we want to learn. So I’m so excited that I’ll be doing that with her at the end of May. And when I talked with her, she was so validating to me about trusting myself and leaving the situation and supporting that. Having kindness and encouragement around learning with horses was so important. Her energy was just so clear and vibrant, grounded and simple in a way. There wasn’t extra like sugariness around her talking with me, which I so appreciate just her directness and being herself.

Candice Wu 40:47

So my adventure continues. And it grows into me just wanting to be with horses even more. The feeling of maybe wanting horses, like wanting to own my own horse or lease a horse. You can lease a horse by just paying some amount of money per month to contribute to the horse’s food and their care. And in return, you can have a few days with a horse a week, where they’re entirely for you, reserved for you.

Candice Wu 41:18

But last week, I was offered the opportunity to ride with a friend while my teacher was away at a competition. And I scheduled like three days in a row with my friend to ride. And by the second day, I was tired. So I did two days. And by the third day, I was like, I just need a break. And so that really showed me I was not ready to have my own horse yet. I can’t handle being with horses that many times a week just yet, and I’m just honoring where I am right now.

Candice Wu 41:55

So as I end this conversation today about my horse journey and interaction, what I’ve been learning about myself, as well as relationships ending and serving us to show us more love in ourselves, show us the places where we can find more love.

Candice Wu 42:12

I want to invite you to listen to the next podcast that will be about relationships ending, grieving in relationships, honoring and integrating what the lesson is of the relationship, as well as saying goodbye. Or letting the dynamic and also forgiveness around any beliefs that came up in interacting with this relationship and the discovery of our own beliefs sets, ways of being that are worthy of self-forgiveness.

Candice Wu 42:54

If you’re interested in this episode, it’s not published yet. It’s coming soon. And it should be at CandiceWu.com/relationshipendings. So that link is not active yet, but it should be in a very short time. And if you’re subscribed to my podcast on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher, or any of the other platforms, you’ll see it pop up in your feed.

Candice Wu 43:22

That’s all for today. Thank you so much for listening, for tuning in today. I would love to hear your feedback, your experiences as well, if you do want to share with me. And as I begin to share more vulnerably, I hope to do more of these a{Live} now podcasts where you can tune into what’s going on in my inner world and my outer world. And I’m wishing you all a lovely day and that your relationships, whether they’re ending or thriving, growing, taking the next level, whatever relationships that you’re experiencing, are serving to show you who you are and to show you the loving that is wanting to be revealed.

Candice Wu 44:05

See you next time on the Embody Podcast