Daydream: Breathing Room for the Spirit — EP101

Candice Wu 0:00

I don’t know about you, but some of my best ideas come when I’m least expecting it. Yes, sometimes they happen when I’m on the toilet or when I’ve just hopped in the shower or right before I fall asleep or wake up in this sort of liminal space, but this episode is about cultivating your daydreamer, your ability to daydream and tap into the symbolic imaginal space of your soul, to nourish who you are, your intuition and the depth of what wants to come through and reveal itself through you.

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.

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 1:13

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Last week we had our hundredth episode of the body podcast with Roxanne Partridge, so, we had our hundredth birthday with a very special person that actually has the same exact birthday to the year as I do, within six hours. So, this episode is Episode 101, which is crazy, so, we broke 100, thanks for joining in the journey with me and being here, and I thought it would be just wonderful to follow up with this episode about daydreaming.

Candice Wu 1:52

Daydreaming has been really present with me because I’ve wanted more space to do it, and I know that when I leave time to to be without agenda, to release my attention on the outer things of the world, my daily tasks, to turn off that mental logic and let the soul logic come online, I receive and see so much juiciness, vibrancy, nourishment and I get lots of awesome ideas, some that I just feel delighted in and delighted in, in the moment and just discard very quickly and some that I take with me into the next year, and some, that just momentarily give me pleasure or what’s the word, entertainment, but also I get a lot of connection with the depth of who I am, my intuition my inner self, the story of who I am and the mystery of my experience, and that leaves me feeling very nourished, grounded and plugged into my soul.

Candice Wu 3:15

And with Roxanne Partridge coming on the show last week, I felt even more inspired to be in that imaginal, symbolic, juicy, space of the unconscious, the underworld in the underbellies of our being and what lives under the surface, what wants to be seen, revealed, unfurled, the wild nature that we are, and so, daydreaming was the direction I went.

Candice Wu 3:47

So, before we jump into this, I want to mention that the Ally with Death Audio Experiential has been out there a couple of weeks now, and it’s this very beautifully stirring and provocative audio soundtrack with hand pan music by my friend Larry Saint Germain. It’s gorgeous, and it connects up with my voice prompting you through a series of simulation and series of questions, leading you through your own death, so that you face the things that want to be let go, and you take a good look at them. We end and release what is already decaying or needs to die, to create the space for new life and to look at what is meaningful for you now, and where is your playful, curious, sensing, intuitive self and to let that shine up so that you can really live your life in a beautiful way coming up this next couple of weeks and into the spring, and that sale is going to be from December 15, 2019, until January 6, 2020.

Candice Wu 5:05

So, it’s a lovely way to bring in your new year and to set forth the seeds that will be planted, and I know that some people are using this with a loved one as a ceremony or ritual before winter sets in and some are making some plans to do this on a special night. I know that some people have even done it on New Year’s Eve which is just a cool time to do it, and some do this on the new moon or at some point in their moon cycle. Whenever you do it, I truly recommend it if you want to release the weight that has been building up inside of you, the clutter and to cleanse, so that you feel alive in the present and vibrant like who you are. You can find this at CandiceWu.com/death, and again, the sale is from December 15th through January 6th, so, enjoy as the death that we allow inside of ourselves bring us new life.

Candice Wu 6:11

And as we jump into this episode, I want to just ask you, is this a time and space for you to go inward? Is your energy moving more inward for you or is it going more outward? Is it time to do things in your outer world? Put your energy out there, connect with others. More so, for me right now it’s been going inward and hibernating, and in that little space, I love to cook home-cooked foods and create things, sleep a lot, watch something that feels soothing to watch like something on Netflix. I love to have intimate conversations with friends and loved ones and it’s harder for me to reach out to new people or to put my energy outward and workshops and things like that, and doing things that require my energy to move more outward.

Candice Wu 7:13

Sometimes, it’s been hard to honor that as I have this little part of my mind that thinks, “Oh, you should be doing something more, you should be doing X, Y, and Z.” And I just work with talking to that part of me and seeing what they have in store or what they have thought for me, and usually, it just needs a little update about what it’s safe to do now in my life and what it’s time for. So, I invite you to do the same, is to connect with where your energy really wants to be, how it wants to be, and to make an agreement with yourself that that is allowed that you want that and to look at the parts of you that may have something to say against that. All of those parts of you have some message for you, and it’s important to hear them all out, at least to hear them and then you get to decide how to negotiate bad or what wants healing and wants to be honored.

Candice Wu 8:27

So, this is perfect for our topic today of daydreaming. And for me, daydreaming is really about leaving space for the unexpected. When we set out with our to-do lists our agendas, what our logical mind wants to do in this functional practical world, which is a good thing. When we do that, every minute of the day, there’s very little space for imagination, for play, for curiosity, sensing, and intuition to flourish and make its own way towards us, reach us and touch our hearts. When we have that agenda, it’s hard for something unplanned to come in, something new or spontaneous, unimaginable. Daydreaming is like spending time allowing your soul to dance, allowing your imaginal and symbolic self through images, feelings, senses, sensation in the body, a hit of knowing a song, a sound for all that to emerge and make its way to consciousness for the personal, archetypal, collective, unconscious realms to have a place through us, that shows us the depth of who we are, the depths of what wants to be looked at, what wants attention and the depths of the soul do not care about time, space or mental logic.

Candice Wu 10:20

And so, in that space, we let our mind rest and that gives the space of freedom, the breathing room that our spirit wants. It gives our spirit the space to open up, to vibrate at the essence of your core being, of course with practice, and to align you with who you truly are, with your nature, with your heart, with the specific energetic coding that signature that is you, takes you out of the collective poll of where were pressured to do and who were pressured to be, plugging you into the source of you, and the source of all things.

Candice Wu 11:27

When I daydream, and that sounds to me like a very active process and the real action is just setting aside the time and maybe, doing a few things that let me connect in, with then it becomes a more, I’m not sure if I would say passive, but an allowing space that is without force and natural, organic, a space of witnessing what’s moving through me, what I’m feeling, what I’m sensing, and sometimes, what arrives are aspects of myself that want to be heard or healed or expressed in my daily life.

Candice Wu 12:15

Sometimes, past lives have come to me or entities that feel like they have something to offer me, that are of me, or connected with me. Sometimes, I just have nonsensical thoughts that spring up and seem funny or weird or different. Sometimes, these connect up with real practical and inspired ideas, and other times, it just fuels something of my creative life, and what I love is that it brings me to this messy, unkempt, unsanitized vibrancy of aliveness that is full of possibility that’s not just stripped down or forced into one way of being, but connected to my knowing, perhaps new ideas or awarenesses are already trying to reach you, and with a day to day schedule that doesn’t quite allow for these to marinate in you or to incubate or sift to the surface, then these very important pieces of you may go unseen, important ideas, desires, rich desires, those may be just suppressed.

Candice Wu 13:48

The messages that are coming from within you and through you, the mystery of your life doesn’t quite have so much mystery anymore or aliveness or adventure or exploration. It just has a forced direction, of course, that’s a very exaggerated sense, but there’s a way in which when I am go, go, go and have my to-do list and have my plan set out, I really flattened my experience.

Candice Wu 14:19

So, this podcast today is an invitation for you to nourish and cultivate the symbolic and imaginal space of your spirit, to feed your soul, to feed the wild in you, to bring you to your natural self that wants to be seen and acknowledged and integrated into your daily life and to strengthen your ability to see, to see not only yourself at a deeper level, but to see the grander picture for yourself, to see a playful experience, exploration, give value and worth to the beat and the pulse of your soul, the messages of your spirit, the parts of you that really know, truth, really know how to be easeful that are connected with this deeper source of life-giving energy, the essential being that wants to come through.

Candice Wu 15:35

So, I want to talk about several ways to access and open up your daydreaming space, your dream space, and I also want to mention that sometimes it can be very hard to connect with your dream space because there are other feelings that want to be seen or healed or acknowledged at the forefront. This is especially if you’ve had experiences that have been undigested or leaving you with a trauma response or been overwhelming that when you slow down and give space without any plan that those feelings may want to arrive at your door. And if that’s the case, I would recommend getting support if you need it, tuning into some of the experiences on the podcast that support grounding or pendulating so that you can help your capacity grow, to navigate these feelings, to build your resilience and to move through some of the traumatic response.

Candice Wu 16:49

And as a basic support, if you become overwhelmed during the process of getting into your dream space or being in it or if you start to feel a little bit like these feelings that are coming through are just a little bit too big for my body to handle, and just stop and look around your space and look for something pleasant. Look for something that can give you some sense of safety in the moment, that you’re really safe right here and now or some feeling of pleasure that allows you to feel your embodied safety, and to take in that resource, that pleasant thing to look at or a person that’s nearby that can be supportive and remind you of being in this present moment. I would recommend doing that anytime you start to feel like it’s a little too much.

Candice Wu 17:43

So, some really good ways to access your dream space, your waking dream space or to connect with a part of your body that feels neutral, pleasant, grounded or calm and just feel that part of the body, and then begin to let your mind wander and wonder in its own way, your attention just witnessing anything that comes. You can also do a body scan is from head to toes, feel your body, notice and witness each part of the body, allowing your senses to turn on. You could make contact with your body by touching from head to toe, and feeling what kind of touch feels supportive. So, each of these is really to bring yourself from that logical mental go, go, go space to sensing, feeling, and being.

Candice Wu 18:46

If you need some support with that, you can tune in to some of the experientials I have. There’s one at Episode 59, Experiencing with the Five Senses of Body Scan. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep59. Another one to tune into is Grounding Touch and Listening. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/ep47. Another way to connect in is just to begin to witness and observe your own experience like a movie. Very simple thing to do is notice a couple of breaths just as they are, as you let go of your day, release any of your attention from going outward on your to-do list or your daily tasks and turn that attention inward with curiosity and openness, anything really that brings your attention to or heightens the senses is going to help you turn on that more right-brain activity of being, sensing, seeing, feeling and connecting with the deeper parts of who you are.

Candice Wu 20:04

So, for example, listening to music that you enjoy, tasting something delicious and savoring it, taking a good whiff of essential oils, touching or holding something that makes you feel good, like crystals or blankets, stuffed animals, your own body, as we mentioned before. So, these are just a few tips to open up your access point to your dream space, and as you sink into your dream space, the more you’re able to just let go of your attention on your mental life and your logic, and the sense-making that goes on, analyzing, just letting that go on a bookshelf in your imaginal mind if you need more of a visual, and that can let you really sink into being.

Candice Wu 21:02

This is the space of the felt sense and the space where you can catch a dream, rather than dreaming. It’s like catching a dream or harvesting the messages, awarenesses, the knowings, the creativity, the energy that’s alive through you, and that is you, to catching your dream, noticing it, noticing what thoughts and feelings come up and just following it with your curiosity and your openness, not having to make sense of anything in particular and not judging anything that comes through. Letting things come through without filter, and letting your knowing be your knowing. Letting your friends’ perception, be your perception and what is happening to happen, to let what is alive in you and coming through you to be alive and be noticed. To let juiciness come through what is wildly unknown, unseen. You never know what may appear or what will happen when there isn’t that agenda, when there’s just a space for nothingness for being, for agreeing to being in this moment without any plan, without any expectation.

Candice Wu 23:00

So, is this a kind of experience that you want to give yourself more often or give yourself altogether? Do you let yourself have any time to just daydream or to catch a dream? Is your soul or your heart calling you to do this more often? Do you have a feeling of stuckness or you can’t quite move through to the next level of yourself or writer’s block or artist’s block, creativity block, feeling like what you’re doing in your life is not quite aligned with your vibrancy or love or desire or passion? And if so, daydreaming might be part of the answer for you.

Candice Wu 24:01

So, this is a pretty short episode today, and I’m curious what you all have to say or what comes up for you about daydreaming or about having this on planned, fertile space and ground for your soul to thrive and to be seen, to unleash, to come to the surface. I love to hear your thoughts, your envisioning or the inspirations that might come from just practicing this, and what I’ll do later this week is offer a brief meditation to support accessing the dream space and to be with you through a segment of dream time where we can let this messy, aliveness, be heard and held. So, stay tuned for that or you can just jump in right on to my website and find that experiential at CandiceWu.com/daydream.

Candice Wu 25:08

Thanks for tuning in today about this topic that can really allow our souls to wake up even more. I invite you to let the mystery of your life and your story, your soul to come alive and to spend a little more time daydreaming. Thanks so much for showing up today. If you’d like to stay, plugged in with me through my newsletter, you can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody, and there I update you about events, podcasts, experientials and news about my life, and what is being offered as well as self-love notes that come, and this is just about a once a month or every three-week newsletter.

Candice Wu 25:58

Before you go, I also want to drop a little note about the podcast and the meditations that are on the podcast, that all the podcasts that have been published every 101 of them are searchable via the database on my website. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/podcast and search any topic, and if you want to find the meditations and experientials, those are specifically at CandiceWu.com/meditations. So, for example, if you’re looking for something on loving yourself or working with your energetic vibration or relationship breakups, you can search something in that database and see what pops up.

Candice Wu 26:44

Thanks so much for joining me today and wishing you a lovely dream time if you decide to plan that into your week, and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Candice Wu 0:00
This experiential is to support you in surrendering into a state of being that opens curiosity, witness, and spaciousness for daydreaming.

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.

In this experiential, I will offer a few out of many different ways to come into a spaciousness for daydreaming. You may have your own ways already, that's great, and this may or may not work for you, so, really see what your body and your nervous system would need. If you'd like to learn more about the benefits of daydreaming and just hear some of my thoughts about daydreaming, check out the main episode at CandiceWu.com/daydream.

If you feel overwhelmed at any point in this experience or close to overwhelm, just open your eyes if they're closed, look around your space and just center yourself into the here and now. You can give yourself some soothing touch to any part of your body that would feel supported if you touched it or make contact or do something that helps you feel your own safety. If you're in need of that there is an episode that gives you many different ways to come back into grounding and presence at CandiceWu.com/overwhelm.

For some people, daydreaming is not quite a comfortable experience, and if that's you, you may want a little more healing support before allowing yourself this kind of open free space, but it also may be something that really nourishes you. So, it's just a matter of seeing what works for you and what support you, what feels right. So, let's jump into this experience if you are ready, and let's bring in the mystery, the aliveliness, the messiness, juiciness, playfulness, and curiosity of our dream space.

Whatever you're doing, just take a couple of breaths and feel your body, you can give it touch or just sense from the inside out, drawing your attention inward. With the next few breaths, let go of everything including work, school, outer world relationships, daily to do's, and draw your energy and attention inward into your body, being aware of your breathing and any sensation that's happening inside. Whatever you're sitting or lying on, let your body be as comfortable as it wants to be and feel whatever is underneath you, supporting you, and imagine that your body is melding in with that support and being held.

Feel the weight of your body and turn on the witnessing part of you that can just watch everything happened, without judgment, without filter, without the need to move forward or make sense, and turn off any pressure or agenda, any expectation on yourself. Release yourself into the freedom of being right here in this moment without anything to do, with nothing to accomplish, nothing that needs your immediate attention right now. Sense into any part of your body that feels safe or grounded or even neutral and feel those spaces.

If it's challenging to feel into safety or neutral feeling, imagine that you could feel safe or okay right now. Imagine what it would feel like if you felt safe, and notice what begins to happen inside.

Feel this container of the body that supports you and catching a daydream or a night dream or notices a feeling, a thought, a sensation, a movement or an image and turn on all of your sensing capacities.

If you're not aware of what your sensing capacities are or even if you are aware, allow yourself to be open to whatever you could perceive and sense in this moment, and with each breath, let your body deepen into the weight of your body, continuing to notice whatever there is to notice without expectation of anything in particular.

And as you deepen into this presence, let your curiosity and playful wellness come to the forefront, the sense of mystery, revealing inner life and soul, what may be unexpected or unimagined, unplanned for, have space here and be open to letting whatever is here, be here, even if it's nothing, and whatever happens release any pressure or need to make any logical sense of anything, and feel free to follow anything that catches your curiosity. Follow what's being shown to you, any whisper, make quiet sense or intuition or knowing. Let yourself be in the daydream space. Don't worry about what's coming to or remembering anything, just be, observe and witness.

Now, feel free to imagine that you are traveling on a rainbow, traveling and traveling to wherever you need to go right now or wherever calls you, not needing to know exactly where that is, but just letting yourself travel.

Release any need to make sense or to make something happen and let herself deepen into this space of daydreaming, of witnessing and observing anything that's happening, letting your imagination be free and brief, letting things from the underworld or unconscious bubble up to the top of what's in the dark, come into light.

Whatever is happening, continue to happen. Allow yourself to flow with whatever is happening as long as you feel safe and that your body can contain what's happening.

Now, I'll give a little bit of quiet time and space as you deepen into your dream space. After two minutes, I will draw you in to close and come back to the present moment together or you can pause the experiential at that time and extend your daydream. So, here's a bit of quiet time as you deepen into however, your spirit, your body, your inner wisdom, want to use this space and want to be in this daydream.

Now, slowly begin to be aware of your surroundings, be in to be aware of your breath. Wherever your mind or your awareness or consciousness has gone, call yourself back to your body right now. Magnetize all of your energy back to the core of your being, right into your body, here.

Feel free to touch your body or start to stretch our move, and take a moment to honor this time that you've given yourself, to do nothing, to have space for daydreaming without an agenda to the best of your ability today, to give some room for your soul and your spirit to breathe, and for the mystery of life to be alive through yourself. The couple more breaths just honoring what came through, anything you noticed or felt or sensed. Notice how your body feels in this moment, as we close, and we'll close this daydream session with love and gratitude.

If you'd like to continue on into the depth of your daydreaming, feel free to stop the experiential. Set a timer if you need a boundary of time or just let yourself be in this space of openness and curiosity and play, just witnessing whatever happens for as long as you'd like to. And if you're closing here today, begin to notice even more your surroundings, opening your eyes if they were closed, and take a little time to transition back into the flow of your day, and notice what might be different for you, now, as you step into the next breath, the next moment and feel free to bring any of the dreams you have harvested with you as you travel through the day.

It's wonderful to have you join me today, and I hope your dream time was lovely, and if difficult or challenging, emotions or experiences came up, be gentle with yourself. Get support if you need from the podcast or from friends, from therapists, coaches or healers. Support yourself in any way you need, and if creative and fun ideas emerge, see what might happen if you let those land a little further into your awareness, and I'm delighted to see where that goes for you. I'd be happy to hear.

So, as we close today, wishing you plenty more moments and spaces of daydreaming and just letting yourself have that as this is the way that your soul wants to speak to you, and the soul of the universe speaks through you and to you, and to give some time to honor that.

Thanks so much for joining today, and see you next time on the Embody Podcast.